Chapter Thirty-Two: Eruption

“Master, I’m not dead! But something feels a little off!” Bingling’s voice rang out in Ye Wuyá’s mind.

“Not dead? How’s that possible? I was writhing in agony from the ice poison, but Bingling is completely unharmed?” Ye Wuyá wondered silently.

Out loud, he asked in a straightforward tone, “What’s wrong? Didn’t you absorb all the ice poison just now?”

“Yes, I did! But Master, it seems you forgot something!” Bingling replied.

“What is it?” The unease in Ye Wuyá’s heart grew stronger, as if something terrible was about to happen.

“Promise me first that you’ll never try to eat me again, and I’ll tell you!” Bingling was still traumatized by Ye Wuyá’s earlier intention to devour her; the shadow of that incident lingered in her heart.

His sense of foreboding grew sharper, and his right eyelid twitched uncontrollably. Hurrying, Ye Wuyá swore, “I, Ye Wuyá, promise never to have any improper thoughts about Bingling again! Bingling, is that enough?”

“Mm-hmm! Master, then I’ll tell you!” Bingling responded in her innocent, naive way.

“Hurry up and spit it out! You’re killing me with suspense!” Ye Wuyá urged, growing desperate.

Where exactly had things gone wrong? Bingling was perfectly fine, so where had the ice poison gone? Ye Wuyá couldn’t figure it out.

“Master, my core is directly connected to yours! So, um, the natal ice poison I just absorbed inside your body—well, it seems it all entered your own core…”

“What?” Ye Wuyá exclaimed, his vision darkening as if the sky itself were collapsing.

After all his efforts to keep the ice poison out of his core, now he’d ended up hoisting a rock only to drop it on his own foot. Was this what they meant by ‘the higher the wall, the higher the devil climbs’? This Bingling…

He quickly turned his spirit inward and examined his core, only to find the ice poison truly coiling inside, opposite his three swirling currents of spiritual energy.

The sight left Ye Wuyá’s mind galloping with a thousand wild horses.

“Don’t explode, please! Just like this, stay calm, don’t get agitated, you mustn’t get agitated!” Tears streamed down Ye Wuyá’s cheeks from anxiety, and the feeling was as excruciating as gripping a handful of weeds.

If the ice poison and his spiritual energy collided, the resulting explosion would almost certainly shatter his core!

With a bang! And then he’d be dead beyond all hope.

After a while, he realized the ice poison and his spiritual energy seemed to have reached some kind of equilibrium, and for now, nothing was out of the ordinary. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Inside his core, the spiritual energy and the ice poison were like quarreling lovers in a cold war, ignoring each other. Yet fate had other plans. The uncontrollable Madness Corpse Secret Art, like a villain who never learned his lesson, noticed this new force in the core and, reckless as ever, began to stir, attempting to absorb the power of the ice poison.

“Oh hell! Brother, I’m begging you, could you not cause trouble at a time like this? This could kill me!” Ye Wuyá screamed internally, desperately trying to suppress the Madness Corpse Secret Art.

But the harder he fought it, the stronger the backlash. He felt his control slipping away, the secret art growing wild beyond his grasp.

The delicate balance between the ice poison and spiritual energy was shattered in an instant by the art’s tugging, sending both forces into a frenzy, and in the end, it was Madness Corpse Secret Art that seized them, channeling the combined force along its peculiar path.

“It’s over. It’s all over.” As control slipped away completely, Ye Wuyá collapsed on the icy floor, cursing his luck.

He finally understood something about this Madness Corpse Secret Art—it was essentially a body-forging technique that would greedily absorb anything it could, using violent energy to temper the body. How could he not curse it?

“Aaah…” His scream echoed throughout the ice cellar. The pain! Excruciating, incomparable agony! Ye Wuyá convulsed uncontrollably, rolling again and again on the ground.

The ice poison, drawn by the Madness Corpse Secret Art, surged through his entire body, spreading through his meridians, penetrating his organs, saturating his flesh down to the bone.

After a full circuit, the poison was drawn into his three spiritual energy vortices, and the energy, like gasoline meeting fire, boiled instantly.

“So… so painful!”

“Aaah…” Ye Wuyá threw his head back and howled. A torrent of potent energy erupted from within him.

His eyes grew dark and deep, black flames flickering from their depths, long fangs bared, white hair turning blood-red.

Corpse Transformation!

Boom! A surge of immense power exploded from Ye Wuyá’s body, blasting into the ice wall, shattering it with a thunderous crash, sending shards flying everywhere. The entire underground ice cellar trembled.

After transforming, Ye Wuyá felt his pain lessen—not that it had really diminished, but his body’s tolerance had increased with the transformation.

But this time was different from before. After draining Mu Qing, he had lost all reason, but now his mind was clear.

Yet the power within him grew ever more violent, and just as he began to feel a little better, the agony multiplied again.

An energy surpassing the Spirit Gathering Realm burst forth, even stronger than the profound martial skill the City Lord of Lingfeng had unleashed before.

Boom!

Ye Family, Council Hall.

All the members of the Ye family had gathered to discuss how to launch a counterattack on the Lu and Mu families.

Suddenly, the ground beneath the Ye estate quivered faintly.

“What’s happening?” Ye Yunlong slammed the table and stood up, shouting.

“Patriarch, it… it seems the Ye family’s ice cellar has collapsed!” A young man in Ye family robes ran in, stammering nervously.

“What did you say?” Ye Yunlong’s face fell, and he rushed toward the back mountain.

The rest of the Ye family followed close behind.

“Ice cellar? Yue’er, Xue’er, please be safe!” Ye Yunlong sped toward the rear mountain, leaping with all his might.

Ye Family’s Rear Mountain.

“Husband!”

Ruyue and Ruxue, seeing the ice surface collapsing beneath them, were overwhelmed with anxiety, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Staggering backward, they fell to the ground, dazed and devastated, staring blankly at the caving earth, muttering, “How could this happen? How could this happen…”

“Yue’er! Xue’er!” Ye Yunlong’s voice called out as he sprinted over from afar.

“Father!” The two girls, hearing his voice, turned their tear-streaked faces and saw his figure racing toward them.

He looked at his heartbroken daughters and asked, “Yue’er, Xue’er, what happened? Why did the ice cellar collapse?”

“Father! Wu wu…” The two girls threw themselves into his arms and wept.

Seeing their state, a sense of dread crept into Ye Yunlong’s heart. He looked around—where was that boy?

“Don’t cry. Tell me, what happened? Where’s Ye Wuyá?” he asked urgently.

“Father… Husband… he didn’t come out… He’s still down there…” Ye Ruxue choked out, her eyes red with grief.