Ning Suyao slowly opened her eyes at midnight after cultivating. Her eyes shone with dazzling brilliance as if stars exploding. A golden astrolabe rose above her head, sun and moon rotating around it. At this moment she was like a goddess descending on the mortal world.
Her indifferent face suddenly twisted from agony. Her snow white skin started becoming fiendish yellow. She looked at her skin and saw something moving inside. It looked like thousands of insects squirming beneath her skin, devouring her flesh and blood. The golden astrolabe above her head kept pouring endless light, trying to suppress it.
Whatever was beneath her skin reacted even more violently as if unwilling to be suppressed.
Ning Suyao gritted her teeth until blood flowed from her mouth. Veins popped out on her forehead. Even her beautiful face turned hideous. She felt something gnawing on her skin. The sensation was unbearable for her. One could only imagine how much pain she was in.
She willed and a small piece of metal flew out from her astrolabe.
The metal piece emitted a faint aura. As soon as the metal piece appeared, the insects under her skin became agitated as if it encountered a great enemy.
It wanted to invade her consciousness and destroy her. The metal piece vibrated a little and suppressed it completely. Her face slowly turned peaceful and she fainted.
Ning Suyao couldn't tell how much time had passed and found herself lying on a bed.
"You woke up. Here, have some tea." Li Shenrong poured her a cup of tea and sat on a reclining chair.
"Thank you." She spoke softly. Her tone was as soft as a mosquito squeak.
"You suffered a lot." Li Shenrong said.
Ning Suyao was silent. Perhaps she felt Li Shenrong couldn't understand her or perhaps she was unable to express her sufferings, thus she stayed silent.
Tear drops started to roll down from her beautiful face. If someone who knew her was here, they would be filled with incredulity. Someone like her who stood at the peak of the world was crying? It was unbelievable.
"You saw it last night?" She asked while wiping the tears.
"It's getting more violent." Li Shenrong commented.
"Aren't you afraid of falling victim to it? Since you have seen it, you should know what kind of terrifying abomination that thing is." She asked.
"What's there to be afraid of? I will slay whatever stands in my path, be it ghosts or gods." Li Shenrong said with a chuckle. He looked very carefree and relax as if nothing in this world could affect his heart.
Ning Suyao was dazed for a bit. She smiled bitterly as she contemplated about her own inferiority.
She stood from the bed weakly and gave a deep bow to Li Shenrong.
"Thank you, young noble for guiding me." She said in a solemn tone.
Li Shenrong accepted her gesture of respect with a smile. Only someone like him was worthy of respect from Ning Suyao.
"Close your eyes and channel your dao law throughout your body." Li Shenrong's voice turned very serious when he said this.
She didn't dare to delay and invoked her dao laws. A mighty and vast power erupted from her body.
As soon as the power erupted, Li Shenrong waved his hand and created a barrier. If not, billions of miles would've turned into nothingness.
Wave after wave hit the barrier but it couldn't shake the barrier at all.
Ning Suyao started channeling the dao laws to every corner of her body. But something blocked her laws. She could feel a strange energy inside her blocking her laws.
She couldn't even expell the foreign existence from her body. It stuck to her like maggots inside the bones.
"Don't resist." Li Shenrong pointed his finger at her forehead as a thin white thread flew out. The white thread entered her forehead and disappeared.
The white thread appeared inside her consciousness and started coiling around the small piece of metal. When the white thread coiled around the piece of metal, it started emitting a faint aura again which merged with her dao laws and spirit.
Ning Suyao felt a cooling sensation all over and her dao laws getting stronger.
"Try expelling it again." Li Shenrong's voice rang once again.
She willed and the dao laws tore through the strange energy residing inside her body. Ning Suyao felt strength coursing through every part of her body as she continued to expell the strange energy.
It reacted violently and attacked but under the empowering state her dao laws were so strong that the strange forbidden energy couldn't do anything at all.
Li Shenrong took the opportunity and grabbed a strand of gray energy which was vehemently trying to drill inside her body. He pulled with full strength.
"Grghhhh." Creepy sounds echoed as if thousands of ghosts screaming and talking.
"Humph!" Li Shenrong snorted coldly and grabbed more tightly. His palm was like an iron grip dragging it out. No matter how much it resisted everything was futile.
Their combine effort completely extracted the gray energy from her body.
Li Shenrong used a sealing technique to seal it instantly, without giving any chance to escape at all.
The seal turned into a crystal ball and started floating.
"Young master why can't i see it?" Ning Suyao opened her tired eyes and looked at the sealing crystal but she caught nothing with her eyes. It was empty but she could feel something terrible inside.
"You should focus on absorbing your gains." He said as he put away the crystal.
Hearing him, she could only nod her head and closed her eyes again.
Li Shenrong quietly left the room without disturbing her.
He climbed down the stairs and stretched his muscles. When he went down, he saw a crowd gathering together and discussing something.
The decrepit old man was still sleeping on the desk as if the inn's matter had nothing to do with him.
"We dined together yesterday and now he is dead. It's true that good people don't live long." Someone lamented while wiping out tears.
"Humph! What good guy.. he robbed me of my seven petal orchid flower. Its good that he died." Someone else sneered.
"What did you say?" The one who was crying roared in anger after hearing this.
"I said the truth, can't you hear it?" The other guy didn't back down.
More than thirty or so people surrounded a corpse. Li Shenrong pushed the crowd and made his way in. His gaze fell on the dead body below.
It was a complete rotten corpse. Disgusting yellow liquid kept pouring out from it. Insects had already started eating away the corpse. It was inexplicably disgusting and nauseating.
"Looking at the corpse, its hard to believe that he died last night. Do you think the killer used some kind of poison?" Someone expressed.
"Too many people have died the same way for the past two years and the culprit is still roaming around." A young man spoke with eyes full of hatred.
These people have no idea of what they are facing. Li Shenrong shook his head and sighed.