Evil Aura

Sky Erosion Palace, first-floor side hall.

A huge screen clearly showed Qin Ming piloting his spacecraft through the clouds and flying toward the Ancient God Ruins.

More than a dozen World Lords had gathered in the side hall. They were the personnel assigned to monitor the Blood Luo Continent on a rotating basis.

Whenever a native of the Blood Luo Continent dared to fly beyond the eighteenth layer of clouds, they had to kill them immediately. This was the ironclad rule that kept the Blood Luo World sealed off.

At the moment, their monitoring duty was relatively quiet.

To pass the time, the World Lords had made a bet earlier on whether the newcomer, the special-status Prince Qin Ming, would choose to visit the Ancient God Ruins.

"Haha, Prince Qin Ming really did go to the Ancient God Ruins! I win!" A bald World Lord slapped his thigh and laughed triumphantly.

Most of the other World Lords looked surprised.

"Tsk, the Ancient God Ruins... That's the very heart of the Blood Luo Continent, and the strangest and most dangerous place there.

"I heard that when our Virtual Universe Company explored it back then, quite a few Immortals perished." Another World Lord, his face weathered, shook his head with a sigh.

"Why would Prince Qin Ming choose to go there? I just don't get it."

"Heh, if you could understand him, wouldn't you already be a genius of the Primal Secret Realm?" someone nearby teased.

"Haha, true enough. A genius's way of thinking is bound to be different from that of us 'ordinary people.'"

"Enough joking around." The most composed World Lord among them spoke up seriously.

"Everyone, stay alert. Prince Qin Ming's training in the Blood Luo World has little to do with us. We only need to monitor the perimeter according to protocol.

"But there's one thing you must remember: if any native of the Blood Luo World dares to fly beyond the Eighteenth Layer of clouds, we must kill them at once. There can be no mistakes!"

"Understood, chief!"

"Don't worry!"

The World Lords immediately grew serious and turned their attention back to the monitoring screen. Qin Ming's spacecraft had long since dwindled to a speck and vanished into the distance, but they were monitoring the void surrounding the entire Blood Luo World.

After putting away his spacecraft, Qin Ming plunged down from the edge of the Eighteenth Layer of clouds, passing through layer upon layer of blood-colored mist.

When he burst through the final layer of blood mist, the view before him suddenly opened up.

Endless mountain ranges, vast barren plains, swamps shrouded in miasma...

The most striking sight was the series of enormous craters scattered across the wasteland, each one as if stamped into the earth by a giant's foot!

Every crater spanned hundreds of kilometers. Their arrangement seemed to follow some pattern, as if they were the footprints of some enormous beast.

"Are these the footprints left behind when the Beast God fell all those years ago?" Qin Ming wondered.

Even after countless ages, the remnants of those marks still carried such astonishing power.

Almost as soon as he took in the scene of the ruins, an invisible force began to invade his mind.

An inexplicable restlessness and bloodlust arose in his heart without warning.

It was as if countless faint whispers were murmuring and roaring in his ears, urging him to destroy, to kill.

"Is this the 'evil aura' of the Ancient God Ruins?" Qin Ming's gaze sharpened.

At that moment, he could feel two different forces inside his body.

One was the bewitching "Killing Will," which acted directly on his soul and consciousness. It was formless and intangible, constantly battering the defenses of his reason.

The other was a strange "Evil Aura Energy" that could pass through his body and seep inside.

This energy was extremely unusual. Neither Origin Force nor spiritual force could fully keep it out.

It penetrated his skin and seeped into his muscles and bones, even invading his organs, before slowly seeping back out.

However, the evil aura was still relatively weak around the outer perimeter, and Qin Ming could easily resist it with his powerful will.

Without stopping, Qin Ming continued deeper into the ruins, searching for an area with a higher concentration of evil aura, one better suited to tempering his will.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The farther he went, the more violent and relentless the Killing Will's assault became. It was like billions of vengeful spirits roaring in unison beside his ears, striking at the depths of his soul!

If someone remained there too long with a weak will, they would likely be consumed by this endless bloodlust, either driven mad or reduced to a monster that knew nothing but killing.

"What astonishing Killing Will!"

Qin Ming marveled inwardly. He had definitely come to the right place.

At this point, he could feel that the surrounding evil aura and the force of the Will Impact had reached a critical level: enough to put effective pressure on his current will, but not enough to overwhelm him outright.

So he stopped moving and chose a relatively flat spot at the edge of a huge crater, then sat down cross-legged.

Qin Ming quieted his mind and deliberately lowered part of his defenses, letting the surging Killing Will and corrosive Evil Aura Energy strike him more directly.

"Kill!"

"Destroy!"

"Blood! More blood!"

Countless roars and thoughts filled with savagery, hatred, and a desire for destruction reverberated wildly through Qin Ming's soul, battering it again and again.

They weren't illusions. They were fragments of madness left behind by the ancient Beast God and the countless beings who had perished there, contained within the evil aura that had accumulated in the Ancient God Ruins over countless years.

These fragments had no complete consciousness. All that remained was the purest instinct to kill and the most vicious negative emotions.

Qin Ming's consciousness was like a reef in a raging sea, enduring wave after wave of assault.

A blood-colored storm seemed to rage through his mindscape, yet he stubbornly held on to a single thread of clarity.

"Stay true to yourself," Qin Ming silently repeated.

Time passed slowly amid the ceaseless struggle of wills and the corrosion of his body.

One day, two days...

One month, two months...

A dark-red sheen began to appear on Qin Ming's skin, a sign that the Evil Aura Energy had become excessively concentrated.

His breathing grew labored, the veins on his forehead throbbed, and his teeth clenched tight. Clearly, he was enduring tremendous pain and pressure.

But he never collapsed or lost his mind.

On the contrary, through each near-limit assault and wave of corrosion, Qin Ming felt his will becoming like raw iron repeatedly hammered at the forge. Its impurities were gradually being stripped away, and its structure growing denser and more resilient.

Though the Killing Will was violent, it was also like the roughest of whetstones, honing the edges of his character.

He had no idea how long he had been sitting at the edge of the Ancient God Ruins.

Here, time seemed warped by the dense evil aura, stripped of all meaning.

Then, at a certain moment—

Whoosh!

Qin Ming abruptly opened his eyes!

A faint trace of blood glimmered in his gaze, but vanished in an instant, leaving his eyes clear once more.

"I've more or less adapted to the first stage," Qin Ming murmured. He could feel that his will had grown noticeably stronger than before he entered the Ancient God Ruins!

He was still a long way from reaching a qualitative transformation, but this tangible progress gave him hope.