Right after Yunxi sank her teeth into the soul-light trying to possess her, she realized something was off. The orb didn't fight back. It just froze there in the middle of her sea of consciousness. She didn't have time to question it. She lunged and tore into it again.
Then, without hesitation, she devoured it completely.
She knew the rule—strike while the enemy is weak. If she waited for the soul to recover, she'd be the one getting devoured.
"No, please, let me go! I won't try to possess you again!"
Yunxi ignored the plea and bit down harder, each bite more vicious than the last. Her own soul-light grew steadily larger, while the invader shrank.
"I'll trade you the secret of the Baohua Mountain Range, just let me go…"
Still clinging to hope, the soul kept bargaining.
Yunxi didn't listen. She sank her teeth in again and again. Only a fool would believe a desperate soul's promise. She was certain that if she let him go, her secrets would be exposed to the world.
At last, the soul-light let out a final, anguished wail before she swallowed the last piece whole. Yunxi let out a small belch and finally relaxed.
She scanned her sea of consciousness, checking the floating wooden plaque that led to her personal space, and the concealed flower-shaped immortal artifact. She guessed that surge of power which let her counterattack had come from the artifact.
Once she confirmed there was nothing unwanted lingering in her sea of consciousness, she turned her attention to the fragmented memories left behind by the devoured soul.
That was when she confirmed her suspicion—the one who had tried to possess her was none other than the so-called senior who gave her the cultivation technique. He had a lightning single-spirit root, and before he fell, he had already reached Unity stage.
He and a few companions had entered the Baohua Mountain Range in the Weiyu Realm, searching for an undiscovered secret realm. The group sealed the secret realm with plans to bring it back to the Spirit Realm when the time was right.
But greed spoiled their alliance. A fight broke out over the ownership of the realm. Though he managed to kill the other three with a hidden trump card, he was severely wounded and couldn't return to the Spirit Realm as planned.
His presence in the Weiyu Realm was already suppressing his cultivation. He had used special means to extend his stay, but when his time limit ran out, and his injuries hadn't healed, he had no choice but to hide inside the formation sealing the secret realm to slowly recover.
As his cultivation declined, the plane's suppression eased, yet his wounds never improved. In the end, he abandoned his damaged physical body, preserving only his divine soul, waiting for a chance to possess another body.
He waited for over a thousand years.
When Wei Yunxi arrived, he thought he'd found his opportunity. But Wei Yunxi had triple-spirit roots, and he deemed that unworthy. His new plan was to use the girl to enter a sect and then look for a more suitable body there.
To lower Yunxi's guard, he offered her the Wushuang Sword Lightning Art, left no traps in the jade slip or storage ring, and pretended his soul had dissipated. In truth, he had attached his divine soul to the meditation mat.
The mat was refined using seventh-grade Soul-Congealing Grass, strong enough to support a divine soul. It was the perfect hiding place.
But Yunxi had been too eager for the lightning cultivation technique. In her rush to claim it, she exposed her lightning spiritual root. Realizing he had almost missed the perfect vessel, the soul attacked her sea of consciousness the moment she activated the jade slip.
What he hadn't expected was that Yunxi had an immortal artifact protecting her. His plan failed. In the end, he became nourishment for her divine soul.
"Whew… that was close."
Yunxi muttered under her breath. She wobbled her now-larger soul-light in her sea of consciousness. Despite the danger, she had gained something from it.
From the fragments of memory, she began to piece together what might be going on. Though the novel never mentioned this smuggler from the Spirit Realm, she now suspected he had successfully possessed someone—and that someone might be Sheng Yuhong.
After all, it was Sheng Yuhong's party that entered the underground chamber. If not for her interference, the disciples of Haoran Sect would have been the ones drawn into that space. Sheng Yuhong, with his top-tier talent and cultivation, would've been the most likely target.
It would explain a lot—why Sheng Yuhong clung to Wei Yunqing so persistently. Wei Yunqing was the novel's daughter of Heavenly Dao with great luck. From the perspective of a cultivator from the upper realm, clinging to such a person made perfect sense. That would also explain his increasing ruthlessness toward the supporting female character. She was supposed to be the whetstone for the chosen daughter's growth.
Then there was the current disturbance in the Baohua Mountain Range. It must have been caused by the Xianling Grass absorbing the spiritual vein that sealed the secret realm. That process had triggered the realm's emergence.
A real-life butterfly effect.
Yunxi felt like she was beginning to grasp the true situation. Risky as this trip had been, it had paid off. Now the only question was when the secret realm would fully emerge—and whether she could claim a piece of it for herself.
Just then, a young and unfamiliar voice called out from within her sea of consciousness.
"Master! Master! Wake up, please! You have to wake up!"
Instinctively, Yunxi returned her divine soul to her body and snapped her eyes open.
Pain tore through her like a thousand blades.
"Ah—damn, that hurts! What's going on?!"
"Master, if you don't wake up soon, your physical body is going to collapse!"
The anxious voice came from a tiny tracking rat, no larger than her palm, frantically rubbing its head against her ear.
Yunxi didn't even need to move to know she was lying in a pool of blood. Any slight motion sent fresh blood seeping from her skin.
"How did we form a contract?" she asked, voice tight with pain.
Although she couldn't move, her divine sense had skyrocketed to nearly Divine Transformation level after devouring the soul. If she willed it, she could crush the first-rank mouse with a single thought.
So she didn't waste words.
The tracking rat had watched her aura rise steadily. It didn't know why her body was collapsing, but it had taken a gamble—formed a blood pact using her spilled blood, tying its fate to hers.
It spoke plainly now.
"Master, you saved me from that wicked cultivator, and I decided I wanted to follow you. But you wouldn't wake up, no matter how I called. I had no choice but to form a contract and use our connection to reach your divine sense."
Yunxi inhaled slowly.
"I can't move. Feed me the things I took out earlier."
With that, she summoned a basket of milk-fruit from her spatial storage using her divine sense.
The tracking rat twitched its little pink nose, then scampered up the side of the basket. Wrapping its tail around a milk-fruit, it dragged it to Yunxi's mouth and sliced it open, letting the thick white juice drip between her lips.
Yunxi swallowed it slowly.
Her current condition was the result of an overly powerful divine soul that her physical body could no longer support.
If she hadn't been taking milk-fruit regularly, her body would've crumbled the moment she devoured that soul. The only reason she held out this long was her robust physical strength.
She was deeply thankful to those Tribal Warriors now.
After ten milk-fruits, the pain dulled slightly. It was bearable now—but this was just temporary relief. It didn't address the root problem.