When the female cultivator surnamed Yuan had sensed something amiss with her divine sense, she had stopped where she was. Her body imperceptibly merged with the surrounding spiritual energy, and as her cultivation method circulated on its own, she naturally absorbed that energy.
Just as she began to think her judgment had been mistaken, and that she was merely unfamiliar with the restrictions here—
Suddenly, every pore in her skin felt as though it had been pierced by a scorching needle, making her groan in pain.
Then a knife-sharp agony tore through her throat as well.
There... there's poison here!
That was the first thought that rose in her mind. When she looked toward the deck again, the old woman surnamed He's figure had grown even more blurred, as though she were about to cross the intervening space.
Yet now she also felt that it did not quite resemble the old woman He. Her head was swimming.
With a hoarse cry of shock and fury, she shot backward toward the stairs. Clearly, she had fallen into someone's trap.
This had caught her completely unprepared. Although she had already felt that something was wrong outside, she had never figured out what.
Now, with everything that had happened and the old woman He's fading figure before her, she realized that this was a trap laid specifically for her.
As far as she was concerned, Fuling Manor must have turned against her.
Li Yan had shrewdly dismantled the illusion formation earlier, but had left copious amounts of illusion poison here, along with five other varieties of Zhili Poison.
The female cultivator Yuan had never imagined that someone could tamper with the stairway entrance. Besides, from what she knew of the old woman He, the latter was not truly skilled at using poison.
Moreover,