Chapter 610

Only a few dozen breaths later, the black cat agreed with Seeing Pei Ye's deduction. The direction here was absolutely not equivalent to the outside world, or rather, here, it was hard to say there was any concept of "direction."

They were clearly turning back, but they hadn't passed the place where they fought the first merman, and the traces of shooting sand with the sword had also disappeared—from this point of view, their previous self-righteous heading north might have just been wishful thinking.

This feeling of being an "outsider" was too intense. Obviously, the creatures growing here had their own special perceptions, while others could only be people with missing five senses. This was probably also the reason why Taiping Cao spent so much effort to transport mermen.

If humans stumbled into here, nine out of ten would die in confusion.

Seeing Pei Ye and the black cat paid attention to the incoming mermen at all times, using them as a reference to adjust their forward direction... darkness and coldness were always with them, and they didn't know if their direction was correct.

The further they went, the more this elusive unknown would make their minds hang high. Ahead seemed to be endless darkness, and more and more mermen were gathering around them.

Yu Sicheng, however, seemed not to lose his direction. The trace of Chi fire hanging on him was always firmly approaching them.

"He has some kind of method to transmit information between him and the mermen," the black cat said.

Seeing Pei Ye didn't answer. Compared to the black cat, he was like a truly deaf and blind person in such an environment, only thinking silently.

And it was also at this time that his eyebrows twitched, and he suddenly smelled something strange... it was fragrance.

It really was fragrance. In the heavy, dark, cold water, both his ear canals and nasal cavities were bearing the heavy pressure that had to be resolved with true Qi, but it was in such a blockage that a piece of information that seemed to exist above all these feelings still floated into his nasal cavity stably.

Peaceful, light, ethereal... everything here was full of thick blood and fishy smell, and his five senses were full of killing intent and coldness, but it was so light, like the crisp laughter of a young girl by a spring stream.

It was as if everything was just a curtain of thick ink, and it was the only colorful brush on it.

At the same moment Seeing Pei Ye smelled this faint fragrance, the mermen around them began to press in from the front left in large numbers. At least a dozen of them moved together, and the sharp water flows crossed into a shocking mess.

"They are blocking us," Seeing Pei Ye said. "Crash into them!"

"Yu Sicheng is still three hundred zhang away," the black Chi reminded. Its long body had already met them head-on without any hesitation. In an instant, several sharp bloodstains bloomed on the side of its body.

The powerful immortal beast body indeed had the world's top vitality, and its bones were often a hundred times tougher than other creatures. However, like the youth who had left his hometown for no more than half a year, the black Chi was only in the childhood of its long life. Even though it had been helped by precious pills, facing these swarms of adult mermen at this time could not be called easy.

The Spirit Xuan stored in the body was limited. Consuming more on these mermen meant one less reliance when facing Yu Sicheng. From the moment they chose to meet head-on, the danger of this trip had been rising continuously.

Seeing Pei Ye couldn't see anything, and his hearing was also heavily pressed by the water, but he clearly perceived at this time that they had indeed caused some kind of chaos. Large numbers, dozens of mermen surged in the darkness, and the messy and sharp sounds kept piercing his ears and brain, making them uncomfortable. They came and went as if talking, and some even collided with the mermen chasing them because they couldn't dodge in time.

"Little cat, I really smelled it," Seeing Pei Ye whispered.

"What?"

"Flower fragrance."

"..."

"There are too many mermen here, you are getting injured too fast, let me do it."

"You're crazy, it only takes them one breath to tear you to pieces."

"It's okay, don't you feel it? They are hesitating," Seeing Pei Ye said quickly. "Their coordination is not as orderly as before."

The black cat paused. Yes, although seven or eight were still trailing them tightly, and the huge Chi body was still quickly adding new wounds in the merman crowd, some had indeed started to wander.

Some started to stop in place, some were manic and swimming back and forth, as if the orders in their heads and the instincts of their bodies had produced a contradiction. Some let out sharp hisses.

"Let me do it," Seeing Pei Ye said again.

The black Chi did not speak, and with a final flick of its tail, it helped the youth sweep forward, while it transformed into a small cat and shrank into his embrace.

