Jing Yue pretended not to hear him and continued to ponder the door's restrictions, but the door was so high the patterns on it couldn’t be seen clearly with the naked eye.
He unfolded his divine consciousness and wanted to use this method to view all the runes when unexpectedly, a strong force hit his ocean of consciousness. Jing Yue's brain suddenly hurt like pins and needles, and he couldn't help but clutch his head with a muffled grunt.
Qin Yanzhi supported him and said with a frown, “What’s wrong?”
Jing Yue, “Nothing, I…”
Before he finished speaking, his whole body trembled uncontrollably. As if stirred up by the impact just now, the Yao poison in his body churned again.
Even if he was born with an Omnispirit body, he could only slowly get rid of the poison. Now that the Yao poison acted up, Jing Yue felt the pain as the spiritual energy retrograded and almost couldn't stand on his feet.
Fortunately, he had a friendly ally by his side. He felt coolness on his lips, and it turned out that Qin Yanzhi had fed him a pill, which also carried a slight coolness in his mouth. The Yao poison in Jing Yue's meridians was temporarily suppressed before he found himself half leaning on Qin Yanzhi.
Jing Yue stood up a little straighter and explained, “I accidentally choked on a few mouthfuls of water when I first entered the lake.”
Qin Yanzhi immediately understood. “It’s Yao poison?”
He more or less guessed it so he gave Jing Yue a pill to stabilize the spiritual energy but it couldn’t cure the poison.
There seemed to be no cure for the Yao poison unless the cultivation base was advanced and the poison could be driven out when breaking through to the next level.
Jing Yue, “I’m fine. I can remove the poison on my own but it takes time. It’s because my divine consciousness was stimulated just now that the poison became active again.”
Qin Yanzhi, “Did the restriction on the stone door repel your divine consciousness?”
Jing Yue, “Yes, maybe because I’m human.”
Qin Yanzhi, “What should we do then? Do we have to catch a Yao here?”
Jing Yue, “The monsters around are all dead. Where can you find one?”
After that, he paused, then laughed inexplicably, and whispered, “I’m so stupid.”
When Qin Yanzhi saw Jing Yue acting like this, the tacit understanding of getting along with each other for more than 20 years made him realize instantly. “Can you really resolve the restriction of the Yao race?”
Jing Yue, “In fact, how could the Yao race have any restrictions? They must have learned it from the humans. As long as we can crack the runes, how difficult is it to break the restriction?”
Qin Yanzhi, “Do you know Yao language?”
“Of course not, but I can transform it.” After saying that, he smiled at Qin Yanzhi. “Qin-zhenjun, I have to trouble you to collect 1,000 Yao inner core for me, okay? With so many big monsters in the water, you can surely find 1,000.”
Qin Yanzhi raised his long eyebrows and Jing Yue added, “My divine consciousness is hurt and I’m poisoned. I also need to decipher the Yao runes later and must conserve my strength.”
“You don't need to explain so much,” Qin Yanzhi suddenly said. “I’ll listen to you, of course.”
Jing Yue, “…”
When Qin Yanzhi's figure disappeared in the lake, Jing Yue had focused his concentration on meditation. He really needed to recover to ensure that he would not be exhausted when breaking the restriction.
He performed seven great circuits before Qin Yanzhi finally returned. As the spiritual energy could only be restored near the stone door, once far away, it would be impossible to activate the Sumeru ring and other storage weapons. Before Qin Yanzhi set off, he only took a magic robe to serve as a bag, which was filled to the brim now.
“Thank you, Qin-zhenjun.” Jing Yue looked at the apricot-colored robe in Qin Yanzhi's hand and jokingly said. “Zhenjun’s hobby really hasn't changed at all.”
Qin Yanzhi was startled before he realized that Jing Yue was teasing him for having so many clothes. He said, “There’s still a change. In the past, I only like swords. Now, I also like you.”
Jing Yue, “…”
His scalp tingled and he couldn’t figure out how Qin Yanzhi could spout such stormy words with that calm and gentle attitude. And no matter what they were talking about, he could always turn the direction to this topic. It was like getting his foot in the door in the nick of time, every time.
At this moment, Jing Yue had no choice but to reflect on himself. He still needed to be cautious in his words and deeds not to give Qin Yanzhi another chance.
Thus, with a solemn face, he accepted the ‘bag’ over, took out the inner cores, and set up the formation.
The formation he used was brought back by Elder Fu Xuan from Four Elephants Villa back then. Jing Yue guessed that Mo Qianyun might have tried to refine Yao at first and worked hard to find this formation, but later found that Yao was not as good as spiritual beasts, and eventually abandoned it.
It took 24 hours before Jing Yue placed 999 Yao core in a radius of one mile. With the last one in his hand, he returned to the stone door once again.
He tossed the Yao core and his hand movements kept changing. Each core glowed scarlet and the last one was even more dazzling red as it slowly rotated.
As Jing Yue urged his spiritual energy, the Yao core spun faster and released a circle of translucent red ripples.
The ripples penetrated the cold water and spread towards the stone door.
Jing Yue pushed one palm forward. “Go!”
The Yao core slammed into the stone door. For a time, the red light crawled over the runes on the stone door like a swimming water snake. Wherever it went, the runes instantly changed into the lines of the human race.
It’s done!
Jing Yue breathed a sigh of relief. Qin Yanzhi wanted to let him rest for a moment when Jing Yue sat cross-legged, preparing to break the restriction.
