vstars Chapter 526 The Stone of Destiny
Chapter 526 The Stone of Destiny
The monster took another step closer, and my knees almost dug into the cracked stone bricks.
Zi Ling's nails were digging into the flesh of my hand, and beads of blood from her hair rubbed against my wrist, feeling as cold as dripping ice water. "Senior Sister..." her voice trembled with tears, "The stone in its chest is moving."
I followed her gaze and saw that the cracks on the surface of the Shadow Crystal were climbing up like living things. With each crack that opened, the crimson eyes of the Spirit-Eating Beast would light up a little more.
The mountain wind, carrying a putrid stench, filled my nostrils. I suddenly remembered that three months ago, in the deepest part of the Blood Fiend Palace, there was a spiderweb pattern carved on the stone wall, and the small words next to it, "Guiding spirits and locking souls, using evil to nourish evil," exploded in my mind at this moment.
The copper piece in my arms was incredibly hot; the chain pattern on the back burned my heart through my clothes. I gripped the copper piece tightly, and the cool metallic touch cleared my mind somewhat.
"This is 'Shadow Crystal'."
A clear, melodious voice suddenly came from the left.
I turned my head and saw the ethereal immortal standing on the cracked stone platform. His wide, white sleeves were billowing in the mountain wind, and the silver chain on his wrist trembled slightly as he spoke. "Legend has it that it was formed from spirit crystals that mutated in the void, capable of devouring spiritual roots and polluting heaven and earth..." His gaze swept over the stone on the chest of the spirit-devouring beast, and his pupils contracted slightly. "No wonder the Blood Fiend lineage has spent thousands of years trying to seize spirit crystals—"
"Ha!" Blood Fiend suddenly burst into laughter, black blood seeping from his left shoulder, which was pinned to the Ice Soul Sword. "What you are guarding is the key to opening the Void Realm!" He tilted his head back, and a crack identical to the Shadow Crystal appeared on his forehead. "When the two crystals fuse, the entire cultivation world will kneel in darkness!" His voice grew increasingly shrill, as if something was gripping his throat. "The moment the Spirit-Eating Beast devoured the spiritual vein, the underground palace seal, the mountain-protecting formation... all of that will be a joke!"
Wen Chen's Ice Soul Sword hummed even more urgently.
I noticed the redness at the corners of his eyes had spread to below them, and the veins on the back of his hands bulged like snakes—signs of forcibly suppressing his bloodline power. "Shut up," he gritted his teeth, spitting out the two words before the sword's spine slammed heavily into the back of Xue Sha's neck.
Xue Sha groaned and collapsed, but Wen Chen staggered a step, clutching his chest with his right hand—the blood seeping between his fingers was dazzlingly red in the moonlight.
"Wen Chen!" I tried to rush over, but Zi Ling held me back tightly.
The shadow of the spirit-eating beast had completely enveloped us. It lowered its head, and fragments of bone floated in the black mist overflowing from its mouth.
I heard the earth's groans turn into screams, and Elder Qingfeng's cough suddenly rose, as if someone was scraping his throat with a blunt knife.
Looking up, he saw that the back of his hand, which was supporting the stone wall, was covered in blue spots—a sign of the earth's veins being disordered and surging back, and he was forcibly stabilizing the protective array around the mountain.
"Senior sister!" Zi Ling's scream pierced the eardrums.
The beast's forepaws were raised, their sharp tips reflecting a cold light, and I could even see the congealed black blood between its claws.
The spirit crystal vibrated violently in the storage bag, and the buzzing sound resonating with the shadow crystal made my temples ache.
Three months ago, when we pried off the copper piece from the stone wall, the faint chain pattern on the stone wall suddenly overlapped with the crack in the shadow crystal—it turned out that Blood Fiend had been setting up a trap all along, using the spirit crystal to lure us into the scheme, and then using the shadow crystal to complete the fusion!
"Retreat to the center of the formation!" Wen Chen suddenly grabbed my wrist.
The temperature of his palms was abnormally high, clearly indicating that he was forcibly circulating his true energy.
The blue light of the Ice Soul Sword enveloped the three of us. Zi Ling finally let go of my hand and instead grabbed Wen Chen's clothes.
The Spirit-Eating Beast's claws grazed the Ice Soul Sword's protective shield as it fell, and dark purple mist surged from the deep cracks in the ground. The mist made a sizzling, corrosive sound as it touched the protective shield.
