Breaking through the illusion formation stunned the onlookers, while the romance between righteousness and evil grew hazy and indistinct.

The roots of the Seven-Star Grass at Shen Yi’s fingertips grew slightly warm as the blood-colored patterns coiled around his ankles dissolved into fine stardust, sinking into the bluestone.

Just as he was about to catch his breath, the rustling sound of jade-hairpin flowers blooming suddenly echoed in his ears.

"Do not touch the star-sand on the west wall!"

A pale yellow sword light tore through the air, and Gao Yao landed gracefully, stepping onto the falling petals of the jade-hairpin flowers. A hairline fracture had appeared on the green jade hairpin in her hair, glowing with an eerie red light under the reflection of the dark blue star-sand.

Shen Yi’s gaze swept across her waist—a silver bell hung beside her blood-patterned jade pendant, but at this moment, its clapper was frozen solid by ice crystals.

"Have you seen enough?" Gao Yao’s spirit sword suddenly crossed between them, the blade reflecting her flushed earlobes. "The puppy pattern you drew with the dragon-blood vine leaf earlier was so ugly that even the illusion array couldn't be bothered to mimic it."

Shen Yi gave a roguish smirk and pushed the blade aside with a stalk of grass, though the Seven-Star Grass roots hidden in his sleeve quietly coiled around the hilt.

When the roots touched the crack in the green jade hairpin, the system suddenly issued a warning: [Dual spirit-power imprint detected].

He pretended to stumble toward the wall, and in the moment he turned, he caught a glimpse of a faint blood-colored butterfly mark on the nape of Gao Yao’s neck.

The maze suddenly shook violently, and thirty-six bronze lamps simultaneously spat out twin dragons of ice and fire. In the eye of the formation, where frost and flames intertwined, seven blood-red stars were slowly shifting.

"The Kan position retains the Gate of Injury!" Gao Yao’s sword tassel suddenly erupted with green light, tracing a holographic Bagua in the air. "Use your vines to bind the Yuheng Star atop the ice dragon’s head!"

Shen Yi flicked out three green-radish seeds. The moment he infused them with spirit power, he let out a muffled groan—the withered purple sun-flowers in his storage bag were suddenly devouring his vital essence.

At that precise moment, Gao Yao’s sword light severed his sash, and the blood-stained storage bag fell into the mouth of the ice dragon.

"You!" Shen Yi clutched his bleeding waist and glared at her, only to see the ice dragon suddenly writhing in agony.

Those purple sun-flowers, gorged on his fresh blood, had bloomed inside the dragon’s belly, staining its icy blue scales a haunting rose-red.

Gao Yao leaped to his side, stepping through the flames, and her fingers, smelling of jade-hairpin flowers, darted across his vital points: "Don't you even understand the principle of fighting poison with poison?" Yet, her left hand, hidden in her sleeve, was trembling—in her haste, she had used her sect’s forbidden technique, "Grafting Flowers onto Wood."

As the twin dragons of ice and fire perished together in their conflicting attributes, Shen Yi suddenly grabbed Gao Yao’s wrist. The cinnabar mole on her wrist, once bright red, had now turned the same dark purple as the blood-patterned jade pendant.

"It’s a bit complicated to explain." Gao Yao shook off his hand, the tip of her sword flicking up a piece of melting ice crystal. "But Fellow Daoist Shen might want to guess why Mo Yu’s pendant..." Her words stopped abruptly, for Shen Yi had suddenly pressed the half-withered Seven-Star Grass against her heart.

The sharp pain caused Gao Yao to stumble into the young man’s embrace. She was startled to realize that the grass stems rooting into Shen Yi’s palm were frantically devouring the black mist within her meridians.

The safe zone outlined by the star-sand suddenly began to collapse, and in the distance came the crisp sound of blood-patterned jade pendants colliding.

"Hold on tight." Shen Yi’s voice, mingled with the scent of blood, brushed against her ear as his blood-stained palm pressed against a hidden compartment in the wall. "This time, the puppy pattern is drawn with the blood of an immortal."

As the roar of the mechanism drowned out her heartbeat, Gao Yao realized the silver bell at her waist had been unsealed. Between their interlaced fingers, the roots of the Seven-Star Grass were refining the last traces of black mist into starlight.

The star-sand floating in the embers of ice and fire suddenly condensed into a bronze mirror. Shen Yi looked at his disheveled reflection, used a blood-stained finger to draw a crooked talisman between his brows, and said, "Watch closely, this is an ancient secret technique—the Curse of Shattering Delusion—"

Before he could finish, Gao Yao’s scabbard struck the back of his neck.

With a cold expression, she tossed him half a white jade pendant: "Your mind was ensnared by the illusion array earlier; this is a Cleansing Heart Jade."

