Exploded

The droplet of pure yang blood flung through the air struck the flames consuming the scroll's remains like a spark falling into a vat of boiling oil!

Xun Huan, who had been trying to complete the ritual, froze... His twisted body convulsed violently, and his scarlet soul-fire brimmed with incredulous horror!

"No! The sacrifice failed?! This... this can't... backlash?! Aaaah!!!"

BOOM!!!!

The Soul-Capturing Porcelain jar hovering in midair let out an unprecedentedly shrill scream!

The mouth of the jar no longer released white mist. Instead, it abruptly generated a terrifying, irresistible suction force directed at a specific target!

This suction was not indiscriminate. It precisely and violently locked onto Xun Huan's phantom shadow, whose origin had been entangled with it for more than two hundred years and whose spiritual essence was now in chaos from the ritual's backlash!

Xiao Fan roared, "You old bastard! The blood I used when I burned the scroll wasn't pure—your seal failed!"

Just as he said, when he had pricked his finger and drawn blood earlier, he had secretly mixed in his father's blood!

Xiao Fan had won the gamble!

One of the sealing conditions of the Soul-Capturing Porcelain was pure pure-yang blood.

Once the blood was mixed, the seal would fail.

In truth, he had not been certain of his guess either. He had simply wagered his life based on Xun Huan's earlier words.

The Soul-Capturing Porcelain's sealing conditions required pure pure-yang blood and a living sacrifice. Once either was tainted, the sealing would fail.

Then, using truly pure fresh blood, he had recited the Nether Soul-Gnawing Law in reverse and pulled off a desperate counterkill!

By now, Xun Huan's body had long been dismembered and sealed away. The head before him was nowhere near the standing of the Second Rank.

Not only that, his head had already been sealed by the Soul-Capturing Porcelain for more than two hundred years. The extraordinary spiritual essence within him had been almost completely drained, leaving him utterly powerless to resist the Soul-Capturing Porcelain's force.

"No!!!"

"You... you cunning little bastard!"

"You people of Great Liang are all shameless scum!!!"

"You will not die a—"

Before he could curse out the final word, "death," Xun Huan's twisted body struggled madly. His soul-fire flickered wildly as he let out a shriek of despair and venomous hatred.

He tried to mobilize the power he had just gathered, but the ritual's backlash, coupled with the Soul-Capturing Porcelain's innate suppression of his origin, left him like a moth trapped in a spiderweb!

The suction grew stronger and stronger, forcibly dragging and warping his phantom shadow...

In the end, along with that roaring, unwilling head and spine, he was seized by an invisible giant hand and violently, irresistibly dragged back into the jar's pitch-black mouth!

With a soft pop, the glaze on the porcelain jar rippled. A relief of a human face—painful, venomous, and frozen—slowly emerged across its surface.

The instant Xun Huan was completely dragged back into the jar, a torrent of violent, chaotic information steeped in resentment and ancient aura burst into Xiao Fan's mind like floodwaters breaching a dam!

Fragmented images, twisted murmurs, profound runes, bone-piercing hatred... engulfed him in an instant!

[Name: Soul-Capturing Porcelain]

[Rank: Third Rank]

[Function: Captures souls and resurrects corpses]

[Mutation: Uncontrollably releases death mist, captures all souls within the mist, and resurrects all corpses]

[Seal: Use pure yang blood as a catalyst; sacrifice a soul to create a human-skin sealing membrane over the mouth of the jar]

[Incantation: Recite the Nether Soul-Gnawing Law...]

[Note: The lifespan of the human-skin sealing membrane is tied to the strength of the sacrificed soul. The stronger the soul, the longer it lasts]

Xiao Fan's mind roared as fragments of information surged in like a tide and receded, leaving behind a cold, core realization...

He had not "obtained" the Soul-Capturing Porcelain. Using Xun Huan's soul and the properties of his own pure yang blood, he had merely forced a temporary seal into being!

This porcelain jar was a scalding hot potato—and a death warrant besides!

Almost instinctively, he hissed at the Soul-Capturing Porcelain floating in midair, its human-face sealing membrane at the mouth faintly writhing, "Withdraw the mist!"