“Spirit Crystal…” The ethereal immortal’s voice suddenly became strained, “It’s resonating with the Shadow Crystal.” His silver chain suddenly taut, pointing towards my storage pouch, “The resonance must be interrupted, otherwise…”
"Otherwise what?" Zi Ling's voice was trembling with tears.
“Otherwise, the two crystals will attract each other,” the ethereal immortal said, staring at the approaching spirit-eating beast, “and the passage to the Void Realm will be completely opened.”
My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of my throat.
The spirit crystal in the storage bag was incredibly hot; I could even feel its pulse through the fabric.
Could the "fusion" that Xue Sha mentioned mean that the spirit crystal and the shadow crystal would attract each other and thus tear apart the barrier between the two worlds?
Could the inscription "using evil to nourish evil" on the stone wall of the underground palace mean that the spiritual veins of the cultivation world are used to nourish the shadow crystal, and then the power of the shadow crystal is used to pollute the spirit crystal stone?
The spirit-eating beast let out another roar.
This time, the earth's screams turned into shattered music—Elder Qingfeng's protective formation had been broken.
I saw his hand, which was supporting him against the stone wall, fall heavily to the ground, and he slid down to the floor, his white hair stained with blood.
Wen Chen's protective aura suddenly dimmed, and fine cracks appeared in the blue light of the Ice Soul Sword.
He looked at me, the red at the corners of his eyes already staining his brow bone, "With the spirit crystal..."
"No!" I gripped his sleeve tightly. "If we're going to leave, we'll leave together."
"Yaoyao." He suddenly lowered his head and kissed my forehead, the warmth of his blood burning against my skin. "Trust me."
Before he finished speaking, the blue light of the Ice Soul Sword suddenly surged.
Wen Chen released my hand and charged toward the Spirit-Eating Beast with his sword.
His figure appeared and disappeared in the black mist. I heard the crisp sound of the Ice Soul Sword piercing through the scales and saw blood droplets splash on the Shadow Crystal—the stone suddenly trembled violently, and a ghostly blue light seeped out from the cracks.
“Crystal core resonance…” I murmured, suddenly recalling the vague records in ancient books.
Spirit Crystals and Shadow Crystals originate from the same source; if their resonant frequencies can be activated...
A mountain wind swept in, carrying black mist, and I squinted.
The spirit crystal in the storage bag was still vibrating, and in the resonance with the shadow crystal, there seemed to be another rhythm faintly appearing—like the "reverse pulse" mentioned in ancient books.
I took a deep breath, the taste of blood still lingering in my throat.
The fragments of ancient books about "crystal core resonance" surged in my memory—spirit crystals and shadow crystals both originated from the void realm, one righteous and the other evil. If the pure spiritual energy of the spirit crystal can be used to trigger the evil power of the shadow crystal to resonate, it is equivalent to using the opponent's power to crush the opponent's foundation.
However, this method was only written in half a sentence in the classics: "Reverse the pulse and break the pulse at the same frequency," the rest of which was eaten away by insects.
The storage ring in my palm was burning hot. I could feel the pulse of the spirit crystal through the ring's surface—one pulse, two pulses, which perfectly matched the vibration frequency of the shadow crystal on the chest of the spirit-eating beast.
The "fusion" that Xue Sha mentioned was originally meant to bring the two stones to the extreme of resonance, tearing apart the barrier between the two realms; but the opposite is true... I dug my nails deep into my palms, and the pain made my eyes sting.
This is a gamble, a gamble that I can reverse the frequency before the two stones fully resonate.
"Yao Yao!" Zi Ling suddenly tugged at my sleeve, her fingers as cold as if they'd been dipped in ice water. "Immortal Wen's protective shield is about to shatter!"
I looked up and met Wen Chen's gaze.
His hair was stained with black blood, and the blue light of the Ice Soul Sword had faded into a thin veil. The claws of the Spirit-Eating Beast were probing in through the cracks in the light barrier, and the black blood on the claws dripped onto his shoulder armor, sizzling and emitting wisps of smoke.
Blood still clung to his lips, yet he smiled at me—a smile so faint, like a butterfly landing on snow. "Do as you wish."
These words were like a silver needle, piercing through all my hesitation with a "plop".
I placed my fingertip on the storage ring, and the spirit crystal popped out with a "hum," floating in mid-air enveloped in a pale golden halo.
