Chapter 51: Chapter 51
The morning mist rolling across Mirror Lake was thick, damp, and incredibly peaceful.
Yan Shuo sat comfortably on the smooth, gray rock by the water’s edge. He held the crooked bamboo fishing pole with a loose, relaxed grip. The thin silk line disappeared into the vast, mirror-like surface of the lake, completely undisturbed by the wind.
He wasn’t actually trying to catch a spirit-carp.
Deep beneath the freezing water, hundreds of feet below the lakebed, his rusted iron hook had securely lodged itself into the invisible, pulsing golden current of the western leyline.
With every slow, rhythmic breath he took, Yan Shuo channeled a microscopic thread of his pitch-black Abyssal Qi down the fishing line. It was a surgical, incredibly precise corruption. He was slowly feeding the ancient node a lethal dose of demonic gravity, rotting the spiritual foundation of Bai Chen’s grand cage from the inside out.
Beside him, completely oblivious to the continent-shaking sabotage taking place, Tantai Zhi was having the time of her life.
She had scooted so close to him on the rock that she was practically sitting in his lap. Her head was resting happily on his shoulder, and she was holding a small, woven basket of sweet peach pastries she had bought from a mortal vendor before they left Plum Blossom City.
"Husband, open," she murmured sweetly.
Yan Shuo dutifully opened his mouth, keeping his eyes on the calm water. She popped a small, incredibly sweet pastry onto his tongue, her golden eyes curving into delighted crescents when he chewed and nodded in approval.
"Very good, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo praised, his voice a low, lazy rumble. "The filling is perfect."
"I will buy the whole stall next time," she promised seriously, as if acquiring a monopoly on peach pastries was a matter of life and death.
Yan Shuo chuckled, leaning his head against hers. The dark Qi continued to flow down the fishing line. The western node was deeply entrenched in the earth, far more stubborn than the tree in the plaza. It would take a few more incense sticks of time to completely shatter it.
"The mist is getting a bit thick," Yan Shuo noted casually.
He didn’t move, but his dark Nascent Soul senses instantly picked up the subtle, unnatural shift in the ambient moisture. The natural morning fog rolling off Mirror Lake was suddenly growing dense, heavy, and completely devoid of sound. The chirping of the nearby water-bugs had abruptly ceased.
Tantai Zhi stopped reaching for another pastry.
The soft, romantic warmth radiating from her body vanished in a fraction of a microsecond. She didn’t lift her head from Yan Shuo’s shoulder, but her golden eyes darkened into bottomless, terrifying voids of absolute murder.
Someone is stepping on my shadow, Tantai Zhi realized, her pure Yin Qi silently gathering in her meridians. Someone is trying to ruin my fishing date with Husband.
"Don’t drop the pastries, Wife," Yan Shuo murmured softly, his grip on the bamboo pole remaining perfectly steady. "They look expensive."
From the thick, unnaturally heavy mist covering the lake, three figures materialized.
They did not make a single sound. They wore featureless black robes that seemed to swallow the morning light, and smooth, blank iron masks hid their faces. They did not radiate any orthodox Qi, nor did they carry the foul stench of the demonic path.
They were the Shadow Pavilion assassins—living weapons forged by the Faceless Scholar, completely devoid of presence until the exact moment they struck.
They didn’t waste time talking. They had their orders.
The three assassins simultaneously raised their hands, forming rapid, complex hand seals. They drew upon the massive body of water directly behind them.
Thousand-Thread Water Prison Curse!
Instantly, the calm surface of Mirror Lake violently erupted. Millions of droplets of water shot into the air, elongating into razor-sharp, high-tension threads of spiritual liquid. The threads wove together at lightning speed, forming a massive, inescapable dome over Yan Shuo and Tantai Zhi, designed to slice their physical bodies into ribbons the moment the net snapped shut.
It was a supreme-tier assassination array. Flawless, silent, and deadly.
"Husband," Tantai Zhi said. Her voice was no longer sweet. It was a chilling, melodic hum that vibrated with the absolute peak of mortal killing intent. "They scared the fish."
Yan Shuo sighed softly. "They are very rude."
Tantai Zhi didn’t even bother to stand up. She remained seated beside him on the rock, holding the basket of pastries in her left hand.
She simply raised her right hand and snapped her fingers.
CRACK.
The sound was as sharp as a breaking glacier.
The absolute peak of the Ice-Heart Jade Maiden Art did not require a sword to manifest. Tantai Zhi unleashed her Absolute Zero Domain.
A wave of pure, crystalline white Yin Qi exploded outward from her fingertips. It didn’t just strike the incoming array; it completely consumed the surrounding environment.
The razor-sharp threads of the Water Prison Curse froze instantly in mid-air, turning into brittle, harmless icicles that shattered into powder before they could even touch Yan Shuo’s robes.
But the Yin Qi didn’t stop there.
The wave of absolute zero temperature rolled over the edge of the grassy bluff and slammed directly into Mirror Lake.
The three black-robed assassins, who had been standing on the surface of the water, suddenly let out muffled gasps of sheer, unadulterated terror beneath their iron masks.
In a single, agonizing heartbeat, the entire, miles-wide expanse of Mirror Lake—a body of water so massive it looked like an ocean—froze completely solid.
