jdhmnovel Chapter 407 Awakening and Breaking Through
Chapter 407 Awakening and Breaking Through
The sound of chains scraping against each other pierced eardrums the instant the purple-robed leader slapped out a thick black mist with both palms.
The spatial rift cleaved by Ye Shuli's sword suddenly reversed, and chains of lightning carrying rubble slammed back into her chest. A sweet, metallic taste filled her throat as she heard the cracking sound of bones breaking.
&34; The Sun-Devouring Curse, bought with three hundred years of cultivation sacrificed—&34; Fragments of the leader's breastplate fell away, revealing cracks spreading across the blood-red crystal at his chest. &34; The little girl should be grateful for the grace that she died under the Dark Temple's secret technique. &34;
Ye Shuli wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and found that the power of lightning was stagnant like lead in her meridians.
Jiang Ye swayed as he crawled out of the pile of rubble, his bloodied hand still tightly gripping half of a broken black iron dagger—the one they had forged from materials they had salvaged from the corpses of monsters in Thunder Valley when they first met.
"Do you still remember the guerrilla warfare theory you taught me?" He suddenly pressed his breath against her back, dark red bloodstains spreading on his blue shirt. "Feint to the east while attacking the west, combining feints and real attacks..." The last part of his sentence was interrupted by three poisoned arrows. Jiang Ye spun around and used his dagger to block, his posture clearly the modern military boxing stance he had just corrected last month.
The purple-robed leader's cold smile froze at the corner of his mouth.
Ye Shuli suddenly condensed lightning into fine needles and poured them into the magic array beneath her feet—the psionic circuit constructed using the principles of a modern power grid instantly spread out, and blue smoke rose from the soles of the boots of all the dark messengers within thirty meters.
Taking advantage of the chaos of the enemy's retreat, she dragged Jiang Ye into the recessed area of the altar and touched the cold glass bottle in the hidden pocket at his waist.
&34; You actually brought me the nitroglycerin I refined...&34;
"I was going to make you birthday fireworks." Jiang Ye coughed up blood and laughed, tearing open his shirt to reveal his back covered in lightning-attracting talismans. "Do you remember the principle of catalysts we learned in chemistry class?"
As the black mist of the Sun Devouring Curse pressed down on her head, Ye Shuli poured all her spiritual power into the glass bottle and threw it at the crack in the crystal.
The cinnabar talisman on Jiang Ye's back burned simultaneously, and the Nine Heavens Mystic Thunder collided with the violently vibrating chemical energy. The resulting silver-blue flames directly burned through the protective shield surrounding the blood-red crystal.
"Impossible!" The leader clutched his chest and retreated, completely unaware that the crystal shards had cut his palm.
The lightning bolts that should have been swallowed by the darkness transformed into countless tiny scalpels, precisely severing the major acupoints all over his body—a technique that Ye Shuli had improved when she performed surgery on the injured spirit beast last month.
Ye Shuli leaped up, stepping on the collapsed altar relief. Her remaining modern fighting skills, combined with her Spirit Venerable-level movement techniques, rained down kicks that all landed on the crack in the crystal.
When the seventh spinning kick hit the same coordinate point, the blood-red crystal finally emitted a crisp sound like shattering glass.
"Stop them!" the leader roared, crushing the communication jade talisman. Five dark elders at the Transcendent God realm stepped out from the void rift.
Jiang Ye suddenly grabbed the altar incense burner and smashed it against the temple dome. The sound of the bronze clashing was mixed with his shouts: "The Purification Hall reinforcements have arrived!"—the code they had memorized while eavesdropping on enemy communications last week.
The elders, who were about to form a battle formation, collectively paused for half a second.
Ye Shuli's sword seized the fleeting opening, carrying the scorching heat of the nitroglycerin residue, and pierced the leader's heart along the crack in the crystal.
In the soaring golden light, Jiang Ye used his last strength to tackle her, and the dark runes that exploded on his back branded a charred totem on his left shoulder.
The moment the crimson crystal shattered completely, the iron chain around the neck of the wise man of the Divine Temple snapped.
Ye Shuli, supporting herself with her sword, was about to get up to check on Jiang Ye's injuries when he suddenly grabbed her wrist with his blood-stained hand.
The young woman's unfocused pupils reflected the collapsed dome of the temple, but the corners of her mouth curled into a familiar arc: "This time... I really broke three ribs..." The aftershocks of the explosion sent dust swirling around the entire temple.
Jiang Ye collapsed in the rubble, coughing up blood. The charred totem on his left shoulder was visibly eroding his skin.
Ye Shuli tore open his tattered clothes, her pupils suddenly contracting—the twisted patterns were exactly the same as the Soul-Devouring Curse she had seen in the ancient tomb murals last month.
"Don't touch it!" Jiang Ye suddenly grabbed her wrist, his fingertips trembling with pain. "You were scratched by the poisonous vine in Thunder Valley..." Before he could finish speaking, he coughed up dark red blood clots.
Ye Shuli then noticed a deep, bone-revealing wound on his right arm, the very spot where he had shielded her from a poisoned dart three days prior.
Suddenly, the sound of icicles cracking came from the temple dome.
Five dark elders approached by stepping through the void rift, their surging demonic energy beneath their black robes forming frost flowers on the altar's surface.
Jiang Ye used the broken dagger to prop himself up, and the cracking sound from his kneecap reminded Ye Shuli of the chisels they used to break the ice when they were trapped in the icy pool.
&34; What heroism is there in the early stages of a spiritualist? &34; She pressed the person back onto the pile of stones, and with swift fingers, tore off the silver ribbon binding her hair.
Modern surgical suturing combined with healing spells caused the black blood seeping from Jiang Ye's wound to gleam with an eerie blue light under the moonlight.
