Secluded Valley Devours Sha

The colossal beast's corpse lay like a mountain range, its oppressive aura thinning day by day.

In the first few days, that aura still cowed the surroundings, silencing a hundred li in dread, even the wind seeming to detour around it.

Li Su enjoyed a rare, undisturbed stretch of "feeding" time, his spiritual sense operating at full capacity, devouring every newly formed remnant soul fragment within a hundred and fifty zhang.

Evolution Points ticked up slowly but steadily, climbing from 17 to 23.

The "Temporarily Stored Danger" warning still glared harshly, but the subtle erosion from consuming remnant souls brought him some peace of mind.

Yet, good times never last. On the seventh day, the first scavenger drawn by the scent of blood appeared.

It was a creature resembling a jackal but with a scorpion's tail—not huge, but exceptionally cautious.

It circled at a distance for an entire day, ultimately unable to resist the astonishing energy within the giant beast's flesh. It crept closer, tore off a piece from the relatively marginal meat, then bolted away with its prize, vanishing into the Sha Qi mist.

That was a signal.

As if a dam had sprung its first leak, more and more "cleaners" began to show up.

Varied in size and grotesque in form, they eyed each other warily, occasionally breaking into small skirmishes, but most of their energy went into tearing and devouring the giant beast's carcass.

The horrific sounds of gnashing flesh and crunching bones echoed day and night without pause.

Li Su's heart was in his throat. Though none of these beasts matched the terror of the dead giant, any one of them could easily destroy him in his unformed state.

He strained to conceal his own spiritual light, hiding the bamboo's peculiar traits as best he could, masquerading as an ordinary—if slightly tougher—ink bamboo.

Luckily, the giant beast's corpse was as much a supreme treasure to these creatures as it was to him.

Their attention was entirely consumed by that massive energy source; they had no interest in an "unremarkable" bamboo stalk nearby.

Occasionally, a fight spilled over, sending rocks and sand clattering against the bamboo body with a ringing sound, but it caused no real damage.

The immediate crisis passed, but Li Su's efficiency in devouring remnant souls plummeted.

The remnant souls born from the beasts' battles rarely drifted far before being scattered by the victor's unintentional ferocious aura, or sucked up by weaker insects too timid to claim a share of the feast.

Evolution Points nearly ground to a halt.

He couldn't wait any longer! He had to actively seek new "food"!

Li Su's spiritual sense once again swept toward the area he had repeatedly scouted.

Southeast, a hundred and twenty zhang away, that bottomless fissure spewing pure Yin Evil energy caught his attention once more.

The Sha Qi concentration there far exceeded the surroundings—violent, chaotic, but also "fresher."

The system prompted that absorbing Sha Qi could also convert into meager Evolution Points and slowly erode the "Temporarily Stored Will."

Though far less efficient than devouring remnant souls, its advantage lay in an endless supply!

The risk was that the fissure gave him an extremely dangerous feeling, as if something terrible lurked within.

Moreover, could his bamboo body withstand such pure Sha Qi for long?

After weighing his options, Li Su made his decision.

Fortune favors the bold! Rather than sit and wait for the "Temporarily Stored Energy" to spiral out of control at any moment, or get crushed by some suddenly crazed beast, he might as well take the gamble!

He couldn't move his main bamboo body, but he focused his consciousness and pushed the root system to its limit.

The bamboo roots, buried deep in bloody mud, began to extend with agonizing slowness toward the southeast, inch by inch.

The process drained his spiritual sense immensely, and the pace was maddeningly slow—often only a fraction of an inch per day and night.

But he persisted.

His main body remained still and hidden, all his mental energy poured into that single root exploring toward the fissure.

Time passed once more.

The giant beast's corpse shrank visibly as swarming predators tore it apart, until only a massive, tooth-marked skeleton remained, still radiating a faint aura.

New killings erupted around the skeleton, vying for the last scraps of flesh and sinew.

And Li Su's bamboo root, after countless hardships, finally touched the edge of the fissure!

Boom!

An even colder, purer, more violent surge of Sha Qi, as if finding an outlet, rushed along the root toward his main body!

The bamboo body shuddered violently, the dark patterns on its surface blazing to life, spinning wildly to filter and devour the torrent of incoming energy.

Code
[Absorbed Earth Vein Yin Evil, Evolution Points +0.0001]
[Absorbed Earth Vein Yin Evil, Evolution Points +0.0001]
[Warning! Excessive Sha Qi intake! Risk of root assimilation and corrosion!]
[Temporarily Stored Chaotic Will erosion efficiency increased by 0.1%]

The prompts blurred into a stream; the Evolution Points gain was negligible, but that "erosion efficiency increase" made Li Su's spirit soar! It worked!

