Chapter 375

"Yes!"

With the card in hand, Chen Mu quickly checked it.

Soul-Enhancing Card!

Good.

The previous card was a True Qi Card, containing three years and four months of True Qi.

……

"Who's there?"

A voice, wary yet still retaining a childlike clarity, rose from behind a slightly ajar door on the third floor.

Immediately, the door was cautiously pulled open a crack, and a head tied with two messy little buns poked out.

The girl's face still bore caution, her eyes bright and now wide open, striving to look fierce as she sized up the figure outside the door.

Chen Mu dismissed his invisibility, his form clearly materializing in the corridor.

Seeing that familiar little head and those still lively, dark eyes—even amid hardship—his heart, which had been heavy for so long, finally settled completely; a faint smile tugged at his lips as he spoke.

"Little Tuti, you really aren't afraid at all."

"What's there to be afraid of? These people won't dare kill me…"

Long Tuti blurted it out, but halfway through, she suddenly realized the voice didn't match—this tone…

She widened her eyes, scrutinizing the approaching shadow.

Morning light streaming through the window at the end of the corridor outlined Chen Mu's sharp features.

It was still that familiar face, handsome and resolute, yet now more composed than a year ago, with a sharper edge in his brows.

"Old Chen?!"

Long Tuti gasped in disbelief, her mouth forming an "O," "How did you get here?!"

Before Chen Mu could answer, her eyes darted around, sweeping over the corpse of the Mo Sect expert decapitated in the corridor, then back to Chen Mu, her words tumbling out in a rapid-fire self-question-and-answer, "Were you captured too? No—you killed two of them, you're here to rescue me?! Old Chen, you're amazing, you actually found this place!"

"By the way, did Old Zhao send you to save me? How's he doing? It's been over a year—Old Chen, why do you feel so much stronger?!"

Surprise, confusion, curiosity, and a thread of post-survival excitement made her little mouth chatter like a machine gun, as if trying to unload every word she'd held back.

Chen Mu looked at the girl before him—still clever beyond her years, her thoughts leaping wildly—and felt both amusement and deep emotion.

They hadn't seen each other for over a year; the little girl had grown taller, her baby fat fading, her features more refined—but now she looked so disheveled.

Chen Mu reached out and gently ruffled Long Tuti's messy hair; the texture was still soft.

"Enough, little chatterbox."

Chen Mu cut off her rapid-fire questions, "We'll have plenty of time to talk once we're out of here. Right now, we need to leave."

He turned, crouched slightly, "Get on my back."

"Haha, I knew Old Chen was the most reliable! Thanks!"

Long Tuti's face instantly lit up with a brilliant smile, one that seemed to dispel all shadows.

She scrambled onto Chen Mu's broad back with nimble hands, wrapping her small arms tightly around his neck, pressing her face against his shoulder.

Chen Mu stabilized her on his back, his True Qi flowing, his body as light as a swallow.

He did not take the stairs; instead, he walked straight to the end of the third-floor corridor and pushed open a window.

The valley outside came into view; the cries of battle, explosions, and the terrifying energy fluctuations high above grew even clearer.

Chen Mu scanned below, confirmed no organized Mo Sect forces were approaching the small building, then leapt—like a nimble monkey—straight out the third-floor window, his toes lightly tapping the second-floor windowsill and the first-floor eave, dissipating his fall, landing soundlessly in the shadow behind the building.

Just as he landed, preparing to choose a relatively quiet path toward the valley's edge, suddenly—

"Boom—"

A deafening, unprecedented roar erupted from high above.

The sound was unlike ordinary energy clashes—it was more like an impossibly solid structure being violently torn open and detonated from within.

The terrifying shockwave struck like a physical hammer, slamming into every person's eardrums and hearts, causing the ground beneath their feet, the surrounding air, and even the entire valley's space to visibly tremble and warp.

"Is the sky falling?!"

Long Tuti tightened her arms in horror, crying out in shock.

Chen Mu snapped his head up and saw the densest, most terrifyingly demonic crimson light high above now burst like an overinflated balloon.

But it did not simply dissipate—in the instant of its rupture, it unleashed unimaginable destructive energy.

It was the ultimate technique of a Tiangong cultivator: burning his soul and detonating his lifetime of cultivation and martial understanding.

Self-destruction!

"Are the Mo Sect experts insane?! Can't win, so they blow themselves up?!" Long Tuti's voice trembled.

A terrifying crimson shockwave, like a tide of annihilation, erupted from the explosion point and swept violently in all directions.

The sky seemed torn open by a massive wound, revealing the chaotic, twisted void currents beyond.

The nearest righteous Tiangong cultivator—the golden light radiating Buddhist chants—took the full force, instantly swallowed by the crimson surge, his glow dimming rapidly as he let out a muffled groan and was flung backward.

Li Tianjun's blue swordlight and Yan Bairei's metallic brilliance were also forced into retreat; their combined defensive barriers of sword qi and metallic qi rippled violently under the crimson onslaught, flickering uncertainly.

Yet this was not the worst.

"Boom!!!"

Almost as the aerial explosion's shockwave had yet to fully spread, a muffled, earth-shaking roar—deep as if rising from the deepest pits of hell—erupted from beneath the earth.

Instantly, the entire Moonwatch Valley's ground shook like a tiny boat caught in a storm, trembling and heaving with unprecedented violence…

No—it wasn't just shaking; it was as if the crust itself was violently rising and splitting!

Chen Mu, carrying Long Tuti, had already leapt into the air the moment it began, hovering several zhang above the ground, his gaze fixed with disbelief on the epicenter of the sound.

It was the region of the "Flame Long Dong!"

The area, once a mountain cliff with a massive cave entrance, now presented a horrifying sight.

The entire zone was as though crushed and kneaded into pulp by an invisible giant hand, collapsing inward and disintegrating.

Countless boulders tumbled and fell, dust shooting skyward, but what was even more terrifying was that from the bottom of that collapsed, bottomless enormous pit, a searing, blinding crimson light erupted violently.

"Boom!"

"Boom boom boom—!"

Thick, blazing pillars of lava, like fury suppressed for ten thousand years, violently broke through the crust's restraints, gushing from the fissures at the original site of "Blazing Long Dong" and a vast surrounding area, shooting straight into the heavens.

Crimson lava flowed wantonly; wherever it passed, rock instantly melted, grass and trees turned to flying ash, and Mo Sect followers — even some righteous-path martial artists who had rushed too far forward — who couldn't flee in time didn't even manage a scream before being devoured and vaporized by the might of heaven and earth.