The pressure that had clung to her all this time vanished completely.
Jiang Lu's gaze sharpened. So it really was the coral working mischief in secret!
It silently absorbed cultivators' spiritual energy in a way they were least likely to notice, stripping away every means they had to protect themselves. Like boiling a frog in warm water, it killed without leaving a trace.
She looked up, her eyes fixed on the Life Stone and Life-Breath Pearl sealed inside the coral beside her.
Scene after scene flashed through her mind. At last, she understood everything strange about the path here.
All the way through the deep-sea currents, the waters had been barren and deathly still, without a living creature in sight.
She had assumed this was a forbidden region of the deep sea, so perilous that no creatures lived here.
But now that she thought about it, how could there have been no creatures? The sea beasts nearby had clearly sensed something terrifying about this coral. They had fled the moment they spotted it, too wary to come anywhere close!
Now that she understood, a bone-deep chill of belated fear swept over her.
A bead of sweat slid down her forehead and along her jaw. It gathered into a round droplet that floated before her, drifting toward a branch of Crimson Coral below.
The instant the droplet touched the coral, the dense black specks on its surface stirred. They swallowed the sweat in a flash, leaving not a trace.
Jiang Lu's pupils contracted. She stared at the coral's surface.
Her eyes had not deceived her.
The black specks, dormant until now, had flickered ever so faintly. A dim glint passed over them before they returned to normal.
Jiang Lu held her breath and carefully sensed the flow of spiritual energy around