The moonlight was like frost, and Gu Xuan's figure left a fleeting shadow streaking across the wilderness.
Traveling a hundred miles overnight, the injuries within his body clung like maggots to the bone; every time he urged his true energy, it was accompanied by a needle-prick sharp pain.
The Black Water Pool in his Spirit Sea churned restlessly. The Covenant power that backlashed when the Zixian General Soul Core disintegrated was like an invisible venomous snake, tightly entwined around his Dao foundation, making the dim Copper Token on his chest grow even colder.
He had to find a place where Yin Source converged as soon as possible, otherwise, with his foundation damaged, the future troubles would be endless.
When the horizon showed the first hint of dawn, a strange black town finally appeared on the skyline.
This was the "Gray Kiln Market."
This place had no towering city gates, only a low surrounding wall built from scorched black earth mixed with broken bones, resembling the dregs spat out after a giant beast had fed.
Inside the walls, dozens of massive furnaces burned day and night, spewing out thick smoke mixed with sulfur and coke, dyeing the sky a chaotic lead-gray.
A nauseating stench permeated the air—a mixture of sulfurous fire, rust, and uncleansed rotting flesh that drilled into the nostrils, seeming capable of directly corroding one's internal organs.
Gu Xuan suppressed his aura and walked into the town like a drop of water merging into sewage.
The pedestrians on the street had numb expressions, their eyes holding a vacancy left by being completely drained by life.
They were either mine slaves or desperate fugitives; everyone carried an inescapable scent of blood and despair.
His gaze quickly swept over a street corner where a tattered banner fluttered in the foul wind, bearing two large characters written in blood-red cinnabar: Blood Fang Pawn Shop.
This was the black market, and his first stop.
He needed money, and more importantly, he needed money to exchange for Yin-attribute spiritual materials that could stabilize his injuries.
He touched the three Mayfly Remnant Cores tightly wrapped in oilcloth in his embrace. These were stripped from the Other Species he had slain beneath the Trap City Ruins; their energy was pure, making them hard currency.
The pawnshop was dimly lit, with a beast-oil lamp flickering with a tiny spark of light.
A gaunt old man sat cross-legged behind a rusty iron counter. His eyes were turbid, as if covered by a layer of deathly stillness, yet Gu Xuan caught a fleeting glint of sharpness deep within that murkiness.
This person was the manager of the Blood Fang Pawn Shop, known as "Old Scale-Counter."
Gu Xuan spoke no pleasantries, gently placing a Mayfly Remnant Core, wrapped in black energy, onto the iron counter.
He did not explain its origin or purpose; that was the rule of the black market.
He only rasped out two words: "Appraise it."
Old Scale-Counter didn't even lift his eyelids. He extended a finger as long and thin as a bone needle and lightly flicked the Remnant Core.
The moment his fingertip touched the core, his withered hand trembled violently, as if seared by an invisible flame.
He suddenly looked up, his turbid eyes staring fixedly at Gu Xuan, his gaze sharp as a knife, seeming intent on dissecting his very Soul!
"This thing..." Old Scale-Counter's voice was dry, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together, "Did it come from the 'North Altar'?"
Without waiting for Gu Xuan's reply, he suddenly leaned closer, sniffing hard above the Remnant Core. His pupils instantly contracted into dangerous pinpricks!
"No..." He suddenly leaned back, showing a look of terror on his face for the first time. "You carry the aura of the 'Gate'!"
Before the words faded, with a soft *poof*, the lights in the entire pawnshop seemed to be extinguished by an invisible hand, plunging the place into instant, dead silence.
In the darkness, only the sound of a gurgling, strange noise came from Old Scale-Counter's throat, as if his windpipe was being choked by something.
When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and distorted, filled with indescribable fear: "What you shouldn't have seen... Leave quickly! Don't sell it!"
After speaking, he tightly shut his eyes. No matter how Gu Xuan probed, he remained like a stone statue, speaking no more, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.
Gu Xuan's heart sank.
He knew his greatest secret had been exposed.
Without showing any reaction, he retrieved the Remnant Core and turned, melting back into the darkness outside the door.
Old Scale-Counter wasn't afraid of him, but afraid that the Remnant Core on him, and that so-called "Gate" aura, would bring utter disaster upon the entire Gray Kiln Market.
Trouble had arrived sooner than expected.
Three-quarters of an hour later, just as Gu Xuan settled into an inn that boasted "absolute safety" and prepared to meditate to investigate the flow of Yin Source in the area, the door to his room was violently kicked open!
"Night Patrol Guards on official business! You inside, you are suspected of carrying contraband and disturbing the Yin Order, come with us immediately!"
