Chapter 823: The Specter Heartstone

Xiao Nanfeng's expression darkened as he extended his hand and pushed away his companions, jolting them out of their trance.

"An illusion...? Were we caught in an illusion?" one of them asked, astonished.

The next moment, that person's face twisted in terror as they fell under the illusion once more. The others, too, had barely come to before they were dragged back into their respective nightmares.

"What a potent illusion..." Xiao Nanfeng murmured, shocked.

He reached for his black coffin, grabbed several of his black-robed subordinates, slapped them awake, and then threw them into the black coffin hidden realm. He shut the coffin lid with a loud clunk.

"Nanfeng, why weren't you affected?" Lan Yaoguang exclaimed.

"That reminds me—what did you see in that illusion that scared you so much?" Xiao Nanfeng asked.

"I..." Lan Yaoguang hesitated, then recounted what she had seen.

As Lan Yaoguang explained how she had nearly destroyed her own blue spiritual moon to save him, Xiao Nanfeng patted her tenderly.

"I'm sorry I arrived so late. You must have been very frightened," Xiao Nanfeng said tenderly. He held Lan Yaoguang close and gently stroked her hair.

Lan Yaoguang closed her eyes. With Xiao Nanfeng by her side, she could be at ease.

However, sensing the urgency of their situation, she quickly pulled herself out of his embrace to examine their surroundings.

The moment she left Xiao Nanfeng's arms, however, she felt a wave of dizziness. In an instant, the fog around her thickened as the terrifying vision of Xiao Nanfeng on the verge of death reappeared before her.

"No! Nanfeng, please!" Lan Yaoguang screamed, petrified.

She seemed to have lost her earlier clarity completely. Once again, she was consumed by her nightmare.

Suddenly, a strong hand pulled her back into reality. Once again, she found herself in Xiao Nanfeng's arms as her mind regained its awareness.

"What happened? How did I fall for that illusion again?" she asked, baffled.

"Some sort of emotional energy field has flooded this courtyard. Coming into contact with it pulls you back into the illusion."

"But why aren't you affected?" Lan Yaoguang asked.

Xiao Nanfeng frowned. He hadn't felt anything unusual. Why was he immune to its effects?

"Also, I seem to be fine when I'm in your arms, but the moment I step away, I end up being affected again. What's going on? You seem to be emanating some sort of protective aura."

Xiao Nanfeng's brows furrowed. Perhaps there was an explanation for all this, after all. Yu Fuli had mentioned that illusory realms and mental worlds were all projections from the heart. This sort of emotional attack would, therefore, target the heart as well.

The heart...

Xiao Nanfeng didn't have any defense against such attacks until very recently, when a golden seed sprouted in his heart. Could that be what had shielded him?

He focused inwardly and immediately sensed the golden sprout glowing gently with golden light, illuminating his heart and radiating a faint protective barrier around his body. That golden membrane was surely what was protecting him from the emotional attack.

When he embraced Lan Yaoguang, she too was enveloped in that golden light, protecting her from the emotional assault.

He probed his heart more deeply. He could vaguely see black miasma in the air, something invisible to the naked eye. This miasma was surely the reason behind the nightmares that befell all cultivators in the vicinity.

The miasma took on the form of dark specters that screeched and wailed like demonic creatures from the depths of hell. They clawed and lunged at him and Lan Yaoguang, but the moment they touched his golden barrier, they let out horrific screams.

Despite shrieking in agony, they continued to swarm toward the light—or rather, his golden membrane actively absorbed them into the realm of his heart to serve as fertilizer for his golden sprout, hastening its growth and intensifying its golden glow.

"Nanfeng, what's going on?" Lan Yaoguang asked.

"Someone's trying to target you using some strange special technique, one that's perfectly countered by something I recently intuited during my breakthrough.

"Really?" Lan Yaoguang exclaimed in surprise.

"Let's go. We'll find out who's behind this," Xiao Nanfeng said coldly.

This was a frightening assault. If not for his golden sprout, he would have been trapped in the effect as well. If he hadn't emerged from the black coffin in time, Lan Yaoguang could have been severely wounded.

He grew angrier and angrier when he thought about what might have happened.

As they walked out of Lan Yaoguang's villa, they saw unconscious guards splayed out on the ground.

"These guards look to have been ambushed. The attackers seem intimately familiar with this area," Lan Yaoguang surmised. Her expression turned dark.

Xiao Nanfeng glanced around. "The fog around here almost seems to be frothing. Could someone have messed with the formation?"

