Chapter 369 352: The Evil God's Gaze

[You have obtained a Three-Time Breaking Limit Trait: Divine Sense · Insightful Clarity]

In the next instant, the familiar scenery of the backyard distorted like ripples on water and faded away. Su Yu's consciousness was yanked into a vast, illusory realm of enlightenment.

In the illusion, Su Yu saw another version of himself.

From the first light of dawn to the rising of the moon, this other self sat before a simple wooden desk, tirelessly engrossed in his studies.

Unlike ordinary scrolls, he held an ancient jade slip that glowed with a faint cyan light. As his lips moved and his eyes scanned the text, the obscure, ancient characters on the slip seemed to come alive. They transformed into wisps of tangible, cyan-colored righteous energy that flowed from between his brows deep into his Spirit Platform.

Though each wisp was minuscule, as winter turned to spring and flowers bloomed and withered in the illusion, the cyan energy accumulating in his mind grew ever thicker and more viscous.

This continued until a stormy, rain-lashed night arrived in the illusion.

Fierce winds battered the window lattice, and thunder ripped across the sky.

Inside, "Su Yu" remained seated beneath a single, flickering lamp. The sound of his reading gradually merged with the wind, rain, and thunder outside.

The moment another wisp of cyan energy entered his Spirit Platform, the quantitative accumulation finally triggered a terrifying qualitative change!

BOOM—

Following a clap of thunder that seemed to tear the heavens and the earth apart, Su Yu felt an invisible, unyielding barrier deep within his Mud Ball Palace get shattered by an unstoppable force!

'Through study, one grasps truth; through a clear heart, one sees their true nature! The world's affairs become clear, observed as if watching a fire!'

A flood of understanding, like a river bursting its banks, poured into his mind. Su Yu's eyes snapped open, a cyan light flowing within their depths!

Comprehension flooded Su Yu's mind, and in an instant, he understood what "Insightful Clarity" truly meant.

[Trait: Divine Sense · Insightful Clarity]

[Mortals cultivate the body; the Immortal Path cultivates the spirit! With a mortal body, you have tempered a Divine Sense! Once manifested, it can be released from your body. Anything under its shroud is as clear as the lines on your palm. It pierces all obstructions to probe the very source of Qi and Blood and Spiritual Energy.]

[It can also be used to look within, observing the flow of Qi and Blood in your Dantian. By constantly cleansing your state of mind, your Spirit Platform will remain clear, Shattering Illusion and Revealing Truth!]

'Divine Sense... it's actually the Divine Sense that only high-tier cultivators from the legends are supposed to be able to master?'

Su Yu took a deep breath, suppressing his elation. 'My old Five Senses Divine merely enhanced my physical senses to their limits. This Divine Sense is a whole other dimension of perception, completely detached from the physical body!'

Eagerly, Su Yu focused his will.

BUZZ!

An invisible, formless spiritual wave, flowing like mercury, erupted from the center of his brow and swept out in all directions.

Completely different from normal sight, the perspective of his Divine Sense was like a stunning, three-dimensional, all-encompassing scan. Before it, all bricks, walls, and trees became translucent phantoms.

Su Yu's Divine Sense easily enveloped the entire Su Mansion and continued to spread like a tide into the street beyond the main gate.

At the main gate, Su Datian was leading three or four Protectors in sweeping fallen leaves from the bluestone slabs.

Under the scan of his Divine Sense, Su Yu not only saw their movements but also pierced directly through their skin and flesh, clearly seeing the stream-like red Qi and Blood flowing within Su Datian's body!

'Three Times of Knocking? His Qi and Blood condensation is quite impressive.'

Observing the vibrant red fire within his Divine Sense, Su Yu nodded to himself. 'I remember this Datian came from Bishui Village, right? He's usually simple and quiet, but I never expected his Martial Arts Root Bone to be this good. I should have my third brother look out for him later and see if he can break through to the Martial Artist realm.'

