Evil Aura

Sky Erosion Palace, first side hall.

On the massive screen, the image clearly showed Qin Ming piloting his spacecraft, breaking through the clouds and flying toward the Ancient God Ruins.

Inside the side hall, over a dozen realm lords were gathered together. They were the rotating personnel responsible for the daily monitoring of the Blood Luo Continent.

If any native of the Blood Luo Continent dared to fly out beyond the eighteenth layer of clouds, they had to strike them down immediately—this was the ironclad rule maintaining the closure of the Blood Luo World.

At this moment, the monitoring task was relatively idle.

To pass the time, these realm lords had previously made a bet: whether this newcomer, the specially privileged Lord Qin Ming, would choose to go to the Ancient God Ruins.

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

Most of the other realm lords showed expressions of surprise.

"Tsk, the Ancient God Ruins... that's the most central and eerily dangerous place on the Blood Luo Continent.

I heard that back when our Virtual Universe Company explored there, even quite a few immortals fell." Another realm lord with a weathered face shook his head and sighed.

"Why would Lord Qin Ming choose to go there? I really can't figure it out."

"Heh, if you could figure it out, wouldn't you already be a genius of the Primal Secret Realm?" someone beside him teased.

"Haha, true enough. The thoughts of geniuses are naturally different from us 'mortals.'"

"Alright, jokes aside." The most composed realm lord among them, the leader, spoke seriously.

"Everyone, stay alert. Lord Qin Ming's training in the Blood Luo World has little to do with us; we just need to follow the rules and monitor the periphery.

But one thing must be remembered: if any native of the Blood Luo World dares to fly out beyond the eighteenth layer of clouds, we must kill them immediately, without the slightest mistake!"

"Understood, boss!"

"Don't worry!"

The realm lords immediately turned serious, their gazes shifting back to the monitoring screens. Though Qin Ming's spacecraft had long since vanished as a tiny dot in the distance, what they monitored was the entire void surrounding the Blood Luo World.

After retracting his spacecraft, Qin Ming dove down from the edge of the eighteenth layer of clouds, piercing through layers of blood-colored mist.

When he broke through the last layer of blood mist, the scene before him opened up.

Endless mountain ranges, vast barren plains, swamps thick with miasma...

Most striking of all were the super-giant pits on the wasteland, one after another, as if stamped out by the footprints of a giant!

Each pit was hundreds of kilometers in diameter, arranged in a pattern that faintly suggested some kind of order, like the footprints of some colossal beast.

"So these are the footprints left behind when the Beast God fell back then?" Qin Ming thought to himself.

Even as mere residual marks, after countless ages, they still carried such overwhelming might.

Almost the moment he took in the sight of these ruins, an invisible force began to assault his mind.

A nameless restlessness and urge to kill sprouted from the depths of his heart without warning.

Countless faint whispers seemed to murmur and roar in his ears, urging him to destroy, to slaughter.

"So this is the 'Evil Aura' of the Ancient God Ruins?" Qin Ming's gaze sharpened.

At this moment, he could feel two distinct forces within his body.

One was the "Killing Will" temptation, directly attacking his soul and consciousness—formless and intangible, constantly battering his rational defenses.

The other was a peculiar "Evil Aura Energy" that could penetrate his body and burrow inside.

This energy was extremely special; whether defended with primal force or telekinetic power, it was hard to block completely.

It would pierce through the skin, seep into muscles and bones, even invade the internal organs, and then slowly seep out again.

However, the concentration of Evil Aura at the outermost edge was still relatively low, and Qin Ming could easily withstand it with his strong will.

Without stopping, Qin Ming continued deeper into the ruins, searching for areas with higher Evil Aura concentration, better suited for tempering his will.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

The deeper he went, the more violent and dense the assault of the Killing Will became, like billions of vengeful spirits roaring in unison right by his ears, striking straight into the deepest part of his soul!

If one lingered too long, or had a weak will, they would likely be devoured by this endless urge to kill, either going mad or completely degenerating into a monster that knew only slaughter.

"What astonishing Killing Will!" Qin Ming praised inwardly.

This place was indeed the right choice.

At this position, he also sensed that the concentration of Evil Aura and the intensity of the will assault had reached a critical point—enough to put effective pressure on his current will, yet not enough to shatter it instantly.

So he stopped advancing, casually chose a relatively flat edge of a giant pit, and sat down cross-legged.

Then, Qin Ming calmed his mind, actively loosened some of his defenses, and let the overwhelming Killing Will and corrosive Evil Aura Energy strike him more directly.

"Kill!"

"Destroy!"

"Blood! More blood!"

Countless roars and wills filled with violence, hatred, and the desire to destroy echoed and crashed wildly within Qin Ming's soul.

They were not illusions, but fragments of mad will left behind by the ancient Beast God and the countless beings who had fallen here, contained within the Evil Aura Energy that had accumulated in the Ancient God Ruins over countless years.

These fragments had no complete consciousness, only the purest killing instinct and negative emotions.

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

Within his sea of consciousness, it was as if a blood-colored storm had erupted, but he stubbornly held onto a thread of clarity.

"Guard the heart." Qin Ming silently repeated to himself.

Time flowed slowly amid the unending struggle of will and erosion of the flesh.

One day, two days...

One month, two months...

A layer of dark red luster began to appear on the surface of Qin Ming's body—a sign of excessive condensation of Evil Aura Energy.

His breathing grew rapid, veins bulged on his forehead, and his teeth clenched tightly, clearly bearing immense pain and pressure.

But he never fell, never went mad.

On the contrary, amid these near-limit impacts and erosions, Qin Ming felt his will, like raw iron being hammered repeatedly, with impurities being chipped away bit by bit and its structure becoming denser and tougher.

Though the Killing Will was violent, it also acted like the roughest whetstone, sharpening the edges of his temperament.

He did not know how long he had sat at the edge of the Ancient God Ruins.

Here, time seemed twisted by the thick Evil Aura Energy, losing all meaning.

Until a certain moment!

Whoosh!

Qin Ming's eyes snapped open!

Those eyes now faintly carried a trace of bloodlight, but it vanished in an instant, returning to clarity.

"The first stage of adaptation is about done." Qin Ming muttered to himself. He could feel that his willpower had clearly improved by a notch compared to before entering the Ancient God Ruins!

Though there was still a long way to go before a qualitative change occurred, this tangible progress gave him hope.