At the foot of the Demon Peak of Bones, the air seemed to be kneaded by a pair of invisible hands, thick and viscous like congealed blood. Even the slightest movement came with a heavy, sluggish drag. Dark-red demonic flames surged like roaring evil dragons, wantonly licking the jagged giant bones and illuminating them like wicked fangs clawing up from hell. Their twisted, dancing shadows sprawled across the ground, like demons performing some eerie dance. Though the Corrosive God Poison Miasma had been kept at bay on the other side of Gu He, the terrifying pressure radiating from the peak itself—mingled with primordial baleful energy and Chaos Demon Flame—clamped around the throat like a pair of icy, enormous hands. Every breath felt like swallowing a scorching mixture of sulfur and decay, bringing a stinging burn.
Xiao Yan fell like a runaway meteor, slamming hard into the solid ground covered in dark-red crystals. It felt as if his bones had been taken apart and haphazardly pieced back together; wave after wave of excruciating pain surged through him, and a bloody sweetness rose uncontrollably in his throat. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to push himself upright. Heavy Xuan Ruler had slipped from his grasp and landed some distance away with a dull, muffled thud, as if it, too, were wailing at their desperate plight. The agony in his left arm from clashing head-on with the Bone Demon Scorpion King had yet to subside, gnawing at him like a venomous snake. Worse still, the dizziness from his soul being mercilessly torn at by spatial turbulence as he crossed Gu He kept crashing into his consciousness in wave after wave, leaving him barely able to stand.
He struggled to lift his head. Through the billowing demonic flames, he looked toward the gaunt figure suspended beneath the roiling canopy of fire—You Lao! The very You Lao whom his father, Xiao Zhan, had nearly reduced to ashes with the Dragon Phoenix Green Lotus Flame during the battle at the oasis tower base was actually... still alive?! Or was this not his true body, but some bizarre clone?
You Lao's hunched figure hung motionless like a gigantic bat clinging to the dark-red sky, radiating a bone-chilling aura. At the tip of his Skull Bone Staff, ghastly green soul fire flickered silently, like two ghostly flames from the underworld. Those flames pierced the shadow beneath his hood like the vertical pupils of a venomous snake, cold and greedy, brimming with mocking malice. They fixed on the two figures below, whose auras had grown feeble, as if he were savoring the sight of prey soon to be his.
That hoarse, dry voice, like bones grinding together, rang out again, brimming with undisguised murderous intent. The chill in it was like a cold wind on a winter night, raising goosebumps. "To survive the spatial fragments of the Ancient River of Buried Gods and even cross the Corrosive God Poison Miasma... Heh heh heh, you've certainly made me look at you in a new light. What a pity. It ends here." His skeletal claw rose slowly like the Grim Reaper's scythe, pointing at Xiao Yan. His voice was cold and final. "Hand over the Bronze Ring and the fragments!" He turned his staff slightly and pointed it at Xiao Yi Xian, his tone rife with greed and malice. "And you, Woe Poison Body. Offer up your source Poison Pill! I can give you both an end that is... not quite so painful."
His words had barely faded, like the hurried drumbeats of fate's cruel joke—
"Bzzzt—!!!"
In an instant, an invisible soul pressure a hundred times more terrifying than the baleful aura of the bone forest crashed down with the force of a solid mountain hurled from the heavens, its momentum enough to destroy the world! Its target was Xiao Yi Xian, who had only just managed to sit up, her aura utterly feeble. It was like the Grim Reaper's scythe falling with deadly precision.
"Urgh!" Xiao Yi Xian was struck as if by lightning. The last trace of color drained from her face, already as pale as paper, like a delicate flower battered by a raging storm. Her body shook violently, as if slammed by an invisible force, and she suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood flecked with seven-colored light. It traced a tragic arc through the air. The Poison Pill in her dantian, only recently condensed and now dim as a fading star, trembled violently as if gripped by an invisible hand. Its source poison energy poured out like floodwaters bursting through a dam.
Forcing herself to condense the Crossing-Tribulation Poison Dragon to cross Gu He had already damaged her source, leaving her like a bird with a broken wing. Now, struck with pinpoint precision by soul pressure at the Peak Dou Zong level, this was surely the last straw that broke the camel's back. She gave a muffled groan, her vision went black, and her body slumped backward. She lost consciousness completely, like a wilting flower falling into endless darkness. The light on the surface of her Poison Pill flickered like a dying candle in the wind, ready to go out at any moment and extinguish the flame of her life.
"Xiao Yi Xian—!!!" Xiao Yan's eyes nearly burst from their sockets. His roar came with blood in his throat, a wail from the depths of his soul. He could only watch as the girl, exhausted from protecting him and carrying him across Gu He, now suffered this undeserved calamity because he carried the fragments. Pain surged through him like a raging tide. Rage and self-reproach unlike anything he had ever felt surged like molten lava, shattering his reason and driving him to the brink of madness. Somehow finding the strength, he sprang from the ground and lunged like a crazed beast toward Xiao Yi Xian's fallen body, trying to shield her from the calamity bearing down on them.
