Chapter 45: Chapter Forty‑Five: You Are the Vivid Hue That Cannot Be Dissolved in the Backlight

It was only a short night, but when we saw Flood Lake Village again, its appearance had changed; without spirits protecting the village, it reverted to its original state.

The burnt and heavy stench of blood was like two invisible giant hands, tightly gripping the throat.

This smell was viscous and impossible to dispel, weighing heavily on every inch of the ruined village's land, seeping into the broken walls and ruins, and penetrating deep into Ling Xiao and Shi Ran's viscera; each breath carried a rust-like fishy odor.

"Over here!" Ling Xiao's voice was pressed extremely low, carrying a barely perceptible tension.

He flicked the talisman paper; his pale, slender fingertips flew over it, drawing quickly, then he flung it out—several wisps of airflow almost impossible to see with the naked eye shot out like spiritual snakes, skimming the ground and winding forward rapidly.

That airflow silently parted the overgrown weeds ahead, stained with suspicious dark‑red marks. When it touched the weeds, the leaves trembled slightly, yet made no sound.

Shi Ran followed closely, her steps light as a bird skimming the water. Her Ice Stream remained sheathed, but she gripped the hilt so tightly it seemed to betray her unease.

Gu Yusheng and the others were trapped in the center of the village's abandoned threshing field; after all our calculations, we never expected the sight of them again to be so heart‑rending.

On a chaotic open space, the ground was not ordinary soil but presented a nauseating dark‑red, as if repeatedly churned by a huge plow.

That red was so deep it turned black; the soil mixed with indiscernible dark fragments and viscous slurry.

A huge, eerie formation outlined with some kind of foul‑smelling grease and dark‑red powder like congealed blood was emitting a faint yet palpitating crimson glow.

That light pulsed like the breath of a dying beast, flickering unpredictably; each flare was accompanied by a low hum from deep within the formation, as if countless wronged souls were moaning desperately at the bottom of a blood pool.

Gu Yusheng, Mei Ruoxue, Luo Changfeng and others were drenched in blood, trapped in the center of this crimson formation.

Each of them was pallid, their clothes ragged, stained with dirt and blood.

Gu Yusheng's white robe was soaked in large dark‑brown patches; he knelt on one knee, pressing his hand hard against the edge of the formation, a faint clear light struggling to seep from his fingertips, barely sustaining a transparent shield as thin as a cicada's wing behind him, just enough for a few people to curl up inside.

The shield shuddered violently, as if it would shatter any moment. Mei Ruoxue and the others lay limp on the ground, their breaths faint.

Surrounding them was a sea of darkened villagers. Once honest and simple faces were now twisted and deformed, their eyes blood‑red like dripping blood, their mouths uttering meaningless, beast‑like hoarse howls.

Their farm tools—a notched sickle, a hoe caked with mud and dark‑red stains, a heavy laundry‑beating stick—had become bloodthirsty weapons, flashing an ominous cold light in the glow of the formation's blood.

"…Soul‑guiding Formation… broken by you few…… How could you do this? That's our way to live!"

Mrs. Wu Li wailed, the corner of her mouth split into an extremely eerie arc, drool mixed with blood trickling from her lips; she hoarsely yelled indistinctly, holding aloft a sharpened wooden stick, swaying as she stepped forward.

"Since we can't guide the souls, let you lot become heavenly sacrifices!" she laughed eerily, "You should feel honored—this is the very Red Blood Formation that once subdued Min Nan!"

"Not enough… still a bit short… dig out the flesh!" a burly man, eyes bloodshot, breathing heavily like an out‑of‑control mad bull, raised his sickle high, about to gouge out Lei Zhigao's brain!

"Attack!" Ling Xiao's voice fell like an ice‑cone, instantly piercing the maddening clamor that choked the air.

Shi Ran had already gathered her strength. At the instant the man's sickle sliced the air with a piercing whistle and came down, her slender fingers traced a sigil in the air, she cried out clearly: "With my essence blood, I nurture wood into a blade; vines, heed my command—break!"

