Blood Spirit Ruins
Thick blood qi mingled with Evil Qi and drifted through the Water Pool.
A low, grating sound seemed to coil through the air, though it was impossible to tell what it was.
Su Qingqiu plunged into the Water Pool and circled around. Aside from finding more blood-red tumors clinging to the rock walls around it, he discovered nothing else.
"How strange!"
"Why can't I get in?"
Unable to find an entrance to the Spirit Ruins, Su Qingqiu stared at the Spirit Void Order he had obtained, lost in thought.
He began recalling the information about the Spirit Ruins in Puzhi's memories...
Su Qingqiu stared at the order in his hand, and suddenly understood. It seemed he had never properly grasped what the Spirit Ruins were.
The enormous serpent coiled around the entrance to the Blood Spirit Ruins. Part of his Spiritual Light will entered the Spirit Void Order. Then the palm-sized order blazed with dazzling light, carrying part of Su Qingqiu's Spiritual Light will as it plunged into the junction of two of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
The next second,
countless jumbled fragments of information surfaced.
Spirit Ruins—just as the name suggested, they were illusory realms formed from Spiritual Light will.
Only Spiritual Light could enter.
The Spirit Ruins in the Snake Abyss were all formed at the junctions where the Eight Extraordinary Meridians of Si Snake's bones converged. They contained the Spiritual Light and will Si Snake had left behind.
And only a Spirit Void Order made from Si Snake's scales could grant entry to these strange spaces composed of Spiritual Light will.
Back when Dragon-Raising Temple was at its height, it had made quite a few Spirit Void Orders for cultivators to send their Spiritual Sense into the Spirit Ruins, temper their Daoism Cultivation and will, and slay the Evil Demons that took shape within, lest the Spirit Ruins and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians become completely corrupted.
Unfortunately, the seas had become mulberry fields. Three hundred years later, the Snake Abyss had long since been sealed off. No cultivators came here to temper their will, and even Spiritual Serpents had grown scarce. The Spirit Ruins had simply been left to develop on their own, right up to the present.
The Blood Spirit Ruins before him seemed to have been completely corrupted by Evil Qi. Worse still, the corruption was spreading outward along those two Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
If no one stopped it, in a hundred years or so this place would surely become a bloody demon's den. Then Evil Demons would crawl out of the Blood Spirit Ruins and run rampant through the Snake Abyss, adding yet another layer of sin.
Thinking it over, the reason the second level of the Snake Abyss had become overrun with Evil Demons was likely that some powerful Spirit Ruins had been completely corrupted, allowing Evil Demons to pour out of them.
After a brief daze, streams of information entered Su Qingqiu's Spiritual Light will.
They were fragments of memories contained in the Spiritual Light will Si Snake had left here.
—Time had long since become impossible to determine. In the distant past, it seemed that beings from Beyond Heaven had fought in the firmament. Their blood spilled across the earth, giving rise to countless Blood Demons.
Blood Demons were invisible and formless. They fed on human blood and devoured human souls. For a time, blood had flowed across the vast earth like a river, and White Bone lay in heaps.
Back then, Si Snake had encountered an exceptionally powerful Blood Demon. After a fierce battle, Si Snake strangled and devoured it. But the Blood Demon's devilish nature was impossible to eradicate completely. After Si Snake died, that devilish nature slowly revived, eventually becoming the Blood Spirit Ruins as they were now.
If not for the Spiritual Light will Si Snake had left behind suppressing it, perhaps this wisp of the Blood Demon's devilish nature would have fully revived and returned to the world.
"So that's the origin of the Blood Spirit Ruins. They're actually connected to ancient Evil Demons."
Su Qingqiu was secretly astonished.
His wisp of Spiritual Light had already taken the shape of a Small Spiritual Snake. At that moment, it was staring fixedly at the blood-red space before it.
The Blood Spirit Ruins weren't very large, extending about a hundred meters in every direction. Everything was blood-red, and even the air rippled with crimson demonic qi.
At the very center stood a mirror, more than three meters tall and over two meters wide.
Apart from that, there was nothing else.
"Strange. Where's that wisp of Blood Demon devilish nature? Has it not taken shape yet? And why is there a mirror here?"
Su Qingqiu frowned.
He knew that when the Spiritual Light will of Si Snake and the various kinds of Evil Qi in the Spirit Ruins had been at odds for a long time, all sorts of strange Evil Things could sometimes take shape by chance.
