Chen Wuya's hand was still pressed against Bai Zhi's abdomen as Misaligned Force slowly probed inward. The icy current inside the fetus was fiercer than before, like an ice spring rampaging through its meridians. His brows furrowed, and the system immediately trembled.
[Abnormal lifeform resonance detected. Immediate disconnection recommended.]
He did not withdraw his hand. Instead, he softened the Misaligned Force even further and followed that icy current deeper inside. The farther he went, the more wrong it felt. Amid the cold lurked a thread of something dark and chilling—not the original aura of the Heart of Extreme Cold, but something that seemed to have seeped in from elsewhere. It coiled around the fetus's bloodline like vines, slowly tightening.
"There's a problem," he said quietly. "There's foreign energy inside."
Bai Zhi leaned against the bed, her face pale. "Could it... be related to the Heart of Extreme Cold?"
"More than that." Chen Wuya shook his head. "This energy is corrosive, like the baleful artifacts used by the Demonic Cult." He recalled the line of blood-written words on the stone hut wall—ice and fire complement each other, yin and yang give birth in reverse. If that was truly the case, someone had long since planned how to make use of this child.
Mo Feng was not in the tent; he had gone to inspect the medicinal formation. For now, Chen Wuya could rely only on himself. He withdrew his hand, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes to circulate Misaligned Force. The Canglang Art was originally a water-element cultivation method, but he had always practiced it backward, its true qi pathways twisted every which way. This time, he simply reversed the heart method three times, condensing Misaligned Force into a talisman seal in his palm.
When the seal formed, it