(618 was in the comments at the end of the previous chapter.)
"Mas... Master..."
A timid, trembling whisper, almost too faint to hear, shattered the intimate, feverish silence in the corner, along with its strange rhythm.
Mo Lin slowly emerged from his state of deep cultivation and union. His Immortal Eye opened, and Chaos Light flashed past, the vast power and profound majesty within it making those in his arms tremble instinctively.
He lowered his head toward the source of the voice. It was Ling'er. The girl, beautiful after taking human form like a moonlight elf, was now leaning limply in the crook of his arm. Her sapphire-blue eyes still held a misty daze and lingering passion, while the tear tracks on her little face had yet to dry, making her appear all the more pitiful.
Yet she forced her eyes open wide and cautiously pointed with her slender, still trembling fingertip at the ceiling of the cave—the strange ferns embedded in the rock walls, giving off faint yet gentle blue-green light.
"Their... their light seems to be... getting dimmer." Ling'er's voice remained hoarse from sobbing, timid as though afraid of disturbing her master, yet filled with anxiety and unease.
Mo Lin followed her fingertip, narrowing his Immortal Eye. Sure enough, the luminous plants known as Blue Light Ferns were gradually dimming at an extremely slow yet steady and unyielding pace.
The once fairly bright cave was being eroded bit by bit by a deeper, ominous gloom.
The faint but unmistakable fresh aura of "life" in the air was weakening and thinning as well. In its place came a pure aura of "deathly stillness," spreading from every direction, from beyond the cave, from the depths of that ink-thick darkness—an aura that made one's soul feel oppressed, icy, and filled with