As Shen Yi caught the pendant, his fingertips brushed the lingering starlight on her wrist. Just as he was about to speak, a crisp sound of jade pendants colliding came from overhead.

Thirty-six bronze mirrors appeared out of thin air, each reflecting Mo Yu’s sinister face.

"Fellow Daoist Shen is truly resourceful," Mo Yu’s voice echoed from every direction. "Using dark arts to control Fairy Gao to break the formation, turning even the Blood-Gu Butterfly into your puppet." The mirror suddenly reflected the butterfly mark on Gao Yao’s neck, which was now squirming in a grotesque fashion.

Gao Yao’s sword light swiveled abruptly, carving a bloody line across Shen Yi’s shoulder. Her hand trembled slightly as she gripped the sword: "You planted a gu in my meridians?"

"If planting a gu could improve my swordsmanship by thirty percent, I would love to plant a few in Fellow Daoist Mo as well." Shen Yi smirked, using the Seven-Star Grass to press against his wound, the leaves instantly stained crimson.

The green-radish vine hidden in his sleeve suddenly coiled around the silver bell at Gao Yao’s waist. With a crisp "ding," half a blood-gu butterfly made of ice crystals fell out of the bell.

Mo Yu’s laughter turned shrill: "Does Fairy Gao remember three days ago, who was it that put something in your tea..."

"Enough!" The Bagua diagram on Gao Yao’s sword tassel flared violently, and her sword aura swept out, shattering all the bronze mirrors. As she turned, the jade hairpin in her hair snapped completely, and her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall: "We are even now."

Shen Yi watched her silhouette disappear into the star-sand and reached out to catch a falling fragment of the hairpin.

The system prompt sounded: [Damaged Mutual Heart Pact detected. Would you like to spend 200 spirit power to repair it?]

"Save the spirit power to grow radishes," he muttered, crushing the jade fragment. A drop of blood from his palm fell onto the bluestone, blooming into a black lotus.

The star map on the dome of the illusion array began to rotate in reverse, and seventy-two sword lights struck from all sides.

Shen Yi grabbed a handful of golden seeds from his storage bag—these were "Thunderbolt Beans" he had improved with lightning-struck wood the night before.

The moment he infused them with spirit power, the beans shot toward the gaps in the sword formation like meteors. In the exploding light, a Bagua formation faintly appeared.

"Qian is three connected lines, Kun is six broken lines..." He navigated through the eye of the formation, stepping through the aftermath of the explosions, his Seven-Star Grass roots constantly seeping into the ground.

When the thirty-sixth Thunderbolt Bean embedded itself into the Zhen position, the entire illusion array shattered with the sound of cracking porcelain.

As the bluestone floor turned into quicksand and began to sink, Shen Yi pressed the final seed against his heart. The spirit power that erupted from the intense pain caused the Seven-Star Grass to grow wildly into a giant tree, and the vines hanging from its branches hooked onto the stone pillars of the safe zone just as they were about to vanish.

"Farmer, over here!" Feng Yi’s voice suddenly came from the northeast corner.

Shen Yi’s pupils contracted as he turned—the man had Mo Yu’s blood-patterned jade pendant hanging at his waist, but in a blink, it transformed into an ordinary jade piece.

Shen Yi grinned and suddenly let go of the vines, allowing his body to fall. Just as he was about to drop into the void, the green-radish vine from his sleeve coiled around Feng Yi’s ankle.

The moment both plummeted toward the abyss, Shen Yi used the force of the other’s panicked struggle to flip himself onto a newly emerged stone staircase.

"Fellow Daoist Shen has impressive skills." Before Feng Yi dissolved into blue smoke in mid-air, he tossed over a storage ring glowing with a faint light. "Watch out for the man-eating flowers in the next level."

The moment Shen Yi caught the ring, the system suddenly flashed a red warning: [Tracking imprint detected].

He acted as if nothing had happened, slipped the ring onto the little finger of his left hand, and as he turned, used the roots of the Seven-Star Grass to carve a dog’s head with its tongue sticking out onto the wall.

At this moment, on the spectator platform formed by the star-sand, Gao Yao touched her heart involuntarily.

The residual spirit power of the Seven-Star Grass there was heating up, causing the cinnabar mole on her wrist to glow a pale gold. When she saw the dog’s head carved by Shen Yi in the water mirror, she hurriedly crushed her communication jade talisman, unaware that the star-sand caught in the tips of her hair was quietly turning ink-black.

And in the deepest shadows of the maze, Mo Yu was toying with three blood-colored jade pendants. The pendants reflected the twisted smile on his lips: "The seeds have been sown; when the Immortal Sect Competition begins..." He suddenly crushed the pendants, and the face of a fawning Feng Yi appeared in the flying fragments.