The Deacon's corpse crumpled to the ground, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Terror from his final moments was still frozen in his gray-green eyes. The passage reeked of charred flesh and the sharp sting of sulfur, mingling into a nauseating stench.
Li Yuan didn't even glance at the body. He flexed the fingers that had just snuffed out a life, and his knuckles gave a crisp crack. Inside him, the dark-gold Crimson Sun turned slowly, drawing back in the wisp of searing Qi and Blood that had naturally escaped during the fight, still as a deep abyss.
He crouched and searched the Deacon's cold corpse. Apart from a few scattered Black Fragments, dark minerals containing an ominous energy (probably cultivation resources or currency used by the Netherworld Cult), he found nothing else of value. The broken bone staff had also lost all its spiritual power, leaving behind nothing but useless bone fragments.
He rose and looked toward the depths of the passage, in the direction the Deacon had revealed with his dying breath—the Netherworld Path.
From the fragments of information and the Deacon's testimony, the Netherworld Cult's planned "Sacred Sacrifice" was to take place in the largest Cavern at the end of this passage. And performing or commencing the Sacred Sacrifice required a "key" and a "vessel."
The key was most likely the Talisman Fragments and Black Fragments he had in his arms.
As for the vessel...
Li Yuan's gaze turned cold. He remembered the constitution on which the "Yin Sha Curse" had once been planted, and the "Ancestral Spirit" on the Altar that had tried to devour him. The Li Family's collusion with the Netherworld Cult was likely meant to create or find a suitable "vessel."
He didn't waste another moment. He set off toward the Netherworld Path.
His footsteps fell soundlessly on the damp ground. His newly formed bronze-colored skin gleamed with a metallic Faint Light in the dimness. The contained, searing heat radiating from him seemed to disperse some of the chill and filth that filled the passage.
Along the way, he encountered several more groups of patrolling Netherworld Cultists, as well as the kind of monsters twisted by cursed power. When they saw Li Yuan, they first stared in shock, then launched into a frenzied attack.
The outcome was never in doubt.
Li Yuan didn't even use the complete form of his Crimson Sun Battle Body. He simply waved a hand, threw a punch, or took a step. His movements were stripped down to the bare essentials, yet each carried an indescribable weight and violence.
A Cultist lunged with a poisoned bone blade. Li Yuan didn't dodge, letting it stab into his bronze-colored arm.
Clang!
Sparks flashed as the bone blade's tip snapped. The Cultist's tiger mouth split open, and his face filled with horror. Li Yuan struck back with a palm. It looked slow, yet it landed first, slamming into the Cultist's chest.
Pfft!
The Cultist's chest visibly caved in, and the back of his robe ballooned before tearing apart! His eyes bulged. He didn't even manage a groan before his body flew backward like a broken sack, crashed against the rock wall, and slid limply to the ground.
A twisted monster sprang out of the shadows, opening its maw full of fangs to bite his neck. Without even looking, Li Yuan thrust out his left hand like an iron pincer and seized the monster by the throat, his five fingers clamping down.
Crack!
The monster's shriek cut off. Its head lolled to one side, and he tossed it away.
He was like a god of molten rock striding through the underworld. Wherever he passed, evil spirits fled, and demons and monsters turned to ash. Cursed attacks that would have spelled doom for ordinary martial artists struck him like drops of water splashing into a red-hot iron pan, evaporating instantly without even slowing his steps.
After devouring the energy of the ruins and gaining an initial grasp of the Crimson Sun True Scripture, his Crimson Sun Qi and Blood had reached an entirely new level of dominance over this kind of sinister power.
At last, after clearing out who knew how many more waves of grunts, the passage came to an end.
A huge cave mouth, brimming with an intense chill and the stench of blood, appeared before Li Yuan. Along its edge, someone had carved a huge, sinister eye symbol from some dark-red substance. It resembled the design on the Talisman Fragments and emitted a Faint Light.
Above the entrance, three ancient characters had been carved crookedly—Netherworld Path.
Just standing at the cave mouth, Li Yuan was struck by a wind ten times stronger than anything outside, heavy with countless resentments and pain. It brushed his hair, and within it, countless lost souls seemed to wail.
Four Netherworld Cultists stood on either side of the entrance, their auras far more formidable than those of the grunts he'd encountered before. They wore more complete Dark Green Cloaks and carried bone staffs adorned with skulls. When they saw Li Yuan emerge slowly from the passage's darkness, with a heap of corpses behind him, all four went pale.
"Enemy attack!!"
One of the Cultists cried out a shrill alarm.
Li Yuan stopped before the entrance to the Netherworld Path. His gaze swept calmly over the four Cultists on high alert, then passed them to the deeper, more evil darkness within the cave.
He could feel the Talisman Fragments and Black Fragments in his arms growing faintly hot. They were resonating somehow with the enormous eye symbol at the entrance—and with something deep inside the cave.
The key had arrived.
He raised his hand and pointed his bronze-colored fingers at the deep, shadowed cave entrance. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the icy weight of a declaration, clear in the ears of all four Cultists:
"Tell whoever's inside."
"I'm here."
Before you continue