Chapter 279: Spiritual Qi

Jiang Tu's first reaction was to enlarge his form to shield himself and Jiang Yu, but it was once again thrust into the Dragon Pearl.

"Retreat quickly!" As soon as the Dragon Soul's warning sounded, the old shopkeeper there flashed, seized Jiang Yu, and urgently commanded her to cast the Little Five Thunder Technique again.

Jiang Yu held her life sword tightly to guard herself; though her eyes and spirit sense were overstimulated and she could not see, she sensed that within the old shopkeeper's barrier, after the first bolt of thunder struck, no second hit landed, so she obeyed and strained to unleash the technique.

The old shopkeeper saw more heavenly thunder drawn onto the Purple Gold Thunder Bamboo, promptly uprooted it, and slammed his palm's gathered force into the freshly blown opening.

The freshly fierce thunder and lightning streamed along the thunder bamboo into the endless deep shaft, cleansing most of the newly erupted yin qi and causing the nearby gray mist to fade away.

Soon, the thunder‑drawing formation the old shopkeeper had laid was detonated at the same time, and the sky‑covering thunder and lightning seemed to instantly blanket the center of the Floating Island.

A few demon kings watched from a distance, too afraid to approach, and asked, "Did the seal open?"

An unknown voice said, "They didn't even use us!"

Then Jiao Long glared, "If you want to go, I'll send you."

"No, no, no." The demon king kept waving his hands, and beside him the Shark‑man King lifted a cultivator's golden shield and dashed toward the center of the thunder and lightning.

"Shark, stop, are you courting death?" Bai Jing chased a few steps, then dared not continue.

The Shark‑man King flew even faster: "Bai Jing, the Transcendent has no limit, the Dragon King has opened a path, I'll go try it."

"But…" Bai Jing could not say something like "dead end"; she could only watch her friend thrust into the thunder, one shield blowing up and another replacing it.

The other demon kings glanced at each other, "Jiao Long, do you think this heavenly thunder is strange? It seems to have appeared from nowhere."

"What 'out of nowhere'? There must be some rare treasure appearing." As soon as Jiao Long finished speaking, the sky actively displayed his speculation; within the rumbling thunder, a gigantic palace seemed to appear and vanish.

"What is that? It's moving." The demons were momentarily baffled.

And this thunder, this palace—many people were witnessing them at that moment.

After the cultivators on Ganlu Island were frightened away, some Nascent Souls, hearing that the Transcendent Dragon King was appearing, stealthily slipped into the nearby sea, wanting to know why the old man suddenly meddled in the cultivators' conflict.

Naturally, whether the Nine Immortal Alliance or the Dragon Emperor Alliance, each entertained the idea of borrowing the Transcendent's power to strike the other.

Unexpectedly, today they beheld an extraordinarily spectacular heavenly thunder and a mysterious realm?

"No, I think I've seen that palace before."

"It seems to be the Tai Ji Dian of the Great Luo Celestial Realm."

"Is the Celestial Realm opening again?"

"Hurry, send a message."

Within moments, the news spread wildly across the islands; many, after learning the palace's original emergence site, were teleporting to Ganlu Island.

As a result, the island's teleportation array became so strained it got blocked.

The Nascent Souls at sea didn't know that as the palace in the sky became increasingly solid, every cultivator on the Dragon Emperor Archipelago could see it by simply looking up, including Guo Jue's group.

"Tai Ji Dian! My god, how did it suddenly appear?"

"Could it be that today we return to the Spirit Realm?" Xiao She Bilu looked up for a moment, then recalled something, and immediately used a maple leaf to message Jiang Tu.

Meanwhile, Guo Jue, Xu Wu, and Qin Zhuo first messaged the Enlightened Master on the barren island.

The reply they received was: the Celestial Realm has never manifested this phenomenon; observe its changes calmly.

And Xiao She Bilu, not getting a reply from Jiang Tu, said, "Reply, reply quickly! What is Jiang Tu up to?"

Guo Jue, ask Jiang Yu; you don't know the reason.