Qin Yanzhi couldn’t disturb him and only stood on guard aside, but his attention was all on Jing Yue.
The red light reflected in the clear cold water softened Jing Yue’s contours. The water waves depicted his elegant eyebrows, high nose, and red lips. Tiny bubbles escaped from between Jing Yue's slightly parted lips, mischievously brushing the tip of his nose and forehead before disappearing in the cold water.
Qin Yanzhi suddenly remembered the soft touch of his fingertips when he fed the medicine to the other party and felt a little strangeness in his heart.
Time passed unnoticed. Suddenly, every rune pattern on the restriction lit up at the same time, and the cold water around it quickly retracted like an ebbing tide, leaving a dry area in front of the stone door.
Rumble…
There was a tremor underwater and the stone door opened slowly.
At the same time, many cultivators gathered by the Yao Lake in the black wood forest. Wu Chen-zhenjun frowned, the anxiety in his eyes discernable as he looked at the dilapidated scene around him—black wood collapsed, soil and rock cracked, but there was no trace of the Laozu, not even a whiff!
“Where’s Laozu?” he asked loudly.
Behind him, Gu Xia and the others cried, “This is where we met the demonic cultivators…”
It turned out that when Wu Chen sought the golden light on the way here, he met Gu Xia and others who had just escaped from the black wood forest. Hearing that Laozu had been attacked, he immediately wanted to rush to Lurking Ghost Sect.
But Wu Chen had always been calm and knew that the priority was to help Jing Yue out of trouble. When they approached, however, they found that the entire forest was surrounded by Yao energy, and there was a strange power outside the Blackwood Forest, similar to the power of the law, blocking everyone out.
Before long, some other righteous cultivators also arrived, and everyone was also restricted from entering.
For a while, everyone was at a loss. It should be noted that in the 8,000 years of guarding the Yao Detention Mountain, no similar situation had occurred. This state of being out of control made everyone nervous, not to mention that Lurking Ghost Sect had something to do with it!
An elder from Scattered Star Villa mentioned that the golden light in the forest just now was probably a kind of killing formation from thousands of years ago, called the Five Elements Transformation Array. Nowadays, few people knew about it.
But Wei Zhentu said with certainty, “It is indeed this formation. I have experienced the variation of the Five Elements Transformation Array.”
The elder said, “If Jing-laozu activated this formation, as long as the fight can end quickly, even the Amethyst Abode demonic cultivator should be no match.”
Hearing their assertion, Wu Chen was slightly relieved. Outsiders didn’t know this, but Frostcloud Sect knew that Jing-laozu could still rely on Haotian Realm to save his life. Since they couldn't get into the Black Wood Forest at this time, they could only wait outside. As for Lurking Ghost Sect, it wouldn’t be too late to take care of them after Jing Yue was found.
Five days passed in a blink of an eye and that barrier finally disappeared. The cultivators found traces of the battle soon after they entered the forest. Following the tracks, they arrived at the edge of the Yao lake and found an elephant and the bodies of three demonic cultivators. There was no shortage of high-level cultivators here and Master Jue Ming predicted that there were two other golden core demonic cultivators who were also killed, but their bodies had turned to dust. As such, all five demonic cultivators should have been killed by Jing Yue, but why was Jing Yue missing?
Among the anxious were disciples of Sword Inscription Sect. They chased after Qin-zhenjun but were no match for his speed after all. Now that Qin-zhenjun was missing too, he was probably together with Jing-laozu.
Why were the two of them always predestined to go ‘missing’ together?
Someone cautiously said, “Did Jing-laozu and Qin-zhenjun fall into the Yao Lake?”
This speculation was not impossible. In the end, Wu Chen could only grimace and say, “I have to trouble all of you to look for my Laozu together.”
Everyone quickly agreed. This matter was of great importance. Several demonic cultivators were dead with no way to interrogate them, and Lurking Ghost Sect was bound to deny it. They could only pin their hope on Jing Yue to find out the truth.
Besides, Jing Yue's identity was very important. If something happened to him, it was enough to rock the righteous path!
Another Amethyst Abode elder of Sword Inscription Sect gritted his teeth and said, “Search! Even if we turn Yao Detention Mountain upside down, we must find Qin-zhenjun and Jing-laozu!”
As soon as he said that, the lake suddenly surged and the water churned up to a foot high. Then, mighty coercion came from the bottom of the lake and the high-ranking cultivators cast spells to protect their disciples.
At this time, they heard the roar of thousands of monsters on Yao Detention Mountain. Those roars were very strange, seemingly in awe, but also carried a hint of fear.
In other battle zones of the mountain, many cultivators were fighting fiercely with the monsters. Suddenly, there were roars from afar, and some low-level monsters immediately fell to the ground, trembling all over, as if they had encountered natural enemies of the bloodline, while some big monsters ran frantically in the same direction.
The cultivators looked at each other. Some were driven by curiosity and followed. The closer they got to the black wood forest, the more big monsters gathered. Almost all of them were Yao generals with several Yao marshals among them.
But for some reason, even if the monsters noticed the humans, they just ignored them—they only have one goal in their eyes.
The cultivators by the lake were all dumbfounded when they saw thousands of monsters rushing at them.
When humans and Yao encountered each other head-on, fighting was inevitable, and the black wood forest soon turned scarlet.