Su Yu's Divine Sense continued to expand outward like the tide. It crossed the wide main street of Anping Square and slipped smoothly into the deep courtyard of a wealthy merchant's residence across the way.

"Master, in broad daylight, out here in the courtyard... it's so embarrassing! Let's go inside!"

"Heh heh, what do you know, little miss? With this cool breeze and the sounds of the street, this is what you call exciting!"

As his Divine Sense passed by, Su Yu happened to stumble upon a live, erotic scene.

A portly, pot-bellied, middle-aged man in a brocade robe was greedily kissing a pretty young woman of seventeen or eighteen. The maid's clothes were half-undone, leaving only an eye-catching pink dudou embroidered with mandarin ducks.

Ahem...

Su Yu had no peculiar habit of peeping on people. He quickly apologized in his mind, steered his Divine Sense past the scene, and continued extending it toward the distant streets.

After crossing two more streets, a faint, blurry, tearing sensation appeared at the edge of his Divine Sense. Su Yu finally perceived his current limit.

'A radius of a full five hundred meters, with me at the center!'

Su Yu sucked in a sharp breath.

This detection range was absurdly, freakishly large!

This meant that within a five-hundred-meter radius, no object with Qi and Blood or Spiritual Energy, no living creature, could escape his Divine Sense!

'And this isn't even its most extreme use!'

Su Yu's eyes narrowed, and with a turn of his thoughts, the Divine Sense that had been spreading out evenly like a spherical bubble instantly contracted. It condensed into a straight line, like the beam of a searchlight, and shot straight down the main street outside Anping Square.

When focused into a line, the Divine Sense's detection range doubled!

The flow of people in the shops and residences lining the street flashed through Su Yu's mind like images in a spinning lantern.

Hmm?

Suddenly, Su Yu's Divine Sense came to an abrupt halt outside a remote courtyard.

'Such a powerful fluctuation of Qi and Blood! That feeling of Great Tendons like taut bows... this is an expert at the Muscle Forging Realm!'

Stirred, Su Yu immediately locked onto the person with his Divine Sense like an invisible tentacle.

The person wore a wide-brimmed conical hat and simple gray hemp clothes, standing discreetly under the eaves of a closed gate, seemingly waiting for someone.

To the naked eye, this person was utterly unremarkable, someone who would disappear if lost in a crowd.

But under the investigation of Su Yu's Divine Sense, he immediately discovered something strange!

'This person's facial features are so blurry!'

In his Divine Sense's perception, the person's face was shrouded in a constantly twisting force that completely concealed their true features.

'This is definitely some kind of Divine Skill or technique that alters one's appearance!'

Su Yu instantly recalled intelligence from the Public Security Bureau's files. The Black Lotus Sect had a mysterious Earth King who possessed a 'Formless Divine Skill,' which could easily alter a person's bone structure and appearance, achieving a flawless disguise.

Filled with strong suspicion, Su Yu's Divine Sense probed downward, passing right through the deerskin pouch at the person's waist.

His Divine Sense probed carefully inside and, just as he suspected, discovered a Token.

'Just as I thought!'

Deep within the deerskin pouch lay a black lotus Token!

'A Black Lotus Sect Incense Master Token! This is one hell of a big fish!'

Su Yu's spirits soared.

No matter how exquisite their Formless Divine Skill was, it could change their facial features and appearance, but it could never easily alter a Martial Artist's fundamental Qi and Blood!

Su Yu immediately directed his Divine Sense to imprint the Qi and Blood signature and the rhythm of the Great Tendons of this Muscle Forging Realm Incense Master in his mind, just like taking a rubbing.

The next time he encountered the same Qi and Blood in the city, he would be able to pick them out at a glance, even if they had transformed into a woman!

Just then, another furtive figure appeared at the mouth of the alley.

The newcomer's Qi and Blood burned like a small furnace; he was clearly another Black Lotus Sect Demon at Flesh Refining Realm Perfection.