Beneath the dark‑red earth of the threshing field, a teeth‑aching sound of bursting soil erupted! Dozens of thick, child‑arm‑sized vines covered in sharp thorns, deep‑blue like awakened giant pythons, reeking of earth and brimming with vital power, frenziedly broke through the viscous dark‑red soil and shot out!

Their aim was uncannily precise—several vines instantly coiled around the man's sickle‑holding arm and wrist, thorns sinking deep into flesh, blood spurting; more vines, like living things, entwined the deadly sickle, the tough vine scraping against the sharp metal and emitting a piercing "creak," forcibly dragging the sickle away; the man howled in pain, struggled desperately, yet more surging vines wrapped his legs.

Almost at the instant the vines burst from the earth and bound the sickle, Ling Xiao's figure had already vanished from the spot!

He did not choose to rush straight at the besieged few, but turned into a moon‑white afterimage, a tear in the gray mist almost impossible to see, aiming directly at a half‑person‑tall broken ancient stone stele on the outermost edge of the blood‑stained formation, covered in dark moss and crimson runes.

That stele was precisely the formation's eye, the source of the formation's bloody glow.

Sword, draw!

The clear, resounding dragon's roar instantly overwhelmed all the mad howls.

A sword qi condensed to the extreme, seeming able to cleave chaos, like thunder falling from the ninth heaven, arrived ahead of schedule! The sword qi tore the air with a ripping‑cloth crack, its target unmistakable—the very foundation of the formation‑eye stele!

"Break!" Ling Xiao's shout arrived together with the sword qi!

Boom!

The azure sword light violently collided with the stone stele's suddenly erupting, plasma‑like crimson glow; violent airflow burst instantly, forming visible shockwaves like an invisible hammer slamming outward!

At the very moment of this earth‑shattering impact, in the formation's center, Gu Yusheng, who had been barely holding on, suddenly lifted his head!

A deeper trace of blood seeped from his blood‑stained lips, yet in the depths of his dim, exhausted eyes a spark of near‑burning resolve flared! His right hand, smeared with blood and mud on the formation's edge, clenched its five fingers and swiftly traced an extremely profound, intricate path, forming a seal!

"Protect!" his hoarse voice was barely audible amid the tremendous explosion, yet it carried the grim resolve of mutual destruction.

Hum——

The faint shield that had been violently fluctuating on the verge of collapse under the villagers' frenzied assault instantly contracted inward the moment Gu Yusheng completed his seal!

The formerly transparent wall of light suddenly solidified, emitting a near‑substantial, pure and warm jade‑white radiance!

Although this light's range shrank drastically, barely covering Luo Changfeng and a few other unconscious companions, its intensity surged manyfold—like an unbreakable jade cocoon, it forcibly held back the external violent blood‑colored energy and shockwaves, if only briefly.

The three forces—binding vines, sword qi that cuts through illusion, and jade light guarding life—converged and exploded in the same heartbeat within this tiny arena of death and madness!

Time seemed to be seized by an invisible hand, freezing for an instant.

Next came the overture of destruction!

Rumble——

The ancient formation‑eye stele that had borne Ling Xiao's full‑strength strike could no longer withstand the terrifying force attacking from inside and out. It first shuddered violently; the blood‑red symbols covering its surface, writhing like living things, instantly dimmed and died. Then, before everyone's astonished eyes, it exploded from within outward!

It was not a simple shattering, but a thorough, violent, bone‑crushing explosion!

Countless fragments of stone, large and small, wrapped in a thick, undispellable blood‑light that writhed and struggled like a living thing, shot out like molten lava from the depths of hell, accompanied by piercing wails, frenziedly spraying in every direction!

At the blast's core, a massive sphere of pure destructive energy—blood‑colored light—instantly expanded; its speed and brilliance were such that in an instant it sought to swallow the entire threshing field and every struggling living thing within!

The blinding, retina‑scorching blood‑red light, like a burst dam of blood, violently flooded every corner of Ling Xiao's vision.

The world was instantly covered and melted by that nauseating red. Before the destructive crimson tide completely overwhelmed consciousness, Ling Xiao's eyes, seared painfully by the intense light, caught the resolute back of the figure nearest the blast's epicenter——

Shi Ran!

What is she going to do!