Chapter 77: The Way to Break the Stalemate

Yuan Yao immediately sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and quickly smoothed her internal breath.

Time passed bit by bit, and her breathing gradually shifted from ragged to steady.

Her sea of consciousness was expanded once again.

About two hours later.

Yuan Yao opened her eyes again, exhaled a mouthful of turbid air, lowered her head to glance at her palm, then slowly clenched her fist.

She seemed to be able to sense the presence of spiritual power.

She lifted her gaze toward the door before her.

In her eyes, spiritual power was no longer formless but tangible; she saw the door before her, under the influence of spiritual power, begin to twist.

Yuan Yao scanned the surroundings again; the entire house was shrouded in the monster's spiritual power, almost airtight.

"You actually managed to hold on?" Qiu Xingwen said, astonished.

Gu Zhaozhao came up to her and asked concernedly, "Elder Sister Yuan, are you feeling much better?"

Yuan Yao nodded and smiled.

At that moment, besides the seated youth, the house also held an old man devoid of any will to live.

The old man lay numb on the ground, awaiting death.

"I still need time," Yuan Yao told them.

Gu Zhaozhao, although she didn't understand exactly what Yuan Yao was doing, still believed in her elder sister.

Qiu Xingwen originally didn't want to get involved too much, so he also didn't ask for the reason.

Yuan Yao looked at the orange-clad youth and discovered that a trace of spiritual power seemed to be emanating from him.

Yuan Yao's heart stirred—could he be like her, both intending to use spiritual power to break open this house constructed of spiritual power?

She withdrew her gaze, then immediately redirected it onto the door.

She once again used spiritual power to attack the door.

Hum—

The opponent's sticky, cold spiritual power surged again, fiercely drilling into Yuan Yao's sea of consciousness.

During this, Yuan Yao did not resist.

Once the opponent's spiritual power entered her sea of consciousness, she unreservedly exerted her full strength, gathering her spiritual power into a torrent that swept toward the black mass of spiritual power.

In an instant, winds rose and clouds surged within her sea of consciousness as the black and white spiritual powers collided and fought.

The entire sea of consciousness was churned into darkness and chaos, turned upside down!

Yuan Yao gradually grew accustomed to the excruciating pain of her sea of consciousness being torn apart.

Her spiritual power, initially a small cluster, gradually grew, no longer appearing insignificant when facing that sticky spiritual power.

She employed her spiritual power to entwine it, engaging in constant battle.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Explosions rang out continuously within her sea of consciousness; the torn places resembled huge caverns, into which a gale poured, raging madness sweeping in, shaking her to the point of unbearable pain.

Inside the house, Gu Zhaozhao saw Yuan Yao bleeding from her seven orifices again, her lips growing ever paler, and her own heart tightened a few notches.

Yuan Yao did not give up; she endured the pain, focusing her spiritual power to counterattack.

One blow after another.

Yet repeatedly, that sticky spiritual power suppressed her.

Just as the opponent's spiritual power sought to imprint its mark upon her sea of consciousness, Yuan Yao instinctively sensed danger and began frantically expelling the opponent's spiritual power.

Hum!

With a bursting sound, blood seeped from Yuan Yao's ears.

And she successfully expelled the opponent's spiritual power.

"Elder Sister Yuan..."

All surrounding sounds began to turn muddled and unclear, like echoes coming from afar.

Yuan Yao suddenly opened her eyes, took out a Fourth-Grade Awakening Spirit Pill and a Healing Wound Pill from her storage space, swallowed them, and then quickly regulated her breath.

Thereafter, she began repeating these five steps:

Drawing the opponent's spiritual power in, contending with it, letting her sea of consciousness tear and expand, repairing the sea of consciousness, and strengthening her spiritual power.

Within that day, she had already repeated this set of five steps six times.

Her spiritual power grew ever stronger.

And she could clearly perceive every move of everyone in the house.

In Yuan Yao's gaze fixed on the door, unrestrained excitement and exhilaration shone through.

She continued to use spiritual power to attack the door; the opponent's spiritual power sensed the assault and swiftly counterstruck.

Yuan Yao once again drew the opponent's spiritual power into her own sea of consciousness.

But just as she was engaging the opponent's spiritual power with her own, the old man in the house was suddenly swept away by a burst of black mist.

Gu Zhaozhao saw this scene, her face turning deathly pale from fright.

"Another day survived," Qiu Xingwen exclaimed, suddenly letting out a sigh of relief.

Gu Zhaozhao lowered her head, feeling sorrowful.

…

The sixteenth time.

Yuan Yao's cluster of spiritual power had grown to be as large as the opponent's spiritual power.

The two sides' spiritual powers were entwined, with no clear superiority.

Consequently, the opponent's spiritual power could no longer tear her sea of consciousness, nor could it harm her spiritual awareness.

Yuan Yao disappointedly drove it out.

But it seemed to sense Yuan Yao's mood, angrily trying to barge in.

Yuan Yao directly transformed her spiritual power into a huge palm, fiercely slapping it out of her sea of consciousness.

With a hum, the door trembled slightly.

This movement made Qiu Xingwen and Gu Zhaozhao's spirits instantly tense.

And the next moment—

The house's wall actually trembled for a moment.

Soon, it returned to its original state.

This made Qiu Xingwen and Gu Zhaozhao both think they had seen wrong.

Yuan Yao's spiritual power began to attack the other strands of spiritual power in the house.

And what she didn't expect was that she actually encountered another strand of unfamiliar spiritual power.

She quickly thought of that orange-clad youth.

That unfamiliar spiritual power actually broke through a part of the wall and escaped.

Yuan Yao tried to chase after it with her spiritual power, but was blocked back by that equally sticky and cold spiritual power, and it frantically drilled into her sea of consciousness to attack.

That sticky spiritual power from the wall was even stronger.

Yuan Yao had no choice but to focus on dealing with it.

Her sea of consciousness was torn, then healed.

The healing speed grew faster and faster.

After about an hour, Yuan Yao successfully drove it out.

With the passage of time, it soon became the next day.

Yuan Yao used her spiritual power to attack almost every strand of spiritual power in the house.

She also discovered that the orange-clad youth was using spiritual power—no, it was divine sense—to observe everything happening outside.

Yuan Yao opened her eyes, looking toward the orange-clad youth, secretly thinking: he must have grasped some information.

But he never acted, which only shows that either he lacks the ability to break the situation, or he is waiting for an opportunity.

At this moment, Yuan Yao keenly sensed the fluctuations in the orange-clad youth's spiritual power.

She looked over.

Coincidentally, she met the orange-clad youth's eyes just as he opened them.

Yuan Yao quickly rose, walked toward the orange-clad youth, stood before him, clasped her hands, and asked: "Fellow Daoist, do you have a way to break the situation?"

The orange-clad youth slightly lifted his eyelids; his handsome face showed no emotion, his voice cold: "If you want to go out, you must be prepared to die."

Hearing this, Qiu Xingwen's face changed in shock.

"... What... what?! Going out... going out will cause death?!"