For example, a comb that dripped blood endlessly.
For example, red embroidered shoes that brought certain death to whoever put them on.
An umbrella that couldn't keep out the rain.
And so on.
To him, all of them were decent food. The rewards he got from devouring them were also much better than those from devouring ordinary Evil Remains.
But the mirror before him, apart from being made entirely of crystal and thus somewhat valuable, seemed to have nothing special about it.
Puzzled, Su Qingqiu circled the Blood Spirit Ruins once more, but still found nothing.
"Could that wisp of devilish nature have escaped?"
Thinking this, Su Qingqiu drifted back in front of the mirror.
A moment later, he noticed something was wrong.
The mirror had originally reflected the faint image of his little snake form. But now, right before his eyes, that little snake was twisting and writhing. Then it opened its huge mouth at Su Qingqiu.
It seemed to be smiling!
"Go smile up your ass!"
Rumble!
His Spiritual Light became a serpent's tail, floating through the air as it lashed straight at the mirror.
The entire Blood Spirit Ruins trembled.
Whoever—or whatever—you are, I'll beat you up first and ask questions later.
But, astonishingly, the mirror was made of ordinary crystal, yet it withstood a strike from Su Qingqiu's tail. It was simply unbelievable.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Even after several strikes, his attacks still had no effect.
The snake in the mirror opened its mouth wider and wider, and rows upon rows of densely packed fangs sprouted inside. It seemed about to swallow Su Qingqiu whole.
At that moment, Su Qingqiu's wisp of Spiritual Light will even felt as if it were inside the mouth of some enormous creature, his Spiritual Light rapidly draining away.
Red Fire.
Dragon's Spine.
Spiritual Light.
None of them worked.
Every spell, every tool—none of them worked here.
All of them were useless!
He could see it, but he couldn't touch it!
Was this the Evil Demon inside the Blood Spirit Ruins? What on earth had taken shape here?
Such a bizarre Evil Demon was unheard of and unseen. Even Su Qingqiu, known as the bane of Evil Demons, was at a loss for a moment...
As if!
"You're already dead, yet you still want to revive and make trouble! Today, I'll send you on your way. Go turn to ash already!"
Spiritual Light blazed across Su Qingqiu's entire body. Within the Blood Spirit Ruins, it took the shape of an enormous serpent.
At the same time,
outside, his massive body reared upright, its movements almost identical to those of the Small Spiritual Snake formed by his Spiritual Light will within.
His Spiritual Light will bit down on the mirror. I'll swallow you!
The Spiritual Serpent's true body bit down on the junction of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. I'll suck you dry!
Using the Spiritual Light will within as a coordinate, he locked onto the Blood Spirit Ruins and forcefully devoured them. Red Fire blazed; Spiritual Light spread.
He refined it with abandon.
If I can't beat you from the inside, can't I just devour you from the outside?
I'll tear your whole home down!
He had planned this from the start. That was also why he had sent only a small part of his Spiritual Light will inside.
Only a fool would put all of his Spiritual Light in there.
Rumble!
The entire Blood Spirit Ruins shuddered, and Su Qingqiu felt great streams of strange, scarlet blood pouring into his belly through the Spirit Ruins junction he had bitten down on.
Sweet and fragrant.
With a single mouthful, every inch of his bones boiled with vigorous energy.
This blood was as effective as countless Bloodline Body-Tempering Pills!
There was just too much of it. It poured in like a river breaking its banks, an endless, ceaseless torrent!
"Shit!"
"Did your period start or something? Why are you bleeding so much!"
With a thought from Su Qingqiu, his reverse scale and the Devil Pill hidden in his belly both began to absorb the blood madly.
But even that was far from enough. The absorption was far too slow!
Su Qingqiu rolled his eyes and cast the Major Rain Accumulation Technique. Using this blood as its source, he transformed it with Spiritual Light, and in an instant, heaven and earth turned crimson.
On the third day of the ninth month of autumn, in the thirty-eighth year of Zhaoyang, blood and slaughter engulfed Dragon-Raising Temple. It was suspected that the imperial court had joined forces with Evil Demons to attack the sacred temple, enraging Buddha, who sent ill omens from the heavens.
For a time, throughout the Great Wasteland region, humans and gods alike seethed with indignation, and public resentment boiled over.
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