Lin Qi immediately contacted Yu Ai. "Is this some kind of illusion realm?"
"Let me take a look first. I need some time."
Lin Qi stopped moving recklessly and swept her gaze around, finally landing on the two fish in the pool.
In this earthly paradise, the only living creatures were those two fish.
Yet no matter how Lin Qi examined them, she could not tell what was so rare about them.
As she pondered, lightning gathered in her palm and silently struck the center of the pool.
Amid a crackling burst, the water and fish in the pool scattered wildly from Lin Qi's electricity, and Yu Ai's voice suddenly rang out.
"There are indeed traces of an illusion technique."
The moment her words fell, the singing birds and fragrant flowers vanished in an instant, swallowed instead by pitch-black darkness.
Lin Qi blinked, taking a long while to adjust to the dark surroundings. But once she realized the magnitude of the threat before her, every muscle in her body tensed.
She was still in that narrow, gloomy cave, except there was now another kind of creature within it.
Pitch-black vine branches spread in every direction, threading through every inch of the walls like veins and arteries.
Above her head, those malformed Black Tendrils had all gathered together, twisting into a tree half a person tall. Two fruits, one azure and one crimson, hung from its branches.
Two tiny snakes, one azure and one crimson, each no bigger than a fingernail, were coiled atop the fruit tree.
The two snakes had raised themselves upright, flicking their tongues as they watched Lin Qi with utter vigilance, ready to attack at any moment.
Lin Qi's face twitched, but she recognized the two snakes at a glance.
—Azure Fiend and Crimson Fiend, the companion