Anomaly from the Fifth Realm

Fourth Realm.

Another deep, dark night descended.

In a corner of the Cenji Mountains, the Dark Ghosts, led by Jin Yang, gathered by the edge of the Blackwater Pool. They stared blankly at the calm, rippleless surface, their expressions appearing quite strange.

In the pitch-black night of the lower realms, only cultivators like them could perceive their surroundings.

Ordinary mortals who had not embarked on the path of cultivation could barely distinguish objects around them in such a deep night without the aid of lamps or other light sources.

Because Jin Yang had issued the order, the Dark Ghosts did not light any lamps; the group stood like ghosts, scattered around the perimeter of the pool.

Yet, after waiting for a long time, neither Ouyang Duanhai nor Pang Jian emerged from the dark, murky water.

Neither of the two had reached the Xisui Realm, meaning they lacked the ability to breathe underwater for extended periods.

"It seems that whether we light our lamps or not, they won't show themselves voluntarily."

"Perhaps they have already turned into skeletons beneath the water."

"..."

The group murmured to one another, keeping their voices low for fear of being heard by the two beneath the surface.

The masked man, his patience nearly exhausted, said to Jin Yang, "We have already tested it. After throwing corpses into the pool, their flesh was dissolved almost instantly. They shouldn't be able to hold out for this long. Are we just going to keep wasting time like this?"

To verify Jin Yang's claim, they had brought the corpses of the brothers Zhang Heng and Zhang Hu, along with several warhorses killed by poison, and tossed them into the Blackwater Pool before pulling them back out.

Just as Jin Yang had experienced, a single dip was all it took; when pulled out, only bones remained.

The flesh had been completely corroded away.

They immediately realized the pool was peculiar, because when they had first inspected the Blackwater Pool, Jin Yang had clearly approached the spot where the dry bones lay, and some of them had even touched the water.

At that time, the pool water did not possess such intense, corrosive poison; none of them had suffered any ill effects then.

It was only after that one safe experience, and the incident where a "Cicada Wing Sword" changed upon entering the water, that Jin Yang had recklessly tested the water with his left hand, resulting in his hand being reduced to bare, white bone.

"My intuition tells me that the young hunter named Pang Jian, and that Ouyang Duanhai, have not had their flesh corroded by the pool water."

Under the pitch-black night, Jin Yang's voice was filled with a chilling, murderous intent, making it clear to everyone present that he was truly enraged this time.

"How are they breathing underwater?"

Another Dark Ghost leader, standing beside a giant silver-threaded net, asked in surprise.

"I want to know why, too! I also want to know why that Pang Jian's arm and chest bones are as hard as metal, to the point that even my Cicada Wing Sword couldn't sever them!" Jin Yang barked.

"Hiss!"

The group by the pool suddenly heard the sound of a serpent slithering and turned their heads to look.

Hong Tai, the person in charge of this operation, rode up to the group on a python with black and white patterns, his face grim. He sighed, "That brat from the Zhou Family escaped."

He explained briefly, saying that the treasures in Zhou Qingchen's possession were not limited to just a Heart-Protecting Mirror; he always managed to evade his killing blows using some strange artifact.

In the end, Zhou Qingchen escaped to the side of that murky creek and, after plunging into the water, disappeared without a trace.

Having experienced the recent violent storms, the creek water was too turbid for him to see Zhou Qingchen's movements beneath the surface, so he returned after a fruitless search.

"Our situation is much the same. A hunter named Pang Jian, and that half-man, half-ghost Ouyang Duanhai, are both holed up under the Blackwater Pool, their fates unknown." The masked Pulse-Opening Realm leader immediately explained the situation on their end.

"The water in the Blackwater Pool has actually undergone a mutation, and it can corrode flesh?"

Hong Tai was clearly shocked. He rode his large python to the edge of the pool, patted the beast beneath him, and ordered, "Show me what is strange about this water!"

The python he had tamed leaned toward the pitch-black water, its eerie green eyes glowing with strange light, and it tapped the surface with its tongue.

"Sss!"

A wisp of smoke rose from the python's tongue, and its cold, serpentine eyes suddenly filled with terror.

Hong Tai's expression changed abruptly.

He immediately dismounted from the python, moved to the snake's head, and pressed his ear against its smoking mouth, assuming a listening posture.

"A Dark Giant Python! There is a Dark Giant Python hidden at the bottom of the Blackwater Pool!"

Hong Tai shrieked, retreating several steps in agitation, fearing that the "Dark Giant Python" he spoke of would suddenly charge out.

There were over a dozen Dark Ghost cultivators surrounding the Blackwater Pool, but the vast majority, including the two Pulse-Opening Realm leaders, did not know what a "Dark Giant Python" was.

Only Jin Yang, after a moment of stunned silence, suddenly reacted and exclaimed in shock, "Impossible! A Dark Giant Python could never use its own power to step from the eternally dark Fifth Realm into the world we inhabit!"

"An... alien entity from the Fifth Realm?!"

The two Dark Ghost leaders finally understood the origin of the "Dark Giant Python" that Hong Tai and Jin Yang spoke of.

The Fifth Realm beneath them was a place of eternal darkness.

Legend had it that all life capable of surviving in the Fifth Realm was filled with unimaginable evil and terror.

The Fifth Realm and the Fourth Realm had always been severed from one another; almost no life from the Fourth Realm dared to enter the Fifth.

Never mind the cultivators of the Fourth Realm, even the great masters of the Third and Second Realms would not easily set foot there.

Likewise.

The terrifying alien entities active in the Fifth Realm seemed unable to break out, unable to escape that world of unknown, terrifying depths.