The eldest elder in black robes suddenly formed a lotus seal.
Ye Shuli threw three poisoned silver needles with her backhand—the cyanide-based hidden weapons that she had modified the night before based on "Chemical Toxicology".
The ice shield formed by demonic energy was corroded with honeycomb-like holes, and the old demon crushed the dusty bronze bell under the floor tiles as he retreated.
Then! Jiang Ye suddenly tossed over half a piece of broken jade.
Ye Shuli recognized it as the lock core of the iron chain around the neck of the divine sage when they first entered the temple.
The moment the jade pendant touched the demonic energy, the twelve constellations in the dome suddenly projected golden light, enveloping the five elders in a cage of interwoven beams of light.
Jiang Ye coughed up blood and laughed: "The one I secretly switched last week... cough... the Big Dipper star chart..." The relief on the altar he was leaning against suddenly peeled off, revealing a bronze compass that had been sealed away in a dark compartment.
Ye Shuli's pupils shrank sharply—this was clearly the fake artifact they had seen in the Thunder Valley underground palace three months ago.
The trapped elder let out a beast-like roar.
Ye Shuli dragged Jiang Ye behind the compass, watching his trembling fingertips trace bloody lines on the bronze patterns.
When modern Morse code collides with an ancient formation, the compass needle suddenly spins wildly, and the burst of golden light resonates with the star cage.
"Retreat!" The elder's roar was swallowed by the roar.
The entire altar began to sink, and dark red patterns spread along the trajectory of the ancient formation in the cracks between the bricks that were stained with Jiang Ye's blood.
Ye Shuli suddenly remembered the "Spiritual Vein Circulation Diagram" that he had secretly copied three days ago.
A loud crash came from underground as bronze chains snapped.
The demonic energy cages of the five elders suddenly twisted and deformed, as if being torn apart by some ancient pressure.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye grabbed some pebbles and drew a crooked parabola on the surface of the altar—it was the ballistic calculation diagram that Ye Shuli had taught him.
&34; Nitroglycerin left... &34; His blood-stained hand reached for the hidden pocket at his waist.
Ye Shuli had condensed the last three drops of liquid into ice needles, and with the help of the golden light reflected from the compass, she accurately shot them into the brows of the three elders.
The moment modern chemistry collided with the ancient formation, the demonic energy cage shattered.
Just as the remaining two elders were about to form hand seals, the divine sage suddenly opened his eyes.
The bronze chains, sealed for a hundred years, sprang up like serpents, tightly binding the enemy to the stone pillars inscribed with purification spells.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli pulled Jiang Ye onto the dome beam and looked at the lightning talisman on his back that was bleeding and overlapped with the star map.
"Hold on tight!" She bit her fingertip and carved trigonometric formulas on the beam.
As the modern mathematical formula activated the ancient teleportation array, the two vanished in a flash of light, and at the last moment, the elder's demonic claws tore off half of Jiang Ye's clothes.
The teleportation destination is a temporary cave that was set up three days ago.
Jiang Ye crashed into the stone bed covered with monster fur, coughing up blood that stained the hemostatic powder that Ye Shuli had prepared the night before.
She pulled open the clothes on his left shoulder and discovered that the dark totem had invaded his collarbone—the very spot where his heart and spiritual veins met.
"Don't use the purification spell..." Jiang Ye suddenly grabbed her hand that was forming a hand seal. "Last week in the library..." His unfocused pupils suddenly focused, and his blood-stained fingertips drew a molecular structure formula on her palm.
Ye Shuli's breathing stopped abruptly—this was clearly the chemical formula she had deduced last month when she was researching the Dark Toxin.
The roar of a monster echoed from outside the cave.
Jiang Ye used his broken dagger to carve crooked coordinates on the stone wall, which was the location of Thunder Valley where they were trapped for three days when they first met.
Ye Shuli suddenly ripped open her collar and pressed the warm protective jade pendant against his festering totem—the jade pendant was soaked in the antibiotic solution she had prepared the night before.
The dark totem suddenly emitted a sizzling sound like a branding iron.
Jiang Ye doubled over in pain, his head hitting the stone wall and knocking off his gas mask—equipment they had modified from a black tortoise shell.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli poured the last half bottle of nitroglycerin into the mortar and pestle, mixed it with the hemostatic herbs, and mashed it into a paste.
When the sound of wings cutting through the air came from outside the cave, the lightning-attracting talisman on Jiang Ye's back suddenly became hot.
Ye Shuli grabbed the improved crossbow and leaped onto the watchtower, where she discovered three dark messengers forming an array in the clouds.
She nocked the chemically coated arrows onto the bowstring, when she suddenly heard a crisp metallic sound behind her as it hit the ground.
Jiang Ye had somehow climbed to the side of the smelting furnace, his hands covered in blood as he held the half-finished black iron arrowhead.
Ye Shuli recognized this as the birthday gift he had promised to make for her last month, with the crooked characters "Ye Li" engraved on the arrow's tail.
"Southeast wind..." Jiang Ye reminded him weakly.
Ye Shuli immediately adjusted the firing angle, watching the arrow coated with sulfur mixture trace a parabola.
When the modern incendiary bomb struck the ancient barrier, the resulting blue flames instantly engulfed the three Dark Messengers.
When the shockwave collapsed half of the cave wall, Jiang Ye used his last strength to shield her with his body.
Ye Shuli heard the crisp sound of his ribs breaking, mixed with the sound of the breastplate they had snatched at the auction three months ago shattering.
After the dust settled, the remaining darkness outside the cave condensed into blood-red arrows, which were deeply embedded in the stone wall marked with the coordinates of Thunder Valley.