On the stone wall, an area measuring about five zhang centered on the battle between the acrimonious faces and the golden long dragon began to transform. From the inside out, its color started to shift from dark brown to a pale green.
In just ten breaths of time, that section of the stone wall turned a light green, and the color continued to deepen.
As the wall's color changed, the ferocious faces, which had been locked in a brutal struggle with the golden dragon, began to show a trace of terror, as if they were fish slowly losing water.
Both their attack speed and power rapidly diminished.
This allowed the long dragon, transformed from the golden spear, to swallow five or six faces and tear apart even more in just ten breaths.
Furthermore, as the color of the five-zhang area on the mountain wall grew deeper, this destruction gradually turned into a massacre, with the golden dragon crushing its opponents.
Inside the cave, Mu Guyue was still circulating her cultivation method with her eyes closed. By now, she was drenched in sweat, her breath fragrant as an orchid.
Her body would occasionally convulse lightly, or she would let out an unconscious, sensual moan, a sound that could stir a man's soul and bewitch his heart.
And at the entrance of the cave, which had previously vanished, a patch of blue light reappeared on the cave wall above. It was the triangular pattern formed by the six beast bones.
The blue light from the beast bones was no longer intense. Cracks had appeared on the once-crystalline bones, and these cracks were constantly widening.
To be able to withstand the attack of a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator for over ten breaths, the formation set Mu Guyue had produced was already extremely formidable.
Yet, at this moment, Mu Guyue was still caught between a state of semi-cultivation and semi-illusion, completely unaware of this.
Deep beneath the sea, after three hours had passed, the female cultivator surnamed Yang finally stopped her breathing exercises and opened her beautiful eyes.
Although her face was still somewhat pale, the aura around her had returned to normal.
She slowly stood up and nodded toward Song Rongdao and the youth surnamed Bai.
"The restriction can be broken now!"
As she spoke, she had already arrived five zhang before the gate of the "Flowing Wave Grotto."
This time, the female cultivator moved with extreme speed. With a wave of her hand, a full eighteen small flags, shimmering with three-colored light, flew out.
As the flags flew out, a fierce wind suddenly rose in the air. The eighteen flags then formed six groups of three, their banners whipping in the wind.
With a series of duo duo duo sounds, five nail-like rays shot out from five of the flag groups and buried themselves into the grotto gate.
As the nail-like rays entered, the scene of snake heads and lightning striking out did not occur.
Instead, in the center of the area formed by the five nail-like rays, three extremely small, illusory silver points of light appeared.
At this moment, one could hear a pin drop. Everyone's attention was focused on the female cultivator's spellcasting.
The female cultivator's expression was exceptionally stern. She could have tried to break the formation earlier by relying on her compass and the "Connected Mountains Changing Formation."
Now, using a different method to break the restriction was proving to be particularly tricky for her, and she had to control the technique with utmost care.
When the female cultivator saw the three illusory silver points of light appear, her heart finally relaxed slightly.
As soon as the three silver points appeared, they began to move rapidly within the area formed by the five nail-like rays, as if trying to escape.
But every time they moved at an incredible speed to the boundary formed by the rays, they would turn back again.
The five nail-like rays represented the five directions of Heaven, Earth, Man, Profound, and Yellow. Borrowing the momentum of the art, she used their positions to define the cosmos.
After releasing the nail-like rays, the five groups of small flags fell to the ground, but the female cultivator paid them no further mind.
Now, before her, there was still one group of three flags, their banners flapping restlessly.
Within the area formed by the rays, the three illusory silver points of light were moving at extreme speed, sometimes crossing, sometimes disappearing and reappearing. Even with the divine sense of the cultivators present, no one could keep up with them.
When the female cultivator was breaking the restriction earlier, she had discovered two points of light, one of which was the Gate of Life.
This Gate of Life was actually formed by three even smaller illusory points of light, which together created a channel.
Among the three illusory points, only one was being passively pulled along by the other two; it was the true core for opening the Gate of Life.
The restriction here was clearly not so easy to break; the Gate of Life was hidden extremely deep.
What the female cultivator had to do now was use the final group of flags to pin down the point of light being pulled along, thereby opening the restriction on the cave residence's gate.
If she pinned the wrong point, she had no idea what kind of changes would occur in the restriction.
"When I make my move to pin one of the points, you must be prepared to deal with any abnormalities... Perhaps nothing will happen, or perhaps... perhaps there will be a drastic change!"
The female cultivator's gaze was fixed on the gate as she spoke in a low voice.
Then, without paying any mind to the reactions of the three people behind her, she had given her warning. What followed was the crucial moment of finally breaking the restriction.
At this time, her Divine Sense was fully released, her gaze locked onto the cave residence's gate, where the three illusory points of light flickered in and out of existence with every breath.
To an outsider, they were just three illusory points of light weaving about randomly.
But to the female cultivator, it was different. She knew these three even smaller illusory points followed a pattern; it was just that this pattern was far more complex.
Every restriction has a certain pattern. It all depends on whether the formation master can rely on their own experience and methods to find it.
A delicate and suggestive scene flashed before Mu Guyue's eyes. Then, she found herself kneeling naked on the ground, clumsily trying to seek the most primitive satisfaction from a person.
She couldn't see the person's appearance at all. He wore a black robe and paid her no heed, simply standing with his hands behind his back, facing away from her, gazing into the distance.
The primal desire to obtain something she couldn't have made her feel even more tormented.
