Hollowed-out Skull

On Lake Heart Island, the White Tower radiated a faint, eerie luminescence, exuding an atmosphere of gloom and malevolence.

As the group focused their senses, they could still hear the mournful wailing of departed souls, a sound that made everyone's scalp prickle.

Yet, when Pang Jian looked at the White Tower again, he felt it had become harmless, leaving him without the slightest sense of discomfort.

This sinister White Tower, which originated from the mysterious Yin Spirit Temple and possessed the strange power to scour souls and ghosts, seemed to be deliberately ignoring him, as if it were the only thing that would not attempt to scour his soul.

"I am very glad to see you came to save me."

Luo Hongyan pursed her lips lightly, her crystalline eyes filled with a few traces of obvious joy and triumph.

Pang Jian frowned and said coldly, "If you had treated me as you do now when we first entered the Cenji Mountains, I would not have stood by and watched you die at the bottom of the Blackwater Pool."

Luo Hongyan was stunned.

Immediately after.

Within that void, she spoke to the faint soul shadow huddled in the darkness, triumphantly saying, "Did you see that? When you fell to the bottom of the pool, he didn't reach out to help, but this time, he saved me."

The real Ning Yao, looking at the stunning figure manifested before her, lowered her head in dejection and said, "Had I known he was so extraordinary, I would have been willing to treat him well."

"You couldn't have."

Luo Hongyan wore a look of mockery, shaking her head with a half-smile as she said, "Coming from a major family just like you, Zhou Qingchen was able to discover his uniqueness and proactively show goodwill early on. And you? You clearly knew him before Zhou Qingchen did, yet you lacked the discernment to recognize a gem, treating him as nothing more than an ordinary hunter."

Ning Yao fell silent.

What Luo Hongyan said was the truth; it was she who had entered the Cenji Mountains with Pang Jian, yet it was Zhou Qingchen who had proactively extended an olive branch and won Pang Jian's trust first.

When she finally realized this, she did not think of how to win Pang Jian back, but instead resorted to threats.

In the end, Pang Jian had thrown the pouch containing the silver fragments onto the ground, declaring the termination of their contract.

"Little brother..."

He Rong, who had been observing from the side for a while, could not bring himself to speak to Luo Hongyan, so he said to Pang Jian, "Since you are unaffected, I must trouble you to go to the highest level of the Heavenly Spirit Tower and destroy the special array within."

Su Yuntian nodded in agreement with a dry laugh.

When Luo Hongyan had been in distress, their fear of the "Heavenly Spirit Tower" had prevented them from rushing to her rescue, making it difficult for them to face her now.

Luo Hongyan, however, did not mind; she only cared about Pang Jian's attitude and thoughts, smiling as she said, "Regardless of whether you can break that array, I believe you will be perfectly safe. The Heavenly Spirit Tower of this Yin Spirit Temple can absolutely not harm you."

"I saw with my own eyes that the moment you stepped onto this Lake Heart Island, it fell from the sky. I even feel... that it is afraid of you."

These words caused the group to recall the strange event of the White Tower falling and the island shaking violently.

The way they looked at Pang Jian suddenly became filled with deep suspicion.

Could it be that those things were not coincidences at all?

"I will go and see."

Pang Jian said in a deep voice.

He also felt that the Heavenly Spirit Tower could not harm him. This feeling was surreal and he could not explain why, but the sensation was undeniable.

Determined to investigate, he hesitated no longer, gripping the Dragon-Patterned Spear and striding toward the White Tower.

His speed was suddenly very fast; he made almost no pauses, nor did he continue to cautiously perceive and observe.

A moment later, he arrived before the White Tower, appearing at the entrance to ascend.

At this moment, everyone naturally focused their gazes upon him, appearing even more nervous and uneasy than he was.

Luo Hongyan remained calm and composed, pinching her waist with her slender white hand, though it was unclear what she was thinking.

"That body is mine!"

The faint soul shadow, imprisoned within her own body, sensed her movements and said, suppressing her anger, "The places he touched are also my body!"

Luo Hongyan did not care about her fury at all, dancing gracefully in this void of emptiness.

"If I wish, this body can be mine as well."

"I was just thinking that perhaps seizing your soul and becoming you entirely would be a good idea. Your cultivation aptitude is indeed a bit poor, but it is not impossible to compensate for; it would just take a bit of effort and means."

Once these words were spoken, Ning Yao did not dare to show even a hint of anger, terrified into suppressing all her dissatisfaction.

It was at this moment that Pang Jian stepped into the interior of the White Tower and was immediately greeted by the dense spiritual energy filling the room.

The spiritual energy, far thicker and purer than that of the island outside, filled the bottom floor of the tower like curling white mist.

At the base of the tower, pieces of translucent, bright crystals were arranged in a "return" pattern, constructing a complex and strange spiritual array.

Each "return" shape was connected to the next, and within the crystals that formed them, light flowed like water without end.

Standing above those crystals, Pang Jian attempted to cultivate using the "Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art," and immediately felt an incomparably mellow spiritual power erupting from within the crystals!

A waterfall-like surge of massive spiritual power instantly poured into his dantian, sinking directly into his spiritual sea!

It was pure, flawless spiritual power, not mere heaven and earth spiritual energy; it required no cleansing, no further refinement or extraction.

