A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The black mist gushing from the cracks in the rock wall condensed into sharp spikes, and Jiang Ye used his backhand to drive his sword into the ground.

The moment the bronze patterns on the sword lit up, sixteen star-track barriers unfolded, temporarily sealing the leaking fog of war five zhang away.

"There's still half an incense stick left." Ye Shuli tore off the silver ribbon that bound her hair and wrapped it around Jiang Ye's wrist. The broken jade bell at the end of the ribbon jingled softly. "When the core of the spiritual spring resonates with the bronze cauldron, the fog of war will expand explosively."

The two leaped into the depths of the cave, stepping on the star trail barrier.

Blood seeped from the cauldron pattern on Jiang Ye's palm, and the ancient star map on the stone wall along the way lit up one by one, reflecting the scattered fragments of bronze cauldrons on the ground—the very eye of the array that sealed the fog of war three hundred years ago.

Three arrows wrapped in black flames pierced the air. Ye Shuli flicked out silver threads to entangle the nearest stone pillar and used it to move around.

The arrow suddenly changed direction as it grazed her hair. Jiang Ye spun around and swung his sword, severing the arrow shaft. The burst of black mist corroded half of his sleeve.

"Beware of the mist taking human form!" Ye Shuli threw out three jade talismans to pin down the shadow in the southeast corner, but the chains made of talismans missed their target.

The rock strata, eroded by the fog of war, collapsed with a roar, revealing the melting spiritual spring barrier behind them—a man clad in heavy black iron armor was thrusting a halberd emitting black smoke toward the spring.

Jiang Ye's sword arrived before his angry shout, the bronze blade striking the tip of the halberd and sparking purple-red flames.

The leader of the turbulent forces' visor cracked open, revealing a jawline covered in black runes: "Since I couldn't devour the first patriarch of the Ye family back then, you're perfect for making up for it."

Ye Shuli's silver threads covered the entire spiritual spring barrier like a spider web, and the birthmark behind her ear was so bright it was almost transparent.

When the silver thread touched the leader's black iron armor, hundreds of hidden weapons shot out from the cracks in the rocks on all sides.

Six assassins covered in scales burst from the ground, their twisted joints clashing like metal against metal.

Jiang Ye parried the curved blade aimed at his face with his horizontal sword, the blade piercing into the enemy's throat through the gaps in his scales.

The foul-smelling black blood splattered onto the star trail barrier, corroding it and creating hissing holes.

He stepped on the corpse to propel himself up, and the phantom of the bronze cauldron appeared behind him, pressing the two assassins who had surrounded him into the rock wall.

"They're using the fog of war as fuel!" Ye Shuli flung out a jade talisman, shattering the hidden weapon that had attacked Jiang Ye. The smoke from the burning talisman suddenly condensed into an arrow pointing towards the west side of the spiritual spring.

Her pupils constricted sharply—the fragments of the bronze cauldron at the edge of the spring were slowly melting away.

The leader of the turmoil suddenly roared, his halberd sweeping across and forcing Jiang Ye back, while his black iron wrist guard shot out chains that wrapped around Ye Shuli's ankle.

The instant Jiang Ye shattered the chains, the seventh assassin lurking in the shadows swung his blade at Ye Shuli's nape.

The bronze sword flew out of his hand and deflected the blade, but Jiang Ye used his left shoulder to catch the chain hammer that pierced through his chest and abdomen.

Coughing up blood, he snapped his enemy's neck, then slammed the blood-stained star compass into the ground: "Tianquan Shift!"

The starlight of the Twenty-Eight Mansions fell from the top of the cave, illuminating the area around the sacred spring.

The leader of the turmoil's mask shattered in the bright light, revealing half of a face that was remarkably similar to that of the sage of the spirit world.

Ye Shuli pressed her trembling fingertips against Jiang Ye's bleeding wound, using hemostatic powder mixed with spiritual energy to stop the bleeding and stop the tearing flesh.

"So it was you who switched the Sage's Star Compass." She pressed the Spirit Spring Core into Jiang Ye's bloodied palm, and the bronze cauldron pattern suddenly appeared on their touching skin. "What the first patriarch of the Ye family sealed away three hundred years ago was never the fog of war—"

The leader of the turmoil suddenly stopped in mid-air, and the light screen projected by the core of the spiritual spring revealed the truth of what happened back then.

A man with the same face as the wise man was immersing a star compass into the black mist, while what was sealed in the cauldron was clearly half a broken horn belonging to the royal family of the spirit world.

Suddenly, a silver-blue beam of light erupted from the spring, and the birthmark behind Ye Shuli's ear transformed into a stream of light that entered Jiang Ye's wound.

The instant the illusory bronze cauldron perfectly aligned with the core of the spiritual spring, she suddenly recalled the words of the sage from the spirit realm as he gently stroked the star map—"The oldest seals often require specific spiritual energy fluctuations to be broken, just as a harp string needs to resonate with a tuning fork."

The ripples of spiritual energy floating in the silver-blue pillar of light suddenly stopped, and the spiritual energy gathered at Ye Shuli's fingertips transformed into fine threads that drilled into the illusory image of the bronze cauldron.

