Beneath a clear sky stretching ten thousand miles, a warm breeze drifted softly.
Sun Bin watched countless symbols shimmer like the sun, moon, and stars in a brilliant galaxy, streaming along Pang Lin's lotus-white arm toward her heart.
"Heavenly Phoenix is pouring its inheritance into her."
Sun Bin struggled to sit up, his face still frozen in a daze as he stared at Pang Lin in disbelief.
"Perhaps I've been wrong all along."
The daze on his face turned into an incredulous smile. He shook his head gently.
At that moment, he suddenly felt that when they had ascended to the Upper Realm on the Azure Vulture, the Heavenly Phoenix Remains' sudden movement after lying dormant for so long—and the glowing divine bone that had stabbed the Azure Vulture—had not been an accident at all.
It was because Heavenly Phoenix had sensed Pang Lin!
The divine bone bearing the inheritance of life had killed the Azure Vulture only in passing.
Killing the Azure Vulture had never been the true purpose of the Divine Phoenix Bone. Its real purpose was just as it was now: to let Pang Lin receive the inheritance from Heavenly Phoenix!
"This girl's future is boundless!"
Sun Bin's gaze blazed. His heart pounded as he realized that he had truly found a priceless treasure on this trip to the lower realm.
"Whoosh!"
Countless visions and scenes flowed through the glowing white bone and into Pang Lin, gradually gathering in her heart.
Pang Lin felt that a vast treasury of knowledge had appeared inside her heart, waiting for her to explore it.
Certain she would fall victim to the Phoenix Bone, Pang Lin had thought she could not escape her fate. Now she reached out and touched the glowing divine bone hanging motionless in the air.
The specks of strange light shimmering within it continued to vanish. Suddenly, she had the wondrous feeling that the Divine Phoenix Bone had always been a part of her.
After an unknown length of time, all the glowing marks hidden inside the divine bone had disappeared into her heart.
Pang Lin felt no discomfort. She took the suspended divine bone in her hand and held it upright to examine it.
As she gripped the bone, she saw dozens of tiny points of light scattered across different parts of it, still moving by an almost imperceptible amount.
She brought her palm closer to the points of light and suddenly felt that each moving speck represented a living being.
A strange word welled up from her heart, now like a crystal of colored glass: "Divine Guard."
Her eyes widened in bewilderment. She scratched her head, wondering what "Divine Guard" meant.
Then more knowledge about the "Divine Guard" naturally surfaced from the depths of her mind.
She immediately understood that every moving point of light represented one of her very own "Divine Guards."
Through the divine bone, she could perceive the movements of every "Divine Guard." She could give orders to the "Divine Guards" scattered across the lands—and even decide their lives and deaths with a single thought!
The "Divine Guards" would become her eyes in the future. They would be her most loyal attendants and would never disobey her commands.
To the many "Divine Guards," she was a supreme being, the one they would protect for the rest of their lives.
"Miss Pang... Miss Pang, what did you see through that divine bone?"
Sun Bin's voice trembled. He naturally addressed her with respect now, no longer calling her "girl" at every turn.
"A vast flood of memories and visions flowed into my... heart."
Pang Lin pointed blankly at her chest, then at the tiny points of light scattered across the upright bone. "The little lights inside seem to be called Divine Guards. They're scattered in different places, and they seem like they'll be loyal to me forever."
"Divine Guards! Those are the Heavenly Phoenix Divine Guards!"
Sun Bin exclaimed.
His doubts vanished. A delighted smile spread across his face as he cupped his hands in congratulations. "Congratulations, Miss Pang. You've earned Heavenly Phoenix's favor and received its inheritance of life and secret arts!"
Moving a little closer, Sun Bin pointed to the arm-length bone held upright in Pang Lin's hand and explained solemnly:
"Every point of light you see corresponds to a living Heavenly Phoenix Divine Guard. They'll be loyal to you forever, because you can decide whether they live or die!"
"They're scattered across different realms now. Some may be in the Third Realm, others in the Fourth Realm, but in the end, you'll be able to command them all."
Sun Bin was green with envy, yet he did not dare even think of laying hands on it, fearing the divine bone might simply stab him to death.
Pang Lin stared blankly. "I suddenly have so many subordinates?"
"Yes, that's the truth. Miss Pang, look at where you used to live. It should be somewhere around..."
Sun Bin pointed to a spot on the divine bone.
Two points of light lay there.
One was relatively bright; the other was gradually dimming, as if it were being refined and would soon disappear.
"This should be the Cenji Mountains. A powerful Heavenly Phoenix Divine Guard has formed there, and the other one... I can't make sense of it."
Sun Bin spoke with a puzzled expression.
His words had opened Pang Lin's eyes. Following his gestures, she suddenly understood roughly what the world she lived in looked like.
Curious, she asked, "Senior Sun, why does our world look like a well?"
"That's right. It's just like a well."
Sun Bin immediately confirmed it.
"Ghost Mist eternally fills the area around the well walls, which we call the Boundary Wall."
"So far, we've only explored down to the Fifth Layer, a land of eternal darkness."
"No one knows whether there's a Sixth Layer below the Fifth. No living person or creature has ever fallen below the Fifth Layer and returned to this world."
"As for what lies above us..."
Sun Bin pointed to the sky.
Pang Lin looked up and saw a sun hanging high beyond the sky. Beneath it stretched a bright, clear sky and four other continents.
"Those four continents are in the so-called First Realm, the place closest to the heavens."
