Chapter 524: The Phantom Technique of the Netherworld

Fang Yue pulled the sword out of the neck of the stone statue with force. With a loud bang, the head of the stone statue rolled down, and the body collapsed, turning into countless pieces of rubble scattered on the ground.

After Fang Yue landed, he panted slightly, but there was a hint of excitement in his eyes.

Every time he overcame difficulties and obstacles, he was one step closer to his goal.

He took a short break and continued to move towards the unknown area ahead.

The passage gradually became narrower and filled with a foul smell. Fang Yue frowned slightly, but went deep into it without hesitation.

Suddenly, a gloomy laugh echoed around, and the sound seemed to come from all directions, making it difficult to figure out the source.

"Who is it? How dare you break into my territory!" A sharp voice sounded.

Fang Yue held the sword tightly and shouted: "Xiaoyue, who are you to explore the source of darkness?"

"Ignorant junior, the source of darkness is beyond your reach. I am the guardian of this place, and you will stay here forever!"

Before he finished speaking, several black shadows rushed out from the wall and rushed towards Fang Yue like ghosts.

Fang Yue quickly calmed down. He knew that these black shadows were not good. He stepped lightly and dodged the attack of the first black shadow. At the same time, he swung the sword in his hand and slashed the black shadow with a sword.

The black shadow flashed and easily avoided the sword, and then attacked from the side.

Fang Yue performed a set of flexible swordsmanship. The sword shadow flashed in the narrow passage and dealt with the black shadows.

While fighting, he carefully observed the movement trajectory of the black shadows and found that these black shadows seemed to be attacking according to a certain formation, and they cooperated with each other tacitly. Once he attacked one of the black shadows, the other black shadows would quickly fill in from different directions, making it difficult for him to find a flaw.

"This won't work. I have to disrupt their formation." Fang Yue thought to himself.

He saw an opportunity and deliberately exposed a flaw to lure a black shadow to come at him with all his strength.

Just when the black shadow thought he had succeeded, Fang Yue suddenly performed a powerful body movement. His body spun at high speed like a gyroscope, and the long sword in his hand turned into a light wheel, instantly forcing the surrounding black shadows back several steps, successfully disrupting their formation.

Taking this opportunity, Fang Yue concentrated his energy on locking one of the black shadows. He continuously injected his vitality into the long sword, and the sword body glowed brightly.

Then he shouted loudly, rushed towards the black shadow like an arrow from a string, and stabbed straight with the long sword.

The black shadow was stabbed by the long sword and let out a sharp scream, then turned into a wisp of black smoke and dissipated.

However, the other black shadows did not retreat, but attacked Fang Yue more frantically.

Fang Yue was not afraid at all, he knew that if he retreated at this time, he would fall into an irretrievable situation.

He continued to fight fiercely with the black shadow, constantly looking for new breakthroughs in the battle.

Suddenly, Fang Yue found a few faint flashes of light on the wall of the passage, and the rhythm of these flashes seemed to have some connection with the rhythm of the black shadow's attack.

He thought that these might be the key to controlling the black shadow.

So, while resisting the attack of the black shadow, Fang Yue seized the opportunity and threw the long sword in his hand towards one of the flashing points.

The long sword flashed a cold light in the air and hit the flashing point accurately.

In an instant, a black shadow seemed to have lost control and its movements became slow.

Seeing this, Fang Yue flashed, quickly took back the long sword, and then launched a fierce attack on the slow black shadow, destroying it in a few strokes.

As the black shadow dissipated, the attacks of other black shadows became chaotic.

Fang Yue seized the opportunity, took advantage of the victory, and defeated the remaining black shadows one by one.

After Fang Yue solved the crisis of the black shadow, he continued to move forward along the passage. At this time, the stench in the passage became stronger and stronger, and he had to use his vitality to form a layer of protection around his mouth and nose to reduce the pungent smell.

When he reached a corner, the front suddenly opened up and a huge circular hall appeared.

The walls around the hall were engraved with various strange runes, which flashed with a dark green light, as if telling ancient secrets.

Fang Yue's heart trembled, but he quickly calmed down. Since he was trapped here, he could only continue to explore and find a way out and clues about the source of darkness.

He began to walk slowly along the edge of the hall, carefully observing the runes on the wall.