In the vast darkness, the feeling of emptiness without reliance descended again. Seeing Pei Ye immediately pursed his lips and swam downward in the direction he had determined. His speed was indeed far from the black Chi's. Zhanxin Zhanxin Lingli teeth and claws caught up only two breaths later. Seeing Pei Ye paid the price of his right shoulder being pierced to kill the fastest one, while the trailing ones had caught up again.

But they didn't rush up, and the sword Seeing Pei Ye had gripped horizontally in front of him didn't meet any impact either—only a few steps away, these sharp water flows all stopped in front of him.

Seeing Pei Ye couldn't see anything in the darkness, but he realized he might have found something.

Like a disabled person, he clumsily touched behind him. First, it was a piece of craggy stone... then his hand touched a few thin, soft pieces.

And with his touch, it was as if something had been awakened, like a candle flame just lit, slowly growing from a tiny fireball... so Seeing Pei Ye saw a light source other than the Chi fire in this realm for the first time.

Faint, soft light, like warm jade in the night, reflected in the youth's eyes, was a... flower slowly blooming.

The petals were as beautiful as willow leaves and as thin as cicada wings. Twenty-four of them were connected together, emitting a cold, blue light, a color that was almost dreamlike.

It had no branches or leaves, only a slender, unique stem, which did not steal the show at all under the large flower.

A wisp of thin gauze like light mist circled the stem, swaying lightly in the water as if in the wind. But they were not tied to the stem, but extended downward into the soil, as if entangled with the roots.

The jade-blue fluorescence reflected in the youth's pupils, and also vaguely reflected his face and the long hair scattered and stained with blood. In the micro-light, only the blood mist scattered from those wounds was bundled into the shape of silk ribbons, surging toward this flower and slowly soaking into the petals.

Seeing Pei Ye didn't expect this scene, nor did he expect the next scene—this flower suddenly scattered, and the petals flew toward him, sinking into his body from his fingertips.

Seeing Pei Ye was stunned and had nowhere to hide—most of his attention was still on guarding against the few mermen behind him—the next moment the Chi fire in his body also missed, but he indeed didn't feel any abnormality. He lowered his head, only to see that the flower had appeared on his wrist, twenty-four tiny willow-leaf scales gathered into a flower shape.

But the next moment, the abnormality surged up. He felt a dizzying sensation like the world spinning, as if all four directions and five senses were chaotic and inverted. The Quail Head wanted to play a role at this moment, but found that this dizziness didn't touch his mind at all... then Seeing Pei Ye suddenly realized something in astonishment, and stopped interfering with it.

This wasn't dizziness... this was a correction.

Human sense of direction was corrected and replaced, the chaotic four directions returned to their places. Seeing Pei Ye suddenly understood in an instant what kind of headless-fly path they had walked just now;

The swaying limbs stopped. Seeing Pei Ye suddenly lost the feeling of resistance to the water incredibly. Heaviness, coldness, instability... all disappeared from his feelings. He even felt freedom in the water. This feeling of not being bound by the earth...

A layer of strange light blue covered his pupils, and then the heavy darkness around him gradually became transparent. He saw everything about the bottom of the lake... it turned out that this place was never a dark, empty nothingness. From the direction they came to here, it was gradually becoming prosperous and lush.

Undulating gullies and hills, a wide variety of water plants, tiny schools of fish shuttling back and forth, high rocks standing in great numbers... and these few clear, fiber-detailed cold merman faces in front of him.

Two sharp hisses were emitted from the vibration of their throats. Everything was just a matter of a few breaths. It seemed that the orders in their heads finally gained the upper hand, and the three mermen jumped over at the same time.

He could hardly see the resistance of the water waves. Their movements treated water like air. They were indeed as fast as poisonous snakes. In the movement of their bodies, sharp claws were already hanging before his throat.

Seeing Pei Ye was slightly stunned by this speed, thinking that he had been facing such opponents all along... then he twisted his wrist and raised his sword to block in front of this finger-claw. A low, muffled impact of "clank" rang out in the water.

Seeing Pei Ye tilted his body to let go of the second merman stabbing at his chest, and at the same time, his sword followed his body's tilt, crossing the finger-claw that was resisting. The teeth-grinding sharp sound rang and fell instantly, and the blade had already cut open this entire arm along its bones and tendons.

The angry pain hissed in the water. Seeing Pei Ye turned his sword edge and cut off its throat, and then turned his back to block the attack of the second merman, while the third merman in front of him had already pierced through the blood mist and pounced on his face.

