The Little Princess's body trembled slightly.
Under her pale blue skin, something black could be seen wriggling faintly.
Like tiny worms, they crawled along her blood vessels, trying to avoid the pale blue points of light.
Cen Yao's expression remained unchanged as the second bottle of potion immediately flew up.
The pollution extraction potion burst open in midair, turning into a thin silver mist.
As the silver mist descended, the Little Princess suddenly snapped her eyes open.
The whites of her eyes were eroded by the black pollution, but deep within her pupils, there was a tiny, extremely faint glint of golden light.
She opened her mouth and let out a sharp wail that didn't sound human.
The magic circle inside the secret chamber flickered violently from the force of the wail.
Chen Lin and Wang Tao covered their ears at the same time, their faces pale.
The Queen's soul body was even shaken, swaying backward.
Cen Yao stood firmly. She raised her hand, tapping the tip of her wand at the center of the array.
“Shield.”
Invisible ripples spread outward.
The Little Princess was still crying, but the sound was now trapped as if under a thick glass dome, instantly muffled to a barely audible level.
Cen Yao breathed a sigh of relief.
Her ears had finally survived the assault.
But the pollution inside the Little Princess's body was clearly unwilling to sit and wait for its demise.
Her tiny body suddenly arched, her limbs twisting at unnatural angles. Her mottled golden hair grew frantically, like countless living snakes, whipping fiercely against the edges of the array.
The Queen cried out, “Lillian!”
The strands of hair slammed into the edges of the array, making a sizzling, corrosive sound.
The silver-white magic runes were gnawed by the pollution, creating several gaps that looked ready to break at any moment.
Suspended in midair, the dark wizard, who had already been muted, began to struggle frantically.
It could not make human sounds, only squeezing out a series of strange squeaks from its throat.
The sound actually carried a hint of excitement.
It was as if it was saying that it was useless.
That she couldn't save her.
Cen Yao glanced at it.
“You're asking for it.”
A small ball of light flew over, slapping right onto the black rat's head with a splat.
The dark wizard was smacked so hard that the entire rat spun a full 1080-degree Thomas flare in midair.
Chen Lin: “...”
Wang Tao: “...”
The Queen: “...”
They should have been extremely tense at a time like this.
Yet, seeing the black rat get smacked into a spinning top, they almost lost their composure.
Cen Yao didn't let herself get distracted any further.
While repairing the array with her magic, she raised her hand to take out the final bottle of potion—the vitality fusion potion.
This potion wasn't meant to bring the Little Princess's physical body back to life.
The Little Princess was already dead.
Her physical shell had long been devoured by the pollution. Even though the lingering vitality of the rainbow flower kept her suspended, it only maintained a bizarre, half-dead state.
The true purpose of this potion was to temporarily stabilize the connection between the rainbow flower's power and the Little Princess's soul.
Otherwise, once the pollution was forcibly extracted, the Little Princess's soul would shatter along with it.
Cen Yao chanted an incantation in a low voice.
The third bottle of potion was slowly poured out.
The pale gold liquid fell into the center of the array, flowing along the magic runes to the space beneath the Little Princess.
The silver-white and pale gold lights intertwined, enveloping the Little Princess's tiny body like a dense net.
The next second, a lump suddenly bulged in her chest.
Beneath that patch of skin, something black was struggling violently.
Cen Yao's eyes narrowed.
She had found it—the pollutant.
She raised her wand, and a thin silver-white beam of light shot out from the tip. Like an extremely fine scalpel, it pierced precisely into the dark shadow in the Little Princess's chest.
The Little Princess's body jolted violently.
The Queen instinctively lunged forward, only to be blocked by the array.
“Don't go near.”
Cen Yao's voice was very cold.
“If you touch her now, both of you will be finished.”
The Queen froze in place, tears of blood dripping down one by one.
She could only watch.
She watched her child lie in the array, her body constantly convulsing as she was tortured by the pollution.
She watched Cen Yao slowly pull that black mass out of her body, inch by inch.
It was a black core about the size of a thumb.
The surface of the core was covered in fine, blood vessel-like patterns, and within it, countless tiny, painfully distorted faces could be seen struggling.
The moment it was pulled out, the temperature inside the secret chamber plummeted.
Chen Lin's teeth began to chatter.
Wang Tao couldn't help but curse, “What the hell is that thing?”
Cen Yao didn't answer.
A thin layer of sweat broke out on her forehead.
This thing was far more stubborn than she had anticipated.
It wasn't merely parasitizing the Little Princess's body; it had already become entangled with her soul.
She couldn't use brute force. If she pulled too hard, the Little Princess's soul would be torn apart with it.
Cen Yao took a deep breath.
“Orb.”
The orb immediately replied, “Host, I'm here!”
“Help me monitor the magic fluctuations.”
“Got it!”
The orb's voice became more serious than ever before.
“The soul fluctuations on the left are unstable, Host! Press it down a bit!”
“The pollution core is fighting back! The right side of the line is about to break!”
“The magic output is too high! Lower it, a bit lower!”
Following its guidance, Cen Yao constantly adjusted her magic.
The silver light at the tip of her wand grew thinner inch by inch, until it was as fine as a strand of hair.
The hair-like thread of light probed into the space between the pollution core and the Little Princess's soul, slowly severing the entangled parts.
The process was slow, highly dangerous, and extremely draining.
The Little Princess's soul was far too fragile.
It was like a thin, golden petal; even the slightest heavy touch would cause it to crack.
The dark wizard struggled more and more violently in midair.
As it watched the pollution core get extracted bit by bit, and watched its most proud masterpiece dismantled by Cen Yao's incredibly steady hands, its dark red eyes finally showed signs of collapse.
It wanted to scream, to curse, to lung forward and disrupt the process.
But it was sealed.
There was absolutely nothing it could do.
It could only watch helplessly.
This was far more agonizing to it than death.
After an unknown amount of time, a very soft sound suddenly echoed from the center of the array.
“Pop!”
It sounded as if something had finally broken free from its shackles.
The black core was completely pulled out of the Little Princess's body.
At the same time, a tiny, pale gold soul drifted up from the cold physical shell.
The soul was very small, only about the size of Cen Yao's fist.
She curled up within the pale gold light, her hair clean and soft. Her cheeks were no longer pale blue, and a touch of a child's purity had finally returned to her features.
The Queen stared at her blankly.
“Lillian...”
The tiny soul seemed to hear her voice, shifting slightly.
Then, she slowly opened her eyes.
They were a pair of exceptionally clear blue eyes.
No pollution, no greed.
None of the madness from being forced to feed.
Only confusion and grievance.
Seeing the Queen, her mouth puckered, and she finally cried out like a real baby.
“Waaah...”
This time, the crying was very soft.
It was simply a child who had suffered a great deal, crying out her grievances upon finally seeing her mother.
The Queen could no longer hold back, rushing forward to pull her into her embrace.
This time, she actually touched her.
The moment the two souls embraced, a pale gold light rippled outward from them.
The remaining coldness and bloody stench in the secret chamber seemed to be gently pushed away by this light.
Chen Lin covered her mouth, her tears instantly spilling over.
Wang Tao's eyes also reddened. He turned his head away and cursed under his breath.
“Damn it!”
Cen Yao stood in the center of the array, finally letting go of her wand.
Her body swayed slightly, but she quickly steadied herself.
She was truly exhausted.
She felt so tired. It was like the sheer helplessness of an eighty-year-old left-behind senior who had carried sixty buckets of water under the blazing sun to water vegetable seedlings at the edge of the village, only to discover they were watering someone else's field.
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