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

The dust and smoke from the collapse of the underground palace had not yet dissipated, and Ye Shuli's palm was pressed against the barcode mark on Jiang Ye's back that had not yet scabbed over.

The warmth from his fingertips reminded her of the words he had spoken three months ago on a rainy night when he wiped the blood from her eyelashes with his blood-stained fingers: "Little Yezi, I'm saving my life to see you reach the summit."

&34; The Big Dipper formation is responding to the divine power. &34; Jiang Ye suddenly grabbed her wrist, pressing his fingertips against the pulsating veins.

The sound of gears grinding over gravel could be heard in the distance. The bronze fragments that should have sunk into the abyss with the underground palace were now floating in mid-air, glowing with a ghostly blue light.

Suddenly, the fragments of the divine core around Ye Shuli's neck emitted a seven-colored halo, and the scattered fragments of the star map automatically pieced together to form a complete star chart.

Black mist seeped from the cracks remaining in the twelve bronze gates, condensing into the phantom of a guardian with three heads and six arms.

Jiang Ye flicked out three yellow talismans, and the burning talismans formed a pale golden barrier around the two of them.

&34; Southeast Xun position. &34; Ye Shuli tossed the astrolabe into the air, and her memory as a graduate student in modern mathematics allowed her to instantly analyze the energy flow trajectory.

As the divine power was injected into the astrolabe, the bronze gear suddenly changed direction and attacked her brow.

Jiang Ye spun around and pulled the person into his arms, the bronze gear scraping against the back of his neck and embedding itself in the ground.

A giant hand formed from black mist shattered the barrier, and the metallic scent of blood emanating from its throat sprayed into Ye Shuli's ear: "Do you remember the dimensions of the ventilation shafts in the auction house's escape route?"

Ye Shuli's pupils suddenly contracted.

Three months ago, they broke through by exploiting the weaknesses in the building's structure, and now the suspended bronze fragments happen to form a honeycomb structure of the same proportion.

The divine power flowed from her fingertips, transforming into a hexagonal pillar of light. The moment it precisely shattered the core support point, the remaining dark energy in the entire temple suddenly stopped.

"Watch out!" Jiang Ye suddenly pulled her and rolled to the right.

The Guardian's true form burst through the ground, and black vines sprouted from the gaps in its bronze armor, wrapping around Jiang Ye's ankle.

Ye Shuli saw that the bronze gear he had not yet removed from his waist was starting to bleed; the hidden weapon from three months ago was now resonating with the power of darkness.

The fragment of the divine essence suddenly detached from the necklace and floated between the two of them. The Big Dipper mark under Jiang Ye's collarbone collided with the fragment of the divine essence, creating golden sparks.

Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed his wrist and pressed it against her dantian: "Lend me the teleportation technique you used three months ago to block a hidden weapon for me!"

The shockwave generated by the clash of the two forces blew away half of the guardian's armor, revealing the desiccated body inside.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli injected divine power into the gap in the star chart. The energy network constructed by modern geometry cut the dark power into fragments that could be devoured.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye flicked out a silver thread from his sleeve, which wrapped around the guardian's exposed spine and pulled it backward sharply.

As the last wisp of black mist was absorbed by the fragment of the divine essence, Ye Shuli suddenly staggered and clutched her chest.

When Jiang Ye helped her up, he discovered that the purified bronze fragments were turning into powder and seeping into the wound on his coccyx.

The fragments of divinity refracted a strange spectrum before his eyes. Ye Shuli stared at the faint cracks in the void where the beams of light intersected, and suddenly remembered that the top of the sage's scepter was also inlaid with a similar prism.

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The bronze powder sizzled as it burned at the wound on Jiang Ye's coccyx, while Ye Shuli's five fingers dug deeply into his shoulder blade.

The light spots projected from the void rifts drifted across the ground, cutting the overlapping shadows of the two people into irregular geometric shapes.

&34; Southeast, thirty degrees away. &34; Ye Shuli suddenly pushed Jiang Ye away, the fragment of the divine essence hovering three inches from her fingertips.

Her experience dismantling mechanical beasts at an auction three months ago allowed her to instantly calculate the energy refraction path. Her knowledge of modern architectural mechanics automatically generated a three-dimensional coordinate axis in her mind—the critical point where the power of the void and the power of divinity intersected was precisely the seventh rib of the guardian's mummified body.

Jiang Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and pulled out the bronze gear embedded in the ground with his other hand.

Dark red blood beads rolled along the grooves engraved with runes, colliding with the floating star disk fragments and creating eerie blue flames.

The moment Ye Shuli compressed the two forces into a rhombus-shaped cone of light, he suddenly threw the bronze gear toward the gap in the center of the star chart.

Then! The blood-stained gears rubbed golden tracks across the surface of the light cone, and the scattered fragments of the star map suddenly formed a complete Big Dipper formation.

Ye Shuli's pupils reflected the afterimage of the rotating gears. The Star Shifting Technique that Jiang Ye had taught her three months ago automatically surfaced in her mind—the angular velocity of the rotating gears and the linear velocity of the advancing light cone reached the golden ratio in the third second.

