In Ding Songyan's sight, high in the darkness where yin-green lightning occasionally leaped, an immense shadow blotted out all light and plunged toward him.
With it came an exceptionally shrill, harrowing rattling.
Ding Songyan instinctively took two steps back, and a colossal creature immediately appeared in his eyes.
The creature had the body of a phoenix, its neck branching into no fewer than nine heads, each bearing a human face. Those nine faces displayed anger, hatred, or resentment, their expressions all different, yet all twisted and vicious to the extreme.
The nine-headed phoenix's remnant soul swooped silently toward Ding Songyan as though it could engulf the Netherworld. Its entire body was crimson, stained with murky green, and constantly dripping pus and black blood. Every drop vanished moments after falling into the void, dissolving into smoke-like darkness.
Ding Songyan's body had frozen where he stood. His soul stirred restlessly, eager to leave his body and fly to the nine-headed phoenix.
His consciousness could still barely function, and he wanted to shut his Yin Eye immediately. But every time, his Yin Eye had been activated by the Heavenly Heart Imprint and closed naturally. He had never stopped it himself before, and for a moment, he had no idea how.
It opens through the Heavenly Heart Imprint... could it close through the Heavenly Heart Imprint too... yes, there's a way... The thought had barely flashed through Ding Songyan's mind before his consciousness began to "freeze" as the nine-headed phoenix's remnant soul rapidly approached.
Just then, a warm, yellowish candle flame lit up, shining over his body and into his sea of consciousness and divine soul, briefly freeing him from the darkness and the Netherworld's influence.
This sword intent came from Autumn Water, from Zheng Zhuxi.
Those two steps Ding Songyan had taken backward