The witch-script character "Seal," condensed from dark red blood energy in Hou Yi's palm and carrying Turbid Fiendish Power deposited in the depths of the earth over countless years, slammed ruthlessly onto Cheng Xi's dantian energy sea!
Bzzz—!
An indescribably heavy force instantly penetrated his body! It was not sharp, yet it was thick and viscous as mire that had settled for ten thousand years, bearing accumulated death, decay, and the deepest filth of the earth. This force barged into Cheng Xi's already ravaged meridians and collided head-on with the rampaging Chaos Sword Essence that was about to burn everything away!
Hiss—rip—!
It was like boiling lava suddenly pouring into a freezing swamp! The annihilating sharpness and disorder of the Chaos Sword Essence were wrapped, permeated, and neutralized layer by layer by the heavy, filthy Turbid Fiendish Power! The frenzied blue-gray light dimmed at a visible rate, while the destructive torrent charging wildly through Cheng Xi's body seemed bound by countless invisible chains of mud. Its struggles grew weaker and weaker until it was forcibly pressed back into the depths of his dantian, compressed into an extremely unstable, slowly spinning blue-gray Chaos Vortex.
The agonizing pain was instantly replaced by an even deeper, suffocating sense of sinking! Cheng Xi's vision darkened in waves, as though he had been dragged to the bottom of a boundless, lightless bog. The Turbid Fiendish Power had not only sealed the rampaging sword essence, but also covered his nascent Dao foundation like a filthy oil slick, cutting off his perception of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi. His senses, originally sharpened by the Chaos Origin Point, became sluggish and muddled, while his thoughts seemed filled with blocks of lead, turning with difficulty. The last trace of light from the Tongtian Mark on the sword sheath went out completely. The Qingping Sword Sheath became cold and silent, like ordinary iron.
"Urgh..." Cheng Xi's throat worked, and what he vomited was no longer blood, but dark red, muddy fluid reeking of wet earth. He lay limp in Meng Tian's arms, his breath as faint as a thread, his gaze unfocused. His body felt heavy and cold, like a living corpse sealed inside a coffin.
Hou Yi slowly withdrew his hand, and the blood-red witch script in his palm dimmed and vanished. Looking at Cheng Xi's deathly gray face, he frowned deeply. "The Chaos Fiendish Qi is temporarily sealed, but the Turbid Fiendish Power has contaminated his Dao foundation like gangrene in the bone. This is drinking poison to quench thirst. Unless we find the source Pure Fire, or Lord Tongtian personally intervenes... this boy will eventually be assimilated by the Turbid Fiendish Power and become a walking corpse." His gaze swept over the holes corroded by sword qi in Meng Tian's armguard, from which strands of black blood were seeping out. "Your body has also suffered the erosion of filth. It must be scorched by True Solar Fire for seven days before it can be removed."
Meng Tian lowered his head to look at Cheng Xi, whose life force was nearly extinguished, then felt the numb, icy corrosion spreading from the wound on his arm. Murderous fury filled his tiger-like eyes as he clenched his teeth. "No matter the cost... save him! Great Qin... owes him a life!"
Above the ruins of Ganquan Palace, the blazing white and orange-red flames intertwined all over Yan Lingji's body slowly receded. The sulfurous demonic intent and dark gold streams in the air had temporarily been burned away, leaving only the faint scorched scent after the flames' purification. She knelt on one knee amid the burning rubble, panting violently. Sweat soaked through her crimson dress, which clung tightly to her heaving back.
The crack on the back of her hand, which had once opened into a dark gold vertical pupil, had closed, leaving only a pale golden scar. The spreading demonic markings had all receded into the depths of her bloodline like venomous snakes lying dormant. The orange-red flame at her heart flickered weakly yet stubbornly. Every pulse brought weakness that sank into her bones, but also a trace of clarity after surviving disaster.
She lowered her head and looked at the Qingping Sword Sheath clutched tightly in her arms. Its scorching heat had faded, its cloud patterns were dim and lusterless, and a fine crack running through the sheath was painfully conspicuous—the final wisp of Lord Tongtian's imprint had been utterly exhausted and dispersed to help her hold fast to her heart-lamp.
"Kindling flame..." Yan Lingji murmured, her fingertips brushing across the crack. At that moment between life and death, what the orange-red flame had brought was not destruction, but a warmth of protection and inheritance, faint yet capable of piercing through the chaos of the demonic sound and the coldness of the Pangu Imprint.
Bzzz...!
An extremely faint yet incomparably clear tremor came without warning from the deepest part of her bloodline! It was neither the majesty of the Pangu Imprint nor the erosion of the demonic markings, but a call originating from something even more ancient and more fundamental! Distant and heavy, carrying the earth's pulse, compassion, and urgency, like a mother calling to a lost child!
Pangu Hall! The will of Empress Pingxin!
