Chapter 125
The Falling Cherry Spirit Emperor’s pupils blew wide, as if a ghost had walked in front of him.
This woman could eavesdrop on messages sealed in Spirit energy, what kind of technique was that?
The forbidden formation and the destiny were the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain’s million-year enterprise, every Domain Lord in that line had labored over it, careful to the point of paranoia, keeping the siphon running without a break.
They had lived on thin ice the whole time, terrified of exposure.
They had built an elaborate reputation for isolation, staying out of every affair on Exalted Continent.
They wouldn’t join the scramble even when word came of an ownerless treasure or a newly opened ancient tomb.
And now, with the hoard nearly at capacity, on the eve of turning it into two Ancestor Realm powerhouses or more, the whole thing had been overheard by a woman he’d never met.
To him, that was worse than dying.
Cecilia had limited time on the transmission, so she didn’t linger.
"I can get you out of Soren’s demonic formation, but you’ll make a deal with me first."
"A deal? What kind of deal?"
She laughed, light and airy. "You only need to answer whether you’re willing or not."
He thought about it, then nodded. "Fine."
He couldn’t wait any longer, instinct told him Soren had no intention of leaving them alive, Soren had probably rushed into that dimension precisely because he wanted the business here finished on his return.
A million years of work, and it came down to this one throw, wait until Soren came back, and he and Mira would have nothing left but their bared throats.
He wasn’t fool enough to trust a woman he’d never met, but getting clear of that formation came first.
Take the worst cases, so Cecilia had overheard about the forbidden formation and the destiny.
What could she do with it? Short of tearing the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain apart to bedrock, how would she locate the Nine-Headed Serpent skeleton the destiny was stored in?
Besides, not just anyone could approach that plain of black fire.
The flames were an Innate Ancestor Technique left by a Spirit Ancestor, burning without pause for a million years.
Above the plain hung spatial distortions scorched into being by that fire, one glance would tear a person’s sanity apart, torment them past endurance, and end with their own hands around their own throat.
To reach the center, you needed the Spirit artifact handed down through the generations of the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain.
The Mirror of Reflected Waters, an Upper-Tier Spirit artifact, to throw back the mental impact of the distortions and shield yourself from the Ancestor Fire.
Without it, even an Ancestor Realm powerhouse would struggle.
His heart settled. "Fine, I accept your deal."
Cecilia said a few last words and laughed, soft and musical, then nothing.
Mira had heard none of it, but the change in his eyes told her something had shifted. "Husband, what is it?"
He didn’t hesitate over the method Cecilia had given him, he reached out and stroked her cheek.
"It’s been hard on you these years, keeping those Beast Venerables in line so they’d never leave the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain and stir up trouble, that’s the only reason we faded out of everyone’s sight."
Mira smiled faintly. "Husband, it’s only my duty, and you know I enjoy the work."
He nodded. "True, born in the Falling Cherry Spirit Domain, every Upper-Tier Emperor inherits the name Falling Cherry, because we carry one responsibility between us, Mira, you’ve given so much to this domain, I won’t forget you."
The moment hardly suited affection, but warmth spread through her chest anyway, she was about to speak when something in his tone snagged.
Her eyes changed, it took her several seconds to get the words out. "Husband, what do you mean, you won’t forget me?"
He shut his heart, his hands formed a seal, and his palm surged with dense Spirit energy.
Then he drove it into her abdomen like a knife.
Blood sprayed across his face, Mira’s features twisted.
He tore the Spirit Sea free of her body, wrapped in his energy’s seal, the size of a pill, it held a staggering weight of Spirit energy.
Stripped of her Spirit dantian, Mira aged in seconds, her body shriveled, skin going coarse and grey, like bark peeling off dead wood.
She caught his wrist with the last of her strength, her voice came out hoarse and thin.
"Why? You promised... you’d share that destiny with me, I gave you so much... and you... you did... this..."
Mira hit the ground, a heap of rotting flesh.
He felt nothing at all, he moved to the next step.
The technique for extracting a Spirit dantian was exactly what Cecilia had given him.
As an Upper-Tier Spirit Emperor, he found it easy, but Cecilia had told him more, now he would compress Mira’s Spirit Sea and fuse his own energy into it.
Once squeezed to the size of a rice grain, carrying power beyond an ordinary Spirit skill, he would hurl it at one wall of the formation with everything he had.
The Spirit energy would detonate on impact and throw off a terrifying shockwave.
Not a conventional explosion, a focused release into a single point, acting entirely on that one section of wall.
The smaller the contact area, the greater the instantaneous force, several dozen times the Spirit Emperor’s own output.
A standard Demon Ancestor’s energy intensity ran dozens or hundreds of times above an Upper-Tier Spirit Emperor’s, and Soren’s was more absurd stilll, several hundred times, at minimum, one Spirit dantian alone would never do it.
But Cecilia had promised to time it perfectly.
The instant the Spirit dantian detonated, she would strike from outside with methods of her own, force applied inside and out at the same point in the same breath, eighty to ninety percent odds the formation would shatter.
Arcturus and Bruce noticed the Spirit Emperor behaving strangely.
Their eyes locked onto him, he was inside the formation, and they had absolute faith in Soren’s work, not knowing Cecilia was lurking nearby, they folded their arms to watch him embarrass himself.
Arcturus clapped his hands, wearing a look of mock pity. "Aye, aye, Brother Bruce, do you think that Falling Cherry Spirit Emperor’s gone mad? Why would he suddenly kill Mira?"