V2C169

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Shi Ying’s expression involuntarily altered: how could this be? How was it possible for him to disappear?

He turned on the water mirror in front of the Deity, and under the spell, the reflection of the water mirror failed to reveal an image, suggesting that the traces of the Grand Master were no longer within the reach of his powers to be traced – something he had almost never experienced in his decade of serving the Gods!

Something terrible must have happened, for sure!

He frowned slightly and glanced up at the heavens: the night sky was deep above his head, and the star belonging to the Grand Master was still shining brightly; whereas the star of the Green King was already dull and wavering – everything was going well, but in the water mirror, how come there was no reflection of the other person’s figure?

He formed a seal with his hands and swiped his ten fingers across the calm water surface, releasing the spiritual energy once again. This time, the moment his fingers touched the central point of the water mirror, the entire surface of the water suddenly lit up!

A shadow emerged from the calm, mirrored surface of the water, faint like a puff of smoke, and swept past.

“The Grand Master!” Shi Ying faltered. Yes, he finally saw the shadow of the Grand Master in that moment!

In the water mirror, the old man he was so familiar with, was standing in the middle of a dark palace, his hands crossed over his chest, obviously having just experienced a fierce battle – there was blood splattered on the sleeves of his robe, and many corpses were lying at his feet, and all those dead bodies bore the family emblem of the Green Clan.

Shi Ying breathed a sigh of relief: Sure enough, the Grand Master has successfully managed to enter the Green King’s residence!

However, just as he was about to concentrate and take a closer look, the water mirror was suddenly disrupted by some force, the surface rippled, everything shattered and became blurry, and the image could no longer be seen.

What happened? Who was interfering with the mirror’s reflection?

Quickly renewing his seals, Shi Ying once again passed his fingers over the water mirror, using even more force than the previous time, trying to open a new channel. However, this time, when his ten fingers stopped at the center of the water mirror, the surface remained calm, without a single ray of light.

Shi Ying stood in the empty temple, his eyes becoming increasingly grim, and his expression grave.

Something has indeed happened to the Grand Master – it seems that the mirror can only be opened with the Great Ritual of Water and Fire!

He turned around abruptly, bowed in front of the statue, raised both hands in front of his forehead, and began to chant an elaborate incantation, a very long and difficult spell, which, when completed, caused all the candle flames of the entire temple of Jialan to suddenly flare in unison, as if driven by an invisible force, and the fire jumped upwards joining together, rising up to a foot high!

“Go!” Shi Ying’s fingers joined together and pointed at the water mirror, “Turn on the mirror!”

In an instant, the temple was filled with light. The flames from the candles rose up from the void as if they had been ordered to converge towards his fingertips, and then flew towards the water mirror with a wave of his hand, swiftly coalescing into a dazzling meteor.

Fire and water converged in an instant.

However, the fire did not perish, but spread out thinly on the water mirror like a floating lantern. In that instant, as if prodded by great power, the water mirror suddenly conjured up images within the flames!

This time, Shi Ying clearly could see the Grand Master.

The battle has apparently proceeded for another stretch, and on the screen the Grand Master was getting up from the ground, panting violently, half covered in blood, the feathered crown that was binding his hair being shattered to pieces. There were seven bone deep wounds in his chest, in the shape of the Northern Dipper, and the blood flowing out was surprisingly of a dark purple tint.

When Shi Ying looked at him, he could not help but experience a sharp shudder throughout his body.

That was the spell of the Seven Stars of Worshiping – in the Yunhuang Wilderness, apart from him and the Grand Master, there was no one else who could use such a spell! How could the Green Clan’s priests be able to do such a thing?

“Grand Master!” He called out to the water mirror, “Grand Master!”

On the other side of the world, the Grand Master seemed to perceive his summons and lifted his head, glancing in the direction of the water mirror. He was finally hearing his summons? Shi Ying was slightly relieved – yet, in that instant, the image in the water mirror suddenly changed!

The scene in the water mirror made even a calm person like Shi Ying to gasp out in shock.