A cold voice rang out as seven or eight guards clad in black iron armor filed in, their Lock Soul Chains flashing with faint blue Fu Wen light.
Gu Xuan's eyes narrowed. He did not resist, because he sensed something bizarre.
Although the movements of these guards were swift, they were unnaturally stiff, like puppets on strings. Occasionally, a faint copper light would flicker and vanish between the gaps in their helmets.
They were being controlled.
Gu Xuan allowed the icy Lock Soul Chains to wrap around him and was roughly escorted out.
He needed an opportunity to infiltrate the true core of the Gray Kiln Market and see who was manipulating everything from behind the scenes.
The dungeon was dark and damp, the air filled with a mixed odor of mold and blood.
Most of the inmates here were frail refugees and mine slaves who had committed offenses. Their eyes were dull, their faces ashen, as if their Souls had long been drawn from their bodies.
Gu Xuan was thrown into a cell. He leaned against the damp, cold wall and slowly closed his eyes.
Ignoring the shackles, he activated the Demon Suppression Hall in his Spirit Sea, engaging the most concealed "Hidden Absorption" mode.
Instantly, his perception extended infinitely, piercing through the thick rock layers.
Indeed!
He detected an extremely faint but highly regular pulsation emanating from directly beneath the dungeon floor.
That pulsation was like the breath of a sleeping giant beast. Every half an hour, an extremely faint Soul fluctuation would seep out from directly below, precisely sweeping past every cell.
The reason those prisoners looked so vacant was that wisps of smoke, invisible to ordinary people, were slowly being drawn up from above their heads.
The target was clear: to devour the essence of living people!
At Zishi, the deepest hour of the night.
In the adjacent cell, two already weak prisoners suddenly let out a short gasp, and then their bodies withered at a visible rate. In just a few breaths, they became two desiccated corpses reduced to skin and bone.
"Creeeeak—"
In the darkness deep within the dungeon, a hidden door was quietly opened.
Two guards, moving stiffly, emerged and dragged the two corpses through the hidden door like dead dogs.
Now was the time!
During the shift change of the guards and before the hidden door fully closed, Gu Xuan's eyes snapped open!
He urged the remaining Yin Energy from the Black Water Pool in his Spirit Sea, attaching it to the Fu Wen nodes on the Lock Soul Chains.
With a faint *sizzling* sound, those glowing Fu Wen instantly dimmed, as if corroded by strong acid.
The shackles broke apart!
His figure moved like a wisp of smoke, silently slipping out of the cage, following the source of the soul-sucking pulsation, and vanishing into the deep underground secret passage.
The secret passage extended downward, and the smell of blood mixed with a strange scent of spices grew stronger.
The end opened into a spacious stone chamber where, standing prominently in the center, was a three-legged bronze cauldron!
A massive, semi-transparent serpent shadow was coiled around the body of the cauldron.
The serpent's scales were an ancient bronze color, it had a single horn on its head, and its pair of icy bronze eyes held not a trace of emotion.
At this moment, it was slowly opening its illusory maw, inhaling the Soul Threads descending from nine holes in the chamber's dome!
And those nine holes were positioned directly above nine selected living people in the dungeon above!
Before the cauldron knelt a burly man, his face covered by a ferocious ghost-like iron mask. This was the master of the Gray Kiln Market, Meng Tu!
He muttered incantations, reciting obscure curses.
Every time the bronze-scaled serpent shadow swallowed a thread of Soul Thread, a vague yet real illusory vision would flash behind Meng Tu's iron mask: towering flames, rolling severed heads, and apocalyptic scenes of black clouds pressing down on the city...
Gu Xuan instantly understood!
This man was actually raising this kind of Beguiling Serpent that fed on Souls, using the vital essence and Souls of innocent civilians as Sacrificial Offerings to exchange for those ethereal "Crisis Warnings," thereby avoiding risks and controlling the life and death of the entire town!
Those controlled Night Patrol Guards were likely also the Beguiling Serpent's handiwork.
At this moment, the bronze-scaled Beguiling Serpent seemed to sense the presence of an outsider. Its action of swallowing Soul Threads suddenly paused, and its massive head shot up, its icy bronze eyes piercing the darkness, staring fixedly at the shadow where Gu Xuan was hiding!
"Hmph, another one here to die," Meng Tu slowly stood up and let out a cold laugh.
It seemed he had long anticipated someone breaking in.
He waved his hand fiercely, and from the shadows on both sides of the stone chamber, three massive "Prison Hounds" roared and lunged out!
These were not dogs at all, but death row inmates completely transformed by Beguiling Poison!
They were on all fours, their bones twisted, dripping neurotoxic venom from their mouths, and their eyes flashed with the same copper light seen in the Night Patrol Guards!
