Before Gui Mei finished speaking, the black shadow clinging to the rock wall peeled away and lunged straight for Xiao Wu's head. The fluctuations of nine Soul Rings bore down on the red light at once.
"Xiao Wu, get behind me!"
Tang San propped himself up with the broken spear. He had barely taken half a step when the sacrificial power pushed him back. Golden-red light pressed against his chest without hurting him.
Gui Mei's black hand had already descended.
Ji Yuan tightened his root tips, waiting for that hand to pass through the outermost red light. But the moment the two forces met, the sacrificial field expanded outward.
The black hand dissolved from the wrist down.
Immediately afterward, the sound of a rock wall shattering came from the valley entrance. Gui Mei's aura was thrust dozens of yards away, and the Mental Power dispersed throughout the surroundings slipped out of his control.
Ji Yuan's moment had arrived.
His underground main root extended along the cracks in both directions. The metal-attribute essence he had yet to finish digesting flowed into his root tips, which pierced successive layers of hard rock. Fine roots reached straight into the soil covered by the Ghost Domain.
Red light concealed the ground.
The Vengeful Spirits that had been guarding Tang San's feet scattered outward. Ji Yuan released a length of root, and dark-red mycelium clung to the nearest black shadow, immediately burrowing into it.
Icy energy flowed back through the mycelium.
There was no poison, nor any flesh to peel away. These Vengeful Spirits, which relied on Soul Power to maintain their forms, had no chance even to retreat once they touched the Root Network.
The first black shadow vanished. Fine roots had already entwined the second.
Ji Yuan sent his newly acquired power toward