If the Dark Giant Python were a creature from the Fifth Realm, it would logically be impossible for it to have left that place, infiltrated North Qi in the Fourth Realm, and holed up in a Blackwater Pool within the Cenji Mountains.

"I have heard the leader say that the Dark Giant Python haunting the Fifth Realm is, at its weakest, a Fourth-Level fierce beast or spirit beast."

"A Fourth-Level fierce beast or spirit beast is roughly equivalent in strength to us practitioners of the Xiantian Realm. Since there is a Dark Giant Python in the Blackwater Pool, and it might not even be the weakest of the Fourth Level, then we..."

Even someone as strong as Hong Tai was beginning to lose his nerve.

In the dense thicket.

The alluring, blood-red figure, whose silhouette was hazy, also changed color slightly when she saw the python raised by Hong Tai pass through the pool water and confirm the existence of a "Dark Giant Python" at the bottom.

"Snakes grow into pythons, pythons into boas, boas into flood dragons, and flood dragons into dragons. The Dark Giant Python should not have the ability to break out of that terrifying Fifth Realm, nor could it hide in a Blackwater Pool for no reason."

"Unless someone brought it up and raised it... in the Blackwater Pool."

Her heart turned cold. She stared deep into the Blackwater Pool, her expression gradually growing grave.

She had assumed that as her strength gradually recovered, she would be the strongest in the Cenji Mountains, which was why she had remained so composed.

But if someone were capable of entering the Fifth Realm—a place even gods and ghosts regarded as a forbidden zone—and capturing a "Dark Giant Python" alive to keep in a blackwater pool, then the power that person possessed would be enough to make even her retreat three times over once she returned to her peak!

"Who could it be?"

"How could such a heaven-shaking figure be hiding in this godforsaken mountain forest?"

The woman, who had intended to reveal her presence and force the Dark Ghost group to explore the bottom of the pool, no longer dared to act rashly.

She hid her tracks with increasing caution, secretly preparing for the worst-case scenario, even going so far as to abandon the Phoenix Marrow if necessary.

At the bottom of the pool.

After Pang Jian woke up once more, he discovered that the spirit stones he had been clutching, along with the grey-white rocks containing "Profound Yin Power," had somehow turned into fine sand and slipped through his fingers.

The pure heaven and earth spirit energy from the two spirit stones, along with the potent Profound Yin Power, had been completely absorbed by him.

Within his dantian's spirit sea, a multitude of complex energies were now brimming and circulating slowly.

Because his realm was insufficient and his divine sense had yet to coalesce, he could not clearly observe the movements within his spirit sea, only perceive them vaguely.

He sensed a funnel-shaped vortex appearing in his dantian.

The vortex sat in the very center of his dantian, spinning in circles and constantly pulling at the various energies filling the space.

The mist-like heaven and earth spirit energy, the pitch-black acidic poison energy, and the grey-white Profound Yin Power all slowly converged from all sides of the vortex.

As the funnel-shaped vortex spun inward, the various energies were refined and extracted over and over again.

The tip of the funnel, pointing downward, received the power that had been washed from above, condensing it into spirit energy that he could utilize.

So, this is what they call cultivation.

By transforming energy auras of different attributes into a tangible existence, one can clearly feel spirit energy. This marvelous sensation is like extracting power from vast mist to condense it into a single drop of water.

Pang Jian felt a sudden realization and began to gather power with even greater fervor, practicing until he forgot to eat or sleep.

The spirit stones Ning Yao had given him in the bamboo basket were soon exhausted.

Afterward, he could only obtain spirit energy and acidic poison energy from the pool water, continuously refining spirit energy within the small world of his dantian.

After another period of time had passed.

When Pang Jian woke up again, he found that the giant python, whose head had been pierced by the Phoenix Bone, had lost all the flesh and blood from its body, leaving only withered bones identical to the Phoenix Bone itself.

A portion of the giant python's vertebrae remained coiled around the Phoenix Bone, while the rest lay scattered in a ring at the bottom of the pool.

It seemed to know that death was inevitable; having accepted its fate, it stopped struggling and waited quietly for the end, waiting for the flesh and blood of its head to be devoured as well.

Pang Jian suddenly noticed that the humanoid monster, which had been far away, was now quite close.

The humanoid monster stood at the tail of the snake skeleton, its deep red, blood-like eyes fixed intently on the Phoenix Bone, its throat moving with a "gurgle" full of bloodthirsty desire.

Feeling a slight chill in his heart, Pang Jian frowned and moved away from the python's head, landing directly in front of the giant python.

In this way, the giant python—its head pierced through—and the massive, thick Phoenix Bone now stood between him and the humanoid monster.

The giant python was still being devoured.

The disappearance of its flesh and blood gradually spread to its skull, and it looked as though it would soon be picked clean by the Phoenix Bone.

The agonizing giant python still held a lingering attachment to this world; it wanted to take one last look at the bottom of the pool where it had been imprisoned for so many years.

Thus, it slowly opened a pair of cold, lifeless python eyes.

The first thing it saw was Pang Jian, and the bronze pendant partially visible through the gap in the clothing over Pang Jian's chest.

Deep within the lifeless eyes of the "Dark Giant Python," which had already accepted its death, there first surged a massive, overwhelming terror, as if it were seeing a great horror that made it tremble once more.

It stared at Pang Jian's face, its python eyes slowly clouding with confusion, only to be filled with monstrous resentment a moment later.

Knowing it would die sooner or later, it suddenly gathered its remaining strength and began to struggle frantically once more.

The snake bones coiled around the Phoenix Bone suddenly broke free in a circular motion, and then, together with its tail, whipped up massive waves at the bottom of the pool, lashing out viciously toward Pang Jian.

Two chapters posted, remember to vote and add to your collection, Old Ni bows in thanks~~