Gu Xuan advanced instead of retreating!
The moment he was discovered, he had already made his decision!
With a thought, he secretly sealed a complete Mayfly Remnant Core into a prepared Yin Gui body and hurled it towards the entrance of the secret chamber!
"Explode!"
Boom—!
A dull, massive explosion erupted as the Mayfly Remnant Core detonated!
Pure and violent dark energy instantly burst forth, forming a dense black mist laced with an aura originating from the same source as the Other Species in the Trap City Ruins.
The movements of the three Prison Hounds instantly stalled; they instinctively reacted to the arrival of this "kin" aura with confusion and vigilance.
This was the chance!
Gu Xuan moved like lightning, ignoring Meng Tu and the confused Prison Hounds, his target fixed directly on the Beguiling Serpent body in the center of the stone chamber!
He fiercely activated the Demon Suppression Hall in his Spirit Sea, and an invisible, overwhelmingly dominant suction locked onto the semi-transparent serpent shadow!
"Suppress!"
The bronze-scaled Beguiling Serpent let out a silent shriek, its massive phantom twisting violently as it tried to break free.
But how terrifying was the might of the Demon Suppression Hall? It specialized in restraining all evil spirits and Soul Bodies!
Almost instantly, a blood-red Fu Wen flashed in Gu Xuan's Spirit Sea: "Detectable target for Refinement: Bronze-Scaled Beguiling Serpent （ Parasitic Species ）, foundation damaged, can forcibly absorb origin for repair. Initiate Refinement?"
"Yes!" Gu Xuan made his choice without hesitation!
A pain that seemed to tear his Soul instantly swept through his mind!
It felt as if a cold venomous snake was forcibly drilling into the depths of his Soul.
But he gritted his teeth fiercely, his eyes bloodshot, and managed to complete the crucial act of devouring and Refinement before the serpent shadow completely disintegrated!
"Ah—!"
On the other side, Meng Tu suddenly lost his mental connection with the Beguiling Serpent, and the illusory visions before his eyes instantly vanished like bubbles.
The sudden disappearance of his precognitive ability left him like a drowning man who had lost his last straw. He immediately descended into madness, clutching his head and screaming in agony: "My eyes! I saw it! I saw it! Fire... you all must die—"
Before his words finished, an icy hand clamped down on his iron mask like a steel vise and violently ripped it upward!
"Tear!"
The mask was brutally torn off, revealing not a normal face, but a cheek already rotten and putrid, crawling with maggots, and two empty, blackened eye sockets!
Gu Xuan's cold voice sounded beside his ear, like a chilling wind from the Nine Hells: "What you saw was merely a false dream it fed you, making you willingly offer sacrifices."
Then, he flicked his fingertip, and a Fire Ritual Scroll he carried landed precisely into an oil trough in the corner of the stone chamber.
Flames shot up to the sky, instantly igniting the entire secret chamber.
Thick smoke billowed, and the sulfur and oil in the storeroom exploded in succession, the firelight illuminating the entire night sky!
Amidst the towering inferno, Gu Xuan calmly picked up a token engraved with the characters "Gray Kiln" from Meng Tu's corpse, and also swept up several boxes of stored precious medicinal herbs and weapons.
Finally, he looked back one last time at this place of sin turned into a sea of fire.
At that moment, his gaze pierced through the rolling thick smoke and fixed on a certain corner far away in the black market.
There, a woman with a graceful figure, her face covered by a black veil, stood quietly beneath a Green Lantern, seemingly waiting for a long time.
She was casually tossing a Bone Card engraved with ancient Witchcraft Patterns in her hand.
Sensing Gu Xuan's gaze, she suddenly raised her head. Her eyes, hidden behind the black veil, seemed capable of piercing a hundred feet of distance and the raging flames to meet his gaze.
The next instant, the Bone Card in her hand was gently tossed out, tracing a precise arc, and landing steadily at Gu Xuan's feet.
She turned, her figure silently vanishing into the depths of the endless alleys, leaving only a whisper like the wind clearly entering Gu Xuan's ears:
"Southern Wilderness... holds the answers you seek."
Gu Xuan bent down and picked up the Bone Card, which was still slightly warm. It felt cold in his hand, and the complex Witchcraft Patterns seemed to contain some unknown power.
He gripped the Bone Card and murmured to himself, "I do not believe in fate, but I accept this path."
Meanwhile, far to the south, deep within the continuous mountain ranges of the Southern Territory, in an ancient Witch Temple that had been in Deep Sleep for a thousand years, a string of bronze wind chimes hanging under the eaves suddenly rang out with a crisp and urgent sound in the windless, quiet night.