The call was not words, but fragmented images forcibly flooding into her mind:
In the boundless darkness deep within the earth veins, countless golden channels symbolizing the flow of earth qi were being madly eroded by a viscous, malicious dark gold filth! Like living vascular tumors, the filth twisted and spread across the golden channels. Wherever it passed, the warm earth qi became scorching, violent, and filled with destructive agitation! The entire earth groaned heavily in pain beneath this contamination! At the center of that filth, a huge, blurry dark gold vertical pupil formed from pure chaotic demonic qi was slowly taking shape. Its cold, greedy gaze pierced through layer after layer of obstruction and locked onto the northwest—Xianyang!
The final image fixed on a heavy, viscous drop of Dark Gold Demonic Blood seeping downward through a rock fissure deep beneath Mount Li! It was this, like a poisonous seed, that was contaminating the Dragon Vein Earth Energy!
"The earth veins... have been contaminated?!" Yan Lingji's pupils contracted sharply, and her heart shook violently! The aura of that Dark Gold Demonic Blood... was the same origin as the demonic markings eroding her bloodline! It was even... purer and even more ancient than what was inside her!
Empress Pingxin's call carried an urgency unlike ever before! The earth veins were the foundation of the land and the support of reincarnation! If they were completely contaminated... the consequences would be unimaginable! This was no longer a calamity for one person or one race, but a Calamity of the Primordial Era that could overturn all existence!
She abruptly raised her head and looked toward Mount Li, orange-red flames dancing in her eyes. Protection... inheritance... this meaning of the kindling flame, which she had only just grasped, now had a clear and weighty purpose for the first time—she had to stop that drop of demonic blood! She had to purify the contaminated earth veins! For Pangu Hall, for this world, and for... the countless beings she did not yet know, yet with whom she was already connected by bloodline!
The remaining witchfire reignited amid her weakness, burning orange-red with a trace of resolve. She struggled to her feet and walked barefoot across the scorching blackened earth, leaving faint sparks with every step. Her destination—Mount Li!
In a hollow piled with rotten leaves, the deathly silence was broken by a teeth-grinding sound of scales scraping together.
Lu Buwei curled up on the ground, his body convulsing violently. His luxurious brocade robe had long been torn apart by his swelling body, and the exposed skin beneath the fragments had taken on an inhuman, deathly gray color. The massive wound across his chest, ripped open by sword qi, had curled edges and no longer bled. Instead, it was being covered and sealed by sticky, writhing dark gold flesh buds.
Rip... rip...
Fine tearing sounds came continuously from every part of his body. His shoulder blades, back, arms... dark gold scales with razor-sharp edges and cold metallic gleams pierced through his gray, slack human skin one after another, forcing their way out with the tenacity of poisonous mushrooms after rain! Every scale that emerged was accompanied by an inhuman shriek of pain squeezed from his throat, and... the complete annihilation of another trace of reason.
The half of the scorched black Demon Lizard's Severed Skull in his arms was tightly attached to the wound on his chest, as though it had fused with the writhing dark gold flesh buds. On the broken surface of the skull, the charred sinews around its sole remaining crimson evil eye, which had been mostly split open, twitched violently. Deep within its pupil, a point of pure, greedy dark gold light slowly lit up like the eye of a waking evil ghost!
"Power... chaos... eternity..." Fragmented words squeezed from Lu Buwei's twisted mouth, which was slowly lengthening and sharpening. His voice was hoarse and sticky, an inhuman sound. His eyeballs were completely covered in dark gold, while his pupils narrowed into cold vertical slits. Lu Buwei's lust for power, fear, and unwillingness... were swiftly being covered and replaced by a cold, pure Will of Chaos that contained nothing but endless hunger to devour.
He struggled, attempting to tear away the demonic skull attached to his chest with hands now covered in fine scales, their nails sharp as hooks. But the instant his fingertips touched that cold skull, submission and yearning from the depths of his soul drowned the remaining resistance. His hands instead clasped the demonic skull tightly, as though embracing the source he had been separated from for ten thousand years.
Bzzz...!
An invisible wave of chaos spread outward from him. The vegetation around the hollow withered and rotted at a visible rate, turning into pitch-black ash! The dark gold vertical pupil blazed brightly, and the Demon Lizard's Severed Skull actually melted as it slowly sank into the writhing dark gold flesh buds on Lu Buwei's chest!
"Urgh... Aaaahhh—!!!"
Lu Buwei—or rather, the shell being replaced—threw back his head and let out a tragic scream of utmost anguish! It was accompanied by horrifying sounds of bones bursting and flesh proliferating! His body rapidly swelled and warped as if inflated! The clothes on his back exploded completely, and several twisted dark gold bone ridges covered in jagged spikes erupted from the body! A long tail covered in barbs and ending in a scorpion-like point tore through his trousers and lashed madly behind him!
The last trace of a human outline was vanishing. Under the moon in the desolate forest, a dark gold monster with a fierce, chaotic aura, somewhere between human and demon lizard, revealed its savage embryonic form! Its pair of cold vertical pupils slowly turned, looking toward the depths of Mount Li, where the earth vein contamination was thickest, with endless hunger and desire for destruction!
