Chapter 830

Yan Buji stared at the white "silk satin" stretching a thousand li, his heart churning with shocking waves. This was no ordinary spiritual energy—in the forbidden zone where mutant aura raged, any normal spiritual energy would be contaminated and devoured, yet these "silk satin" before him writhed like living things, even eroding the surrounding aura in reverse, forming a strange pure domain.

"This is... spirit shedding?!" He suddenly recalled the ancient text's record about "feather transformation spirit shedding."

When a cultivator touches a certain forbidden realm, the flesh spontaneously sheds its old shell, extracting pure energy-state matter. But Yun Qing is clearly only at Nascent Soul stage—how could this phenomenon arise?

"Crack!"

A clear cracking sound suddenly came from the center of the "silk satin". Yun Qing's brow silver moth-wing pattern flared with blinding light; the semi-transparent wing buds on her back tore through her gauze robe, instantly expanding into three pairs of six wings! Each wing membrane was covered in dense silver runes that flickered with her breath.

What's even more terrifying are her eyes. When her eyelids lift, what is revealed is no longer human pupils, but two rotating silver-white vortices, as if they could directly perceive the heavenly Dao's laws. The ground swept by her gaze sees the mutant rocks shed their impurity and revert to ordinary stone.

"You came." Yun Qing's voice echoed from all directions simultaneously, each syllable causing the surrounding silk to vibrate. She slowly hovered into midair, her six wings unfurling like a deity descending, and where her toes touched, rings of silver-white light rippled outward. "When I sensed the news of the three sects avoiding battle, I guessed you would cross the mutant zone."

Yan Buji's muscles tensed throughout his body, chaotic martial qi surging through his meridians like thunder. Yun Qing before him gave him an extreme sense of danger.

Yun Qing now bears no resemblance to her former self; instead, she resembles some unknown Existence that has descended by borrowing a shell. "What exactly are you now—human or demon? Or… something else?"

"Heh." Yun Qing curled her lips into an inhuman arc, her six wings suddenly trembling violently. The sky's silk instantly erupted, turning into countless silver threads that stabbed toward Yan Buji! "We were pawns all along."

"Boom!" Yan Buji crossed his fists and unleashed a Chaotic Break; the grayish fist force colliding with the silver threads actually produced a metallic clang. He took advantage of the momentum to retreat a hundred zhang, only to find that the silk at his landing spot had already anticipated his trajectory, wrapping around his ankles like a living thing. The moment those silver threads touched his skin, they began frenziedly draining his internal chaotic martial qi!

"Useless." Yun Qing's figure flickered into view amidst the silver threads, her fingertip lightly touching his brow, "What the Sage wants is not a victory between humans and demons, but enough high-quality Dao dissipation......"

Yan Buji suddenly grinned, the blood threads in his mutant eyes exploding! Two crimson light beams shot from his eyes, shattering the silver threads before his brow with sheer force: "How coincidental—I'm best at overturning the game board!"

"Mutant Force?" Yun Qing chuckled: "Don't you know that the primordial essence within my body is precisely the source of the mutant force?"

At that very instant, Yan Buji's eyes felt as if struck by a powerful force, suddenly bursting open! In a flash, his vision flooded with blood-red, as if the whole world had been dyed crimson.

Intense pain surged like a tide, his body involuntarily trembling for a moment, his posture also pausing. Yet this was only a brief pause; almost simultaneously, Yan Buji gritted his teeth through the pain and quickly adjusted his condition.

Despite the lingering excruciating pain in his eyes, as if countless fine needles were continually pricking his brain, he remained firmly standing, showing no intention to retreat.

"Useless." Yun Qing shook her head and slowly flew over in midair.

Yan Buji covered his left eye, suddenly realizing something.

"Can mutant force be transformed into pure spiritual energy?"

"You're not stupid yet."

As she spoke, Yun Qing lunged to kill again.

Yan Buji felt a terrible premonition; Yun Qing's state was unfathomable, and moreover, it seemed that having grasped the primordial essence's power, her strength had risen to a height he could hardly hope to reach.

However, since this power does not wholly belong to her, Yan Buji could sense only from her aura that she was merely an early Nascent Soul cultivator.

But an early Nascent Soul cultivator couldn't possibly possess such combat power!

In the midst of his thoughts, Yan Buji activated the Instant Movement Technique, widening the distance and flashing several times, yet Yun Qing did not follow.

"What's going on?"

Yan Buji felt somewhat puzzled, not seeing Yun Qing's figure—could it be that she cannot leave the center of the mutant zone?

With his left eye shut, Yan Buji felt the pure spiritual energy flowing in after his eyeball exploded, but it seemed that, having distanced himself from Yun Qing, the vast mutant haze within the mutant zone poured uncontrolled into his left eye, beginning to repair his mutant eye.

Even Yan Buji could not reverse it; he could only forcibly maintain a limit, withdrawing from the mutant zone the moment his mutant eye finished healing.

This encounter made Yan Buji feel a terror unlike anything he had ever known.

"Yun Qing's condition is far too strange—could it be the Sage's layout? And what exactly is this high-quality Dao dissipation…" Yan Buji frowned.

In short, does achieving the Sage's purpose now require many people to die?

Just as Yan Buji was still feeling uneasy after leaving the mutant zone.

A disheveled Daoist suddenly appeared beside the awakened Yun Qing.

He grabbed Yun Qing's head with one hand, gathering the surrounding spiritual husks and covering her with them.

Yun Qing now lay limp like a puppet, allowing him to do as he pleased, and the center of the mutant zone reverted once more to its original state.

"The true form's power is hard to nurture." He crossed his arms, looking around.

Suddenly, he looked up, as if pointing at someone in the void, and said, "Hurry down!"

The void trembled slightly, and three individuals with the aura of immortals stepped out.

"Hai Zhen Daozhang..." an old Daoist chuckled hehe, whereupon the disheveled Daoist furrowed his brow:

"We agreed you wouldn't interfere—are you really looking for death?"

"No no no, Master Hai Zhen, hear us out—we only wanted to lend you a hand, not meddle in anything else." The old Daoist, sweat pouring down his face, hurried to explain.

"You'd better hope that's the case."

The disheveled Daoist patted the spiritual husk wrapping Yun Qing and said, "What's inside concerns many people. Once it is born in the war, this world will also meet its end."

The three men's faces changed, yet they dared not say more.

The young man beside them paused, gritted his teeth, and asked, "Well… Master Hai Zhen, after that one is born, can we… get out?"

"You're asking me? Better ask those few of Chaos Heaven—they've been waiting for several ages." The disheveled Daoist smiled, then suddenly began to sing and dance madly.

Watching the disheveled Daoist's appearance, the three exchanged glances and hurriedly left the place.