Feng Wang buzzed uneasily among her hair, its wings trembling as it sent out a warning of danger.
Xie Zhaolin narrowed her eyes, scanning the surroundings carefully.
The black lines etched across the cliff walls didn't look natural. Instead, they felt like the scars left behind by some strange corrosive power. Even the black crystalline motes drifting in the air carried a sinister chill.
"Hehuan Sect…" she whispered, a dark light flashing through her eyes.
Back when she was still in the Hehuan Sect, maybe she'd never actually touched the Sect's true secrets.
"It looks like they'd already started guarding against me much earlier than I thought." Her fists clenched tight. As the Sect's chief disciple, she should've known every matter of importance.
Yet only now did she realize how thoroughly the Sect Master and elders had kept her in the dark about the Blackwater Abyss's mutation. No wonder she'd known nothing back then. No wonder when the Sect brought up that marriage exchange, everyone treated it like the most natural thing in the world.
How ridiculous. Utterly absurd!
Shuang Ling seemed to sense her emotions, brushing lightly against her wrist. She stroked the fox soul's head, forcing down the turbulent thoughts roiling in her chest. Now wasn't the time to dig into that. The priority was getting the Rebirth Flower. As for the changes in the Blackwater Abyss, she could investigate after regaining her strength.
"Scout the way first." She sent the command to her beast souls.
This time she didn't let Xue Xiao lead. Instead, she summoned three weaker avian souls, a gray crane and two night owls.
They weren't powerful, only at the late Qi Refining stage, but numbers were what mattered here. If they got destroyed, it didn't hurt her much.
The three birds beat their wings and flew toward the Blackwater Waterfall, circling about ten zhang away.
Through their contracts, she closely observed their state. Nothing happened. They flew freely, completely unhindered.
"Strange." She frowned.
By rights, the closer one got to the waterfall, the denser the yin energy should've become. That should've made it harder for souls to endure.
The gray crane swept past the edge of the falls, stirring up a ribbon of black liquid.
The two night owls circled the falls, probing for danger. A whole quarter-hour passed without incident, and all three souls returned unharmed, even carrying back samples of the black water.
Xue Xiao's golden eyes glinted with disdain. Without waiting for her order, it flared its silver wings and darted straight for the waterfall's most concentrated area. Its magnificent body cut a brilliant arc across the sky, heading straight for the black torrent.
Then, just five zhang away from the falls, everything went wrong.
Xue Xiao let out a shrill cry of pain. Its body jolted violently, as though it had slammed into an invisible wall. It beat its wings frantically, but something seemed to be dragging it down.
"Not good!" Xie Zhaolin's heart clenched. She instantly sensed through the contract that something was sucking away its soul power at a terrifying rate.
The three weaker birds dove in. One grabbed its left wing, another its right, and the third clamped onto its tail feathers. Struggling together, they barely managed to haul it back.
By the time Xue Xiao landed, it was weak and ragged. Its once-glorious silver feathers had dimmed, and the brilliance in its golden eyes had faded.
Xie Zhaolin quickly fed it shards of yinsha cores for healing, checking its condition carefully.
"This… suppression?" Realization struck her as her gaze shifted toward the three lesser birds.
They'd been fine. They were only Qi Refining, while Xue Xiao was late Foundation Establishment. The difference was huge.
To confirm, she had Feng Wang send out several worker bees.
To her surprise, the bees—only at the early Qi Refining stage—flitted around the waterfall with ease. Not a single problem.
"So it really is like that…" Her eyes darkened.
This time she gestured for Feng Wang to go.
Sure enough, she could feel the difference. Feng Wang's flight was sluggish, nothing like the carefree worker bees. By eight zhang from the falls, it was already straining.
"The higher the cultivation, the stronger the suppression," she murmured, finally understanding why that gray-robed man had said only cultivators below Foundation Establishment could harvest the Rebirth Flower.
There had to be some kind of restriction in the depths of the Blackwater Abyss, one designed specifically to suppress stronger cultivators and souls.
A trace of relief flickered through her heart.
Thankfully she hadn't been greedy. Even after wiping out every soul in that cave mansion, she hadn't taken the last third of the yinsha crystals. If she'd consumed them and pushed her cultivation further, she might've been stuck, unable to even move here.
Forget about harvesting the Rebirth Flower.
Pushing her distractions aside, her gaze flickered between the cliff walls and the black waterfall. She needed a new plan. Her original method wouldn't work. With suppression this strong, Xue Xiao couldn't carry her down. She crouched, running her fingers across the coarse rock. Climbing down looked possible but…
"Too risky." She shook her head immediately.
Who knew how many horrors lurked inside those honeycomb-like caves lining the cliff. If something ambushed her halfway, with suppression so heavy here, her beast souls might not be able to save her in time.
The gray-robed man's image surfaced in her mind. Since he'd spoken so confidently of the Rebirth Flower, he must've gone down before.
But how?
"Golden Core…" she muttered, her eyes flashing with sharp light.
Even his clones had Golden Core cultivation. His true body was stronger still. With suppression this severe, he should've been completely powerless. The only answer was that another passage existed, hidden somewhere she hadn't noticed.
"Shuang Ling, check the waterfall's left side. Dian Diao, the right. Teng She, the cliff base." She issued her orders swiftly.
They all slithered and darted off at once. She wasn't idle either, pacing the edge of the falls with her divine sense fully unleashed. Feng Wang fluttered nervously in her hair, sending out dozens of worker bees to help scout.
And soon enough, Teng She sent back a signal.
She hurried over. Teng She was coiled atop a seemingly ordinary boulder, tapping it with its tail. The hollow echoes gave everything away.
"There's something underneath!" Her eyes lit up. She knelt down and examined it carefully.
The surface looked like any other stone, but the sound was different. Channeling baleful qi into her fingertip, she probed along the edges. At the lower right corner, she found it—a hair-thin crack, far too straight to be natural. Her hands blurred through a seal. A wisp of black qi seeped into the gap. With a faint click, runes lit up across the boulder's face. Then the rock split apart, sliding slowly to either side.
Beneath it lay a delicate teleportation array, glowing faintly in the darkness.