"They're called the East Lands, South Abyss, West Soil, and North Ruins, and they lie in the four directions of the First Realm. The sect you're going to join is called Pure Land. It's in the West Soil."
"With the inheritance of Heavenly Phoenix, you'll be able to compete with the most dazzling young cultivators from all the powers of the First Realm."
"I'll benefit from this, too."
Sun Bin spoke excitedly.
Favored by Heavenly Phoenix, Pang Lin gazed at the sun above the "well mouth" and the four continents beneath it. Holding the divine bone infused with its inheritance, she said, "I want my brother to come up, too."
Sun Bin laughed heartily. "Miss Pang, with Heavenly Phoenix's favor, you'll enter the Dongxuan Realm within a hundred years at most!"
"Pure Land will spare no effort to cultivate you. You'll be the brightest rising star in this world of cultivation!"
"Don't worry. As long as you stay alive and well, your brother will benefit from your good fortune. Pure Land will send someone to guide him up here."
He secretly congratulated himself for giving Pang Jian the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art he had obtained from a forbidden land—and for not speaking harshly to him.
"If my strength can bring good fortune to my brother, then I'll work hard at cultivation."
Pang Lin gripped the Divine Phoenix Bone tightly.
The Fourth Realm.
The Cenji Mountains.
Pang Jian had passed out. He had no idea that the younger sister he cared for had received a heaven-defying blessing and, without lifting a finger, had soared straight to the holy land of every cultivator in this world.
For now, he was still struggling bitterly in the lower realm.
The pain, as if his bones were being scraped clean, jolted him awake from time to time in the dark stone passage beneath the mountain. Then the agony would knock him unconscious again.
Over and over.
Through the haze, he saw Blood-Colored Phoenix Birds soaring deep inside his bones, pounding against them.
Each Blood-Colored Phoenix Bird looked exactly like the ones that had flown out of the Humanoid Monster. They seemed to have been completely tamed and refined, stripped of their own awareness and left with nothing but pure, searing energy.
When he awoke and felt the pain, he realized that this tempering of his bones was using the Blood-Colored Phoenix Birds refined by the Bronze Plate.
The drop of Phoenix Marrow, which the Bronze Plate had absorbed first from the giant serpent at the bottom of the pool, did not seem to have been fully refined yet. No miraculous power had flowed out of the plate from it.
Even so, the strange energy surging out as the Blood-Colored Phoenix Bird was refined had already made him suffer unbearably.
He woke from the pain and passed out again, over and over. Only after an unknown number of times did the terrifying power raging through his bones finally begin to fade.
By then, he had long since run out of food. A fierce hunger suddenly gripped him, and he could not be bothered to take stock of his condition. All he wanted was to find food and fill his stomach.
Carrying the Dragon-Patterned Spear, he kept moving forward through the pitch-black stone passage.
After a long time, he suddenly spotted a sliver of light. He hurried toward it and found a narrow crack in the stone.
He immediately used the Dragon-Patterned Spear to chisel away at the rock. A powerful divine strength surged into both hands, letting him pierce the stones on either side of the crack as easily as tofu.
Once the crack had widened enough, he slipped out of the dark passage and entered another stretch of water.
He saw plenty of fish swimming in the water and sparse aquatic plants. Life filled the bottom at every turn.
This was a place utterly unlike the lifeless Blackwater Pool.
"Fish!"
Half-crazed with hunger, Pang Jian did not hesitate. He gripped the Dragon-Patterned Spear beneath the water and began a frantic fishing spree.
The lake.
On the grassy bank lay a massive Golden Chariot, smashed into pieces.
The people from the He Family and Su Family gathered around it, inspecting the wreckage, but they found no bodies belonging to the Galaxy Alliance cultivators.
"The people from the Upper Realm's Galaxy Alliance didn't leave behind a single corpse. Could even their bones have been eaten?"
He Rong, ever cautious, stayed far away from the shattered war chariot from the Galaxy Alliance, leaving the inspection to his family's servants.
He and Su Yuntian of the Su Family stayed by the lake, talking with grave expressions.
Su Yuntian, a man of modest height with a dashing bearing, frowned. "The Dong Family, Zhou Family, Ning Family, and Shangguan Family all sent teams here. We've been in here for a while, yet we haven't run into anyone from the other families. I wonder whether they've discovered anything."
Among the seven great families, the He Family and Su Family were at the bottom of the rankings. The two families had joined forces from the outset for this trip.
They had searched the Cenji Mountains for a while but had found little. They had not come across any corpses or living people from the Upper Realm, either.
They had encountered no danger along the way, and their journey had gone so smoothly it seemed almost unbelievable.
The Golden Chariot from the Galaxy Alliance was their latest discovery, but they had not seen a single member of the Alliance.
They planned to wait by the shattered Golden Chariot a little longer and see if anyone else showed up.
"Ah!"
As the two men spoke, a young woman suddenly surfaced from the lake and cried out in panic.
"There's something on the lakebed!"
Su Meng, who had always been particular about cleanliness, hurriedly put on her undergarments underwater and swam toward the surface. She cried out, "I saw something on the lakebed. It was stabbing the fish down there!"
"Hurry up and get out!"
Su Yuntian, who doted on his daughter, waved urgently from the bank, urging her to come ashore at once.
Killing intent flashed in his eyes. He quietly took out his spiritual weapon, ready to strike down any stranger he saw.
"Brother Su, don't act rashly. It might be someone from the Galaxy Alliance down there!"
He Rong suddenly remembered this possibility and hurried to stop him. "Be careful. Don't do anything reckless!"
"Fine, I understand!"
Before you continue