A total victory over the villain dispels the crisis, and with the spiritual veins secured, a new journey begins.

Shen Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth; the roiling spiritual energy in his dantian carried the pungent scent of raw earth.

Watching the remnants of the Night Shadow retreat with unsteady steps, he suddenly recalled the Spirit-Devouring Vine he had planted half a month ago—a spirit plant deemed a failure by the system, now growing wildly within his meridians, transmuting the pressure of his Golden Core stage into a thousand sharp barbs.

"Time to close the net." He licked his cracked lips, a cyan light suddenly flickering in the spirit patterns on his palms.

The muffled thuds of the villagers’ hoes striking the frozen earth grew distinct, echoing the sound of his spade breaking through the ice as he tilled the spirit fields yesterday.

The Night Shadow’s black iron mask cracked into a spiderweb of fissures, revealing half a face as pale as parchment.

Shen Yi noticed the fingers forming the incantations were trembling; those knuckles, which should have been wreathed in Netherfire, were now a sickly, ashen gray—resembling nothing so much as spirit wheat stalks eroded by frost.

"Form the array!" The Night Shadow’s roar was choked with ice shards, and the eight remaining black-robed figures simultaneously crushed the bone whistles at their necks.

Shen Yi’s pupils constricted. This was no technique of the Nether Palace; it looked more like... those Spirit-Eating Locusts he had burned in the spirit fields last month!

As the sound of whistling air erupted, Shen Yi suddenly spun and hurled his hoe toward a withered tree on his left.

Amidst the dull thud of iron embedding into wood, three poisoned bone arrows grazed his ear.

The system interface flickered frantically across his retina, the streaming data resonating with the totem on his chest, manifesting the Night Shadow's murderous intent into a dense web of red lines.

"Watch out for the ley lines!" Liefeng’s wine gourd suddenly exploded, the amber medicinal wine coalescing into an ice shield in mid-air.

Shen Yi rolled into a furrow, catching the familiar scent of humus as his fingers dug into the frozen soil—this was the very earth he had nourished with spirit rain!

The moment the Night Shadow’s bone array collided with the ice shield, the patterns on Shen Yi’s palms surged.

The Spirit-Devouring Vine buried beneath the earth burst forth, its ink-green tendrils precisely ensnaring the ankles of every black-robed figure.

He heard the system’s alert tone turn piercing, as if a thousand silver needles were pricking his temples, but the swallowed spiritual energy flowed ceaselessly into his dantian.

"What are you waiting for?" Shen Yi grinned at the stunned villagers, pressing his blood-stained hand against Liefeng’s back. "Remember the snake-gall wine we drank last time?" Surging spiritual energy poured into his companion’s meridians, and the gale rising around Liefeng was suddenly accompanied by the phantom image of a spirit serpent.

The Night Shadow’s black cloak suddenly billowed like bat wings. Shen Yi saw black curse marks emerging on his neck—they were the same eerie patterns that had appeared in the contaminated spirit field half a month ago!

The sudden agitation of the Spirit-Cleansing Talismans in his system inventory confirmed his suspicion.

"Yao'er!" Shen Yi shouted suddenly, and the Frost-Moon Silk responded by wrapping around his wrist.

Leveraging the force of Gao Yao’s pull, he shot toward the Night Shadow like an arrow released from a bow.

The moment they collided, the spirit wheat seeds hidden in Shen Yi’s sleeve suddenly sprouted. As the tender shoots pierced the Night Shadow’s palm, they hissed like a branding iron searing flesh.

Before the Night Shadow could scream, Shen Yi had already clamped onto his cracked mask.

As his wood-grained fingertips touched the cold metal, the system interface suddenly flashed a prompt: [Netherfire Seed (Fragment) detected].

He chose to reclaim it without hesitation, only to see a sinister smile flicker in the Night Shadow’s eyes.

The shockwave of the explosion threw them both back, and Shen Yi crashed heavily into the freshly tilled spirit field.

He heard Gao Yao’s tearful cry, but the blood surging in his chest choked off any response.

Through blurred vision, he saw the Night Shadow’s shattered body dissolving into black mist, the vapors seeping thread by thread into the ley lines.

"Brother Shen!" Gao Yao’s icy fingertips pressed against his pulse, and the Frost-Moon Silk automatically coiled around the totem on his heart.

Shen Yi wanted to tease her about her reddened eyes, but when he opened his mouth, he coughed up blood that smelled of fresh grass—the unmistakable essence of the detoxifying herb he had mistakenly eaten last month.

When Liefeng arrived, supporting the village head, Shen Yi was toying with the half-mask he had torn from the Night Shadow.

Dark red bloodstains clung to the inner side of the mask, outlining a pattern strikingly similar to the totem on the ancient stele at the village entrance.

He rubbed his wood-grained fingertips, suddenly recalling the "Ancient Law Synchronization Rate" mentioned by the system.

"Watch out!" Gao Yao suddenly swept her sleeve to knock the mask from his hand.

As the black iron fragments hit the ground, they stained the surrounding snow ink-black.

Shen Yi narrowed his eyes, seeing his own shadow cast upon the snow... did it seem to have grown a tail?

Cold mist condensed into ice crystals on Shen Yi’s eyelashes. Watching Gao Yao dash toward him, he suddenly remembered the white-tailed sparrow he had saved in the spirit field three days ago.

