[Trial Valley]
The wind screamed cold. Broken stones littered the ground like the remains of a wasteland clawed apart by beasts. Along the fractured cliff faces, shattered formation-runes were carved into the rock, as if a thousand resentful souls had once wailed here and never left.
Nether qi rose slowly from the valley floor, a thin, invisible veil smothering the entire gorge in dead silence and pressure.
The moment the Five Yao and Youqing stepped through the mouth of the valley, the air thickened.
Luo Ye frowned. "This hellhole… it's completely different from before."
Sang Qi's expression shifted. "The formation scars have been awakened again… someone is deliberately driving them."
Li Yan's voice sank. "Ye Yi."
Lin Lie lifted his gaze. Gear-runes glimmered faintly in his eyes. "He came here ahead of time. This place… is already his formation."
Cang Yuan stared down into the valley, his voice low and cold. "He's waiting."
The wind abruptly died.
Heaven and earth felt pressed flat by an unseen hand. Even the sound of sand rolling over stone was swallowed.
In that absolute silence—
A black figure stood at the center of the valley.
Ye Yi.
His back faced them. His cloak braided with nether qi like a long black serpent lifted by soul-devouring fog. The soul-pressure pouring off him was thick as ink, cracking the ground in widening lines.
He didn't turn, yet it was as though he'd known the moment they arrived.
"You're here."
The voice was cold, seeping up from underground.
Youqing stepped forward. In the thin mist, her Crimson Eyes lit with a faint red glow.
"Ye Yi."
Only then did he turn.
A slight curve tugged at his mouth. It wasn't a smile—more the satisfaction of a hunter watching prey walk into a trap.
"Imperial Daughter… Youqing."
He raised a hand slowly. Demonic qi spiraled into a vortex in his palm.
"I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Luo Ye roared, "You animal! Give Ling Dang back—!"
Ye Yi didn't even spare him a glance. He only tilted his head, speaking with near-mocking ease.
"Relax. My little guest… is still staying very nicely in Abyss Hollow."
He lifted his fingers. Black mist unfurled.
Nether qi twisted like a curtain ripped aside, and a phantom transmission formed in midair.
In the next instant—
A gloomy stone hall appeared before their eyes.
Its walls were mottled and decayed. Deep fractures split the floor. Pale violet traces of nether light ringed the ground, pulsing as if something beneath the stone kept bleeding upward.
And in a corner of that hall—
A small figure curled tight against a pillar.
Ling Dang.
No chains. No bindings.
But she hugged her knees, collapsed into herself, clearly too weak from hunger to move. Her face was paper-white, nearly blending into the stone. The roundness of her cheeks had sunk away. Her hair was a mess, and her hands trembled faintly.
Luo Ye froze.
Like something had stabbed straight through him.
A heartbeat later, fire flared in his eyes with a violent whoomph.
"Ye Yi…"
His jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might shatter.
"I'm going to kill you."
He stepped forward, ready to charge. Fire-breath rolled off him, wild and unstable.
Youqing's hand shot out and seized his wrist.
"Luo Ye. Stop."
Her voice was steady. Her Crimson Eyes glinted. "We will get her out—I promise."
Luo Ye's breathing tore in his chest. The rage in him wasn't battle-lust.
It was raw, living pain.
Ye Yi watched him on the brink of snapping. In those ink-dark eyes, something flickered—so faint, yet so viciously obvious.
Jealousy.
"See?" Ye Yi drawled, deliberately grinding Luo Ye's heart under his heel. "I didn't imprison her. I didn't bind her."
He gestured toward the little girl curled in the hall.
"She can move freely. How nice."
Luo Ye's fury hit its peak, but the word freely felt worse than shackles.
"You call that 'free'?" he snarled. "You scared her into that state and you call it free?! Ye Yi, you—"
He hadn't finished shouting before Youqing tightened her grip again, her Crimson Eyes brightening by a hair.
She stared at Ling Dang in the phantom image.
To everyone else, it was only a frightened child.
But Youqing saw something else—faint, tangled, complex soul-threads.
She spoke softly to Luo Ye without looking away. "Ye Yi hasn't touched her soul… but there are formation marks around her. Soul-pressure suppression. If she leaves that zone, the nether pressure will crush her and she'll pass out."
Luo Ye's pupils snapped wide.
Ye Yi's mouth curved, only a fraction. Coldly pleased.
He hooked his fingers.
The phantom hall trembled. Ling Dang shrank even smaller, as if an invisible weight had pressed down on her bones.
Luo Ye's heart convulsed.
Ye Yi's voice sank, barbed and deliberate, stabbing into them one by one.
"Want to save her?"
He smiled—an expression cold enough to split skin.
"Then we'll see…"
His silhouette stepped into the soul-fog, pressing down like a beast's shadow.
"…whether you have the ability."