"Know your place!" A cold sneer came from beneath You Lao's hood, like a chill wind on a winter night, full of scorn and contempt. He casually pressed his raised, withered claw toward the onrushing Xiao Yan, as if shooing away an annoying fly.
"Boom—!!!"
The space in front of Xiao Yan instantly froze and collapsed, like glass crushed by an invisible hand. A terrifying force, powerful enough to grind mountains to dust, crashed down upon him as if countless mountains had been dropped on him all at once.
"Pfft—!"
It was as if an invisible yet impossibly heavy hammer had slammed straight into Xiao Yan. His charging body flew backward even faster, like a kite with its string cut. Blood mixed with fragments of his shattered organs gushed out like floodwaters bursting through a dam, carving shocking streaks of red through the air. He crashed into a knife-sharp giant bone dozens of yards away. A clear crack of breaking bone rang out, jarringly loud in the silence. He felt as if his spine had been snapped clean in two. A surging wave of pain instantly drowned out every other sensation. His consciousness plunged into an endless abyss, where nothing remained but boundless darkness and cold, as if the whole world had abandoned him.
"Yan...er..." Faint fragments of awareness drifted through the dark abyss, wavering like a candle in the wind. Endless despair and unwillingness clung to him. His teacher's kindly face, his father's resolute figure, and Xiao Yi Xian's gentle smile kept appearing in his mind. I'm sorry... he cried soundlessly in his heart, but could only let the darkness swallow him whole.
"An ant is still an ant." You Lao's voice was cold and indifferent, disdainful and bored with the life of an ant, as though he had merely crushed two insignificant bugs with a casual flick of his hand. Before the words had faded, he blurred into motion and appeared in front of the unconscious Xiao Yan like a wisp of a ghost. His skeletal claw reached out slowly, its icy greed plain to see, and went straight for the ancient black ring on Xiao Yan's left hand as if it were the world's most precious treasure.
Just as the withered claw was about to touch the ring, it was as if the god of fate had suddenly opened his eyes!
"Bzzzt—!!!"
A sudden transformation erupted, like a long-dormant star exploding into life!
The black ring on the index finger of Xiao Yan's left hand, which had lain silent as the dead, seemed to sense its master's dying despair and the desecration of an evil outside force. It suddenly blazed with a light more powerful than ever before. Its chaotic, dark-golden radiance erupted like a dormant volcano, its force enough to destroy the world, instantly illuminating the darkness. Countless ancient, profoundly mysterious runes whirled wildly through the light, appearing and vanishing like cryptic incantations from antiquity. They emanated an unparalleled majesty and will to protect, as if capable of suppressing all the heavens and myriad worlds, making the entire space tremble.
The instant this light appeared, it was like the first dazzling dawn at the birth of the universe, piercing through the darkness of eternity!
"Rumble—!!!"
The entire Demon Peak of Bones shook violently, as if a red-hot brand had been thrust into it, or an ancient beast had roared in pain in its sleep. Countless enormous bones could not withstand the impact of this power. They groaned under the strain, then snapped one after another. The cracks sounded like the prelude to the world's collapse, striking terror into all who heard them. At the summit of the mountain of bones, the core region that had been scorched day and night by dense Chaos Demon Flame now became the focus of this power.
A dark-golden pillar of light, so massive and condensed that words could not describe it, burst through layer upon layer of demonic flames like a divine sword of judgment cleaving open heaven and earth. The flames were as fragile as thin paper before it and were torn apart in an instant. The dark-golden pillar shot straight through the nine heavens, as if it would pierce the boundless firmament and seek out the mysteries of the universe.
At the heart of the pillar, a massive bronze fragment shone brilliantly. Its broken edges matched the two fragments in Xiao Yan's hand perfectly, as if it were a puzzle piece arranged by fate long ago. Now, the bronze fragment awakened like an ancient giant god, unleashing a radiant immortal light so dazzling that it eclipsed the entire world. Countless dark-golden runes on its surface detached themselves as if alive, then danced lightly through the pillar, rearranging themselves with uncanny precision, as though performing an ancient and mysterious dance.
A fragment of ancient will, far clearer and more immense than any before, carried a vast flood of information—chaotic, yet as boundless as a galaxy. Like a river of stars bursting through a breached dam, it surged irresistibly into the depths of the unconscious Xiao Yan's mind. This time, it was no longer a scattering of broken, disjointed images. It was a far more coherent and breathtaking fragment of ancient memory, unfolding slowly in his mind like a magnificent epic.
The scene raced through the boundless chaos of the void, as if traversing the river of time itself, then finally stopped at a mysterious point, waiting for Xiao Yan to uncover the secret buried deep within the years.
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