High above the firmament, a radiance suddenly spilled down. It was not dazzling, yet the agitated space around them instantly fell quiet, as though even time had grown docile in that moment.
The radiance fell upon the Illusory Daoist, and his fading phantom immediately solidified, frozen in place.
At the source of the radiance, Taizhen stood in midair, a simple yet enigmatic treasure mirror resting in her hands.
The mirror's surface was engraved with the Sun Moon Stars and the patterns of mountains and rivers. Its face was hazy as an eternal night. It was none other than the Top-grade Spiritual Treasure, the Kunlun Mirror!
"Release Donghua, and I'll allow your true spirit to escape." Taizhen's voice was cool, and the mirror's light had already locked onto the Daoist.
"Too late!" The Daoist laughed wildly. "This is an Innate Great Array. No one can do a thing!"
Before his words had even faded, divine light burst forth from the array, its blinding radiance completely swallowing Donghua's figure.
Taizhen's heart tightened. She transformed into a streak of light and shot down, while the Kunlun Mirror blossomed with a radiance greater than ever before, trying to still this out-of-control space and time.
"Crack—"
A crisp sound like shattering Lapis Lazuli rang across the wilderness.
Taizhen's expression shifted. She saw that the Kunlun Mirror's radiance had been forced open by the Silver Array Light, a fissure appearing in it.
"Donghua?!" Seeing this, Taizhen's heart tightened, and she turned into a streak of light and rushed over.
By the time she landed, Donghua had already vanished. Only the array patterns remained, slowly fading away.
"Hahaha! Back then, I was trapped by this array for several Yuanhui before I finally escaped. Wait here, and I'll be on my way!"
At the instant the array swallowed Donghua's figure, resolve flashed in Taizhen's eyes. The radiance of the Kunlun Mirror in her hands blazed brighter, and an intangible yet profoundly mysterious Time Ripple abruptly spread outward from her.
"Draw a Circle as Prison, Time as Shackles!"
Her cool voice seemed to carry the power of some supreme law.
The ripple swept past, and all things came to a standstill.
Whether it was dust drifting in the distance, rocks splitting nearby, or the Daoist, whose face had just begun to show a mixture of shock and delight—even Taizhen herself—everything was absolutely frozen in that instant.
Time had completely stopped flowing in this space.
Yet amid this absolute stillness, consciousness remained active, like fish swimming beneath the currents of a frozen lake.
The Daoist was eternally fixed inside the Space-Time Amber, yet his consciousness roared frantically:
"Madwoman! You actually chose to imprison yourself here! When your magic power runs dry in ten thousand years, I'll be free to leave!"
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Donghua felt the scene before his eyes shift. When he focused, he found himself in a stretch of lush greenery.
Ancient trees rose from the earth, their branches and leaves blocking out the sky.
Chaos Spiritual Qi drifted through the forest, almost imperceptible, flowing amid mottled light and shadow.
A thick carpet of rotting leaves covered the ground. It was soft and soundless beneath his feet. From afar came the trickle of a brook, mingling with the rustle of leaves to form nature's own rhythm.
The forest seemed ordinary, yet everything about it hinted at the extraordinary. The ancient trees appeared randomly arranged, but their positions secretly aligned with the Number of Zhou Tian. The Spiritual Qi seemed to flow at whim, yet followed a mysterious course.
Donghua observed closely and discovered that the veins of every leaf seemed like Dao Patterns made manifest, flowing with a faint radiance amid the mottled light and shadow.
This place was peaceful enough to make one's heart pound with unease.
Donghua's gaze turned grave as his divine sense spread out like a net.
He did not use an Evasion Technique. Instead, he casually picked a direction and walked forward on foot, in the most primitive way.
His steps landed on the thick layer of rotting leaves with a soft rustle.
In this unusually quiet forest, the sound seemed especially clear, even carrying a faint echo, as if he were speaking with the forest itself.
His steps were measured. With every step he took, a Pale Gold Dao Pattern rippled beneath his feet.
As his feet touched the ground, the branches and leaves of the ancient trees around him moved without a breeze, rustling softly as if resonating with his Dao aura.
The Innate Spiritual Qi flowing through the forest parted naturally like a stream splitting around a boulder before it could touch Donghua's Pure Yang Daoist Robe, forming a transparent barrier three feet around him.
Yet the farther he went, the heavier the look between Donghua's brows grew. The sound of the brook remained ahead of him, and the rhythm of the rustling leaves never changed.
More importantly, the Pure Yang Dao aura unique to him still lingered on the carpet of rotting leaves beneath his feet. It had not yet fully dissipated. It was the trace of aura he had left behind when he was transported here not long ago.
The entire forest seemed to be an intricate mechanism, adjusting its layout in sync with his movements.
"An illusion, or..."
Donghua's gaze sharpened, and he stopped moving forward. His sleeves swept out, and the Jingyang Bell emerged, hovering before him. As his vast magic power poured into it, the ancient bell abruptly transformed into a streak of Azure Divine Light and hurtled forward like a Sky-Opening Divine Axe!
Wherever the divine light passed, ripples spread through space, and the trees toppled before it.
According to his divine sense, the Jingyang Bell was indeed speeding farther and farther away. Yet he could feel that it was drawing closer and closer to him.
The next moment.
"Buzz!"
A familiar bell toll rang out from three zhang behind him.
Donghua turned around. The Jingyang Bell was hovering behind the spot where he had first stood. The Dao aura around the bell had not yet fully subsided, and traces of its passage through space still lingered around it.
The passage that had been blasted open ahead of him had long since vanished, as if that earth-shattering strike had never happened.
The entire forest remained quiet. Only the Jingyang Bell trembled faintly behind him.
Donghua watched this scene. He was not the least bit annoyed; instead, a faint interest surfaced in his eyes.
He reached out to recall the Jingyang Bell, his fingertips brushing across its surface.
"Interesting. Space Law!"
Donghua murmured. This trip to Buzhou Mountain had indeed not disappointed him.
Such exquisitely intricate Dao of Space was most likely the work of an Innate Great Array. The fact that such a powerful array protected this Spiritual Treasure had already stirred Donghua's curiosity.
As for the figure hiding outside the array...
A trace of indifference passed through Donghua's eyes.
Taizhen was no pushover. There might be those among their generation who could reliably defeat her, but the one outside certainly wasn't one of them. Donghua could safely focus on breaking the array.
Now that he had explored some of its mysteries, Donghua naturally wanted to test the array.
Without the slightest hesitation, he brought out all three of his Spiritual Treasures this time.
The Jingyang Bell hovered before him, clearing the way. Wherever its vast tolling passed, ripples shimmered through space.
His Pure Yang Daoist Robe gleamed with the true essence of a blazing sun, its hems ablaze. It seared even the distorted Space Law around him, making it warp further.
The Stream of Time wound around him. Fragments of time were reflected in its clear waters, and every ripple carried the weight of the ages.
"Space forms a loop!"
Donghua used an Evasion Technique, spreading his divine sense like a net as he carefully sensed his surroundings.
If he had not known that space here formed a loop, he might not have noticed anything amiss. But now that he was observing with focused attention, the distortion in space was unmistakable. Just as he had expected, space here was not straight. A mysterious force had forcibly twisted it.
"Break!"
There was no need to test further. At a thought from Donghua, the Jingyang Bell hovering before him rang out abruptly.
The toll was not vast, but it carried a precise and domineering force that shook space, striking directly at the spatial node that had been forcibly twisted.
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