"How far is it from the center of the formation?" he asked.
The Snow Empress remained silent for a few moments, as if sensing something. "At its current speed... less than an incense stick's time." She suddenly opened her eyes, looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with a watery luster, but deep within her pupils was a clear and composed demeanor. " Yin Wujou, if I manage to suppress it here, will I be able to get out after the array closes again?"
Yin Wujou was taken aback by her question. He squatted down to be at her eye level and said seriously, "Yes. After the array is activated, a layer of suppressive power will seal the thing underneath, but it won't affect the person at the array eye. Once it's completely suppressed, you can get out. It doesn't matter if the array eye is empty—the stone pillar has been repaired, and the suppressive power will last for a while."
Snow Empress looked at him for a few moments, nodded, and closed her eyes again. "Alright. Then stand a little further away; it'll be here soon."
Yin Wujou stood up and retreated to the edge of the cave, standing side by side with Daoist Yun behind a huge stalactite. Both of them breathed very softly, the oil lamps and luminous pearls were put away, and only the amber light of the array itself stained everything with a warm, dark gold. The light spread out in concentric circles from the center of the pit, illuminating every ancient pattern on the ground, and making the figure of Snow Empress, who sat at the center of the array, appear exceptionally clear in the halo of light—her eyes were slightly lowered, her hands rested on her knees, and the emerald light in her palms slowly rotated, her whole being like a serene and solemn sculpture that had been worshipped for a long time.
The tremors returned, this time far more violent than before. The entire cavern's dome hummed, and tiny pebbles rained down from above, striking the black stone slabs with a crackling sound. Yin Wujou's hand instinctively gripped the hilt of his short sword, but Snow Empress's voice came from the direction of the circular pit, as calm as a stagnant pool. "Don't move. It's here."
Then Yin Wujou saw that thing.
The darkness at the cave entrance suddenly came alive, churning and surging—a thick, black liquid overflowed from the passageway, flooding into the cave with incredible speed and without a sound, like a silent black torrent. The torrent slid along the ground towards the center of the array, and when it touched the first engraved line on the edge of the array, an amber light suddenly shone brightly, as if scalded, raising the light in all the lines by an inch.
The black torrent was momentarily blocked by the light, retreating half a foot, but then surged back again. This time, it didn't surge forward flat; instead, a dark green spine slowly rose from the center of the torrent—a deep green like a touch of blue mixed into an ink background, its scales densely layered, each edge gleaming with a dark metallic sheen. Below the spine was an incredibly robust body, covered in a layer of translucent mucus that hissed and emitted white smoke as it dripped onto the stone slabs.
It was still crawling out. The black torrent gushing from the tunnel entrance was actually a mixture of its mucus and bodily fluids; the real main body was its dark green spine—growing wider and taller, and as it slowly squeezed out of the tunnel entrance, the entire cavern seemed to be compressed. Yin Wujou stood behind the stalactites, watching its body emerge segment by segment from the cave entrance, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. He had seen that tentacle in the liquid pool at the bottom of the Soul-Severing Gorge, but it was only a segment. Now, seeing this thing's complete body emerge from the darkness, the oppressive feeling made all the hairs on the back of his head stand on end.
Its head finally emerged from the tunnel entrance. The shape of the skull reminded Yin Wujou of the drawing on the bamboo slips—oval, slightly narrowed at the front, with two raised bony ridges on the top of the skull extending from above the eye sockets all the way to the neck, the ridges winding and twisting like two coiled snakes. Its eyes were closed, the upper and lower eyelids tightly pressed together, the surface of the eyelids covered with a translucent corneal membrane, beneath which two very dark pupils could be vaguely seen slowly moving.
It didn't open its eyes, but it headed precisely towards the circular pit. The amber light seemed to have an irresistible pull on it—its head slowly lowered, skimming the ground as it approached the eye of the formation, its dark green scales scraping against the black stone slabs with a teeth-grinding screech. Its robust body coiled and emerged section by section from the tunnel, circling almost halfway through the cavern, until finally its head stopped less than three feet from the edge of the pit, its nose almost touching the amber halo overflowing from the edge.
Yin Wujou gripped the hilt of his short sword tightly. He was now less than five zhang away from the creature, able to clearly see the viscous liquid seeping from the gaps between its scales dripping down the stone slab, and to smell the strange odor mixed with the scent of fresh tea—the tea fragrance was still there, but had been overwhelmed by the pungent smell, leaving only a faint trace. This thing was enormous, more than ten times larger than the size suggested by the tentacle he had seen at the bottom of Soul-Severing Gorge, occupying almost a third of the space in the cave.
But it stopped.
Its head hovered above the circular pit, slowly swaying from side to side, like a giant snake sniffing its prey. Inside the pit, the Snow Empress's figure was shrouded in an amber halo, obscuring her outline; only a soft, warm, blurry shadow could be seen. The azure ball of light in her palm was still spinning, and the azure thread of light formed from water elemental energy continuously poured into the patterns of the array, keeping the amber light of the entire array at its brightest.
The Demonic Flood Dragon suddenly lowered its head by an inch, its nose almost touching the azure orb above the Snow Empress's head. Yin Wujou had already drawn his short sword an inch, but he forcefully suppressed the impulse—he saw that the moment the Demonic Flood Dragon's nose touched the azure orb, its two pupils, which had been slowly rotating beneath its stratum corneum, suddenly stopped and turned towards the orb.
It's inhaling.
The delicate, moist essence extracted from the tea powder was inhaled into its nostrils, its massive body, which occupied half the cavern, rose and fell slowly with its breath. The gaps between its scales opened and closed, each time releasing a viscous, warm white mist. It inhaled for a long time, so long that Yin Wujou almost thought it would continue indefinitely, when suddenly its body began to move—not forward, but backward. Its massive, dark green body shrank inch by inch towards the tunnel entrance, its head rising from above the circular pit and slowly turning towards the tunnel.
It retreated.