Lin Fan reached out and grabbed.
The Chaos Qi condensed into a giant hand, which gripped the bell tightly and pulled it back.
The bell trembled violently in his palm, emitting a buzzing sound, as if it were a living thing trying to escape.
Lin Fan glanced at the bell. "Still trying to run? Dao Comprehension Stele."
He took out the gray-gold stone tablet and casually placed it on the bell.
The moment the Dao Comprehension Stele fell, the bell's vibration abruptly stopped, as if a mouse had encountered a cat.
The dark red patterns on the surface of the bell began to fade slowly, like ink being wiped away, gradually returning to its original dark gold color.
Lin Fan put away the Dao Comprehension Stele and the bell, then bent down and picked up the black-gold bone fragment.
The bone fragment felt cool to the touch, but had an extra, very faint warmth, as if it had been activated by something.
He looked down for a moment.
His Double Pupils lit up slightly, and the purplish-gold light pierced through the cracks on the surface of the bone fragment, revealing some extremely blurry patterns that were somewhat similar to the Ye Clan runes he had seen near the stone gate, but not quite the same.
"Interesting, this thing isn't from the Three Thousand Provinces."
The bone fragment does not contain intact bone.
Beneath the fine cracks, there was a very faint dark red pattern, like some kind of mark that had been repeatedly pressed and then dried again.
The pattern of the lines was very ancient, carrying a rhythm he had never seen before.
It was neither a law of the Three Thousand Provinces, nor entirely the kind of violence he had seen in the Dark Matter; it was more like a hybrid.
"Interesting."
"Therefore, this bone fragment is his true trump card."
Lin Fan put the bell into his storage ring, stood up, and patted the dust off his robes.
He muttered something to himself, then glanced again at the slowly cooling golden remains on the ground.
Jin Zhen is indeed dead.
But the aura emanating from his bone fragments before his death gave Lin Fan a vague idea...
The power within that bone fragment might have some connection to the ruins themselves that he was unaware of.
The bone fragment in his hand seemed to be pointing in a direction.
It's not a random direction, it's a fixed location... deep within the ruins.
Lin Fan put the bone fragments into his storage ring and stood up.
He took a step in the direction indicated by the bone fragment.
A system notification sounded at the opportune moment: [Ding! The host has slain Jin Zhen (main body), the Qilin son of the Jin Clan Emperor Pass, and the Great Emperor's Dharma Body, gaining 500,000 Villain Points.]
[Ding! Host has acquired a Immortal Artifact- grade loot item [ Soul-Splitting Bell (Fragment)] x1, and gained 200,000 Villain Points.]
[Ding! Host has acquired 1 unknown bone fragment and gained 100,000 Villain Points.]
Lin Fan glanced at the panel.
This wave brought in 800,000 Villain Points.
He nodded in satisfaction, then looked up at the end of the dark red sky in the distance.
He took a step, and his figure disappeared at the edge of the depression.
Behind him, the dark golden sky was slowly dissipating, and the broken pillars around the depression had piled up into a small ruin.
Meanwhile, deep within the ruins, in another corner...
This is a partially collapsed hall.
The temple gate was shattered into several pieces, and half of a stone plaque with ancient runes remained on the door frame. Most of the characters had been weathered away, and only the outlines of a few characters could be barely made out.
Tian Ming and Jing Wuxin stood side by side in the hall, facing a broken stone pillar.
A fragmented mural is carved on the pillar.
The content of the mural is now blurred, but some remnants can still be seen, resembling a group of people surrounding something, their actions conveying a sense of worship.
Yue Linglong stood on the other side, her fingertips resting on an edge of the mural, sensing the residual fluctuations of the laws within it.
"The things the Ye Clan sealed away back then... weren't just inheritances."
Yue Linglong withdrew her hand and whispered, "The level of this law fluctuation is higher than any Emperor Weapon I've ever seen."
Tian Ming didn't answer, but his gaze said it all.
Just then, a very deep tremor came from outside the hall, and the entire hall shook slightly.
The three of them turned their heads at the same time, looking towards the direction outside the hall.
There, a crack is appearing in the dark red sky.
Thick, black substance oozed from the edges of the crack; it was viscous, ancient, and carried a chilling aura that instinctively repelled people, like pus slowly seeping from a wound.
Dark Matter.
But that wasn't ordinary Dark Matter.
The crack was widening, and more and more black substance was gushing out, forming a slowly spreading black pool on the ground outside the hall, as if some living thing was awakening from the ground.
What is that?
Yue Linglong's voice was slightly deep.
As soon as she finished speaking, a dark storm of laws surged outward from the center of the black pool, and a distorted outline was rapidly taking shape within the storm, like a giant beast emerging from the deep water.
It is not a beast.
It's humanoid.
The outline was blurry, but its general shape could be discerned. It resembled a human body that had been soaked in Dark Matter for too long, slowly reconstructing itself, with a stiff and incongruous feeling that was not yet fully formed.
Then, a voice came from the depths of the Dark Matter, deep, hoarse, and with an ancient quality that did not belong to the present era.
"Is this... the territory of the Three Thousand Provinces?"
In that dark pool, the outline that was taking shape finally stopped its reconstruction, as if it had finally completed a long, almost forgotten awakening.
"That thing that the Ye Clan risked everything to protect back then..."
Ultimately, they were unable to bring these ruins out of the site.
The voice carried an almost nostalgic sigh, as if recounting a story buried for countless years. "Well, that'll save us the trouble of digging it up ourselves."
A hand emerged from the dark pool, fingers spread, then clenched into a fist.
Dark Matter, like a raging tide, gushed forth from the cracks.
It wasn't a single strand, nor a single patch.
The Dark Matter gushing from the cracks grew more and more abundant and thicker, like a black waterfall about to collapse, rapidly spreading outside the palace.
Within that surging black tide, humanoid silhouettes were coalescing, beast-like silhouettes were taking shape, and formless entities composed purely of Dark Matter were writhing.
Yue Linglong's pupils suddenly contracted.
She raised her hand, and a moon-white law-based light barrier lit up in front of her, temporarily blocking the Dark Matter surging towards the palace gate.
But her expression had changed. "This is... the calamity that swept through the Immortal Ancient Era?"
Tian Ming did not answer, but his sword was already drawn.
On the tip of that silver-gray sword, a very faint pattern of laws was pulsating, like a lamp being blown by the wind.
"Let's find it, that thing left behind by the Ye Clan back then... Our clan is determined to get it."
Outside the palace, a soft, amused whisper drifted from the dark pool.
The Black Tide swept over the scorched earth outside the palace, like the rising tide, spreading deeper and deeper into the ruins.
At the same moment, deep within the ruins.
Ye Tian was standing in front of a completely black palace.
The ground beneath his feet was trembling slightly, and an extremely ancient rhythm, like a heartbeat, was emanating from the depths of the earth, subtly resonating with his bloodline.
He tilted his head slightly, as if sensing something was amiss.
He asked in a low voice, "Ancestor?"
The aged voice in his mind was silent for two breaths, then sounded again, three times faster than before, with an extremely obvious sense of urgency.
"Quick."
"They're here."
It's too late.