Before the Netherworld Path

The deacon's corpse crumpled to the ground, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle, the gray-green pupils still frozen with the terror of death. The tunnel was thick with the acrid smell of burnt flesh and the pungent sting of sulfur, mingling into a nauseating stench.

Li Yuan didn't spare the corpse a glance. He flexed his fingers—the ones that had just snuffed out a life—and his joints cracked crisply. Inside him, the Dark Gold Crimson Sun rotated slowly, drawing back the faint wisp of scorching blood energy that had naturally escaped during the fight, settling deep and still as an abyss.

He crouched down and searched the deacon's cold body. Aside from a few scattered black ores imbued with chilling energy—likely cultivation resources or currency of the Netherworld Cult—there was nothing of value. The broken bone staff had completely lost its spiritual power, reduced to a pile of useless fragments.

He rose to his feet, his gaze fixed on the depths of the tunnel—the direction the deacon had gasped out before dying: the Netherworld Path.

From the fragmented information and the deacon's confession, the "Sacred Sacrifice" the Netherworld Cult was plotting lay in the largest cavern at the end of this passage. To initiate or conduct the sacrifice, they needed a "key" and a "vessel."

The key was likely the talisman fragments and black fragments in his pocket.

As for the vessel...

Li Yuan's eyes turned cold. He recalled his constitution, once cursed with the Yin Sha Curse, and the "Ancestral Spirit" on the altar that had tried to devour him. The Li Family's collusion with the Netherworld Cult was probably to create or find a suitable vessel.

He wasted no more time and strode toward the Netherworld Path.

His footsteps fell on the damp ground, soundless. His newly formed bronze-colored skin gleamed with a metallic sheen in the dim light, and the restrained heat radiating from his body seemed to push back the pervasive chill and filth of the tunnel.

Along the way, he encountered several more patrols of Netherworld Cultists and monsters twisted by curse energy. At the sight of Li Yuan, they froze in shock, then launched into frenzied attacks.

But the outcome was never in doubt.

Li Yuan didn't even bother using the full form of the Crimson Sun Battle Body. He simply waved his hand, threw a punch, took a step. His movements were stripped to the bare essentials, yet carried an indescribable weight and brutality.

A cultist lunged with a poisoned bone blade. Li Yuan didn't dodge or evade, letting the blade strike his bronze-colored arm.

"Clang!"

Sparks flew. The tip of the bone blade snapped off. The cultist's tiger's mouth split open, his face a mask of horror. Li Yuan slapped back with his palm—seemingly slow, but faster than the eye could follow—and planted it on the man's chest.

"Pfft!"

The cultist's chest caved in visibly. The fabric on his back bulged and tore. His eyes bulged; without even a grunt, his body flew backward like a torn sack, slammed into the rock wall, and slid down limp.

A twisted monster lunged from the shadows, its fanged maw gaping wide to bite at Li Yuan's neck. Without even looking, Li Yuan shot out his left hand like an iron clamp, seized the monster's throat precisely, and squeezed with all five fingers.

"Crack!"

The monster's screech cut short. Its head lolled to one side, and it was tossed away casually.

He moved like a god of molten lava walking through the Netherworld's underworld. Wherever he passed, evil dispersed, and every demon and specter turned to ash. The curse attacks that would have felled ordinary martial artists splashed against him like water droplets on a red-hot iron pan, evaporating instantly, unable even to slow his pace.

After devouring the ruin's energy and gaining an initial grasp of the Crimson Sun True Scripture, his Crimson Sun Qi and Blood had reached a whole new level of dominance over such yin and evil forces.

Finally, after clearing who-knew-how-many waves of grunts, the tunnel ahead opened up.

A massive cave mouth, exuding a dense, icy, blood-soaked aura, appeared before Li Yuan. On its edges, someone had used some dark red substance to carve a huge, sinister eye pattern—similar to the one on the talisman fragments—which glowed faintly.

Above the entrance, three ancient characters were carved crookedly: Netherworld Path.

Just standing at the entrance, a gust of yin wind—ten times stronger than outside, mixed with countless resentments and agonies—rushed at his face, stirring his hair. In the wind, it seemed countless lost souls were wailing.

Flanking the entrance stood four cultists whose auras were far stronger than the previous grunts. They wore more complete dark green cloaks and carried bone staffs inlaid with skulls. When they saw Li Yuan slowly emerging from the tunnel's darkness, and the litter of corpses behind him, their faces changed instantly.

"Enemy attack!!"

A shrill alarm rang out from one of them.

Li Yuan stopped, standing before the Netherworld Path's entrance. His gaze swept calmly over the four cultists, who braced themselves as if facing a great enemy, then passed beyond them into the deeper, more sinister darkness within the cave.

He could feel it—the talisman fragments and black fragments in his pocket were growing warm, resonating with the huge eye pattern at the entrance and with something deeper inside the cave.

The key had arrived.

He raised his hand, his bronze-colored finger pointing into the dark depths of the cave. His voice was not loud, but it carried a cold, declarative weight, reaching the four cultists' ears clearly:

"Tell the people inside."

"I'm here."

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