Not long after, Du Yushu led Li Bufan into a space. The moment his feet stepped inside, the entrance behind him silently closed, as though it had never existed.
He raised his head, and the sight at the center of that space made his heart tighten sharply.
At the center of the space, Li Tianying sat cross-legged atop a ritual platform condensed from True Essence, his eyes closed. Though he still maintained the composure of deep meditation, a trace of black qi, like dark clouds, faintly shrouded the space between his brows.
That black qi was not dense, yet it was impossible to ignore, like fine cracks clinging to the surface of porcelain.
The other seven Peak Masters were scattered around him, each continuously pouring their own True Essence into his body through different methods.
Xie Qisha sat closest to Li Tianying. Even his usually frivolous face carried a trace of gravity.
Yan Cangxuan, the Peak Master of Flame Peak, sat cross-legged directly before Li Tianying. His hands formed a complex seal, while a ball of white flame, compressed to the extreme, gathered at his fingertips. The flame flickered at an exceedingly low frequency. With every flicker, it forced a wisp of black aura a little farther out of Li Tianying's body, after which Xie Qisha's True Essence severed it completely.
The instant Li Bufan saw that scene, his steps involuntarily halted.
His gaze fell upon Li Tianying's tightly shut eyes and the faint black qi between his brows. "Peak Master Du, what happened to my master?"
Seeing the anxiety on his face, Du Yushu slowly said, "That poem you recited in the arena—after Tian Ying heard it, he suffered qi deviation."
"When I found him, a layer of heart-demon power had already wrapped around his Dharma Form."
"Old Xie