Priest Ai Jing appeared to be dodging, but in truth, she moved with unhurried ease.
She was likely trying to draw out whatever lurked beneath the swamp.
Just then, Lady Kui abruptly rose from Li Ban's hand, lunging toward the center of the swamp. But she only made it halfway before the light flaring around the White Chrysanthemum forced her back.
To her, the White Chrysanthemum was both a sanctuary and a cage.
"Miaomiao—Miaomiao—"
Lady Kui was frantic, yet she could only slur Miaomiao's name.
However, even that faint voice was enough to make the branches attacking Priest Ai Jing freeze.
The branches abruptly changed direction, stabbing toward Li Ban at the edge of the swamp.
They struck with vicious momentum, hell-bent on skewering Li Ban right through.
The branches instantly wheeled around behind him, plunging toward the center of his back.
A beam of starlight crashed down, instantly pinning the branches in place.
The spiritual rhinoceros was suppressed in this place.
But Li Ban's Starlight Domain was fueled by his own Star River; he had no need to draw on the ambient spiritual rhinoceros.
Sensing danger, the culprit hiding deep within the swamp frantically tugged at its branches to retreat. But the starlight held them fast, and they couldn't budge an inch.
A Starlight Domain capable of briefly trapping a Solar Priest certainly wasn't going to let mere branches escape.
"Miaomiao—Miaomiao—"
Oblivious to her surroundings, Lady Kui simply continued to cry out Miaomiao's name, growing more desperate by the second.
Deep within the swamp, the vines and branches grew increasingly violent.
Floating in the air, Priest Ai Jing struggled slightly to maintain her Flight Technique.
Seeing how effortlessly Li Ban cast his spell to trap the branches, she couldn't help but wonder how he managed it.
Glancing at the irrational Lady Kui and the immobilized branches caught in the standoff, Li Ban could only offer a silent apology.
'I'm sorry, Lady Kui.'
He slightly tightened his grip on the White Chrysanthemum. Instantly, Lady Kui's raw soul clutched her head and rolled around in agony.
Her weak, continuous wails finally broke the patience of the thing beneath the swamp.
With a sudden burst, something blasted through the mud and soil, flying into the air.
Everyone looked up, only to see that the object erupting from the dirt was a small, cylindrical piece of wood.
It was shaped like a wooden stump, but its texture resembled a blend of gold and jade. One glance was enough to tell it was no ordinary object.
The two branches that had just attacked Priest Ai Jing and Li Ban were sprouting straight from the top of this very stump.
"A fusion of metal and wood, supported by water and earth. It really is a Mutated Element!" Priest Ai Jing instantly recognized its true nature.
With a wave of her hand, she effortlessly trapped the flying stump, dragging it to the edge of the swamp and dropping it right in front of Li Ban and Lady Kui's raw soul.
Li Ban turned to the Cat Girl. "Is this what was making you uncomfortable?"
"I think so. It's weird—the moment it came out, my discomfort vanished."
The Cat Girl looked at the small wooden stump in front of her, then back at the swamp, completely bewildered.
Priest Ai Jing's eyes filled with worry. "Four elements merged into one. This is the most stable Mutated Element I have ever seen. But the more stable a Mutated Element is, the more destructive the energy shockwave it will unleash upon detonating. I can't believe someone could conduct this kind of research deep within the chaotic Nihility State. How does he guarantee the elemental changes align with his theories?"
"Why would he need them to align? He just runs his experiments one by one. He couldn't care less about the destruction he causes," Li Ban sneered.
He raised his hand, pulling the gold-and-jade stump closer to him.
Inside the White Chrysanthemum, Lady Kui grew even more agitated. Clinging to the petals, she screamed "Miaomiao" at the small stump.
"So the real Miaomiao was here all along. That treant behind the storehouse must have been Miaomiao's body after its core was ripped out."
Li Ban finally understood why Lady Kui's corpse was hidden in the tree hollow behind the storehouse, yet her raw soul had been crawling toward this swamp.
Lady Kui wasn't trying to return to her body; she just wanted to find her Miaomiao.
Unfortunately, Xiao Suo had already forged her Miaomiao into a Mutated Element. It only retained a faint shred of consciousness, just enough to react to her calls.
But Miaomiao was already fully mutating toward chaos. This was entirely different from the Chaotic Green Silk Algae that the Cat Girl had absorbed.
"The entire transmutation process is irreversible." Priest Ai Jing didn't know Lady Kui or Miaomiao, but just looking at the scene before her, she could piece together what they had suffered.
Reminded of what she and her own friends had been through, her hatred for Xiao Suo deepened.
However, sympathy didn't mean she would go soft.
Priest Ai Jing turned to Li Ban. "Miaomiao has already been twisted into this state. If this continues, it will completely lose control and keep mutating. We are too close to Yingzhou and Lan Province here. Once it fully shifts to chaos, the River of Helplessness won't be able to contain the fallout. Half the land in both provinces could be destroyed."
Li Ban understood her meaning.
"We need to destroy it now. Completely."
Miaomiao was innocent, but they couldn't sacrifice the ordinary people of two provinces for its sake.
Besides, a priest's duty was to maintain the stability of the Nine Provinces. If a massive anomaly erupted here, the entire Wizard World could be severely impacted.
It might even serve as the trigger that threw the entire world into the Recycling Station.
And that was something Li Ban absolutely would not allow.
Priest Ai Jing pushed Miaomiao toward Li Ban.
"Priest Ban, you restrain it. I will destroy it."
"Alright."
Having seen at a glance that Li Ban possessed immense control, Priest Ai Jing confidently handed Miaomiao over to him and began preparing a devastating destruction spell.
Deep in the Nihility State, the spiritual rhinoceros was sluggish, severely handicapping everyone else's abilities.
Only a Solar Priest had the power to destroy Miaomiao so decisively.
While restraining Miaomiao, Li Ban didn't forget to glance at Lady Kui inside the White Chrysanthemum.
He had expected her to break down in tears or scream in madness at the sight of Miaomiao's impending destruction. To his surprise, Lady Kui fell completely silent, merely watching with quiet intensity.
"Though you are dead, your mind is clear and your eyes are bright. You are already much stronger than many of the living."
Li Ban raised the White Chrysanthemum.
"At the very moment Miaomiao's body is destroyed, I will shatter the White Chrysanthemum and release you. Whether you can bring it home will be entirely up to you."
Despite having ascended to become a Solar Priest, the oppressive environment deep within the Nihility State meant Priest Ai Jing had to channel for nearly a quarter of an hour before her lethal spell was ready.
"Thunderous Strike!"
She brought her hands together, a bolt of black lightning erupting from her fingertips.
Looking closely, it wasn't actual lightning, but a concentrated mass of exceptionally violent energy.
Judging by its sheer force, it looked capable of tearing space itself apart.
If the Mist Realm's priests hadn't set up concealment arrays beforehand, the outside world would have undoubtedly sensed the disturbance.
Li Ban's attention, however, quietly shifted away from the Thunderous Strike and scanned their surroundings.
Priest Ai Jing was striking out to destroy Miaomiao right now.
Would Xiao Suo, the one who had specially cultivated Miaomiao, show up?
Yet, to Li Ban's surprise, everything went smoothly.
The black lightning of the Thunderous Strike crashed entirely onto Miaomiao's wooden stump.
With a series of sharp, explosive cracks—like shattering metal and stone—Miaomiao's body was instantly blasted into millions of fragments. The pieces exploded outward, dissolving into a cloud of dust before vanishing completely.