The phantom shattered. Black mist scattered.
Every face dropped like a stone.
Luo Ye gripped his twin rings, trembling as if he might explode.
Li Yan's gauntlets creaked, fury leaking through him like cracks in iron.
Lin Lie's eyes sharpened inch by inch, gear-runes rolling beneath the skin in silent violence.
Sang Qi exhaled slowly, fingers already locking around the hairpin's base.
Cang Yuan's blade-hilt sang a low note, his gaze a sheet of frozen calm.
Only Youqing stood the steadiest.
She released Luo Ye's wrist and spoke with a calm so flat it bordered on cruel.
"Ye Yi, I brought the Yao Spirit Heart. Yet you keep Ling Dang in Abyss Hollow."
"That's… not much sincerity."
"Sincerity?" Ye Yi laughed, eerie and amused. "If you're so capable, come over yourself. I'll take you to her."
Youqing's tone stayed level, even threaded with faint irony. "Why don't you bring her here?"
"Or is it…"
Her Crimson Eyes lifted, cold and direct.
"…that you're afraid?"
The Five Yao jolted at once.
Even Luo Ye stared at Youqing, stunned—
That was the kind of line that stomped on a predator's throat.
Ye Yi's smile stalled.
Only someone truly struck where it hurt looked like that—
not anger, but murder forced to surface too early.
The nether qi at the valley floor trembled, stirred by his mood.
"…Imperial Daughter."
Ye Yi raised his eyes slowly. They were darker than the mist itself.
"You're good at provoking."
His fingers curled.
The ground beneath him bulged like something alive. Stones lifted into the air. Black fog twisted into concentric vortices.
Youqing didn't retreat.
She stepped half a pace forward.
"If you were truly confident, you would've brought Ling Dang here already."
A cold red line cut through the fog in her gaze. "But you didn't."
Ye Yi's murderous intent detonated in his eyes.
"I didn't?"
Youqing's voice barely rose. "You're afraid I'll get too close."
"Afraid that the moment I act, I'll take her out of your formation."
"Afraid that before the exchange even begins—your bargaining chip will already be gone."
Ye Yi's fingers tightened. The nether qi shrieked under his grip.
That anger, stabbed clean through, clawed to rip its way out of his chest.
Sang Qi murmured, "She's baiting him… she wants him to move first."
Lin Lie answered just as quietly, "So she can see the true heart of his formation."
Luo Ye ground his teeth. "If Ye Yi loses control, this place will seal shut instantly."
Cang Yuan's hand tightened on the hilt. "But if you hit his pain point, the formation shows its cracks."
Li Yan rumbled, "She's gambling."
"And she's gambling beautifully."
Ye Yi finally laughed.
It sounded like a beast cornered into madness, malice braided with frenzy.
"Fine."
His killing intent burst across the valley.
Nether qi surged. Ye Yi stepped forward hard—
the ground split into spiderweb fractures.
But Youqing shifted sideways—
not retreating, changing position.
Cang Yuan frowned. "She's… moving toward the valley mouth?"
Lin Lie understood instantly. "No. She's moving toward—"
"—the Yao-carriages," Sang Qi finished under his breath.
Li Yan's eyes sank. "She's drawing Ye Yi there?"
Luo Ye blinked, then realization struck like lightning. "She's getting closer to the—Soul-Ferry formation!"
Of course Ye Yi noticed.
His gaze dropped into ice, his smile sharpening into something feral. "Imperial Daughter… are you trying to lead me away?"
Youqing's Crimson Eyes flared. Her voice was pure statement, like a law of nature.
"You want the Yao Spirit Heart, don't you?"
"Then come take it."
She stepped back once.
A single step—perfectly aligned with the direction of the Yao-carriages.
Ye Yi's fury surged. He slammed his palm down—
The Nightmare Heart Formation ignited across the valley like a living net, trying to lock her in place.
But Youqing lifted her hand.
Her Black-Yao bracelet shuddered.
BOOM—!
For the first time, Ye Yi's formation force was blasted open.
Ye Yi's eyes snapped wide with rage. "You—!"
Youqing looked back at him, cool and unhurried.
"Ye Yi, if you stand there, you'll never get what you want."
"But if you chase me—"
She raised her hand.
The Yao Spirit Heart glowed in her palm.
"—you can have the thing you want most."
She wasn't running.
She was laying a formation.
Because only within range of the Yao-carriages' linked soul-lines could she—
draw Ye Yi's soul out,
seal it into the Black-Yao bracelet,
pull Ling Shuo's soul back from Wan Luo's body,
and complete the true soul swap.
Ye Yi's teeth ground. "Imperial Daughter—!!"
He lunged after her in fury.
And Youqing finally stepped into—
the range where her soul-lines could connect to the Yao-carriages.
Into the heart of the trap.