The birthmark behind her ear felt burning hot—the sealing diagram left by the first patriarch of the Ye family three hundred years ago was unfolding in the form of spiritual energy ripples on her mind.

"The Three Powers Reversed!" Jiang Ye's blood-stained star compass suddenly floated between the two of them, and the starlight of the Twenty-Eight Mansions resonated with the spiritual energy ripples.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed the edge of the compass, her fingertips tracing three intersecting bloody streaks along the star trails. The originally disordered spiritual energy ripples suddenly arranged into a honeycomb-shaped light net.

The leader of the turmoil's mask shattered completely, revealing a face identical to that of the sage of the spirit world.

The black mist on his halberd condensed into a skull that lunged at the net of light, but it let out a piercing scream the moment it touched the bloodstain.

Jiang Ye's bronze sword suddenly flew back into his hand from the rock wall, and the broken jade bell at the end of the hilt and the silver ribbon in Ye Shuli's hair trembled at the same time.

"So that's how it is!" Ye Shuli suddenly pointed her fingers at her brow, and the modern physics knowledge sealed in her mind resonated with the spiritual energy ripples in a quantum entanglement-like manner.

She pressed Jiang Ye's star compass into the core of the spiritual spring, and the originally violent spiritual energy suddenly became as regular as a harp string.

The seven rock-armored beasts, whose spiritual energy was out of balance, suddenly stopped roaring, and the spikes that had sprung up on their scales slowly retracted in rhythm with the ripples.

The lava giant lizard closest to the spring even lowered its head meekly, revealing the festering wound on its neck caused by the imbalance of spiritual energy.

"Don't even think about it!" The leader of the turmoil suddenly tore open his breastplate, and the black crystal embedded between his ribs burst forth with a vortex that devoured light.

Jiang Ye's sword pierced through the black mist at this moment, and the bronze blade precisely pierced the gap in the opponent's shoulder blade—the very same vital point of the star map that the sage from the spirit realm had demonstrated three days ago.

The sound of bones shattering and metal scraping rang out as Jiang Ye used the momentum of his fall to pin the turbulent leader into the rock wall.

Blood gushed from the laceration on his lower back caused by the chain hammer, but the instant he landed, he flung out three jade talismans to seal the enemy's vital points on the throat: "This ill-fated relationship that should have been severed three hundred years ago should end now!"

Ye Shuli's silver ribbon suddenly taut like a string, and spiritual energy ripples swept across the entire cave as she moved the ribbon.

The bronze cauldron fragments that had melted away suddenly reversed their flow and reformed, and the black mist gushing from the spring turned into glistening snowflakes the moment it touched the ripples.

The moment the last fragment of the bronze cauldron was returned to its place, the core of the spiritual spring erupted with a rainbow-like waterfall of light.

The bronze cauldron pattern on Jiang Ye's chest suddenly floated up and merged seamlessly with the reassembled bronze cauldron.

The rock layers eroded by the fog of war began to lose their black color, revealing the emerald-like spirit stone veins within.

"Impossible!" The leader of the turmoil's roar was frozen in his throat, his body gradually becoming transparent as the black mist dissipated.

The phantom of a sage from the spirit realm suddenly appeared above the spring, reaching out to press his hand against the forehead of a man with the same face as himself: "Back when you switched the Star Compass, you should have realized that the true seal always resides in the human heart."

The moment the spiritual energy ripples swept across every corner of the cave, all the rampaging creatures turned into specks of light and vanished.

Ye Shuli staggered and fell to the ground of the spirit stone, watching Jiang Ye use his broken sword to support himself as he moved over.

As his blood-stained sleeve brushed against her cheek, the bronze cauldron pattern shimmered three times on their touching skin.

Suddenly, a tidal wave of cheers erupted outside the cave.

Twelve elders from the spirit realm led hundreds of cultivators into the cave, but upon seeing the reassembled bronze cauldron, they all knelt down in unison.

The oldest man trembled as he picked up a fragment of the cauldron: "Three hundred years...this is the true cauldron that guards the realm!"

Jiang Ye suddenly groaned, and the star compass rolled off his arms and onto the ground.

Ye Shuli then noticed that half of a black arrow was stuck in his back—the very same one that the leader of the turmoil had shot last.

Her hands trembled violently as she tore open the sachet of hemostatic medicine, until Jiang Ye's blood-stained fingers grasped her wrist: "You won't die... You promised to teach me... that modern science called 'physics'..."

The spiritual spring, whose spiritual power had been fully restored, suddenly showered down sweet rain, and the wounds on the two people healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Just as Ye Shuli was about to speak, she suddenly felt a sharp, needle-like pain coming from the birthmark behind her ear.

She abruptly turned her head to look at the northwest corner of the cave—there was a rock wall that should have been purified into white jade by spiritual power, but now it was gleaming with an eerie emerald light.

When Jiang Ye followed her gaze, the light had already disappeared.

Only a single drop of bluish-green liquid seeped from the crack in the rock, condensing into half an ancient pattern on the spirit stone ground before quickly evaporating into the mist of the spirit spring.