These runes sometimes flashed brighter and sometimes dimmed, as if they had their own life and rules.

On one side of the hall, Fang Yue found a stone platform similar to a console. There were several grooves on the stone platform, and the shape was quite similar to some small stones he had seen in the passage before.

He thought that he might need to find those stones and put them in the grooves to trigger some kind of mechanism or get more information.

So Fang Yue began to look for those stones in the hall.

In a corner, he found a stone emitting a faint light. When he picked up the stone, the frequency of the runes around it suddenly increased, as if responding to his actions.

Fang Yue took the stone back to the console and put it into one of the grooves.

In an instant, a ray of light shot out from the groove and connected to a part of the runes on the opposite wall. Those runes began to combine into a new pattern, which seemed to depict a mysterious ritual, and the center of the ritual was the source of darkness.

Fang Yue stared at the pattern intently, trying to interpret its meaning.

Just then, the floor of the hall began to tremble slightly, and several huge puppets slowly rose from the ground.

These puppets were made of metal, exuding a cold breath, their eyes flashing red light, and they slowly walked towards Fang Yue as soon as they appeared.

Fang Yue clenched his sword, ready to welcome a new battle. He rushed to one of the puppets first, and chopped the puppet's leg with his sword, trying to restrict its movement first.

However, the long sword chopped on the puppet, leaving only a shallow mark. The puppet waved its arm, and a powerful force attacked Fang Yue.

Fang Yue dodged the attack, and then performed a set of fierce sword techniques, constantly attacking the puppet's joints.

Under his continuous attacks, the puppet's movements finally became a little slower.

Fang Yue seized the opportunity, concentrated the vitality in his body on the tip of the sword, and then stabbed it fiercely into a joint gap of the puppet.

With a sound of metal cracking, the puppet's leg joint was broken, and it knelt on one knee.

Fang Yue took advantage of the victory and continued to attack other puppets.

In the fierce battle, Fang Yue gradually mastered the attack mode and weaknesses of the puppets. He cleverly used his body and sword skills to defeat these puppets one by one.

When the last puppet fell, the hall returned to peace again.

Just as Fang Yue was about to continue searching, the runes on the wall flickered and turned into lines of text.

These words were ancient and mysterious, emitting a faint blue light. Fang Yue had never seen such strange characters, but he still tried to interpret them.

He stared at the rune text, his eyes flickered, and with the study of many ancient books and his own understanding, he gradually understood some of the meanings.

"It turned out to be a practice?"

Fang Yue couldn't help muttering to himself, his eyes full of surprise and joy.

This practice seems to hide a great mystery. Judging from the description of the flickering text, once it is successfully practiced, it may allow one's own strength to make a qualitative leap, and it will also be more secure on the road to exploring the source of darkness.

Fang Yue studied the texts carefully, not missing any details.

This technique is called "Shadow Illusion Yuan Jue", which focuses on integrating one's own Yuan Qi with the surrounding shadow power, so as to achieve the effect of hiding the body, enhancing attack and improving defense.

But it is not easy to practice. You need to find a place with strong shadow power as the starting point of practice, and you must have extremely precise control of your own Yuan Qi. If you make a mistake, you may go crazy.

Fang Yue is well aware of the risks, but at this moment he has no way out.

In order to continue to explore the source of darkness, he decided to take a risk. According to the prompts of the rune text, he began to look for a place with strong shadow power in the hall.

In a corner of the hall, he found an area on the ground where the light seemed to be swallowed by darkness, and a cold breath was faintly emitted.

As Fang Yue approached, he could clearly feel that the shadow power here was much stronger than other places. It must be the best place to practice this "Shadow Illusion Yuan Jue".

He sat cross-legged in the center of the shadow area, and followed the steps described in the technique, first slowly circulating his internal Qi, trying to resonate with the surrounding shadow power.

At first, the two conflicted with each other, and Fang Yue only felt the disorder of his internal Qi and a surge of Qi and blood, but he gritted his teeth and persisted, constantly adjusting the rhythm of the circulation of his Qi.

After a difficult attempt, Fang Yue finally felt that the internal Qi and the external shadow power had a subtle fit.

He did not dare to slack off, and continued to practice in depth, guiding the traces of shadow power to slowly merge into the Qi along the meridians.