What's more, the bamboo root seemed to toughen under the pure Sha Qi's scouring, its adaptability slowly rising!

Yet, just as he began to acclimate to this Sha Qi flow and prepared to push the root deeper into the fissure—

Rustle, rustle...

A faint, scraping sound traveled clearly along the bamboo root into his spiritual perception.

Something was inside the earth fissure! It was crawling rapidly along the rock wall, heading straight for... the bamboo root he had extended in!

Li Su's heart tightened. Without hesitation, he immediately severed his spiritual sense and energy supply to that bamboo root, actively forcing it into a state of "withered death."

Almost the next second after he finished, a dark-red shadow shot out from the fissure like lightning, pouncing precisely onto that bamboo root!

It was a strange insect, its entire body dark red, as if crystallized from Sha Qi!

It resembled a centipede but had hundreds of pairs of slender legs, and its head was nothing but a sucker-like mouth lined with spiral, serrated teeth!

It clamped down on the bamboo root, its sucker writhing as if trying to extract something, but it only got a mouthful of withered root debris and pure Sha Qi.

The strange insect seemed to pause for a moment, its fine legs scraping irritably against the rock wall, producing a grating noise.

It circled the "dead" bamboo root a few times, then, as if losing interest, shrank back and swiftly vanished into the darkness deep within the fissure.

Li Su's spiritual sense remained taut, and he dared not make another move for a long time.

That was close! The feeling that strange insect gave him was far more dangerous than the beasts fighting over carcasses outside!

Its aura was cold and pure, entirely a spirit creature born from the Yin Sha Qi deep underground!

This place was not safe to stay! But the Sha Qi here was crucial to him.

He no longer dared to let the bamboo root go deeper. Instead, he carefully controlled it to extend along the edges of the fissure, like a thief—absorbing a bit, then immediately hiding and camouflaging to avoid the strange insect's possible patrol range.

In this tense, intermittent absorption, one day, as the bamboo root extended under a collapsed rock wall at the edge of the fissure, it touched something.

Hard, cold, yet containing a relatively gentle earth-type energy, different from Sha Qi.

[Detected trace Earth Essence Qi... Absorbable... Convert to Evolution Points...]

Earth Essence Qi?

Li Su probed with his spiritual sense and found a nondescript piece of Gray-Brown Ore half-buried in broken rocks and Sha mud. Its surface was rough, with a faint shimmer of light.

He tried to guide the bamboo root to coil around it and activate the "Soul Devour" ability—though it wasn't a soul, the system seemed to judge it as absorbable "energy matter."

Threads of pure earth-type energy were drawn out, flowing along the bamboo root into his main body.

[Absorbed Earth Essence Stone energy, Evolution Points +0.1]

[Absorbed Earth Essence Stone energy, Evolution Points +0.1]

The efficiency was far higher than absorbing Sha Qi! Even higher than devouring ordinary remnant souls!

Li Su was overjoyed! As expected, the risk was worth it! There were resources like this near the earth fissure!

He carefully examined and found that this type of Gray-Brown Ore was scattered sporadically in the rock layers along the fissure's edge, seemingly brought up by underground Sha Qi activity.

The quantity was small and buried sparsely, but for him at this moment, it was a godsend!

He controlled the bamboo root even more cautiously, avoiding areas where the strange insect might roam, like a patient miner, searching and absorbing these scattered Earth Essence Stones bit by bit.

Evolution Points began to rise slowly again.

24... 25... 26...

At the same time, he also discovered that absorbing this earth-type energy had little effect on eroding the "Temporarily Stored Chaotic Will," far less than directly absorbing Earth Vein Yin Evil.

But raising Evolution Points itself strengthened his foundation, preparing him to fully absorb the temporarily stored energy.

Walking on two legs, steady and sure.

Days passed in this monotonous, dangerous, yet rewarding repetition.

Devouring remnant souls, absorbing Sha Qi, searching for Earth Essence Stones... Li Su's spiritual sense grew more refined through constant use, and his control over the bamboo root became increasingly precise.

He also gained a vague grasp of the strange insect's activity patterns in the fissure—it seemed to spend most of its time sleeping deep within, occasionally coming out to patrol.

Until one day, his spiritual sense swept over a low-lying area eighty zhang to the northwest—where he had previously sensed a strange plant emitting a rotting aura.

At that moment, the plant, shaped like a giant Venus flytrap and colored purplish-black, had firmly entangled a small lizard-like beast that had wandered into its leaf range, secreting mucus to rapidly dissolve and absorb it.

And at the base of that plant, several noticeably larger Earth Crystal Stones, shimmering with a warm yellow light, were half-exposed!

Li Su's consciousness instantly focused on those Earth Crystal Stones.

Greater temptation often came with greater risk.