A Foreign Thing from the Fifth Realm

The Fourth Realm.

Another deep, dark night fell.

In a corner of the Cenji Mountains, Jin Yang and the other Dark Ghost members had gathered beside Blackwater Pool. They stared blankly at its still, unrippled surface, their expressions strangely uneasy.

In the pitch-black nights of the Lower Realms, only cultivators like them could see their surroundings.

Ordinary people who had yet to embark on the path of cultivation could barely make out what was around them in such deep darkness without a source of light, such as a lamp.

On Jin Yang's orders, the Dark Ghost members had brought no lamps. They were scattered around the pool like ghosts.

Yet after waiting for a long time, they still saw no sign of Ouyang Duanhai or Pang Jian surfacing from the dark waters.

Neither of them had reached the Xisui Realm, so they lacked the ability to breathe underwater for long.

"It looks like whether we light lamps or not, they still won't show themselves."

"Maybe they've already turned into bones down there."

"..."

The others murmured among themselves, keeping their voices low for fear the two underwater might hear them.

The masked man was nearly out of patience. He turned to Jin Yang and said, "We've tested it, too. Every corpse we tossed into the pool came back with all its flesh dissolved. They shouldn't be able to last that long. Are we just going to waste time here forever?"

To verify Jin Yang's claim, they had brought over the bodies of the Zhang brothers, Zhang Heng and Zhang Hu, along with several warhorses that had been poisoned to death. They tossed them into Blackwater Pool, then hauled them back out.

Just as Jin Yang had said, it took only one trip down and back up for them to come out as bones.

Their flesh had been completely corroded away.

They had immediately realized something was strange about the pool. The first time they inspected Blackwater Pool, Jin Yang had gone over to the withered bones, and some of them had even touched the water.

Back then, the water had not been corrosively toxic. None of them had suffered any ill effects.

Because he had once touched the water without harm, even after the Cicada Wing Sword had changed upon entering it, Jin Yang had rashly tested it with his left hand. The result had been that his left hand turned into a ghastly white skeleton.

"My gut tells me that the young hunter named Pang Jian and that Ouyang Duanhai haven't had their flesh corroded away."

Beneath the black night sky, Jin Yang's voice rang with cold, murderous intent. Everyone present could tell that he was truly enraged this time.

"How are they breathing underwater?"

The Dark Ghost leader standing beside the Silver Silk Giant Net asked in surprise.

"I want to know that, too! And I want to know why Pang Jian's arm and chest bones are as hard as iron, so that even my Cicada Wing Sword couldn't cut through them!" Jin Yang barked.

"Hiss!"

The people by the pool suddenly heard the sound of a python slithering, and turned to look.

Hong Tai, the one in charge of this operation, rode up before them on the black-and-white python, his face troubled. He sighed. "That Zhou Family brat got away."

He briefly explained that Zhou Qingchen had more than just the Heart-Protecting Mirror as a treasure in his possession; he could always rely on some wondrous treasure to dodge Hong Tai's killing blows.

In the end, Zhou Qingchen had escaped to the muddy stream and plunged into the water, vanishing downstream.

The stream had been muddied by the recent storm. Hong Tai could not see where Zhou Qingchen had gone beneath the water, and after searching in vain, he had returned.

"Our situation's about the same. A hunter named Pang Jian and that half-human, half-ghost Ouyang Duanhai are holed up under Blackwater Pool, their lives unknown." The masked Pulse-Opening Realm leader immediately filled him in.

"The water in Blackwater Pool changed? It can even corrode flesh?"

Hong Tai was clearly shocked. He rode his python to the edge of the pool, patted it, and ordered, "Show me what's strange about the water!"

The python he had tamed slithered up to the pitch-black water. Its eerie green eyes gleamed as it lightly touched the surface with its forked tongue.

"Psst!"

A wisp of smoke rose from the python's tongue, and fear suddenly appeared in its cold eyes.

Hong Tai's face changed drastically.

He immediately dismounted and went to the python's head. Pressing his ear near its smoking mouth, he struck a pose as if listening.

"Dark Giant Python! There's a Dark Giant Python at the bottom of Blackwater Pool!"

Hong Tai shrieked and stumbled back several steps, afraid the "Dark Giant Python" he had mentioned might suddenly charge out.

More than a dozen Dark Ghost cultivators surrounded Blackwater Pool, but most of them—including the two Pulse-Opening Realm leaders—had no idea what a "Dark Giant Python" was.

Only Jin Yang paused before suddenly realizing what it meant. "Impossible! A Dark Giant Python could never cross over from the eternally dark Fifth Realm into our world by its own power!"

"A foreign thing from the Fifth Realm?!"

The two Dark Ghost leaders finally understood what kind of creature Hong Tai and Jin Yang meant by "Dark Giant Python."

The Fifth Realm, below them, was a place of eternal darkness.

According to legend, every living thing capable of surviving in the Fifth Realm was filled with unimaginable evil and terror.

The Fifth and Fourth Realms had long been cut off from one another. Almost no living creature from the Fourth Realm dared enter the Fifth.

Not to mention cultivators from the Fourth Realm—even great cultivators from the Third and Second Realms would not venture there lightly.

And likewise,

the terrifying foreign creatures that roamed the Fifth Realm seemed unable to break free and escape that world, whose horror was beyond measure.