As the shadow power continued to merge, Fang Yue's figure gradually became somewhat illusory, as if it had merged with the surrounding shadows.

His breath became more and more restrained, and if you didn't perceive it carefully, it would be almost difficult to detect his existence.

However, just as Fang Yue was immersed in practice, there was a sudden movement in another part of the hall.

On the originally calm wall, some vague figures slowly emerged. These figures were like ghosts, exuding a gloomy aura, and were slowly floating towards the direction where Fang Yue was.

Although Fang Yue was in a critical stage of cultivation, his perception was still sharp.

He sensed the approach of danger, but if he interrupted his cultivation rashly at this time, not only would all his previous efforts be wasted, but he might also suffer a backlash from his cultivation method and be seriously injured.

He could only continue to maintain his state of cultivation while keeping a part of his mind alert to the ghostly figures floating over.

When the ghostly figures approached a certain distance, Fang Yue suddenly opened his eyes, and a faint light flashed in his eyes. He used the concealment technique in the "Shadow Illusion Yuan Jue" that he had just made a little progress in, completely hiding his figure in the shadows, trying to avoid the detection of the ghostly figures.

But these ghostly figures seemed to have special perception abilities and did not lose their targets because of Fang Yue's concealment.

They circled around the area where Fang Yue was hiding, occasionally stretching out their claws to scratch in the air, as if looking for Fang Yue's exact location.

Fang Yue's heart tightened, he knew he had to find a way to deal with these ghostly figures as soon as possible, otherwise when they found his hiding place, the consequences would be disastrous.

He quietly adjusted his state in the shadows, ready to give these ghostly figures a fatal blow at the right time.

Just when the ghostly figure relaxed its vigilance, Fang Yue saw the right moment and flashed out of the shadow like lightning. The long sword in his hand, wrapped in the vigorous vitality of the shadow power, stabbed fiercely at the ghostly figure closest to him.

This sword contained powerful power, and because of the blessing of the shadow power, the sword body flashed with a strange light.

The ghostly figure was unable to dodge and was stabbed by the long sword. He let out a shrill scream and his figure disappeared instantly.

Seeing this, the other ghostly figures suddenly became agitated and rushed towards Fang Yue.

Fang Yue was not afraid at all. He took advantage of the momentum of the previous attack and continued to perform a set of sharp swordsmanship, and started a fierce life-and-death struggle with the ghostly figure.

In the battle, he constantly used the skills of "Shadow Illusion Yuan Jue", sometimes hiding his body to avoid attacks, and sometimes using the power of shadows to enhance the power of sword moves.

His figure was like lightning, moving freely among the ghostly figures. Every sword he swung out was accompanied by the faint light of shadow power, making it difficult for the ghostly figures to resist.

But these ghostly figures were numerous and very difficult to deal with. They kept changing their formations, trying to encircle Fang Yue.

Fang Yue knew in his heart that if he continued to deal with them passively like this, he would sooner or later run out of energy. While fighting, he paid attention to the movement patterns of the ghostly figures and found that they would pause for a moment to adjust their formation before launching a collective attack, which was his opportunity.

So, when the ghostly figures paused again, Fang Yue suddenly gathered all his energy on the long sword, and at the same time mobilized the surrounding shadow power to merge with it, and performed a powerful sword skill in "Shadow Fantasy Yuan Jue" - "Shadow Crack Sky Slash".

I saw a sword energy shining with faint light slashing towards the group of ghostly figures like a long rainbow piercing the sun. Wherever the sword energy passed, the space seemed to be torn into black cracks.

The ghostly figures were unable to dodge and were hit by the sword energy. They immediately let out a shrill scream, and many ghostly figures were directly dissipated by this blow.

However, some ghostly figures continued to pounce on Fang Yue tenaciously.

Fang Yue did not relax at all. He flashed and hid in the shadows again, making the ghostly figures lose their target for a while.

While the ghostly figures were frantically looking for his traces, Fang Yue flashed from another direction like a ghost, and swung the long sword in his hand again, killing several more ghostly figures.

After this fierce battle, Fang Yue finally wiped out all the remaining ghostly figures.

He was panting heavily. Although his body was a little tired, his eyes showed a firmness.

This battle with the ghostly figures made him more proficient in the use of "Phantom Shadow Yuan Jue", and he also felt more and more the power of this technique. (End of this chapter)