Shock in the Pope's Palace: Who Stole Her Holiness's Late-Night Snack!

The night was black as ink, and the lingering might of the purple lightning on the rocky hillside gradually dispersed into the cool mountain breeze.

The [Irminsul] in Chu Yuan's left palm swayed gently, its emerald branches and leaves, as though carved from colored glass, giving off soft ripples.

As he curled his five fingers slightly inward, the dozen or so fragments of Liyue white marble railing and bluestone brick scattered around the crater all trembled at once. Strands of amber Geo Ley Line light, visible to the naked eye, peeled away from within the stones and flowed into Irminsul's roots.

Stripped of the lingering traces of the Ley Line, the fragments instantly became ordinary stones, while a young leaf on one of Irminsul's branches grew somewhat more substantial.

"Let's go. The smell of blood is too strong here. Before long, older Soul Beasts will follow the scent."

Chu Yuan turned around, his gaze falling on the girl sitting on the bluestone with an outer garment wrapped around her.

Keqing held [Lion's Roar] and immediately tried to stand. She had always been strong-willed, and even though she had now given her heart and allegiance to Chu Yuan, she was unwilling to act like a frail, helpless burden.

But the moment the tips of her boots touched the ground, her legs went weak beneath her.

The baptism of primordial divine power that had lasted several minutes had completely remolded her Vision and all the meridians in her body, but it had also sent her soul and flesh through an intense trembling, nearly enough to make her shed her mortal body and exchange her bones.

Even now, waves of weakness and tingling lingered deep in her bones, enough to make her blush. Her knees buckled, and with a soft cry, she pitched forward.

"Ah..."

Before she could fall onto the rubble, Chu Yuan stepped forward. His right hand caught her slender waist, which he could have encircled with one hand, while his left scooped up the backs of her long legs, wrapped in torn purple stockings. In one smooth motion, he lifted her into his arms.

"Your meridians have only just been remolded, and the divine power hasn't fully settled into your body and fused with it yet. Why are you pushing yourself?"

Chu Yuan looked down at the girl's pretty face, which had instantly flushed with embarrassment. His arms supported her supple, shapely hips and legs as he tapped a toe against the bluestone.

"Boom-crack!"

First Soul Skill, [Heavenly Punishment Thunderbolt]!

The purple-gold First Soul Ring of divine authority flashed beneath Chu Yuan's feet and vanished. His figure instantly became a streak of purple-gold lightning that tore through the night, carrying Keqing as he leaped at tremendous speed between the forest canopies.

He crossed a hundred meters in an instant, while the divine power of Heavenly Principles automatically kept even the howling wind from their ears.

Keqing instinctively wrapped her arms around Chu Yuan's neck and pressed her burning cheek against his solid chest, clad only in a plain white inner robe.

This was the same lightning-flash principle behind her signature sword technique, "Star Dou Restoration," but in Chu Yuan's hands, its speed, distance, and control over space were several times greater than hers.

Listening to the steady, powerful heartbeat in the young man's chest and feeling the scorching warmth of his large hand through her torn black stockings, Keqing lowered her purple eyes slightly. The last trace of unease in her heart melted entirely into pliant attachment.

After little more than a dozen breaths, the depths of a secluded valley five li away were already before them.

Chu Yuan reined in the lightning and landed lightly before a stone cave at the far end of the valley.

The instant his feet touched the ground, a faint but exceptionally pure ripple of spatial resonance came from behind a rock face buried beneath vines and rubble in the deepest part of the valley.

"Hm? When the heavenly chasm tore open just now, something actually fell straight into the depths of this valley?"

Chu Yuan raised an eyebrow and carried Keqing toward the cliff at the valley's end.

Deeply embedded in a fissure at the foot of the cliff was a strange piece of ore, roughly half a person's height and lustrous gold-amber throughout. Stuck to its top was a partial shard of an emerald pot wall, decorated with adeptal cloud and crane patterns.

"This is... Plaustrite?! And a fragment of Cloud Retainer and the others' adeptal Serenitea Pot?!"

Lying against Chu Yuan's shoulder, Keqing got a clear look at the objects, and astonishment appeared in her purple eyes. "I've seen Plaustrite in the Jade Chamber's records and Ningguang's collection. It's the rare Liyue stone that keeps the Jade Chamber floating in the air. And what's flowing over that jade shard is unmistakably the adeptal art of creating realms that the Three-Eyed Five-Manifestation Immortals use to open independent realms!"

"So the Serenitea Pot's core and the Plaustrite fused together in the turbulence between worlds."

A trace of delight flashed in Chu Yuan's eyes. He had originally planned to reshape the stone cave using only [Irminsul] and the scattered Ley Line fragments he had just collected. He had not expected the rift in the heavenly chasm to deliver such a generous gift.

He gently set Keqing down on a bluestone to one side, then stepped forward and pressed his left hand against the Plaustrite and Serenitea Pot shard embedded in the rock face.

"Hum!" Second Martial Soul, [Irminsul], fully activated!

The tender green branch, as though carved from colored glass and crystal, floated out of Chu Yuan's palm. The instant it touched the Plaustrite and the Serenitea Pot shard, countless crystalline golden roots burst from its base, plunging like living things into the ore's core and the pulse of Star Dou's great earth beneath his feet!

"In the name of Heavenly Principles, anchor the Ley Line and reshape the realm!"

