Chapter 27 – Mine

The scene was utterly chaotic, which left Yun Xiguang momentarily unsure where to start. The little spirit bird had somehow brought back a red little snake from the Spirit Beast Codex. This snake was even smaller than the little spirit bird, dazed and lethargic, and looked far from well.

Yun Xiguang didn’t recognize the Crimson Chi. After all, in his recently restored memories, the Crimson Chi was a massive creature over ten meters long — a far cry from the tiny snake just a dozen centimeters in length before him.

On the other side, Ruan Shu was doing everything in his power not to get sucked into the black mist, summoning all his bookworms to hold him back. The bookworms, densely packed together, covered half the space and created a horrifying sight that would give anyone nightmares for days.

Not only that, but upon sensing someone in the space, the bookworms began swarming toward Yun Xiguang en masse. It was unclear what these creatures, which could only consume text, intended to do to him.

Yun Xiguang glanced at the little red snake, then at Ruan Shu, and realized that his immediate priority was to deal with Ruan Shu. This man posed a significant threat.

He picked up the dazed little red snake, arranged it into a circle, and used its soft tail to wrap around its head, turning it into a red bracelet on his left wrist.

Then, he lifted the little spirit bird, completely oblivious to the death glare the bird was giving him, and placed the bird casually on his shoulder.

Ordinary Spiritbond Masters fought alongside their spirit beasts, often relying on contracts to seek protection from their beasts. But with Yun Xiguang, despite being a mere C-grade Spiritbond Master with little power, he found himself protecting two spirit beasts with his frail body — a rarity in this world.

For now, Yun Xiguang wasn’t too afraid of Ruan Shu.

Based on his recent encounters with Ruan Shu, he had identified several weaknesses.

Firstly, while the bookworms’ ability to eat text and influence enemies’ thoughts was formidable, it required the presence of text to work. Currently, there was no text for the bookworms to consume. If Ruan Shu wanted to affect his mind, he would need to write some text first, but with both his hands trapped in the black mist, writing was impossible.

Secondly, although enough bookworms could devour all civilization, they couldn’t consume information related to themselves. Otherwise, Ruan Shu wouldn’t have needed to contend with “burning the archive room.” By simply consuming information about the bookworms, making Yun Xiguang and others forget their characteristics, abilities, and how to combat them, wouldn’t that have been more effective than repeatedly erasing “burning the archive room” from their memories?

Yun Xiguang surmised that this was likely because the bookworms were also concept-based spirit beasts, a form of text. Once consumed, their own existence would be erased, preventing them from devouring information related to themselves.

Thirdly, while bookworms could materialize the text they had eaten, if they used these abilities against Yun Xiguang, he would indeed be in grave danger. However, it seemed that the three functions of text — “materialization,” “memory deletion,” and “breeding bookworms” — couldn’t be used simultaneously; they could only serve one purpose.

Most of the text devoured in the archive room was used to breed new bookworms, and they hadn’t retained the abilities within the room.

Given these points, Yun Xiguang deduced that the approaching bookworms couldn’t harm him; they merely wanted to obstruct him from attacking Ruan Shu.

If he could withstand the nausea, he could charge at Ruan Shu, capturing the leader first.

Yun Xiguang took a deep breath, holding it in his chest, shielding the little spirit bird with his hand, and charged straight through the wall formed by the bookworms.

He considered using heavenly fire against the bookworms, but he could currently only cover his hands with it, unable to protect his entire body. Facing so many bookworms, covering only his hands was meaningless.

Moreover, Yun Xiguang could wield only a limited amount of heavenly fire. He had already expended half his strength using it to break the seal on the bookshelf, which left him with enough power for one more use — against Ruan Shu.

Aside from brute force, there seemed to be no other way.

Yun Xiguang gritted his teeth and charged into the swarm of bookworms. The bookworms, perhaps not expecting such determination, could only cluster together and stubbornly block Yun Xiguang’s advance.

Ah, no, they had another method — a nauseating one.

As Yun Xiguang plunged into the wall of bookworms, they crawled up his arms and onto his body, attempting to block his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, attacking his respiratory system.