As the light cone pierced the guardian's chest, the fragments of the exploding bronze armor solidified in mid-air into a twelve-pointed star array.

The dark power transformed into a viscous black liquid that gushed from the gaps in the armor, but was cut into small equilateral triangular pieces the moment it touched the star map fragments.

The trail left by Ye Shuli's fingertips was a pale gold trace, like a standard function curve drawn in the void with a compass.

"There are only three energy nodes left!" Jiang Ye suddenly ripped open his blood-stained clothes.

The Big Dipper mark beneath her collarbone emitted golden light, resonating with the fragments of divine essence on Ye Shuli's neck.

The bronze powder that had seeped into his wound suddenly surfaced on his skin, forming a three-dimensional model of a Klein bottle between the two of them.

It was at this moment that the Dark Messenger appeared.

A black mist resembling rotting flesh poured out from the gap in the star chart, condensing into a human figure draped in a tattered sacrificial robe.

Just as Ye Shuli was about to adjust the angle of the light cone, she suddenly felt a cold breath on the back of her neck—the real killing intent came from the three-inch void rift behind her.

Jiang Ye's pupils contracted to the size of pinpoints in an instant, and the muscle memory from when he blocked a hidden weapon for her three months ago activated faster than his thoughts.

&34; Seven steps to the southeast (巽位)! &34;

Jiang Ye's roar and the dark messenger's bone claws arrived at the same time.

Ye Shuli instinctively rolled to the side, and the intense light from the fragments of her divine power burned a charred hole in her sacrificial robe.

She smelled the burnt smell of her own hair and caught a glimpse of Jiang Ye using silver threads to bind the Dark Messenger's wrist bones—the same silver threads that were the black iron chains he had taken from the auction house three months ago.

The bronze gear suddenly emitted a sharp buzzing sound.

The Sanskrit talisman left by the purification master lit up in Jiang Ye's palm. He used the momentum to leap into the air and flip behind the dark messenger. The way he wrapped his legs around the other man's neck was exactly the same as the way they subdued the ruthless manager in the gambling den three months ago.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ye Shuli increased the energy of the light cone to 120%, and her knowledge of modern nuclear physics allowed her to precisely control the critical point of the chain reaction.

The guardian's mummified body suddenly convulsed violently.

The purified bronze armor fragments flew automatically toward the gap in the star chart, with each fragment embedded in a position corresponding to the vertex coordinates of a regular dodecahedron.

The moment the last piece of armor completed the star array, the Dark Messenger let out an inhuman howl—his right arm, transformed into a bone blade, was only half an inch away from Jiang Ye's heart.

&34; Break! &34;

Ye Shuli cleaved the light cone with her fingers as if they were knives.

The energy beam, broken down into sixty-four golden threads, pierced through the guardian's major acupoints. Those meridian nodes that had been eroded by darkness corresponded precisely to the weak points in the topological structure that she had studied in her graduation thesis.

Tears suddenly welled up in the guardian's empty eye sockets, and his parched lips trembled as he uttered a prayer that had been sealed away for a thousand years.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye spun around and threw out three bronze gears.

The blood-stained hidden weapon precisely severed the energy link between the Dark Messenger and the Void Rift. The life-saving artifact, which he had obtained by pawning his jade pendant three months ago, now emitted a clear and melodious sound like a dragon's roar under the blessing of the star array.

Ye Shuli saw the body beneath the Dark Messenger's robe begin to pixelate and decompose, and immediately bit her tongue, spitting her blood essence onto the fragments of divinity.

Watch out behind you!

The purification master's warning came a beat too late.

The dark messenger, which should have dissipated, suddenly exploded into thousands of points of light, three of which were a deep blue that shot directly into Jiang Ye's brow.

Ye Shuli's retina still retained the afterimage of the energy explosion, and her body, following the fighting instincts she had developed over the past three months, lunged forward.

The excruciating pain of the dark ray piercing his left shoulder ironically made his mind exceptionally clear.

As Ye Shuli fell, she saw the blood vessels bursting in Jiang Ye's pupils, and the pattern outlined by those blood vessels perfectly matched the prism structure at the top of the Sage's Scepter.

The buzzing sound as the divine fragments automatically sealed her wounds created an eerie duet with the turning of gears coming from underground.

Jiang Ye caught her hand, which was as cold as ice.

The bronze powder that had seeped into his coccyx suddenly surfaced and formed the connecting pattern of the Big Dipper on the skin where the two were touching.

Ye Shuli wanted to remind him to pay attention to the energy resonance, but she found that the blood foam overflowing from his throat was being absorbed by the divine fragments and turned into a scarlet halo.

The void rift above their heads slowly closed, and the last glimmer of light pieced together half of a fragmented star map on the ground.

Ye Shuli heard the sound of Jiang Ye's heart pounding against his ribs, and in a daze, she recalled the rainy night three months ago when he carried her through twelve bronze gates, and the sweat on the back of his neck was just as hot.