At this moment, in the center of Dan Peak, a pitch-black hole appeared out of thin air. This hole was circular in shape, with a radius of about ten zhang.
The entire hole was pure black. Looking in from the outside, nothing could be seen, giving people the feeling that this was a bottomless pit. But in fact, it was not actually a hole at all. The space within those ten zhang had simply been darkened by Chasing the Wind's magical power, and everything inside was still there, just darkened. The visual effect was that a large hole had appeared out of nowhere.
Li Shiyin stretched out her hands and looked at them. In this world of pure darkness, her hands were also pure black, but strangely, she could make out their outline and distinguish them as her own hands. Not only could she make out her own equally dark hands in this dark world, but she could also distinguish other things that had been darkened - the cat tree, the stream, the sword washing lake, Chasing the Wind - it was as if everything was normal. She ran to the lakeside to look at her reflection in the lake, and she could make out her dark reflection in the dark lake water.
It was a mystical world.
It had no spatial dimensions of up, down, left or right, no flow of past, present or future, no concrete concepts at all... Chasing the Wind was sleeping while hovering in midair. Li Shiyin jumped up and kicked him, but her foot passed straight through his body without impact. Although the space here was strange, looking out from the inside, the outside world seemed to be operating as normal.
The inside was a black world devoid of anything, while the outside was a colorful world full of everything. Looking outside from inside...it gave a very mystical feeling.
Except...
The outside seemed unable to perceive anything happening inside.
Li Shiyin had tried for a long time, but found it was impossible for the inside to influence the outside at all. It was as if for the outside, this was just a bottomless pit, or a shadow world.
Would a person hear sounds coming from inside their shadow?
At least Li Shiyin had shouted until her voice went hoarse, without anyone outside reacting.
Tired of shouting, Li Shiyin lay down somewhere, not on the ground but suspended in midair...in this place, ground and sky held no meaning anyway.
"Ah! Chasing the Wind, Stupid Tiger!"
She held up her hand, spread and closed her shadowy dark fingers. They moved according to her will, but gave an unreal feeling.
If Master was here, she'd probably be researching the meridian pathways and systemic changes occurring in this state.
"Huh?"
Thinking of this, Li Shiyin suddenly wondered - what would sword qi be like in this state?
She tried rousing her inner power, and to her surprise was able to summon it. With a thought she transformed the power into sword qi in her palm.
Still lying there, she gazed at the sword qi in her hand.
It was still sword qi, but more like the shadow of sword qi in its normal state. It swirled in her palm, giving her an inexplicable feeling - though it was an amorphous shadowy black sword qi, she seemed to glimpse hints of starry purple within, as if it were real sword qi.
"How strange."
She turned her palm downwards to let the shadow sword qi cut into the ground. When it met the ground the two shadows passed through each other, lacking any solidity.
"Hey! That's no fun..."
She dismissed the sword qi, her little head turning in thought. If the shadow sword qi could pass through the dark ground, could her dark self pass through it too?
With this thought, she stood up and stretched, then dived into the ground as if jumping into water.
...What a novel sensation. Swimming through the ground as if it were water.
Li Shiyin swam about, burrowing deeper underground. Before long, she arrived at the darkened edge dividing the underground.
Looking ahead, she saw the underground space, glittering spirit stones piled in the darkness, glowing with rainbow hues and trailing misty multi-colored qi.
Spirit stone mine!
Li Shiyin recognized it.
A few years ago when she'd dug into the earth beneath the lake, she'd ruptured a vein and excavated a good sized cavern filled with the gushing spiritual energy. Master had told her that Dao Sword Sect was built on a major spirit stone mine. But this was Li Shiyin's first time actually seeing the spirit stone mine under Dan Peak, much less in this kind of state.
The colors over there...the scene beyond...
It was so fantastical!
Li Shiyin walked forward, wanting to go over and touch those spirit stones, to grasp them with her own hands. But she couldn't reach them, as there was still a layer of thick earth separating her from the mine.
"Chasing the Wind is too weak," she mused. "If he were just a bit stronger, enough to darken this layer of earth too, I should be able to reach the stones through the darkness. I wonder what it would feel like to touch darkened spirit stones..."
The spirit stone mine shimmering with rainbow halos was too eye-catching. Li Shiyin lingered there for a while before reluctantly leaving.
She returned to the surface and gazed at the darkened river and tranquil darkened lake nearby.
"I wonder what it would feel like to swim in this darkened state..."
She ran over and dived headfirst into the water.
Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the water here was flavorless. Swimming through it felt no different than swimming through earth or air.
Li Shiyin swam from river to lake, plucking two dark lotus blossoms. She stuffed the petals into her mouth to taste...flavorless.
Just as she was about to climb out of the lake, she suddenly heard a child's voice in the darkness. "Sister Shiyin?"
"Who's there?"
Li Shiyin's expression frosted over. Someone else was here in this darkness?
Shadow sword qi had already appeared in her palm.
"Liu Xiaoji," the child answered.
"Oh, Liu Xiaoji!" Li Shiyin relaxed, dismissing the sword qi and peering about for the boy. "Where are you?"
Then before her eyes, a young boy of three or four years crawled out from within the darkened willow tree.
"I'm here, sister Shiyin!" he called out.
Li Shiyin climbed onto the shore and sat on the embankment, smiling at Liu Xiaoji. "You got pulled in here too?"
"What exactly happened?" Liu Xiaoji still didn't know the reason.
Glancing back casually at the cat tree, where Chasing the Wind was napping in midair, Li Shiyin said, "It's Chasing the Wind showing off his new magic. He darkened all of us.
...Deflecting blame nicely.
"Oh! Brother Chasing the Wind is really too naughty!" Liu Xiaoji gave a mature sigh. He plopped down beside Li Shiyin. "Who knows how long it'll take for this darkening effect to dispel."
Though he was talking about Chasing the Wind, for some reason Li Shiyin felt it was directed at her. Being called naughty by a little brat...that didn't feel very good.
Li Shiyin gave an awkward cough, smiling wryly. "Let's let Chasing the Wind sleep for a bit. He should be able to undo it after he wakes up."
Liu Xiaoji propped up his chin, gazing out at the bright and colorful outside world. "I worry that when Master returns and sees this, she'll be furious. I fear she will punish you."
Recalling her master's angry countenance, even Li Shiyin felt a bit uneasy.
"No...it can't be that bad, can it?" she ventured tentatively.
"Look, Master has returned!" Liu Xiaoji suddenly exclaimed, pointing outside.
"What?!" Li Shiyin panicked instantly upon seeing Qin Ran entering from Guardian Mountain Formation. She leapt up in despair and cried out, "We're doomed!!!"