BZZZ!

The Soul-Capturing Porcelain shuddered violently. The "sealing membrane" formed from Xun Huan's frozen face twisted in agony, opening an invisible gaping mouth.

The deathly white mist billowing across the sky was swallowed as though by an invisible giant whale, forming a violent vortex as it madly poured into the mouth of the jar!

At the instant the white mist flowed back, an icy, viscous, malicious aura traveled along that invisible connection and viciously stabbed into the arm Xiao Fan used to grip the porcelain jar!

Misfortune Poison Value... +1... +3... +5... The Misfortune Poison Value soared again!

"Holy shit!" Xiao Fan cried out in terror!

The golden scales on his chest seemed to have received a lethal stimulus and began growing without end...

The edges of the hard scales were like razor-sharp blades, viciously cutting into the flesh around them. Blood instantly soaked through the front of his clothes!

The indescribable agony made his vision go black, and he could barely hold on to the icy porcelain jar.

He could clearly feel something cold crawling through his blood vessels, trying to corrode his heart and brain!

Drip!

When the last wisp of ghastly white mist was sucked into the porcelain bottle, the agonized human face sealing film snapped shut, sealing the bottle's mouth tight.

The valley's cold, deathly stillness was scattered by the night wind, revealing its original desolation.

"Se... sealed!"

His entire body was soaked in cold sweat and blood. The freezing sensation of agonizing pain and curse toxin erosion made his teeth chatter.

[Curse Toxin Value: 118/100]

...It had already exceeded the limit, but fortunately, the number had stopped skyrocketing.

Because the curse toxin value had gone off the charts, the scales on his chest were still growing, slowly yet relentlessly, cutting into him. Every breath tugged at the wound on his chest, bringing tearing agony.

"Huff... huff..." He gasped heavily, not daring to spare this deadly cursed artifact another glance. All he wanted was to throw it as far away as possible.

But reason told him that this thing was like a ticking time bomb... no, a ticking nuclear bomb! Once it went out of control, the consequences would be unimaginable.

He definitely couldn't just toss it away...

Just then, another change erupted!

The Soul-Capturing Porcelain clenched in his hand suddenly began to swell and contract violently, irregularly, as though something inside were struggling and smashing about in a frenzy!

The bottle gave off teeth-grating creaks, while the human face sealing film twisted to its absolute limit, nearly splitting apart!

"What's going on?!"

Xiao Fan was horrified. Could it be that Xun Huan was not completely dead? Or was this cursed artifact about to backlash on the spot?!

Pfft! Pfft!

With two soft pops, two objects were forcibly "spat" out through the "mouth and nose" of the human face sealing film, which had yet to fully solidify, and fell to the ground.

One was an antique-looking dark gold ring. Set into its face was an amber gem that seemed to contain flowing quicksand, engraved with a tiny character: "Zi."

The other was a palm-sized, dull gray pouch whose material could not be identified, its surface devoid of any luster.

After spitting out these two "foreign objects," the restless Soul-Capturing Porcelain seemed to have exhausted all its strength and instantly fell silent.

"Could these be things Xun Huan hid deep within the source of his soul... forcibly stripped out by the Soul-Capturing Porcelain?"

Enduring the intense pain, Xiao Fan's heart was filled with uncertainty.

He had no time to inspect them closely. He only wanted to leave this damned place as quickly as possible.

He tried bringing the dull gray pouch close to the dark gold ring.

Something strange happened!

The moment the pouch's opening touched the ring, the ring vanished without a sound.

When he touched the Soul-Capturing Porcelain with it next, that heart-palpitating cursed artifact was instantly taken into the pouch as well!

[Name: Essence-Storing Pouch (Damaged)]

[Grade: Seventh Grade (Originally Fifth Grade, downgraded due to damage)]

[Function: Stores items; non-owners cannot retrieve them]

[Owner Binding: Soul binding. It may only recognize one owner at a time. After the former owner's soul has scattered, it may recognize a new owner]

The pouch's former owner was naturally Xun Huan. Now that Xun Huan was gone... Xiao Fan smoothly took over!

"This is a good thing—a storage treasure!"