Bookworms ate text, not people, and wouldn’t harm Yun Xiguang physically, but having a swarm of such creatures invade his personal space was a terrifying assault on his psyche.

Yun Xiguang mustered a small amount of spiritual energy to protect his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and continued his charge forward.

He could endure it, but could Chi Qiong withstand such mental torment?

After all, during the Ancient Desolation era, such insignificant bugs didn’t even have the right to crawl at the feet of the Phoenix Venerable. Now, however, they were swarming over him, and Chi Qiong couldn’t bear this indignity.

He raised his head and let out an anxious “chirp.”

This call wasn’t for Yun Xiguang but to awaken the little imp tied to Yun Xiguang’s wrist.

A Chi was a serpentine hornless dragon-like creature, a spirit beast that could become a dragon with diligent cultivation, like a divine beast in training.

Counting back a million years, the dragon race had also received Chi Qiong’s grace, and the Chis were among those who had benefited.

These spirit beasts could all sense Chi Qiong’s summons.

Of course, under normal circumstances, they couldn’t hear it. However, Chi Qiong was currently with his own spiritual energy, and a bit of his aura leaked out.

It was because it sensed this aura that White Tiger transformed into a tiger meowing like a cat.

In this situation, when Chi Qiong called out to the Crimson Chi, even if the latter had been driven mad by the Spirit Beast Codex, instinct would compel it to wake up.

That cute, anxious “chirp” sounded in the sleeping Crimson Chi’s ears like a thunderous rebuke: “Wretched creature, don’t you dare awaken to protect your master?!”

The little red snake coiled around Yun Xiguang’s wrist suddenly opened its eyes. It untangled its tail from its head and flew out of Yun Xiguang’s grasp.

It no longer had a Spiritbond Master and should have been unable to use its powers, but within it resided a human spirit root.

This was given to it by its dying Spiritbond Master, a female Spiritbond Master whose voice was gentle yet firm.

On her deathbed, she weakly raised her hand to stroke the Crimson Chi’s head, whispering softly, “Escape, I don’t know how far you can go, but try to escape as far as possible.”

She unilaterally severed her spirit bond with the Crimson Chi — a violation of the contract by a Spiritbond Master that would result in instant death.

But she was already dying.

She fed something to the Crimson Chi and smiled. Her final thoughts, transmitted through the severed bond, echoed in the Crimson Chi’s mind: “If you still can’t escape, use this spirit root that has never been bonded to preserve your sanity.”

The Crimson Chi had always been with her and knew that she had accidentally discovered a secret while researching how to control heavenly fire.

Spirit beasts didn’t necessarily need to form a bond with a Spiritbond Master. As long as they could obtain an unbonded spirit root before bonding and quickly refine it, they could deceive the world and live freely without a Spiritbond Master.

This secret was terrifying.

It would bring about tremendous changes in the Spiritbond World and cause great disasters in the world. This knowledge absolutely couldn’t spread.

So she destroyed all related research, never mentioning it, and kept the secret buried in her heart.

Until her dying moments, to protect the Crimson Chi, her soul-bound spirit beast, and to safeguard her young son from being targeted, she painfully extracted her son’s spirit root and passed it, along with the method of refinement, to the Crimson Chi.

The Crimson Chi didn’t escape. It was quickly captured and sealed within the Spirit Beast Codex.

For the past decade, it had lain in a daze inside the Spirit Beast Codex, always feeling that its gentle Spiritbond Master was still alive. It lived in a dream, occasionally manipulated by the Spirit Beast Codex to display its abilities, only to be sealed away again afterward.

Despite ten years passing outside, time had stood still for the Crimson Chi since the moment its Spiritbond Master died.

Until now, awakened by the Phoenix Venerable, it suddenly realized that ten years had passed.

Its Spiritbond Master had long since died, and the child from back then had grown into an excellent young man.

The Crimson Chi soared into the air, silently meeting Yun Xiguang’s gaze. Following its Spiritbond Master’s instructions, it refined the spirit root it had been hiding within itself.

The spirit root instantly merged into its body, which granted the Crimson Chi freedom. It could now freely wield its abilities.

Not only that, but within this space, it sensed an immeasurably powerful force.