And it was incredibly extravagant!

In just this one moment, Pang Jian felt a pool of spiritual power accumulating within his spiritual sea.

"Thump-thump!"

His heart raced as he stared at the miraculous array beneath his feet, feeling that this was quite simply the finest sanctuary for cultivation in all the world.

Standing upon these crystals to cultivate, he could absolutely fill his spirit sea with spiritual energy in a very short time.

His Qi Refining Realm would surely reach the bottleneck quickly, granting him the vast power required to break through to the next realm!

Relishing the wonders of this place, Pang Jian took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

He knew now was not the time.

He found the stairs leading upward as quickly as he could, not daring to glance at the crystals again, and hurried up level by level.

The second, third, and fourth floors were all completely empty. The ground was made of the same material as the tower itself, resembling the bleached bones of some gargantuan creature.

Without a shred of hesitation, he headed straight for the top floor of the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda.

On the fifth floor, a massive, hollowed-out, ghastly white skull suddenly came into his view.

The top of the skull was open, and the eye sockets and cheekbones were hollow. Inside the void of the skull, countless mosquito-like spectral ghosts swirled and shrieked around a living creature.

The moment Pang Jian stood still, he heard endless clamor: desperate screams, frenzied roars, weeping cries for help, and infinite, hateful curses directed at this world.

This floor seemed filled with wandering ghosts and spirits, harboring countless evil entities.

He hurriedly steadied his heart, refusing to decipher the specific meanings of those strange sounds or investigate their source, and instead focused on the creature at the center of the hollow skull, surrounded by the spectral ghosts.

It was a deep green turtle. It was clearly a spirit entity as well, yet it was larger than all the ghosts and spirits surrounding it.

It sat in the center of the skull, encircled by the throng of ghosts, as if its spiritual intelligence were being slowly eroded away.

Observing closely, Pang Jian suddenly realized that the pervasive, clamorous noise came from the spectral ghosts surrounding it.

Countless ghosts, far smaller than the turtle, were swarming it, muddling its thoughts and will.

It was so dazed and confused that it was on the verge of forgetting who it was.

The skull is the special array.

Pang Jian realized.

He stepped a little closer and immediately felt pure "Profound Yin Power" rushing toward him.

He understood at once that the hollow skull was constructed from pieces of jade infused with "Profound Yin Power."

These jade stones were not gray-white, but pure white, and the "Profound Yin Power" contained within them was even purer than the piece he had obtained in the stone pile.

Within those jade stones, there was only dense "Profound Yin Power," with no spiritual energy or other auras present.

Pang Jian tried to move closer, sensing with his heart the gloom and chill released by the skull, while the Bronze Gate Pendant on his chest grew quietly warm.

As soon as the heat appeared, the deep green Spirit Turtle, surrounded by countless spectral ghosts, suddenly sensed something.

The Spirit Turtle struggled to gather its spirit, laboriously adjusting its angle to slowly face Pang Jian.

Finally, it saw the spear-wielding youth who looked as if he were facing a formidable enemy, and its eyes were initially filled with confusion.

Suddenly, deep within its pupils, a flash of ecstasy emerged!

However.

When it truly saw Pang Jian's appearance and realized it was not the person it had been waiting for, a look of profound disappointment washed over it.

It had no flesh, blood, or bones—it was merely a spirit form—yet the complex, shifting gaze it cast upon Pang Jian revealed its every thought.

There was no need for verbal communication; Pang Jian simply looked into its eyes and guessed its intent.

"I will smash this skull and save you."

Pang Jian made the promise without rhyme or reason. Intending to destroy the array from the start, he gripped his Dragon-Patterned Spear and thrust.

"Clang!"

The jade stone struck by the spear tip emitted the clashing sound of metal on metal. That seemingly unremarkable piece of jade didn't even spark.

Pang Jian was startled. He switched to holding the Dragon-Patterned Spear with both hands, feeling the savage power surging from his arm bones and entire body, and thrust at the same jade stone once more.

"Clang!"

Just like before, the jade emitted the sound of metal clashing, yet it remained completely unmoved.

Could this piece be special?

Knowing the extent of his own strength, Pang Jian naturally refused to believe it. He gripped the Dragon-Patterned Spear with the same force and began to strike at other jade stones.

"Clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang-clang!"

After repeating the attempt over a dozen times, striking different jade stones each time, not a single piece of the jade forming the skull array shattered.

There wasn't even a sign of them shifting.

The Spirit Turtle, surrounded by the multitude of ghosts, closed its eyes in disappointment, no longer harboring any fantasies about him.

Pang Jian was not discouraged. He tried repeatedly, and in the end, he even put down the Dragon-Patterned Spear and tried to pry the jade stones with his hands, but he still couldn't budge a single one.

"I'll go out and think of another way. I will definitely smash this damn thing."

After a long while, Pang Jian dropped these words, regardless of whether the Spirit Turtle could understand him.

He didn't even take his Dragon-Patterned Spear, nor did he follow the stairs back down level by level; instead, he jumped directly out through an open window.

"Boom!"

He plummeted from the five-story White Tower, crashing heavily onto the ground covered in lush green weeds, and quickly arrived before Luo Hongyan.

Everyone looked at him with uncertainty and shock.