"Don't rush." Guo Jue naturally also needed to contact Jiang Yu, but he couldn't wait for a reply, "There won't be any trouble, right?"

"Is she training?" Xu Wu stared at the jade messaging talisman, sending a message each breath.

But Jiang Yu could no longer receive messages; she heard the old shopkeeper laughing loudly, "It's connected, it's connected, the underworld's Ghost Path is open!"

When he flew away, she herself was slammed by the Shark‑man King who rushed from the thunder zone behind, and was thrust into the Ghost Path.

Instantly, yin qi and the weakening thunder and lightning bore down, and an inexplicable suction pulled Jiang Yu's body deeper.

She accidentally kicked someone; her eyes finally could open, but she saw nothing in the pitch black, and her spirit sense was trapped in the Sea of Awareness, unable to escape.

"Who?" The old shopkeeper, hit on the shoulder, raised his fist to strike.

"I—" Jiang Yu tried to state her identity at once, but after uttering a single word, she was already dizzy, vision blurred, and coughing repeatedly.

The old shopkeeper was about to ask why she had followed in when another slammed onto Jiang Yu's falling form, saying, "Dragon King, and I, I'm injured."

The Shark‑man King collided with Jiang Yu in the thunder zone solely because several bolts of thunder and lightning scrambled his sense of direction.

The old shopkeeper sighed, seized them on both sides, and shielded them with his magical power.

Honestly, Jiang Yu was now very grateful for his righteous intervention; she didn't know the road ahead, her spirit sense still couldn't reach Jiang Tu, but feeling the Dragon Pearl still in her pouch gave her a little reassurance.

At this moment, she had no thought of whether the underworld's Ghost Path was a shortcut to the Spirit Realm, as she didn't even have the strength to look for a pill.

Time passed unknown, and the thunder above the Floating Island seemed to crack the sky; endless spiritual energy instantly descended, turning a vast sea area into something like a fairyland.

The massive palace vanished, and the thunder abruptly disappeared; cultivators and demonic beasts on the Dragon Emperor Archipelago began to advance one after another.

"The heavenly thunder has stopped!"

The demon kings stared at the endless azure sky, and when they looked down, the center of the Floating Island was a wasteland of charred black, with only a half‑broken piece of Purple Thunder Bamboo lying on the ground, faintly emitting a weak electric arc.

The demons' spirit senses scanned everywhere, finding no old shopkeeper nor the other two, "Bai Jing, you also heard the old shopkeeper shout that the Ghost Path is open, right?"

"Hmm." Bai Jing stepped forward and placed the remaining Purple Gold Thunder Bamboo into a Heaven‑Earth Box.

A demon king swallowed, "But there's no opening now; could we be mistaken?"

"No, the old Dragon King must have gone from the Ghost Path to the Spirit Realm.

"I regret not following." Jiao Long's mind raced, "We must not let anyone know, quickly take the formation disc the old Dragon King left, and then seal the Floating Island."

"Bai Jing, restore this place, then plant some flora to hasten their growth."

"Indeed, we must not let the human race profit." The demon kings moved swiftly.

Because they arranged the formation so quickly, cultivators arriving from all directions didn't even glimpse the Floating Island's shadow.

Moreover, not long after, the fish cards taken thirty years ago from the Great Luo Celestial Realm all turned to powder.

The news spread to Tianyuan Continent and then to East Continent, long after.

At that time, the spiritual qi in all realms was noticeably denser than before; the Sui Lv Zhenjun, who was far away on the Dongzhou Continent, unexpectedly underwent God Transformation while searching for his eldest disciple on an outer island.

However, he never found his eldest disciple; only when the teleportation arrays reconnected and he returned to Tianyuan did he learn that his junior disciple, Jiang Yu, had been missing for a hundred years.

Thus he embarked again on the search for his disciple, enduring many twists and turns, before learning from the already God‑Transformed White Whale King that Jiang Yu and the Old Dragon King might have reached the Spirit Realm via the Netherworld's ghostly path.

But no matter how he and the demon kings tested on the floating island, they could not summon the heavenly thunder as it had been a century ago; the ghostly path left no trace.

?? Today's chapter.