The rushing waves were petrified into jagged, crystalline sculptures. The misty air turned into falling snow. The sheer, apocalyptic scale of her power turned a vibrant, living ecosystem into a dead, frozen wasteland in the blink of an eye.
The two assassins standing closest to the shore didn’t even have time to scream. The profound-ice instantly encased their legs, violently surging up their bodies and freezing their internal organs, their blood, and their spiritual seas into solid blocks of ice. They were permanently trapped as frozen statues, their blank iron masks forever staring at the shore.
The third assassin, the leader of the squad, had reacted a microsecond faster.
Burning his entire lifespan in a desperate burst of Qi, he launched himself into the air just as the lake turned to solid ice beneath his boots.
He soared into the sky, his heart pounding with mind-shattering fear. The intelligence was wrong! he screamed internally. The Saintess isn’t just a guardian! She is a walking natural disaster!
Realizing his water-array was useless and his squad was dead, the assassin didn’t try to fight her. He locked his gaze onto the fifteen-year-old youth sitting casually on the rock.
The Faceless Scholar’s orders echoed in his mind: Kill him.
If he could just bypass the Saintess’s domain for a fraction of a second, he could drive his poisoned dagger straight into the boy’s skull. The assassin folded his body into a dive, using the remaining momentum of his burnt lifespan to drop from the sky like a falling meteor, aiming directly for Yan Shuo’s unprotected back.
Tantai Zhi’s golden eyes flashed. She prepared to summon a pillar of ice to impale the bug right out of the air.
"Allow me, Zhi’er," Yan Shuo said calmly.
He didn’t turn around. He didn’t drop his fishing pole.
As the supreme-tier assassin plummeted toward him, Yan Shuo simply flicked his wrist, violently yanking the bamboo pole upward.
The rusted iron hook, coated in impossibly dense, pitch-black Abyssal gravity, shot out of the frozen lake, tearing right through the solid ice as if it were soft butter.
The silk line whipped through the air with the speed of a striking viper.
THWACK.
The rusted iron hook didn’t just strike the assassin; it lodged perfectly into the collar of his black robes.
"Caught one," Yan Shuo murmured softly.
He didn’t use explosive Qi. He used raw, concentrated weight. He channeled a fraction of his Nascent Soul gravity directly into the fishing line.
The assassin, who was diving at terminal velocity, suddenly felt as if a falling mountain had been tied to his neck.
His forward momentum was brutally, violently arrested in mid-air. The sheer kinetic shock of the sudden stop nearly snapped his spine in half. Before he could even register the pain, Yan Shuo casually swung the bamboo pole downward.
The assassin was yanked out of the sky like a helpless, floundering carp.
CRASH!
The black-robed killer slammed headfirst into the solid, frozen surface of the lake with enough force to crack the profound-ice. His iron mask shattered into a dozen pieces, revealing a pale, terrified face beneath. He bounced once, his bones completely pulverized by the gravitational impact, and slid across the ice, coming to a dead, lifeless halt near the frozen statues of his comrades.
Yan Shuo slowly reeled in his empty silk line, letting out a mild sigh of disappointment.
"The hook came loose," he noted lazily, resting the bamboo pole on his shoulder. "But I suppose a catch is a catch."
Tantai Zhi stared at the crumpled body of the supreme-tier assassin on the ice, then looked back at her husband holding the cheap bamboo pole.
Her heart did a violent, ecstatic flutter. He was so incredibly elegant, even when he was swatting down assassins like annoying flies!
"Husband’s fishing technique is flawless," she praised, her voice dripping with absolute, blind worship. She completely ignored the fact that he had just used gravity to snap a man’s neck with a piece of string. "You are the greatest fisherman in the mortal realm!"
Yan Shuo chuckled, reaching out to accept another peach pastry from her basket.
"You flatter me, Wife," he smiled warmly.
As he chewed the sweet pastry, Yan Shuo extended his spiritual sense beneath the frozen lake.
The assassin’s ambush had actually sped up the process. When Tantai Zhi froze the lake, the sudden drop in ambient spiritual temperature had weakened the leyline’s natural defenses. The pitch-black drop of demonic Qi he had injected had already reached the core of the golden node.
Yan Shuo closed his eyes and clenched his fist.
Deep beneath the profound-ice, the western anchor of the Central Continent violently detonated.
The muffled sound of grinding earth echoed beneath their feet as the golden leyline snapped, its pure energy scattering into the dark abyss of his corruption.
Two anchors destroyed. Half of Bai Chen’s grand cage was now useless scrap.
Yan Shuo stood up, dusting off his light-blue scholar robes. He tossed the cheap bamboo pole onto the grass.
"Well, the fishing trip is ruined," Yan Shuo said, offering his hand to his wife. "And it is a bit chilly out here now. Shall we go find something warmer to do?"
Tantai Zhi took his hand immediately, her cheeks flushing a brilliant pink as she quickly pulled him away from the frozen lake.
"Yes, Husband!" she beamed, her mind already racing with ideas. "We can go to the southern region next! I hear the Heavenly Furnace Mountains have wonderful natural hot springs! Just the two of us!"
"The southern node it is," Yan Shuo smiled.
As the couple walked away from the devastated, frozen wasteland of Mirror Lake, leaving the broken bodies of the Shadow Pavilion behind, the message to Bai Chen was perfectly clear.
The hunter had officially become the hunted.
