Chapter 29 · Her Spirit Root Screams

The ground split under my feet and I didn't move.

I should've been falling. The entire altar hall was coming down—stone columns snapping like dead branches, the ceiling cracking open to show night sky. Disciples screamed and ran for the doors. But I just stood there in the center of it all, watching the chaos spread out from me like rings in water.

My spirit root was awake. Finally awake.

Fifteen years it'd been locked down, sealed so tight I thought I was broken. Thought I'd never cultivate, never be anything but the sect's punching bag. And now it was roaring through my meridians like it wanted to make up for all that lost time at once.

Void energy. That's what Elder Feng had called it, right before his face went white as a corpse.

I could feel it eating at the formation arrays carved into the altar stone. The old spiritual wards that kept this place standing were dissolving under my feet like sugar in hot water. And I wasn't even trying.