In the two exchanges just now, he had always precisely used the body of the merman he had just killed as a partition, keeping it out of the battle for a short time.

Seeing Pei Ye glanced at it, the sword momentum behind him vibrated slightly, and the 【Spreading Wings】 accumulated in the three clashes was suddenly emptied. 【Clear Roar】 suddenly knocked open the two arm-claws of the merman behind him, piercing through its chest.

Seeing Pei Ye let go of the sword hilt and let the long sword pierce through the chest of the merman behind him and sweep into the water. His body collided backward at the same time. The merman with the blood hole in its chest still had tough vitality, and in its angry hiss, its claws crossed his shoulder and hooked toward Seeing Pei Ye's throat. Seeing Pei Ye resisted its elbow with one hand and clamped its wrist with the other. With force in opposite directions, "crack," he broke this arm, and then exerted force to pull it, framing it in front of him.

At this time, the third merman was hissing and chasing, but at his side, a stream of light in the water drew a beautiful and elegant arc, sweeping past its throat. As the blood mist bloomed, it returned to Seeing Pei Ye's hand.

Seeing Pei Ye followed the trend and cut horizontally with his sword, severing the throat of the merman he was locking. Then he let go, and the corpses of the three mermen fell slowly from the water at the same time.

He lowered his head and looked at his sword silently. This time, he was covered in the enemy's blood.

After mastering the force of the water, many sword arts returned intimately, and 【Holding the New Corpse】 was not very laborious.

The black cat also poked its head out from the collar and looked at the scale flower mark on his wrist.

Seeing Pei Ye still didn't speak. At this time, he heard a very light and faint sound, coming from somewhere, perhaps ringing in his heart, perhaps ringing in his ears, as shallow as the wind, and as ethereal as the flower fragrance just now.

"Your sword is used so well... it reminds me of some old friends," she smiled and raised her head. "Unfortunately, I can't remember what they looked like either."

Seeing Pei Ye turned his head violently, only to see that where the flower had just grown, a very faint female figure was sitting there. This beautiful posture was just a shadow, which made Seeing Pei Ye trance for a moment. She rested her hands on her sides, tilted her head to look at him and smiled lightly: "You are the first person I like to see come in, I can't say why."

She pointed lightly under her body: "This flower, I named it 'Luo Shen Luoshen Luoshen Mu Tao'. You Confucian scholars on the shore often recite, 'Give me a wooden peach, I will repay you with jade.' That's how it is. Drinking it can make your eyes bright, ears sensitive, and control water, hmm... if you possess the legendary 'Method of Planting Immortals in the Dantian', maybe it can also grow your meridian tree. It lasts for a quarter of an hour. No matter where you come from, I hope you can return to the shore safely and smoothly."

"..." Seeing Pei Ye subconsciously glanced at the mark on his wrist. When he raised his head again, this already faint figure had vanished without a trace.

He was stunned for a moment. Only then did he look inside his Dantian, only to see the tender short bud above the seventh life grow a section visibly to the naked eye. Even though it was still a drop in the bucket, it made Seeing Pei Ye completely dumbfounded.

—Ever since he hadn't encountered the Immortal Lord's kind, the Salary-Rank had never grown under any other feeding.

He lowered his head to look at the black cat. The black cat's eyes were also filled with astonishment, but this was not the time to ponder this matter. He raised his head to look at the remaining few mermen in front, and further away, more shadows were casting their eyes here. Some were full of hesitation and fear, while some were still rushing straight here while wandering.

It seemed that even if there was no boundary between him and them that could be called an iron law, there was obviously a soft constraint that was quite difficult to cross... Seeing Pei Ye kept in mind the short note he saw in Yu Sicheng's study.

"Two flowers, one merman servant dead, three injured..." This flower would hurt them? Was it the smell?

The three mermen who had just attacked him were actually showing some distortion before they died... A wonderful guess suddenly rose in Seeing Pei Ye's heart. Did mermen enter here in the same state as he was before drinking the scale flower?

"Yu Sicheng is still a hundred zhang away," the black cat whispered.

Seeing Pei Ye's heart tightened. He took a final look at the direction he came from, twisted his body, and disappeared into the water grass and stone forest.

The bad news was, Yu Sicheng was not a merman.

The good news was, without the mermen trailing, Yu Sicheng might not be able to find his tracks in the water.