The Crimson Chi, awakened from Lianyi Mountain, could clearly feel that this force was the world’s primordial energy hidden within Lianyi Mountain.

And this force was located in the bug-human below.

The Phoenix Venerable had already issued orders; how could this force be allowed to fall into someone else’s hands?

The Crimson Chi circled in the air, its body returned to its original form, stretching over a dozen meters in length, and almost bursting the space apart.

It raised its head and emitted a low dragon’s roar, which froze the air within the entire space.

Ruan Shu’s entire body froze.

In ancient times, people found this crimson Chi in red crystal and named it accordingly.

What people didn’t know was that the red crystal enveloping the Crimson Chi was made of various creatures’ blood.

Ordinary ice-type spirit beasts could freeze inorganic matter and external environments, but the Crimson Chi could freeze living blood.

Instantly, both Ruan Shu and the bookworms were frozen solid.

Yun Xiguang moved slightly, and the bookworms fell off his body, lifeless.

Bookworms were spirit beasts spawned from text, but as long as they possessed flowing blood — even if it wasn’t red — they remained within the Crimson Chi’s control.

This realization stunned not only Yun Xiguang but the Crimson Chi itself.

It had sensed that terrifying spiritual energy within Ruan Shu and prepared for a potential attack from it, but Ruan Shu hadn’t harnessed that energy at all.

Just as the Crimson Chi was pondering this, it heard a proud “chirp.”

Chi Qiong struggled to fly from Yun Xiguang’s shoulder to the top of his head and stood proudly atop Yun Xiguang’s head with a haughty gaze directed at the Crimson Chi. “With this lord here, no one can borrow this lord’s power.”

It was the Phoenix Venerable lending assistance.

Only then did the Crimson Chi realize that it had positioned itself higher than the Phoenix Venerable. It hurriedly descended, transformed back into a small red snake, pressed against the ground, and nodded at the Phoenix Venerable a few times in reverence.

Yun Xiguang couldn’t afford to dwell on the sudden appearance of his mother’s spirit beast, the revelation that spirit beasts could exert their full power without a Spiritbond Master, or the fact that all the bookworms had been frozen. His attention was solely focused on Ruan Shu.

While the Crimson Chi could freeze living beings, it couldn’t freeze the “illusion-reality.”

Ruan Shu was frozen, but the black mist’s suction force remained and gradually pulled him into the mist.

Yun Xiguang broke through the wall of bookworms, grabbed Ruan Shu’s waist, and forcefully dragged him toward him.

The powerful suction force, however, made it impossible for Yun Xiguang to hold onto Ruan Shu’s body, and it nearly sucked him in as well.

Why was there such a strong suction force between the Spirit Beast Codex and the “illusion-reality?” Had The Mirage intentionally created a passage for the Spirit Beast Codex’s body when constructing this space?

Yun Xiguang didn’t have time to ponder the terrifying truth hidden within this phenomenon. Flames appeared in each of his palms. He tossed one flame into the passage, using the power of the laws to sever the spatial connection between illusion and reality. The other flame struck Ruan Shu.

Heavenly fire didn’t harm humans but could target the bookworms within Ruan Shu.

Ruan Shu wasn’t a bad person. Controlled by the bookworms, he had become a puppet of the spirit beast, which committed numerous wrongdoings.

This strike sent a silver, meter-long bookworm flying out of Ruan Shu’s body.

It writhed in agony under the burning heavenly fire, emitting sharp shrieks and seemingly pleading for strength from somewhere.

A faint golden glow emanated from its body, as if a power was responding to its plea and aiding it in resisting the heavenly fire.

At that moment, Chi Qiong atop Yun Xiguang’s head chirped.

The golden glow instantly dimmed, which left the bookworm without further assistance. It struggled and wailed in the heavenly fire until it finally turned to ashes.

The small bookworms it had bred transformed into individual texts, which randomly stacked on the ground before vanishing.

Where the bookworm disappeared, a patch of golden phoenix feathers remained.

Seeing the phoenix feathers, Chi Qiong emitted a joyful “chirp~!”

Although Yun Xiguang couldn’t understand the little spirit bird’s words, he immediately grasped the bird’s meaning.

He was saying: Mine!