In the depths of the Green King’s palace, the candle flame was half extinguished, and a great shadow loomed everywhere. Yet, in the innermost depths of the shadows, a hand suddenly reached out from behind the Grand Master and silently clasped itself to the old man’s waistcoat! The shape of that hand was twisted and strangely long, slowly elongating and advancing like a shadow… But what shocked him even more was that the hand had already ventured within a foot on his side, and yet the Grand Master didn’t even notice it!

“Gran Master!” In that moment, Shi Ying could not help but blurt out, “Watch out behind!”

Unsure if the warning was heard from the other side, the moment the pale hand was about to touch his heart, the Grand Sage suddenly turned pale, and without looking back, he flicked his sleeve, a swift breeze curled up from the ground, and his entire body instantly disappeared into thin air.

Shi Ying was startled, recognizing that what the Grand Master was using was not just an ordinary teleportation, but rather the “Misty Trails”!

This is an extremely powerful magic spell that requires a great consumption of spiritual energy. Not only can it instantly shift one’s position among the Six Harmonies, it can even transcend the two colorless realms and enter the illusionary realm from the physical world – this spell, because it combines several profound and great arts, requires the ordinary spellcaster to use up most of their spiritual energy in a single attempt. Having used this skill at this moment, the Grand Master obviously felt that he had encountered an unprecedentedly formidable enemy!

While Shi Ying was still astonished, the reflection in the water mirror suddenly froze.

The flames were still burning on the water, but the scene reflected in it never moved again, as if the scene had been frozen. Everything that had happened in the Green King’s residence was stuck on the moment when the Grand Master disappeared: the blood on the ground, the curtains blowing in the wind, the palace lanterns falling from the roof… Everything stopped.

What happened? Could it be that the water mirror has been suddenly disrupted?

“The Grand Master!” Shi Ying exclaimed out of breath, with an instant sense of foreboding in his heart. He raised his hands again and quickly knotted his seals, pressing down on the water mirror, wanting to use more power to break through the faint connection.

Yet in that very instant, the frozen image resumed its movement!

After that brief moment of immobility, the Grand Master was still nowhere to be seen, and the room appeared to be empty. The blood continued to stream on the floor, the curtain and the palace lamp continued to fall, and everything seemed to return to normal after a fleeting pause – yet Shi Ying felt an unmistakable sense of eeriness in such a calm image, and a thin, cold sweat seeped through the water mirror and into the palm of his hands.

Where was the Grand Master? Where has he gone at this moment? Is he travelling through the two worlds of nothingness? But why is he taking so long? One must know that the magic of “vagrancy” cannot last for too long, or else one will be trapped at the border between illusion and reality and will never be able to return to the human world.

It was at precisely that moment of uncertainty that, through the water mirror, Shi Ying once again witnessed a second hand reaching out from the darkness!

Mirroring the one preceding it, the two hands slowly interlocked and made a gesture in the shadow of the candles: one hand palm down, the other with the fingertips facing the sky, and suddenly, with an overpowering tear!

“No!” In that instant, Shi Ying gasped in astonishment.

There was only a dull sound, as if some barrier had been shattered, and suddenly a crimson rain started to drip from the void!

“Shifu!” Shi Ying was shaken to his core and broke into a shout, “Shifu!”

“Haha…” Deep in the darkness, someone seemed to release a callous sneer out of the corner of his mouth.

In the blink of an eye, those hands retracted and disappeared into the shadows, silent as a ghost. There was no longer a living soul to be seen in the depths of the Green King’s residence, only red rain dripping incessantly from the empty space of the room, accumulating in tiny puddles on the ground.

“Grand Master!” Shi Ying’s face became white as he cried out to the other side of the water mirror.

Up to this moment, he was still unable to see any trace of the Grand Master, as if the old man had been accidentally stuck at the crossroads between the imaginary and the real world when he cast the Misty Trails spell – yet, drop after drop, the blood spilled onto the ground was gradually unveiling the outline of a human form!

Yes! That was the Grand Master… who had been trapped in the void by that blow!

Those hands in the shadows, using such a simple gesture, yet containing such a tremendous power as to make heaven and earth merge into each other, had torn apart the Grand Master, who was walking through the two worlds of nothingness after using the Misty Spell!

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