Lan Yaoguang glanced around and nodded. "That's right. The formation's only supposed to block outsiders from seeing inside the villa, but someone modified it to prevent sound from leaking out as well."

The two of them continued their investigation and soon found the source of a problem: a small, fog-shrouded courtyard.

Inside the courtyard, two cultivators seemed to be engaged in conversation.

"Hierarch, the specter heartstone is too powerful. Even with a heart-cleansing talisman, I can barely withstand it. I almost found myself dragged into an illusion several times," a nervous voice said.

"Bear with it. I'm not having an easy time myself. Why hasn't there been any commotion from Lan Yaoguang's courtyard yet?" another voice replied.

"Hierarch, do you think Lan Yaoguang might have some way of dealing with these specters?"

"It's impossible. The specter heartstone targets the realm of the heart. There's no way Lan Yaoguang can withstand that. She might be a Deific Yin cultivator, but that applies only to the soul. Her heart remains weak and unprotected.

"But didn't you say that, once she falls under the illusion, she would destroy her blue spiritual moon? Why hasn't anything happened yet?"

"Be patient. It'll happen any moment now..."

The two cultivators conversed, completely unaware that Xiao Nanfeng and Lan Yaoguang were closing in on them. Perhaps they were distracted by the side effects of handling the specter heartstone themselves.

The closer Xiao Nanfeng got, the more he could sense his golden sprout absorbing the emotional energy around them. The dark miasma that had once been teeming with sinister specters now seemed to shrink back in terror as Xiao Nanfeng's golden glow swallowed the miasma and the specters within.

Of course, the only one who could perceive this happening was Xiao Nanfeng.

"Yan Ziqun? Didn't he perish?" Lan Yaoguang exclaimed.

Xiao Nanfeng shook his head. "He's definitely dead. This must be one of his avatars."

"So Yan Ziqun and a traitor within the Shangqing holy land are trying to plot against me?" Lan Yaoguang thundered.

Xiao Nanfeng nodded, having come to the same conclusion.

"That traitorous snake! I'll kill them," Lan Yaoguang thundered.

"Kill Yan Ziqun, but leave the traitor alive," Xiao Nanfeng suggested.

"Very well." Lan Yaoguang nodded firmly.

She didn't hold back. Her yin body emerged from her mindscape, as Xiao Nanfeng continued to embrace her.

The moment her yin body emerged, a blue moon rose into the sky.

It gleamed with brilliant blue light, catching Yan Ziqun's attention. "Isn't that Lan Yaoguang's blue spiritual moon? Shouldn't it have been destroyed? Why is it appearing in reality?"

Blue moonlight could be seen all across Cursebane Island and a large stretch of the sea, drawing the attention of countless Shangqing disciples.

"Why is the hierarch's blue moon floating in the air? Did something happen in Cursebane Island?"

"Is she fighting against someone? Who would dare launch a sneak attack on the hierarch now?!"

"Those who dare interfere in Shangqing's ascendance ought to be killed!"

"Quick, we need to help the hierarch!"

Cries of alarm sounded from all directions as high-ranking Shangqing cultivators rushed toward Lan Yaoguang.

In Yaoguang Villa, Yan Ziqun and the traitorous supreme elder likewise realized that something was amiss. "Hierarch, we've been discovered!"

"Run!" Yan Ziqun shouted.

"Run? Do you think you'll be able to escape?" Lan Yaoguang demanded.

They looked up to see Lan Yaoguang's Cursebane Sword descending from above. "Die!"

"No!"

Yan Ziqun's avatar was only at the Golden Immortal realm, and he was no match for a Deific Yin cultivator.

Within Lan Yaoguang's spiritual world, her sword descended like a divine blade from the heavens. It shot straight toward Yan Ziqun.

"No!" Yan Ziqun howled desperately.

The slash bisected his body, and a small black stone fell from his hand. This was the stone that had been responsible for releasing the miasma.

Xiao Nanfeng reached out for the stone. "So this is what was responsible..."

The golden sprout within his heart pulsed, absorbing the specter heartstone into it. It was quickly surrounded by the golden sprout's roots, then broken down and absorbed.

Fueled by the specter heartstone's energy, the golden sprout was rapidly growing.

Meanwhile, streaks of light flashed across the sky, heading straight for Lan Yaoguang.

"Hierarch, has something happened?"

"Are there assassins in the vicinity?"

"Where are the assassins? I'll kill them!"

Division leaders, supreme elders, and holy children of the Shangqing holy land had rushed over in a flurry.

"Right here," Lan Yaoguang stated, pointing at Yan Ziqun's corpse and the traitorous supreme elder who was trying to flee.