Stone Chamber

Pang Jian stared blankly, unable to understand why the giant python, teetering on the brink of death, had suddenly gone berserk.

They had no enmity between them, yet the python looked ready to kill him before it died.

He cursed inwardly. Having no time to worry about the Humanoid Monster, he could only keep retreating, hoping to get beyond the reach of the python's bones.

Since the Phoenix Bone had pinned the python's head in place, he would be safe as long as its bones couldn't reach him.

Once he escaped this wave of attacks, the Phoenix Bone would devour the flesh from the python's head, and the creature would be well and truly dead.

"Thump!"

A very faint, muffled sound came from the other end of the Phoenix Bone as Pang Jian hurriedly retreated.

As he stumbled backward, Pang Jian glanced over his shoulder and was surprised to see that the giant python's winding skeleton seemed to have hit an obstacle at the bottom of the pool. Its advance toward him had slowed noticeably.

Soon, he saw a person clinging to the python's swaying, bone-white skeleton.

Pang Jian was astonished.

The Humanoid Monster, whose origins were unknown, had been caught in the giant python's dying convulsions. The fleshless bones had wound around him, carrying him through the water with a roar.

The Humanoid Monster had been focused on the Phoenix Bone and clearly hadn't expected the dying python to thrash about one last time.

He struggled with all his might, wrapping his arms around the thick, fleshless bones and trying to pry them apart.

The creature, long since bereft of reason and with no trace of humanity in its eyes, seemed to think the Dark Giant Python was attacking him before it died.

Gathering the power within him, he battled the Dark Giant Python, a creature that did not belong to this world, while also slowing the whip-like sweep of its bones.

Pang Jian took the opportunity to flee beyond the reach of the python's bones.

He secretly counted himself lucky. The monster had taken the blow for him; otherwise, he might not have escaped in time and could have been whipped or pierced to death by the bones.

Even from far away, he could still see the giant python's open eyes, their pupils filled with boundless hatred.

Pang Jian was baffled.

This was his first time in Blackwater Pool and his first time encountering a python this enormous. Why had it still insisted on coming after him before it died?

Night fell away.

The eternal twilight of daytime returned to the world.

After suffering through a whole night of waiting, the Dark Ghost members examined Blackwater Pool again at daybreak. To their surprise, the water, once as black as ink, had grown noticeably less murky.

Its color had shifted from pitch black to gray-black.

After watching for a while, they saw ripples spreading across the once-still surface, as though something massive was stirring beneath the water.

"There's something under the water!"

Even the dullest among them could tell from the strange movement on the surface that something alive had to be beneath it.

Hong Tai knew the Dark Giant Python was there. He had planned to assess the situation at daybreak and then leave.

Now he hesitated, and asked the others for their thoughts. "As long as the Dark Giant Python is still down there, anyone who goes into the pool is doomed. It might even charge out and hunt us all on shore."

"Think it over. Do we give up on this prey, or wait and see?"

Though he claimed to be asking everyone's opinion, his gaze lingered only on Jin Yang.

"I want to wait and see."

Jin Yang, still unwilling to give up, had also been alerted by the strange changes in the water. He released several Cicada Wing Swords he had recalled, sending them to observe the pool from different angles. "I keep feeling like the blackness in the water is fading quickly. Maybe we'll be able to see what's down there before long."

"Mm, the water is definitely getting lighter."

Hong Tai confirmed it.

Through the python that belonged to him, he knew the corrosive acid poison in the water had weakened. Familiar with the python's nature, he guessed that the Dark Giant Python was drawing back the acidic power it had released.

"We can wait a little longer, but stay alert. When the water clears, the Dark Giant Python might swim up from the bottom." Hong Tai warned them solemnly.

Jin Yang nodded.

Nearby, Ning Yao sat bound inside a gleaming silver net, looking as though her heart had died within her.

She managed to sit up in the net and stared blankly at the gloomy sky, seemingly having given up on struggling.

The Dark Ghost members were preoccupied with Blackwater Pool's many oddities and the uncertainty of whether the Dark Giant Python might suddenly emerge. They no longer paid much attention to her.

Most of the men who had once lusted after her beauty, like Zhang Heng, had died in battle.

"Pang Jian..."

Still unable to escape the shadow of Ning Yuanshan's death, Ning Yao listened to the Dark Ghost members talking. Her dazed gaze slowly drifted toward Blackwater Pool, and an image surfaced in her mind.

"Is he... still alive?"

Ning Yao had already given up hope. She couldn't believe that after so many people had died, Pang Jian could still be alive beneath the pool.

So much time had passed. How could Pang Jian, who had only just sensed the existence of qi, possibly have avoided suffocating?

And the pool contained acid poison that could flare up at any moment. Even Jin Yang had fallen victim to it. Shouldn't Pang Jian's corpse have been dissolved without a trace?

Helpless, the Ning Family's young lady let her mind wander.

Thinking that she would eventually suffer a fate even worse than He Ziren's, she resolved to bite off her tongue and end her life before that moment came.

While everyone had their own thoughts, the ripples on the pool's surface gradually subsided.

