The next morning, Chen Yuan left Lin Hai County alone and headed north. He traveled the familiar mountain paths with practiced ease, and in less than an hour, he had reached the outskirts of Black Wind Ravine.
Unlike the sinister chill of Cold Dragon Pond, the entrance to Black Wind Ravine gave off an air of desolation and peril.
The cliffs on either side looked as though they had been hacked by knives and axes, their strange rocks jutting out in jagged profusion. The ravine was dim, and the wind passing through the narrow gaps let out strange, sobbing cries, as though ghosts were truly wailing and wolves howling. The name "Black Wind Ravine" could not have been more fitting.
According to the mission description, the abnormal sounds and tremors came from deep within the ravine.
Chen Yuan did not hesitate. He drew a deep breath, then leaped forward and slid down into the ravine, clinging to the rock face like an agile gibbon.
The deeper he went, the dimmer the light became. A faint, rotten, musty odor began to permeate the air.
The ground beneath his feet was no longer solid earth, but accumulated fallen leaves and loose rubble.
The surroundings were frighteningly quiet. Only his own footsteps and the occasional, almost imperceptible wind from the deepest reaches broke the silence.
He slowed down and raised his spiritual perception to its limit. His ears twitched as he carefully caught every abnormal sound, while his sharp gaze swept over the surrounding terrain.
After descending for roughly the time it took to burn a stick of incense, he found several cave entrances of varying sizes ahead. They were pitch-black and led to unknown destinations—presumably the maze-like branching paths the disciple in charge had mentioned.
Chen Yuan stopped and listened, circulating his qi and blood as he carefully sensed the faint tremors in the ground.
A moment later, his gaze settled on the leftmost cave entrance. It was roughly one person tall, deep, and ancient.
From that direction, he faintly caught an extremely weak, muffled sound: "Thump... thump..."
It was as though something enormous was pounding against the rock wall far below. At the same time, the ground beneath his feet carried an almost imperceptible, synchronized tremor.
"This is the place."
Chen Yuan reached his conclusion.
He took out the Miasma Clearing Pill Sun Yun had given him and held one beneath his tongue. A cool sensation immediately spread out, protecting his nose, mouth, and throat.
Then he drew the Cold Ripple Blade and cautiously entered the dark cave.
The cave was narrow at first, barely wide enough for one person to pass through, but the farther he went, the more spacious it became.
The cave walls were slick and covered in moss. The air grew increasingly damp and murky, while a faint fishy odor gradually mingled with the rotten, musty smell.
The "thump... thump..." grew clearer, and the tremors beneath the ground became more pronounced.
After advancing several dozen yards and rounding a bend, the view suddenly opened up. It was actually a gigantic Underground Stone Chamber!
Countless stalactites hung from the ceiling, while stalagmites stood like a forest across the ground, forming a bizarre stone woodland.
At the center of the chamber was a bottomless underground pool. Its water was black as ink, and the muffled sounds and tremors came from the depths of the pool.
Chen Yuan held his breath and hid behind a massive stalagmite, focusing intently on the pool.
Just then.
Rumble!
A deafening boom, ten times louder than before, erupted from the bottom of the pool. The entire stone chamber shook violently. Stalactites rained down from the ceiling, smashing into the water and ground with a crackling barrage of noise!
At the same time, a powerful demonic aura filled with savagery and greed suddenly shot skyward from the pool!
Splash!
Water flew in every direction as an enormous black shadow abruptly rose halfway out of the pool.
It was a giant python.
Its entire body was covered in dark scales as dull as iron, their edges gleaming with a cold metallic sheen. Its body was incredibly thick, nearly as wide as a barrel, and the half that had emerged alone was already two or three zhang long!
On its triangular head, a pair of vertical pupils flashed with bloodthirsty ferocity as they stared fixedly at a certain spot near the top of the chamber.
Chen Yuan followed its gaze and saw a strange plant growing on a recessed platform in the ceiling.
The plant was dark gold all over and only about a foot tall. It had three thick leaves shaped like small shields, and atop its stem grew a fruit the size of a dragon's eye. It was crystal clear, with what seemed to be golden liquid flowing inside.
The fruit exuded a strange, enticing fragrance. Even one breath of it lifted the spirit and stirred the qi and blood.
"Golden Scale Fruit?!" Chen Yuan was startled.
He recognized it as a spirit fruit recorded in his master's notes. It had miraculous effects for tempering the body and strengthening qi and blood, and was particularly effective for martial artists in the Skin Grinding and Tendon Changing Realms. It was exceedingly rare in the outside world and could truly be called priceless.
The giant python had clearly been drawn here by the strange fragrance released as the spirit fruit ripened. The tremendous disturbance earlier had been caused by it ramming the rock layer at the bottom of the pool, attempting to collapse the stone wall and swallow the fruit directly.
At that moment, golden radiance flowed across the Golden Scale Fruit, and its fragrance grew even richer. It had clearly ripened completely.
Greed surged in the giant python's eyes. It let out a hoarse hiss, then its enormous body burst completely from the pool. Clinging to the nearly vertical rock wall, it rapidly slithered toward the spirit fruit with an agility completely at odds with its size.
Its heavy body scraped against the rock wall, sending countless stones tumbling down with terrifying momentum!
The giant python's strength should have just broken through to the second rank, equivalent to a martial artist in the Tendon Changing Realm. It seemed to want to swallow the spirit fruit to consolidate its realm and perhaps rise another level.
But even having just broken through, it was not something Chen Yuan could confront head-on in his current state.
