"This... was where Celestial Lord Shuo Yang sealed away the corruption of his own immortal art..."
Jiang Ding's gaze blazed like the sun. He swept his sword intent inch by inch over the square metal mountain before him, dozens of kilometers across, and finally reached a conclusion.
Inside the metal mountain lay the sealed body of a rotting giant.
The giant had rotted from head to toe. Maggots crawled over him—no, those were not maggots, but manifestations of immortal-art corruption.
Countless pieces of harmless knowledge about immortal arts had become jumbled together, forming something deadly to the souls of living beings. It then affected their bodies, leaving them to rot.
That was the state of the giant before him.
"This is Celestial Lord Shuo Yang's dharma body," Jiang Ding said again.
Back then, Celestial Lord Shuo Yang must have severed his own body and sealed it here to isolate part of the immortal-art corruption. He had then had his direct descendants, the Guishan Iron Clan, establish a sect here. From that starting point, the prosperous Northern Plains Clan had multiplied, its blood descendants spreading throughout the Northern Plains.
Many children of the Northern Plains Clan's direct line had vanished, sometimes under plausible circumstances, sometimes not. Their final destination had been here.
These direct-line cultivators had called themselves prodigies and devoured the bloodlines of collateral branches to improve their spiritual roots. In the end, their founding ancestor had devoured them in turn. It seemed like a cycle.
"The immortal-art corruption here has weakened. It seems to have reached a level I can endure," Jiang Ding murmured.
Clang!
He drew his sword and sheathed it again.
A scorching golden sword mark appeared across the Guishan Iron Clan's mountain, dozens of kilometers wide, splitting it down the middle. Cracks then spread across the