The water had lightened considerably, but it still wasn't fully clear. The acid poison remained, so they could only wait in anxious suspense.

At the bottom of the pool.

Pang Jian had retreated all the way to the rocky wall at the edge of the pool. He watched as the venomous light deep in the giant python's eyes slowly went out.

The more the giant python struggled in its final moments, the faster it burned through the essence of its flesh and blood—and the faster the Phoenix Bone devoured it.

Pang Jian watched its enormous head. One by one, its gleaming olive-green scales disappeared, and its flesh slowly sank into the Phoenix Bone.

In the end, it was devoured completely.

At the other end of the Phoenix Bone, the Humanoid Monster—battered from the fierce battle—panted heavily, strings of bubbles rising from his mouth.

He was covered in wounds, yet not a drop of blood flowed from his body.

He kept panting, sending more bubbles from his mouth, his dark-red eyes still fixed on the Phoenix Bone as he waited for the long-awaited glimmer to condense into shape.

From beginning to end, it seemed as though Pang Jian didn't even exist in his eyes.

"I'm lucky, too."

Pang Jian didn't feel resentful at being ignored.

Now that the giant python was finally dead, and the change within the Phoenix Bone had yet to begin, he could only think about what to do next.

He searched the surroundings for a way out. Then, to his surprise, he noticed an open... stone door beside the wall he was pressed against.

The wall was far from the Phoenix Bone, and the stone door was hidden deep in the underwater world, blending in among jagged rocks.

The open door was unusually smooth and even, unlike the angular rocks around it, so it was easy to notice.

"It was made by people!"

One glance was enough for Pang Jian to know that the stone door wasn't natural. He couldn't help moving closer.

Carrying the Dragon-Patterned Spear, he approached the open stone door. Nervously, he stepped inside and saw a narrow, deep passage that seemed to lead through the mountain to the other side.

After hesitating for a few seconds, he walked a dozen or so steps down the passage and came upon a small stone chamber... buried beneath the mountain.

The chamber held a stone table and chairs, along with a stone bed. There was nothing else.

Looking at the little stone chamber in the middle of the passage, with its stone table, chairs, and bed, Pang Jian wore an utterly peculiar expression.

The furniture and bed were arranged exactly like those in the stone chamber where he lived, so everything seemed familiar.

Ever since his father had left, Pang Jian had lived in that stone chamber.

Before his father disappeared, Pang Jian and Pang Lin had been young, so the two of them had shared a room.

"This..."

A man-made stone chamber hidden in the flooded rock wall at the bottom of a pool, arranged in such a familiar way, left Pang Jian dumbfounded.

Could his father have come here before and carved out this chamber?

The chamber was underwater, where ordinary people couldn't breathe or survive. How had his father managed to make it down here?

Pang Jian had no answers.

But this deep passage that led to an unknown destination, along with the mysterious stone chamber, offered him a way to survive.

After thinking it over, he didn't hurry to explore the end of the passage. Instead, he went back out and closed the open stone door.

Only then did he notice that the back of the door was also covered in jagged bits of stone. Once it was shut, it looked much like the protruding rocks nearby.

It turned out that the smooth stone door could only be spotted while it was open.

It was a fairly simple way of hiding it.

Pang Jian was sure that if he went inside and closed the door behind him, the Dark Ghost cultivators who entered the pool later would probably never find the door, camouflaged as it was among the rocks.

He could escape now, close the door, and try to explore the end of the deep passage.

But the acidic power above Blackwater Pool seemed to help his cultivation, so he chose to risk staying.

Standing before the open stone door, he looked toward the indistinct Phoenix Bone and the giant serpent's enormous, withered skeleton.

The Amber Glimmer within the Phoenix Bone had yet to emerge and wander through the bones. The giant python's flesh and blood must have been exceptionally valuable, requiring more time to brew.

The Humanoid Monster's attention was entirely fixed on the Phoenix Bone, and he wouldn't pay Pang Jian any mind.

So Pang Jian still had time. He could keep absorbing the pool's dark, acidic power, continue cultivating the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art, and refine spiritual power within his Spirit Sea with a vortex.

And so he returned to his cultivation.

Time slipped by quietly. In the blink of an eye, several days had passed.

Only when hunger became unbearable did Pang Jian take out the waterlogged dried meat to eat. The rest of the time, he spent cultivating.

He seized this rare cultivation opportunity with all his might.

Outside.

The Dark Ghost members had been waiting as the pool's thick blackness faded a little more each day.

At last, the day came when the water cleared.

"It says there's no more corrosive acid poison in the water."

Hong Tai pointed to the python that belonged to him, then looked at the now-clear pool. "It's still too deep. I can't see the bottom. Which of you will go down and take a look?"

His gaze moved across the Dark Ghost members, but they all remained silent. No one dared answer.

"Are you all that timid?"

Hong Tai had already made up his mind. He looked at Ning Yao, imprisoned in the Silver Net, and said, "We've kept the Ning Family girl alive until now so we could use her to test the Dark Giant Python. Young women's flesh is the most delicious thing to a Dark Giant Python. It won't be able to resist such a delicacy."

At those words, Ning Yao was instantly seized with terror.