In the midst of this inner craving and intense struggle, Mu Guyue would suddenly regain her clarity and continue to circulate the spirit power in her body to expel the poison.
But in the next moment, a surge of heat from within her body would once again plunge her into a semi-delirious state, her vision filled with illusions.
However, as more and more of the poison was forced out of her body, she found herself regaining consciousness with increasing frequency.
Just then, Mu Guyue's heart suddenly clenched. Even with about half of the aphrodisiac poison remaining in her system, an unprecedented palpitation and a sharp pain instantly snapped her out of her semi-delirious state.
The "Resentful Grudge Heaven-Locking Net," which she had refined with her essence blood , began to shatter inch by inch in her mind, sending chain reactions of intense pain through her divine soul.
Mu Guyue looked up, her face flushed crimson. The entrance of the cave had reappeared as a silhouette before her.
A triangular pattern covered in cracks floated above the entrance, flickering unstably as if it could shatter at any moment.
The triangular pattern was no longer deep blue; it had turned a dreadful, sickly green.
In the middle of the pattern, a dragon's shadow thrashed and tore as if on the other side of a membrane. Of the thousand resentful ghosts that were once there, only about a hundred remained, listlessly floating about.
Mu Guyue's heart sank. Though she didn't know how much time had passed, seeing her strongest defensive formation about to be broken, the urgency of the situation managed to suppress some of the lustful thoughts in her mind.
Struggling to maintain the hard-won clarity in her mind, she let out a cold snort and swiftly formed a hand seal in front of her ample chest.
If the opponent broke through her defensive formation, she would give the gold-robed middle-aged man a blow to the head.
But as soon as she formed the hand seal, she immediately realized there was a problem. She had already consumed about half of her magic power.
While she might still have the power to heavily injure an initial-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, her current enemy was the Heaven-Confounding Profound Gold Dragon, whose rank was originally higher than hers.
Whether in terms of defense or attack power, Mu Guyue could only evade its sharpest attacks even at her peak, let alone in her current state.
Moreover, the heat in her body continued to surge, forcing her to divert a considerable amount of magic power to suppress it.
This meant that any attack she launched would be incapable of even harming the gold-robed middle-aged man; it would be utterly useless.
Mu Guyue had no more high-quality medicinal pills on her, especially not the kind that could restore her magic power to its peak in a matter of breaths.
She extended her hands, and the pair of crescent handguard sabers by her side flew into her grasp.
She began to silently channel most of her magic power to suppress the lustful poison that was like a raging flood within her, allowing her to barely maintain her consciousness.
With the remaining twenty percent of her magic power, she began to agitate her Demonic Core. The pure Demonic Origin Power left within it suddenly turned chaotic.
Since she couldn't escape and was powerless to resist, she couldn't just die for nothing. Even grievously injuring the enemy would bring her some comfort.
And her greatest offensive weapon now was the essence of her life's cultivation, all her magic power. She was going to make her Demonic Core self-destruct, to at least injure her opponent.
As for this sudden walk towards death, Mu Guyue held no resentment. The moment one stepped onto the path of immortality, it was destined that many would not have a peaceful end, and that, of course, included her.
No one just ever knew when that day would come.
Though she was a Nascent Soul cultivator, a master in this realm, she was not invincible.
One breath, two breaths...
Suddenly, Mu Guyue felt a strange sensation in her Divine Sense. In her dizzy state, she looked up toward the cave entrance.
'Is it breaking?'
What she saw, however, stunned her. Her "Resentful Grudge Heaven-Locking Net" was still holding on, putting up a final defense, not yet completely shattered.
Although alluring images constantly surfaced in her mind, affecting her senses, Mu Guyue's years of military life still allowed her to instinctively react with the most primal of warnings. She sluggishly turned her head to survey her surroundings.
The cave was not large. After a moment, her gaze froze on a spot behind her.
She didn't know if it was a trick of the eyes, or if the lustful poison she was suppressing was constantly assailing her mind, but she suddenly saw the stone wall, which was covered in fine gray mossy leaves, seem to move slightly near the upper right corner.
And at that very moment, in another space, it was precisely when the female cultivator surnamed Yang summoned five nail-like rays to strike the grotto gate.
The fine gray mossy leaves seemed to have stirred, but then it was as if they had never moved at all.
'Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or is there some small demonic beast hiding in there?'
Without hesitation, Mu Guyue swung a saber from a distance. A crescent-shaped blade of light shot out like a bolt of lightning, striking that spot.
With a ding sound, the clash of metal on stone reached her ears; there was no sensation of the blade's energy cutting into flesh.
Immediately, large patches of gray mossy leaves scattered, revealing the hard, dark-brown rock wall beneath.
Although her strike had only used about twenty percent of her power, it wouldn't have been too surprising if it had killed a Golden Core stage cultivator in one blow.
As a result, the entire cave shook from the blow. A deep saber gash, dozens of zhang long, appeared on the rock wall, as if intending to cleave the mountain in two.
Just then, as she turned her head, Mu Guyue's expression changed. An irresistible, violent force swept toward her from behind, followed by a soul-seizing laugh.
"Hahaha... Let's see where you can run now!"
A mournful cry also echoed in Mu Guyue's mind; the "Resentful Grudge Heaven-Locking Net" had been utterly destroyed.
Because her mind was connected to it, Mu Guyue opened her mouth and spat out a large mouthful of blood.
The impact from the formation being shattered sent her flying, flinging her violently backward.
(End of Chapter)