If the Dark Giant Python was a foreign creature from the Fifth Realm, there was no way it should have been able to leave that place and slip into North Qi, in the Fourth Realm, to hide in a pool in the Cenji Mountains.

"I heard the leader say that the Dark Giant Pythons found in the Fifth Realm are at least level-four ferocious beasts or spirit beasts."

"Level-four ferocious and spirit beasts are roughly as powerful as cultivators in the Xiantian Realm. Since there's a Dark Giant Python in Blackwater Pool, and it might not even be the weakest kind, then we..."

Even someone as formidable as Hong Tai was already having second thoughts.

Amid the dense trees,

the faint, alluring silhouette of the blood-red figure watched Hong Tai's captive python confirm that a "Dark Giant Python" lurked at the bottom of the pool. Her expression changed slightly.

"When a snake grows large, it becomes a python; when a python grows larger, it becomes a boa; when a boa grows larger, it becomes a flood dragon; and when a flood dragon transforms, it becomes a dragon. A Dark Giant Python shouldn't be able to break out of that terrifying Fifth Realm, nor would it hide in Blackwater Pool without a reason."

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

Her heart chilled. She gazed into Blackwater Pool, her expression gradually turning grave.

She had assumed that as her power gradually returned, she would become the strongest person in the Cenji Mountains. That was why she had always remained so composed.

But if someone could enter the Fifth Realm—a place even gods and ghosts regarded as forbidden ground—and capture a Dark Giant Python alive to raise in Blackwater Pool...

then even if she recovered to her peak, she would have to give that person a wide berth!

"Who could it be?"

"How could someone so astonishing be hiding in this godforsaken forest?"

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

She hid herself even more carefully, secretly preparing to abandon even the Phoenix Marrow if things took a turn for the worse.

At the bottom of the pool,

when Pang Jian woke again, he found that the spirit stones he had held tightly in his hands, along with the gray-white rock containing Profound Yin Power, had somehow crumbled into fine sand and slipped through his fingers.

The two spirit stones' pure natural spiritual energy and potent Profound Yin Power had both been completely absorbed by him.

His dantian Spirit Sea was now filled with many different kinds of energy, still slowly circulating.

His realm was too low and his divine sense had yet to form, so he could not clearly peer into the movement of his Spirit Sea. He could only sense it vaguely.

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

The vortex spun in circles at the very center of his dantian, constantly drawing in the various energies that filled it.

The mist-like natural spiritual energy, the dark corrosive poison, and the gray-white Profound Yin Power slowly converged from every direction into the vortex.

As the funnel-shaped vortex turned inward, circle after circle, the many energies were tempered and refined again and again.

At the pointed end of the funnel, the washed and purified power gathered from above, coalescing into something he could use... spiritual power.

"So this is what cultivation is."

"Energy of different attributes becomes a tangible force, and then I can clearly sense my spiritual power. It feels as if I'm extracting power from a vast expanse of mist and condensing it into drops of water."

Pang Jian grasped the principle. He gathered power with renewed zeal, cultivating so intently that he forgot to eat and sleep.

The spirit stones Ning Yao had given him in the Bamboo Basket were soon used up.

After that, he could only draw spiritual energy and corrosive poison from the pool water, continuing to refine spiritual power within the small world of his dantian.

Some time passed.

When Pang Jian woke again, he found that all the flesh on the giant python pierced through the head by the Phoenix Bone had vanished, leaving only the dry bones, like the Phoenix Bone itself.

Some of its bones still coiled around the Phoenix Bone, while the rest had spread out across the bottom of the pool in a ring.

It seemed to know it could not escape death. It had given up struggling and was quietly waiting for death to arrive, waiting for the flesh on its head to be devoured as well.

Pang Jian suddenly noticed that the Humanoid Monster, which had been far away, had somehow drawn much closer.

The Humanoid Monster stood at the python's tail. Its blood-red eyes stared fixedly at the Phoenix Bone, its throat bobbing with a bloodthirsty longing.

Pang Jian felt a chill in his heart. Frowning, he left the python's head and landed in front of the giant python.

That way, the giant python—with its head pierced through—and the broad, massive Phoenix Bone stood between him and the Humanoid Monster.

The giant python was still being devoured.

The loss of its flesh had gradually spread to its skull. It looked as if the Phoenix Bone would soon gnaw it clean.

The giant python, suffering unbearable pain, still felt attached to this world. It wanted one last look at the pool bottom where it had been imprisoned for so many years.

So it slowly opened its eyes, cold and lifeless.

The first thing it saw was Pang Jian—and the Bronze Pendant, only a small part of which showed through a gap in the clothes covering his chest.

The Dark Giant Python had already accepted its death, but now a tremendous terror welled up in the depths of its lifeless eyes, as if it had glimpsed again the great horror that once made it tremble.

It stared at Pang Jian's face. Confusion slowly rose in its eyes, then moments later, they filled with boundless hatred.

Though it knew it would die sooner or later, it suddenly gathered its remaining strength and began to struggle wildly once more.

The bones coiled around the Phoenix Bone suddenly unwound in a circle. Then, with its tail, they churned the bottom of the pool into great waves and lashed viciously toward Pang Jian.