The giant python's maw was about to swallow the precious Golden Scale Fruit.
In the briefest flash, Chen Yuan's thoughts raced. A head-on attempt to seize it would mean certain death, but simply retreating and watching helplessly as the spirit fruit was swallowed left him unwilling to accept it.
At the critical moment, he suddenly thought of the Mist Manipulation divine ability!
There was no time to consider success or failure. Chen Yuan made his decision instantly.
He circulated the divine ability with all his strength. His target was not the giant python itself, nor the entire stone chamber, but the area around the python's head—especially the tiny region near its nostrils and eyes.
He compressed the range of the mist as much as possible, raising its density to the extreme! At the same time, he fused that thread of Cold Silence blade intent he had comprehended into it!
"Condense!"
Without a sound, a basin-sized mass of pale, frigid mist suddenly appeared before the giant python's head like a ghost. Though small, it was so dense that it seemed almost solid, and it radiated bone-piercing cold. It precisely enveloped the python's mouth, nose, and eyes.
The change came too suddenly and strangely.
The giant python had been about to swallow the spirit fruit it had dreamed of, yet its vision and sense of smell were instantly stripped away!
All it could see was an icy white haze. Nothing was visible, and the enticing fragrance vanished in an instant, replaced by a chill so cold it seemed capable of freezing its scales.
"Hiss?!!"
The giant python let out a hiss filled with shock and fury, and its charge abruptly went out of control.
Its head instinctively jerked backward as it tried to escape the bizarre cold mist. Its enormous body immediately lost balance on the steep rock wall and began twisting awkwardly, scraping down large swaths of stone and nearly tumbling off.
Now!
This was the opportunity Chen Yuan had been waiting for. The instant he unleashed the cold mist, he had already driven the qi and blood throughout his body to the limit. The force of the Mysterious Vortex Skin Grinding Method erupted, and both his legs kicked fiercely against the ground.
Rubble exploded beneath him. His entire body shot forward like an arrow released from the bow, reaching the utmost speed he could currently achieve as he transformed into a blurred black shadow and flew straight toward the platform in the ceiling.
His only target was the Golden Scale Fruit!
Although the giant python had been disrupted by the cold mist and lost its balance, the beast's instincts still sensed that a tiny creature was rapidly approaching its treasure!
It instantly went berserk. Relying on its perception of airflow and vibrations, it swung its thick tail with terrifying force. Like a gigantic steel whip, it lashed violently toward Chen Yuan's incoming path.
The force of that sweep was enough to crack stone tablets and split boulders. If it struck him, Chen Yuan would likely be killed or crippled.
A fierce wind struck his face, and the breath of death descended in an instant!
Chen Yuan's pupils contracted, and his heart nearly leaped into his throat.
But his momentum had already begun. He was suspended in midair, with nowhere to borrow force or change direction.
At the brink of life and death, all his potential erupted. His mind became intensely focused, and time seemed to slow. He suddenly hurled the Cold Ripple Blade with all his strength at the rock wall diagonally below.
The Cold Ripple Blade sank deep into the rock wall.
At the same time, he placed the tip of his foot with incomparably precise control onto the hilt.
Borrowing that minuscule force, he forcibly made an extremely dangerous, tiny change in direction in midair.
The python's tail, powerful enough to kill him, swept past almost against his back. The pressure of the violent wind left his back throbbing with pain!
That tiny bounce and shift of force also sent him onto the platform.
Without stopping, Chen Yuan's hand flashed out. He carefully plucked the Golden Scale Fruit, which had just fully ripened and released a rich fragrance, together with a small patch of soil, and instantly sent it into the Scarab Fish Secret Pouch.
He had it!
The entire process had unfolded in the blink of an eye. From using the divine ability to interfere, to risking the charge, narrowly evading a fatal strike, and finally plucking the spirit fruit, no more than two or three breaths had passed!
"Hiss-roar!!!"
The fruit's aura vanished in an instant, and the giant python went completely mad!
It whipped its head around, finally dispersing the cold mist around its head with its formidable demonic power. Its vertical pupils instantly locked onto the tiny human thief on the platform, and boundless rage and killing intent surged forth like something tangible!
Chen Yuan felt a terrifying pressure envelop his entire body, making it almost impossible to move.
Without the slightest hesitation, he yanked the Cold Ripple Blade from the rock wall, fixed his eyes on the bottomless dark pool below, and leaped down.
Splash!
The bone-chilling pool water swallowed him in an instant.
He circulated his qi and blood with all his strength to resist the cold while desperately diving deeper, not daring to look back.
Above the water, the giant python's earth-shaking roar and its frenzied impacts against the rock walls rang out. The entire stone chamber trembled, but the creature seemed wary of the deep, frigid pool and did not immediately follow him down.
Chen Yuan ignored everything and continued diving desperately. Only when the air in his lungs was nearly exhausted, the surroundings had become utterly dark and cold, and the mad disturbances above had gradually faded into silence did he dare slow down slightly. Feeling along the wall of the pool, he searched for a possible exit.
He did not know how much time had passed. Just as he was nearly frozen stiff and suffocating, he finally felt a narrow crevice beneath the water, with a weak current flowing through it.
He forced his way inside and struggled onward for an unknown distance. At last, a faint glimmer of light appeared ahead...
When he finally crawled ashore beside a dim riverbank, he was utterly exhausted. His clothes were soaked through, he was shivering from the cold, and the qi and blood within his body had been almost completely depleted.
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