The two met under the eaves without a single word of nonsense. The Flesh Refining Realm Demon respectfully took a palm-sized Purple Sandalwood Box from his robes and handed it to the Incense Master with both hands.

'What's in that box?'

Su Yu's Divine Sense immediately pierced into the wooden box.

The moment he saw the item inside the box, Su Yu's pupils shrank violently!

It was a pitch-black statue of Mother Black Lotus, carved with a twelve-petaled lotus base!

However, just as Su Yu's Divine Sense fell upon the Divine Statue's face...

The lifeless wooden Divine Statue seemed to suddenly "come alive"!

The statue's previously indistinct face suddenly opened a pair of eyes! Those eyes followed Su Yu's Divine Sense and looked right back at him!

What kind of eyes were those?

They were filled with a lofty indifference that regarded all living beings as ants. Yet at the same time, they were intensely bewitching, demonic to the extreme, and so beautiful they could make one's very soul tremble!

In the instant their gazes met across the distance...

Su Yu felt a massive ROAR in his head.

'So beautiful... utterly beautiful...'

Absurd, twisted thoughts began to sprout and grow wildly in the depths of Su Yu's heart like poisonous weeds.

He suddenly felt that the owner of these eyes was absolutely the most perfect and sacred being in the world. She was more breathtakingly overwhelming than Lin Wanzhu, more stunningly beautiful than Yang Zhen...

An extreme fanaticism—a desire to kneel, to serve, to offer his entire being to her—instantly devoured Su Yu's sanity!

'As long as I can look at her one more time, even if it means sinking into hell for her, even if it means being shattered to pieces... it would be worth it...'

Just as Su Yu's eyes were about to lose focus and he prepared to kneel in that ethereal direction!

His Divine Sense's Trait, Shattering Illusion and Revealing Truth, manifested!

'The heart is a bright mirror's stand; wipe it clean, time and again! With a clear Spirit Platform, no evil can invade, no dust can cling!!!'

The cyan righteous energy was like a basin of ice water poured over his head!

That faith, filled with extreme temptation and fanaticism, instantly melted away like ice and snow before his mirror-bright Spirit Platform, forcibly erased!

The moment his clarity returned, Su Yu broke out in a cold sweat.

GASP... GASP... GASP...

He braced his hands on his knees, greedily gulping down fresh air.

Cold sweat dripped from his forehead onto the ground. In just a few breaths, the back of his shirt was completely soaked, as if he had just survived a brutal, life-or-death struggle!

'Damn it, that was a Divine Statue of Mother Black Lotus! I shouldn't have probed it with my Divine Sense!'

Su Yu clutched his throbbing temples, a wave of intense fear and horror washing over him.

He finally understood what had just happened.

'I was actually audacious enough to use my Divine Sense to directly gaze at and investigate an Evil God who has lived for who knows how many ages! Although that small wooden box likely only contained a minuscule shred of Mother Black Lotus's consciousness... for someone like me, whose level of existence is still at the mortal Martial Artist stage, it was still devastating!'

'If my Divine Sense's Trait hadn't activated, my mind would have been controlled by her by now!'

'Damn it! When I touched it directly before, there was no danger. I could even absorb the Divine Blood and authority from it!'

'But using Divine Sense seems to have created some kind of medium. It didn't harm me directly, it just tried to control me, bypassing the system's protection! It seems I can't just carelessly use my Divine Sense to probe dangerous things like this anymore. I'll have to keep Breaking the Limit on my Divine Sense-related Traits!'

Su Yu continued to pant for a while. Once he felt his mind had mostly recovered and a quick check of his body revealed nothing abnormal, he finally relaxed completely.

'The Black Lotus Sect is setting up another Divine Statue of Mother Black Lotus. This must be stopped!'

"Someone, prepare a carriage immediately! I'm going to the Public Security Bureau!"