The instant he plunged into the Demon-Burying Abyss, it felt as though he had crossed an invisible boundary. The dim yellow daylight and the sound of wind outside were cut off completely, replaced by suffocating silence and darkness so dense it seemed impossible to dissolve. This darkness was not merely an absence of light, but a mass of pure demonic aura—viscous, icy, and fiercely corrosive, filled with whispers that bewitched the mind.
A thin violet halo automatically lit up around Ye Chen. Primordial Chaos Purple Qi flowed, shutting out and purifying every strand of demonic aura that drew near. Like a faintly glowing meteor, he plummeted toward the bottom of the abyss.
His dual pupils flickered with the light of chaos, piercing layer after layer of demonic mist until he could barely make out the scene below. The abyss walls were not smooth rock, but covered in twisted, hideous reliefs depicting wars between gods and devils long since lost in the river of history, scenes of heaven and earth splitting apart, steeped in despair and madness. Now and then, he spotted enormous, stark-white skeletons of unknown creatures half embedded in the walls, emanating pressure that made his heart tremble.
After falling for roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn, his feet finally touched solid ground.
What lay beneath his feet was not hard rock, but soft, viscous black sludge, seemingly condensed from countless years of accumulated decay and demonic aura. It gave off a nauseating, bloody stench. Before him stretched a boundless world of darkness, without sun, moon, or stars—only eternal deathly silence and churning demonic aura. The uneven ground was dotted with swamps and pools of blood of every size, along with bizarre hills formed from heaps of bones.
Chaotic fragments of laws permeated the air, and the structure of space was extremely unstable. Occasionally, he could see distorted light and spatial fissures that opened and closed irregularly. An ordinary Spirit Transformation cultivator would likely struggle even to keep their own laws stable here.
"What a deathtrap." Ye Chen's expression remained unchanged, but inwardly, he grew wary. The dangers here truly far exceeded the rumors outside. It was not merely the demonic aura and vicious creatures, but the chaotic laws and space, like an enormous, ceaselessly turning millstone that ground away at an intruder's strength and will every moment.
The Nameless Fragment inside his robes had become scorching hot, and its resonance with the Black Iron Piece throbbed as fiercely as a pounding drum, pointing him in a clear direction.
Ye Chen stepped forward without hesitation. He did not fly; spatial fissures were denser overhead, and an airborne target would be too conspicuous, liable to invite unnecessary trouble. Traveling on foot was slower, but safer.
With every step, the black sludge beneath him tried to coil around his feet. The demonic aura and resentment within it were like countless tiny venomous snakes, seeking to burrow into his body. Yet the slightest circulation of Primordial Chaos Purple Qi cleansed every trace of filth. His footsteps left prints that radiated a faint purifying aura, only to be swallowed again moments later by the surrounding demonic aura.
He had traveled only a few li when the demonic aura ahead suddenly churned violently. Accompanied by the teeth-grating scrape of bones, three enormous figures slowly crawled out of a swamp and blocked his path.
They were three skeletal demonic beasts several zhang tall. Their bones were not stark white, but a dark red bordering on black, as though soaked in countless torrents of blood. Eerie green soul flames danced in their eye sockets, and they gripped enormous bone sabers fashioned from the bones of unknown beasts. Each exuded a vicious aura equivalent to the early Spirit Transformation stage.
"Roar!"
Without any exchange, the three skeletal demonic beasts unleashed soundless psychic roars. Swinging their bone sabers with shrill howls that tore through space, they lunged at Ye Chen! Wherever their blades passed, demonic aura gathered into warped black blade radiance.
Ye Chen did not stop walking. He did not even spare them another glance. Only when the bone sabers were about to strike him did he casually raise his right hand, spread his fingers, and sweep it lightly forward.
There was no grand display of power, only five violet currents as fine as strands of hair. As though alive, they slipped precisely around the bone sabers and sank into the soul flames at the brows of the three skeletal demonic beasts.
"Pfft..."
Like candle flames being blown out.
The three skeletal demonic beasts stopped dead in their charge. The eerie green soul flames in their sockets instantly dimmed and went out. Deprived of the power holding them together, their enormous skeletons clattered into heaps, becoming cold, lifeless bones once more as they sank into the black sludge.
Instant kills!
To him now, beings at the early Spirit Transformation stage were little different from ants. Primordial Chaos Purple Qi was the ancestor of all qi and contained the power of the universe's origin. It naturally suppressed these evil creatures born of demonic aura and resentment.
He continued onward like a purifier walking through a land of filth. Wherever he passed, demonic aura retreated and corruption was cleansed, only for even denser darkness to fill the void again.
Along the way, he encountered several more waves of attacks. There were demonic corpses that crawled out of blood pools, foul blood streaming over their bodies; vicious spirits condensed from pure resentment, formless and immaterial yet capable of directly attacking the soul; and stranger entities still, their twisted forms utterly beyond all reason.
Yet these demonic beasts, whose very mention would make cultivators outside tremble with terror, could not halt Ye Chen for even half a step. Some were purified by purple qi. Others had their illusions pierced by his dual pupils and were shattered with a single finger. Still others were banished into unknown spatial turbulence by spatial restrictions he casually laid down.
His steps remained steady. He did not move quickly, but carried an unstoppable resolve, as though this despair-inducing demon abyss were nothing more than a road he needed to walk.
Heaven and earth are the furnace, creation the craftsman; yin and yang are the charcoal, all things the copper. As Ye Chen walked, he observed the abyss's many uncanny sights, and understanding dawned within him. Yin and yang are inverted here, baleful energy fills the land, and all things have been demonized, like dregs repeatedly fired in a furnace. Yet when things reach their extreme, they turn to their opposite; when misfortune reaches its nadir, fortune returns. Within this ultimate deathly silence and destruction, perhaps an inconceivable thread of life is also being nurtured. Or perhaps... the truth.
He sensed that the fragment and iron piece inside his robes were not merely pointing toward an object. They seemed to be guiding him toward the hidden secret at the heart of this land.
After he had walked for an unknown length of time, the demonic aura ahead abruptly thinned somewhat, and his field of vision widened considerably. Before him lay an enormous plain heaped with countless broken weapons and gigantic skeletons. At its center stood a ruined altar built entirely from massive pitch-black stones, its style unlike any structure in the Primordial Realm.
Most of the altar had long since collapsed. Only its base and a few broken stone pillars remained, inscribed with ancient runes long lost to the world. It exuded an air of desolation, antiquity, and unparalleled evil.
At that moment, the Nameless Fragment and the Black Iron Piece inside Ye Chen's robes blazed with unprecedented heat and humming resonance!
The source of that powerful resonance pointed unmistakably into the depths of the ruined altar!
Ye Chen's gaze sharpened. Had he finally... arrived?
He drew a deep breath, stepped onto the plain paved with the remnants of war, and walked steadily toward the altar that seemed to connect to the ancient netherworld.
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