Shadow Crystal reacted almost instantly. The stone on the Spirit Eater's chest burst forth with a deep blue light. The two beams collided in the middle, creating a small thunderous sound in the air.
“Reverse the pulse!” I blurted out, recalling the annotation tucked inside the ancient book: “Those of the same frequency merge, those of opposite frequencies shatter.” The aura of the spirit crystal suddenly twisted into a spiral shape, and I could feel it churning in my sea of consciousness, as if a living creature was gnawing at my spiritual veins—this was the price of forcibly reversing the frequency.
Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. I gritted my teeth and formed hand seals, the mudras on my fingertips shifting with the light patterns of the spirit crystal: "One reversal brings life, two reversals break, three reversals sever!"
The spirit-eating beast let out a howl that ripped through the eardrums.
Its massive body began to twist, black blood seeping from the gaps in its scales, and its originally bright red eyes turned murky white.
A ghostly blue flame emerged from the cracks in the Shadow Crystal, distorting the air as it burned.
Wen Chen's protective shield shattered with a "crack," but he used the shockwave to leap into the air, his Ice Soul Sword drawing a silver arc in the moonlight: "Yao Yao, catch!"
I didn't see clearly how he beheaded the monster.
With a crisp "crack," a blood droplet-like shadow crystal shot out from the beast's neck.
I instinctively reached out to catch it, and the instant my palm touched the shadow crystal, a sharp pain shot from between my eyebrows to the back of my neck—
ruins.
The charred, broken pillar lay in the blood, and in the distance stood a collapsed altar.
A blurry figure stood with its back to me, holding two crystals in its hand: one was the Shadow Crystal in my palm, and the other... was clearly a Spirit Crystal!
His voice seemed to drift from a great distance, hoarse with a metallic grating: "The cycle of fate will eventually come..."
"Senior Sister!" Zi Ling's scream pierced the illusion.
I snapped back to reality and found myself kneeling on the ground. The temperature of the crystal was so hot that my palms were red, but the heat was drilling into my heart through my veins, as if it was going to burn me through.
Wen Chen knelt on one knee beside me, his Ice Soul Sword planted in the ground for support. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the back of my hand, unusually cold. "You were... stunned for a full half-breath just now."
"I..." I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
The image of the ruins still lingered in my mind, and the patterns on the broken pillars were exactly the same as the chain patterns in the Blood Fiend Palace three months ago.
The shadow crystal vibrated in my palm, this time at a completely different frequency than before, like some ancient ballad, summoning something.
“Spirit Crystal Stone…” The ethereal immortal had appeared beside me at some point. The silver chain on his wrist no longer trembled; instead, it stood taut in a straight line. “Its light… has dimmed.”
I looked down.
The originally pale gold spirit crystal now looked as if it were covered with a layer of dust, and the halo on its surface was scattered in pieces.
However, specks of golden light seeped from the cracks in the Shadow Crystal, as if the power of the Spirit Crystal had washed away some of its evil influence.
Elder Qingfeng suddenly coughed and propped himself up, his hand resting on the stone wall. The wailing of the earth's veins finally subsided: "The mountain-protecting formation... is temporarily stable."
Ziling suddenly rushed over and hugged me, her tears staining my neck, burning my nose: "I thought... I thought we were going to die here."
Wen Chen reached out and wiped the blood from my face. His fingertips paused above the shadow crystal before finally landing on my wrist: "Just now, the aura you exuded... was very much like that of a guide from the Void Realm."
I clenched the Shadow Crystal, the warmth of my palm seeping through the stone surface, mixed with images of ruins from my memories, like a tangled mess in my mind.
The mountain wind swept away the black mist, and the moonlight shone again on the broken wall. In the cracks on the surface of the shadow crystal, tiny golden patterns could be vaguely seen—the patterns on the spirit crystal in my storage ring were exactly the same.
(The shadow crystal in my palm is still hot, and the blurry figure in the ruins keeps swaying in front of my eyes.)
As I gazed at the distant mountains shrouded in black mist, I suddenly recalled the last inscription on the stone wall of the underground palace that had not been eaten away by insects: "The beginning of reincarnation, the two crystals return to one."
The night breeze lifted the hem of her clothes, and where Yingjing touched her skin, she felt a vibration similar to a heartbeat—one, two, exactly the rhythm of the voice in her memory.
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