Deep beneath Mount Li, time itself seemed stretched by thick malice. The vast torrent of Dragon Vein Earth Energy had become utterly filthy. Countless twisted dark gold patterns, like living snakes, were embedded deep within the originally pure golden energy, madly sucking, contaminating, and transforming it! The warm and immense vitality had been warped into scorching violence, while the dignified foundation of the nation's fortune was being injected with the poison of chaos and destruction.
Rumble...
From deep within the Mount Li range, painful roars grew more frequent and distinct. Across the surface of the mountain body, vast stretches of forest began to take on an unnatural deathly gray, while dark red water stained with the smell of sulfur seeped from cracks in the rocks.
At the core of the earth veins, the dark gold vertical pupil formed from billions of resentments and chaotic Law Fragments had fully taken shape! It was enormous, suspended in the middle of the contaminated golden torrent. Its cold pupil, like an abyssal eye, greedily swept across every inch of the earth veins soaked by its power.
Bzzz—!
The vertical pupil suddenly turned! Its gaze pierced through thick rock layers and filthy earth qi, ignoring the barrier of space like an invisible probe, and instantly locked onto the depths of Xianyang Palace!
Meng Tian forced himself to settle the unconscious Cheng Xi onto a soft couch in a side hall of the Imperial Medical Office. Hou Yi stood before the couch, his rough fingers resting on Cheng Xi's cold wrist as strands of dark red blood energy entered his body, sensing the Chaos Vortex sealed tightly in his dantian by Turbid Fiendish Power yet still charging about like a trapped beast. He frowned deeply. Cheng Xi's face was gray and sallow like gold paper, his breath faint, and ominous dark red veins were faintly visible beneath his skin—the manifestation of Turbid Fiendish Power eroding his Dao foundation.
There!
The dark gold vertical pupil deep in the earth veins abruptly locked onto Cheng Xi! The sealed Chaos Vortex was like the most conspicuous beacon in the darkness, emitting the primordial aura of "disorder" that made it drool with greed! What excited it even more was the thick layer of Turbid Fiendish Power enveloping the Chaos Vortex! This filthy power from the depths of the earth was the same origin as the force contaminating the earth veins! It was simply perfect nutrients and a perfect springboard prepared for it!
Deep within the vertical pupil, greedy light surged!
The next instant, an extremely obscure dark gold demonic thought condensed from pure intent of contamination shot silently and swiftly toward the Imperial Medical Office in Xianyang Palace through the network of contaminated Dragon Vein Earth Energy, like lethal poison spreading through blood vessels! Its target pointed directly at the Chaos Vortex in Cheng Xi's dantian, sealed by Turbid Fiendish Power! It wanted to detonate the sealed power and use the Turbid Fiendish Power as a medium to drag Cheng Xi and everything around him completely into the abyss of contamination!
On the western foothills of Mount Li's main ridge lay a secluded valley far from the collapsed demon lair. In the valley stood an old locust tree that had grown for who knew how many thousands of years, its trunk requiring ten people to encircle it and its canopy spreading like a giant umbrella that blocked out the sky. At this moment, however, this weathered ancient tree was undergoing an eerie transformation.
On the thick trunk near its roots, large patches of dark gold mottled the bark like rusted coin-shaped ringworm, gleaming with an ominous metallic sheen beneath the moonlight. Its originally dark brown leaves had become deathly gray and curled, their edges stained with a ring of scorched black. A faint sulfurous smell that made the chest feel tight permeated the space beneath its canopy.
The ancient tree's massive roots stretched through the dark soil like sleeping giant pythons. One of its thickest lateral roots, while searching for nutrients deep within the mountain body, accidentally pierced through an extremely fine crack in the rock.
Deep in that crack was the drop of Dark Gold Demonic Blood that had seeped here and was madly contaminating the main dragon vein above!
Bzzz!
The instant the tree root touched that heavy, viscous demonic blood, the ancient locust's immense body shuddered! The dark gold patches spread rapidly over its bark like living things! Deathly gray leaves rustled down!
The root extending into the crack clung greedily to it like a vampire thirsty for ten thousand years upon encountering a sweet spring! The chaotic demonic intent and vast energy contained in the Dark Gold Demonic Blood surged madly into the ancient tree's body through the conduits in its root!
At a visible rate, the surface of the root became covered in a dark gold, horn-like hard shell! Beneath the shell, the rootlets swelled and pulsed like congested blood vessels! The ancient locust's aura instantly became violent and twisted. Its canopy moved without wind, making a rustling sound like countless tiny teeth grinding together!
It was no longer an ancient tree drawing nutrients from the earth, but had become a Demonic Plant rooted at the source of contamination! It greedily sucked the power from that drop of demonic blood, transforming and spreading it, accelerating the contamination of the entire earth vein branch! Its roots spread and pierced more frantically through the soil, seeking more contaminated Earth Vein Nodes...
At the deepest point of this Demonic Ancient Locust Tree's root system, an extremely faint Dark Gold Embryo condensed from pure demonic blood essence quietly sprouted. Its shape vaguely resembled a closed... vertical pupil.
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