Chapter 496

Wang Yu felt surrounded by darkness, as if time had lost all meaning, and his mind held no extraneous thoughts.

Yet strangely, he could clearly sense a faint human shadow in the darkness, watching him with cold eyes.

He instinctively gazed toward the shadow, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never make out its form.

Thus, he remained in the darkness for an unknown length of time, until the shadow finally lost interest and stepped forward out of the dark.

Its footsteps were light yet composed, giving an oddly careless impression.

Wang Yu instinctively widened his eyes, straining to look at the figure.

The shadow in the darkness gradually became clear—tall and slender, unmistakably female.

When Wang Yu looked at her face, it remained blurred; he could only see a pair of yellow eyes, utterly devoid of emotion, gazing at him as if he were an ant.

Suddenly, the blurred portion of her face vanished, and her features became sharply visible.

“Ah!”

Wang Yu involuntarily cried out in shock at the sight of her face.

The next instant, he jolted awake, eyes snapping open, and froze in place.

He was floating midair, one hand pressed against a massive yellow eye before him; the sky above was cloudless, the ground lush with vegetation.

On the surface of the yellow eye, twenty-two talismanic runes glowed with brilliant bloodlight, one of which was slightly dimmed—clearly the one he had just deciphered.

Yet the blood-red sky, countless yellow eyes, churning earth, and dense network of blood veins from his memory had vanished entirely.

Had all that he experienced been nothing but a dreamlike illusion?

Wang Yu’s face betrayed disbelief, but he instinctively retracted his arm and shot backward ten zhang in a flash, landing with white clouds forming beneath his feet; he immediately scanned his body.

His upper garments were intact, his skin showed no pain or injury, his meridians and qi were perfectly normal, and even his supposedly depleted spiritual sense still retained a small portion.

Wang Yu’s expression turned grave; he slapped his waist pouch, and a jet-black flying dagger appeared in his hand.

Had that nightmare experience truly been nothing but an illusion?

Gazing at the artifact in his hand, Wang Yu was stunned, his conviction wavering.

But if all he had endured was false, then this yellow eye was even more terrifying—it could plunge one into illusion without warning or awareness.

Regardless, he could not stay here any longer.

Wang Yu’s thoughts raced; he retracted the dagger, formed a hand seal, and white crackling flames surged over his body, coalescing into a massive white fireball that shot off in one direction, searching for an exit.

Since he had been teleported directly here, he believed the exit must not be far away.

But his spiritual sense had been suppressed by the area’s restrictions—he could not release it to scan quickly; otherwise, outside this place, a single thought would have easily located the wooden door.

Even so, his fire-dashing technique, powered by the Red Sun Great Art, was astonishingly swift—he circled the area several times like a bolt of wind, always keeping a wide distance from the massive yellow eye.

Finally, the white flame curled back, and he landed beneath a giant tree at the perimeter.

Beneath the tree stood a yellow wooden door.

Wang Yu pointed at the door with his finger, tapping the air three times.

“Bang.” “Bang.” “Bang.” Three knocks echoed.

After a moment, the wooden door slowly opened.

Without hesitation, Wang Yu stepped inside.

“Clang.”

As soon as he entered, the door slammed shut swiftly on its own.

Then, the door blurred and vanished from its place.

Almost simultaneously.

Deep within a secret chamber of the Azure Water Palace, a blue-clad boy with red lips and white teeth, wearing a copper lock around his chest, stared at a giant copper mirror before him, one person’s height.

The mirror showed Wang Yu stepping through the wooden door, which then slowly faded away.

The boy’s face remained expressionless; he traced a finger through the air above the mirror, and the image blurred—when it cleared again, it revealed a yellow eye floating motionless in midair.

On either side of the eye, the two dozen talismanic runes Wang Yu had deciphered were slowly fading.

“Not bad—this time so many runes were deciphered. But why do I feel something’s off? Did someone dare meddle under my very nose?”

The boy stared at the yellow eye in the mirror for a long while, then frowned slightly, muttered softly, and formed a hand seal.

“Boom!”

In the mirror, thunder cracked above the yellow eye, and a lightning bolt as thick as a bowl plunged from the sky, striking it squarely.

“Puff!”

The yellow eye shattered into a massive cloud of blood mist.

The once sunny, verdant space, after the blood mist swept through, seemed peeled away like skin—transforming into a terrifying realm of crimson sky and twisted rocks, alien trees.

The blood mist coalesced again, forming a massive blood egg the size of a human head, covered in dense black filaments that writhed slightly, emitting a steady “thump-thump” heartbeat.

It looked profoundly unnatural!

“Hmph. The original form is far more pleasing to the eye.” The boy stared at the blood egg in the mirror for a long moment, then snorted and flicked his sleeve.

The mirror’s image gradually dimmed and faded.

The boy closed his eyes and sat cross-legged before the mirror.

……

In the white jade hall.

Wang Yu stared in surprise at the golden-robed man now standing beside the woman, but quickly recovered and bowed deeply to both:

“Greetings, Elder Masters.”

The golden-robed man’s spiritual energy was equally unfathomable—he was clearly a Golden Core cultivator.

“Wang Yu, you spent eight full days inside. How many talismanic runes did you decipher?” Before Chai He Feng could speak, the golden-robed man asked first.

“Respected Elder, though I gave my utmost, I could only decipher twenty-two runes before my spiritual sense was exhausted and I could no longer continue.” Wang Yu replied honestly, without hesitation.

He naturally said nothing of his strange experience.

“Twenty-two! Excellent! Excellent! Deciphering these runes grows harder the further you go; for you to achieve this with the Ten Thousand Forms Eye is far beyond our expectations.”

“Wang Yu, I ask you: would you be willing to join the Azure Water Palace and become an inner disciple of my Spirit Law Peak?”

At these words, the golden-robed man smiled broadly, and beside him, Chai He Feng’s eyes sparkled as she smiled too.

“Wang Yu, my Pure Fire Peak specializes in fire-based cultivation arts—I am its master, Yan Tu. If you join my peak, I still have one slot for a direct disciple—I will take you on as my personal disciple.”