Chu Yuan's eyes once again turned the divine colors of intertwined pale gold and silver-white. The [Crown of Heavenly Principles] from his right hand hovered above his head, drawing in a ceaseless torrent of the violent Soul Power of Douluo's heaven and earth and forcing it through [Irminsul]'s network of roots into the Serenitea Pot shard.

"Rumble!" The entire secluded valley shook violently.

Countless brilliant emerald and gold-amber patterns of light spread rapidly along Irminsul's roots, covering the entire valley, several li across, in the blink of an eye.

The spatial laws of the "Realm Within" contained in the Serenitea Pot shard were fully activated and amplified by [Irminsul], transforming into a barrier of seven-colored flowing light, invisible to the naked eye, that completely separated the valley from the surrounding Star Dou Great Forest!

The instant the barrier closed, the planar pressure within the valley, which belonged to the Douluo Continent and was full of rejection and malice toward beings from another world, vanished without a trace.

In its place were the seven elemental powers of Teyvat and pure divine power, converted by [Irminsul] and so dense they were almost liquid!

Not only that, but under the transformation wrought by the Plaustrite and the Serenitea Pot's realm-creating power, the once dark and damp natural stone cave expanded and reassembled with a roar.

The rough rock walls became an ancient Liyue-style covered corridor with carved beams and painted rafters, while the floor was paved with lapis lazuli bricks as smooth as jade. In the spacious main chamber deeper inside the abode, a carved nanmu bed and screen appeared of their own accord, giving off a faint scent of sandalwood.

Beside the terrace outside the main chamber's side room, a natural spirit spring that drew on an underground fire vein and life essence burst from the earth, forming a steaming white marble hot spring pool wreathed in mist!

Several Silk Flowers and Sandbearer Wood trees bearing the air of Liyue quietly sprouted branches and leaves beside the pool, adorning the realm beneath the night sky.

"This... this is nothing short of a miracle..."

Keqing stood beneath the newly transformed jade corridor, feeling the Electro and breath of life in the air, several times more abundant and gentle than in Liyue Harbor. The shock in her heart was already beyond measure.

With nothing more than a wave of his hand, he had transformed a wild, perilous valley into an adeptal realm shielded from the plane's rejection. The authority of the man before her was truly worthy of the name "Primordial Heavenly Principles."

And at the very moment this "First Heavenly Principles Realm" was fully anchored and formed,

[Irminsul], rooted in the realm's core, gave a joyful, ringing cry. A vast quantity of law power, fused with the spatial and life origins of both worlds, surged back into Chu Yuan's body through the Martial Soul connection.

Beneath Chu Yuan's feet, his first purple-gold Soul Ring, three thousand years old, slowly lit up.

Immediately afterward, beyond the purple-gold Soul Ring, a deeper-colored ring of light, shimmering throughout with an emerald-glass luster and dark-gold spatial divine patterns, turned from illusory to solid and abruptly took shape!

Second Soul Ring, self-condensed through divine authority!

Moreover, because it had fused with a spatial fragment of the adeptal Serenitea Pot and the Ley Line of the entire secluded valley, the second Soul Ring's original age had crossed the five-thousand-year threshold and reached an astonishing six thousand years. It was purple so deep it was almost black, with a faint emerald-gold radiance circling its edge!

[Crown of Heavenly Principles/Irminsul · Second Soul Ring (self-condensed through divine authority · six thousand years)]:

Passive authority [Grotto-Heaven Blessed Land]: Within the anchored Heavenly Principles realm, the cultivation speed of the host and all those who have pledged allegiance increases by one hundred percent, while their recovery speed for injuries and Soul Power increases by three hundred percent. The realm's barrier can also perfectly conceal their presence and block all spiritual probes at the Titled Douluo level and below.

Active Soul Skill [Void Domain]: Draws upon the spatial authority of the Serenitea Pot and Irminsul. It can deploy spatial barriers anywhere within a hundred-meter radius to swallow or deflect enemy attacks, or instantly tear open space in a crisis and teleport the user and those nearby directly back to the anchored Heavenly Principles realm!

"Attack and defense in one, with absolutely safe cross-space teleportation and a cultivation bonus as well."

Chu Yuan felt the increasingly profound and abundant peak level-thirty Soul Power within him and nodded in satisfaction.

Now he only needed one last Third Soul Ring to formally enter the Soul Elder realm. With this realm anchored, he had an absolutely secure base of operations, whether he went to Suotuo City or deeper into the Star Dou Great Forest next.

Drawing in the two divine-authority Soul Rings pulsing around him, Chu Yuan turned to the purple-haired girl, who seemed a little ill at ease beside a corridor pillar.

"I've transformed this place into a realm dwelling shielded from the Douluo Plane's rejection. Neither the Soul Beasts nor the human Soul Masters outside can spy on it in the slightest."

Chu Yuan walked slowly up to Keqing. His gaze swept over the outer garment draped around her and the long, shapely legs beneath it, stained with dust and blood, their stockings badly torn. In a gentle voice, he said, "There's a Ley Line hot spring I just brought forth outside the side room. It's infused with Irminsul's life essence. Go wash off the blood and weariness and change into clean clothes. I'll wait for you in the inner room."

At the mention of bathing, the fair skin at the base of Keqing's ears grew slightly warm.

She looked down at her disheveled, torn formal dress, which could barely cover her body anymore. Feeling sticky and uncomfortable all over, she gave a slight nod. "Mm... thank you."