The little thing had fluttered and knocked aside the trap just like this, the ice crystals on its wings shattering like a galaxy in the moonlight.

"Fool," he muttered in his throat, the wood-elemental spirit energy just gathering in his palm suddenly shifting direction.

The moment the green vines burst from the soil to wrap around Gao Yao’s ankles, the Night Shadow’s bone spikes grazed her hair, scorching a charred mark into the Frost-Moon Silk.

Gao Yao backhanded an ice spike into the ground, the chill traveling up the vines to Shen Yi’s wrist. "Who asked you to save me!" Her reddened eyes arrived before her words, and Shen Yi caught the scent of snow lotus on her—the healing spirit herb he had secretly slipped into her medicine basket yesterday.

The instant their spiritual energies collided in mid-air, Shen Yi laughed.

The jade talisman that slipped from his sleeve was stained with mud; it was the ancient fragment he had dug up from the spirit field last night.

As the system alert exploded in his head, he intentionally stumbled into Gao Yao’s embrace.

"Hold on tight, Fairy," he whispered against the girl’s burning ear, while the jade talisman was already embedded in the array node beneath the Night Shadow.

A dragon-like tremor emanated from the depths of the ley lines, and the spiritual energy swallowed by the Spirit-Devouring Vine suddenly surged backward, forming a jade-colored vortex around them.

The Night Shadow’s black iron mask shattered completely, revealing a face covered in black curse marks.

Shen Yi’s pupils shrank—those marks were exactly the same as the data streams pulsing on his system interface!

As the Netherfire coalesced into a scimitar in the Night Shadow’s palm, Shen Yi’s wood-grained right hand suddenly rose against his will.

"Be careful!" Gao Yao’s Frost-Moon Silk wrapped around his wrist, the frost traveling along his meridians to suppress the rampaging energy.

Shen Yi seized the chance to shove half a bag of spirit wheat seeds into her palm. "Remember how to force them to sprout?"

The moment the Night Shadow’s scimitar cleaved through the frozen earth, emerald wheat seedlings burst through the ice.

The tender shoots, tainted with the system’s spirit rain, grew wildly into a net, trapping the Netherfire within the intertwined stems and leaves.

Shen Yi heard the system emit a piercing alarm, and a blood-red notification flashed before his eyes: [Ancient Law Synchronization Rate 37%].

"Now!" Liefeng’s wine gourd smashed into the array node, the amber liquor merging with Gao Yao’s ice-attribute spiritual energy.

Enduring the agonizing pain of his tearing meridians, Shen Yi slapped the final three Spirit-Cleansing Talismans onto the Night Shadow’s forehead.

The moment the talismans touched the black mist, he saw a twisted smile hook the corner of the Night Shadow’s mouth.

As a blinding white light swallowed the battlefield, Shen Yi was suddenly pulled into a warm embrace.

Gao Yao’s spiritual energy, carrying the clean fragrance of snow lotus, flooded into his heart, suppressing the churning toxins.

He struggled to focus his vision, finding that the girl’s hair ribbon had somehow entangled their little fingers.

The Night Shadow’s mangled remains turned to ash in the pillar of light; only the half-mask fell with a clatter.

Shen Yi staggered toward it, but Gao Yao gripped his sleeve tightly. "Your hand!" Only then did he notice the wood grain had spread to his elbow, the cyan veins pulsing beneath his skin resonating with the ley lines.

The cheers of the villagers drifted from far away.

The old village head approached with spirit soil to tend his wounds, and Liefeng shouted in celebration while brandishing his newly brewed medicinal wine, but Shen Yi’s attention was entirely on the message bar that had suddenly popped up in the system: [Nether contamination source detected; Spirit Plant Market trading privileges unlocked].

"Brother Shen, your complexion is terrible." Gao Yao pressed the back of her cool hand against his forehead, the Frost-Moon Silk automatically wrapping around his wood-grained arm.

Just as Shen Yi was about to make a quip, the voice-transmitting talisman in his pocket spontaneously ignited, the ashes forming small, blood-red characters in the air: *Spirit seedling prices in Qingsang Town have tripled. Come quickly.*

He narrowed his eyes and crushed the talisman fragments. The ash on his fingertips carried the familiar scent of humus—the very smell of the improved spirit soil he had sold to the market last month.

A faint tremor came from deep within the ley lines. The black Nether-mist that had seeped into the soil was now flashing red on his system map.

"Have to head to the Spirit Plant Market tomorrow." Shen Yi pulled up a weed growing beside his foot; the residue of the Night Shadow’s blood on its roots suddenly transformed into a black butterfly and fluttered its wings.

As Gao Yao’s ice spike shattered the butterfly’s wings, the Spirit-Devouring Vine seeds in his sleeve suddenly trembled with hunger.

The moonlight illuminated the ancient stele at the village entrance. Shen Yi traced the totem on the stone, finding the patterns gradually aligning with the wood grain on his arm.

The system interface suddenly popped up a new task: [Cultivate Netherfire Seed (0/1)], and the rewards column clearly displayed an icon for a pill that could dispel the Law’s corruption.

He turned to look at Gao Yao, who was busy tending to the villagers. The ice crystals in her hair refracted the starlight, looking exactly like the night-blooming cereus that had suddenly blossomed in the spirit field that day.

Shen Yi quietly tightened his grip on the restless seeds in his bag, a familiar roguish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth—this game was getting more and more interesting.