Chapter 695: Near

　　Looking over, he couldn’t see the sides of the black, sticky soil.

　　The smell of rot permeated the area—nauseating and suffocating.

　　What kind of place is this?! Jiang Yucheng was alarmed and extremely disgusted at the same time as he wanted to leave this place immediately.

　　He almost instinctively looked up—it was complete darkness, without a single hint of light.

　　Jiang Yucheng’s heart harshly sank. Is… Is the entrance sealed shut?! If not, there should still be a bit of light!

　　He rapidly scanned his surroundings and called out a few names, but nobody responded.

　　Could it be that I dropped down alone? Jiang Yucheng furrowed his brows tightly.

　　He didn’t know that after him, Shangguan Wan, Mu Qinghe, and the rest were all respectively hurled down. But they all landed in different gullies, so they naturally wouldn’t be with him. And at this point, their situations weren’t any better than Jiang Yucheng.

　　However, Jiang Yucheng did not know this at all.

　　He really couldn’t endure this environment, so he could only choose a direction randomly and plan to go out from there. But the moment he lifted his leg—

　　He couldn’t.

　　A bad feeling crept into his heart, and he gradually lowered his head—his two feet had completely sunk into the soil.

　　Without his detection, the soil had already reached his ankles silently.

　　Jiang Yucheng’s heart clenched up, and he immediately strengthened himself. However, something seemed to be tightly clutching onto him, so he couldn’t struggle free.

　　Not only did Jiang Yucheng not come out after trying all sorts of methods repeatedly, but he also sank even deeper.

　　The soil had already reached his shin.

　　I can’t let this go on! An idea popped up in Jiang Yucheng’s heart. Finally, he picked up a thumb-sized icicle item.

　　He put his force within, and cold, sinister intent immediately exuded from it.

　　His hand was covered in a thin layer of frost. Then, the cold intent spread in all directions.

　　Not long later, the surrounding soil started freezing.

　　Jiang Yucheng pressed against that hard ice layer and finally extracted himself from the soil.

　　The intense, foul smell wafted toward his nose. His two legs, up to his shin, were stained with a thick layer of black soil.

　　One of his boots had dropped into the soil, and he couldn’t bring it up.

　　Jiang Yucheng collapsed onto the ice layer as he tolerated his disgust and threw away the other boot as well. In his memory, he had never been in such a mess before.

　　When he roughly cleaned away the mess behind him, Jiang Yucheng finally stood up.

　　Endless darkness surrounded him everywhere.

　　He furrowed his brows tightly. Mu Qinghe never mentioned that the Mystic Forest had such a place before…

　　When he was still hesitant, a strange sound suddenly came from afar. In this silent place where one could even hear a pin drop, any little commotion would intensify in volume exponentially.

　　Just when Jiang Yucheng was extremely nervous, his heart also shook when he heard this sound. He held his breath and walked in the direction of the sound.

　　What he didn’t see was that after he left, a hand stuck out from within the soil. A sinisterly white bone waved toward his back before silently sinking in.

　　The soil moved without a sound. It was as if something was silently moving.

　　…

　　Chu Liuyue and the rest walked for another hour.

　　The surrounding trees gradually had fewer leaves, but they were all very thick and looked as if they had been growing for hundreds of years.

　　A brilliantly colorful barrier appeared in front of them. The terrifying suppression came from above.

　　Chu Liuyue stared at that barrier and boomed, “I don’t think we can go forward anymore.”

　　Plop!

　　Ye Ranran breathed in heavily and sat down on the ground. “I’m so tired… What kind of fiend is this? Why is its suppression so strong?!”

　　She had the weakest combat skills out of the few of them, but she didn’t grumble at all along the way and insisted on following them.

　　Then, she didn’t forget to feed herself a pill to strengthen herself. Afterward, she gave a pill to the remaining three of them.

　　Even though Chu Liuyue had brought some herself, she still smiled and accepted it when she saw Ye Ranran handing the pill over to her enthusiastically.

　　Qiang Wanzhou saw that she accepted it and didn’t reject his.

　　Chu Liuyue took the pill and circulated her aura as she turned around to look at the barrier.

　　The barrier was like a gigantic, colorful, and oval-shaped glass cover that covered this entire area.

　　That stream was originally a very ordinary stream in the forest. But as it coincidentally spread across this barrier—as the countless rays of rainbow light shone down and landed in the stream—it gradually became what they saw.

　　The position where the stream and the barrier intersected had already become a permanent state. From far away, it looked as if a gigantic rainbow crystal was pressing on it.

　　When the countless colors melted into the stream of water, it was as magnificent as ever. An immense suppression appeared on top of that barrier, showing off its exquisiteness.

　　Even just by standing there, Chu Liuyue faintly found it hard to breathe. I’ve come to the Mystic Forest before, but I have never seen such a scene. When did this appear? Or had it… originally existed already? What exactly is it inside this barrier?

　　As the barrier was too brilliant, they really couldn’t see the scene inside clearly.

　　That fragrance came out from this barrier, and that sense of familiarity became increasingly stronger.

　　Chu Liuyue seemed not able to control herself as she continued to walk forward.

　　Qiang Wanzhou slightly knitted his brows and immediately stopped her.

　　Worry flashed across the young and pretty face. “Danger.”

　　Chu Liuyue looked at his clear and clean eyes and smiled slightly. “Don’t worry. I know what to do.”

　　Qiang Wanzhou turned around to glance at that barrier and said, “I’ll do it!”

　　Then, he walked forward. He tightly held the Cloud-Sky Copper Sword as if he would immediately brandish it when something happened.

　　Chu Liuyue pulled him back.

　　Seeing Qiang Wanzhou’s stubborn face, she could only sigh. “Why don’t we do this? You’ll be in front, and I’ll be at the back. If something really happens, you’ll be right beside me. It won’t be too late if you take action then.”

　　Qiang Wanzhou thought for a moment and finally agreed.

　　Chu Liuyue took two steps forward and stood in front of him. At this point, she was only one step away from the rainbow barrier.

　　As long as she extended her hand, she could easily touch it.

　　Chu Liuyue took a deep breath in and rapidly circulated her force as she held the crystal barrier tightly with one hand and made full preparations.

　　Actually, there was something she didn’t tell Qiang Wanzhou and the rest: She didn’t feel that this barrier was dangerous.

　　For some reason, she just felt that this barrier didn’t seem to threaten her—even if the force around it was enough to destroy her.

　　Chu Liuyue gradually stretched her hand out.