Those nine bell chimes that pierced the heavens and earth seemed like an invisible Yao Jian, opening the most ancient Forbidden Technique deep within Gu Xuan's Spirit Sea.
In the main hall of the Demon Suppression Hall within his Spirit Sea, the bronze ancient bell hanging from the dome, silent for ten thousand years, unexpectedly rang out with a deep and long resonance—"Clang!"
The bell sound was not deafening, but like a drop of water falling onto a calm lake, instantly stirring up countless ripples that cleansed every inch of his Soul.
Immediately following, the vast white jade plaza floor in front of the Demon Suppression Hall began to tremble violently.
Illusory cracks appeared out of thin air, revealing a dim and profound light from within them.
The light intertwined and outlined the silhouette of an ancient and majestic three-story pavilion, which slowly emerged from the illusion, as if projected from another dimension.
On the pavilion's plaque, the three ancient seal characters for "Alchemy Workshop" shone brilliantly.
Simultaneously, a line of cold, Blood-Colored Runes branded itself into Gu Xuan's consciousness: "Alchemy Workshop initially manifests; three portions of Essence Fluid are required for complete activation."
The astonishment in Gu Xuan's eyes flashed and vanished, replaced by a look of understanding.
He slowly raised his hand, gazing at the cool Bone Card in his palm—the only token left by Ye Xi.
He murmured softly, his voice swallowed by the silence of the Bone Forest, "Ye Xi led me here not just for me to hear a so-called truth... but to make this Demon Suppression Hall hear the name Silent Moon Valley."
Those nine bell chimes were the Yao Jian, the Coordinates, and the ancient signal to activate some of the dormant authority of this hall.
He put away the fragmented stone book detailing the Pseudo-God's secrets and did not linger any longer.
Turning, stepping forward, each pace was firm and steady.
The Aberration of the Demon Suppression Hall had already pointed him toward the next direction: Bei Jing, the Altar ruins, the most likely place to obtain Essence Fluid.
Three days later, Gu Xuan's figure appeared before a valley shrouded in miasma.
He consulted the 《Hundred Forbidden Diagram》 obtained from Ye Xi; the map clearly marked this location—Split-Claw Valley.
The valley walls were covered in claw marks of varying depths, as if repeatedly slashed by countless sharp blades. The ground was littered with the skeletons of various beasts, and a faint smell of blood and decay permeated the air.
He did not rush in rashly. Instead, he took out a tiny fragment of a Mayfly Remnant Core from his robes, placed it in his palm, and held it toward the wind.
The Remnant Core trembled slightly in the wind, releasing an extremely faint yet highly penetrating aura of its own kind—a fatal temptation to other Yin-natured evil entities.
In less than ten breaths, the ground beneath his feet suddenly bulged, and a monstrous beast the size of a leopard, resembling a giant wildcat, burst from the earth!
It was covered in tough, dark-green fur. Its front paws were particularly thick, and its sharp claws glinted with a metallic cold light in the dim illumination. This was the Split-Claw Lynx, a fierce creature renowned for its speed and cutting ability.
The Split-Claw Lynx let out a sharp screech, transforming into an afterimage. Its claws whipped up two visible cyan wind blades, lunging straight for Gu Xuan's face!
Gu Xuan advanced instead of retreating, pushing his Listen to the Wind and Discern Position ability in his Spirit Sea to the extreme.
The flow of the wind, the sound of tearing air, and every minute fluctuation of the Split-Claw Lynx's muscles constructed a clear dynamic trajectory map in his mind.
Just as the wind blades were about to hit him, he stomped sharply on the ground with his toe, twisting his body strangely to the side, narrowly dodging the pounce. Simultaneously, he used the momentum to leap, clinging like a gecko to a dead corner of the rock wall covered in sharp marks.
The Split-Claw Lynx missed its strike and was about to turn to pursue, but it saw Gu Xuan already looking down from above, flicking his wrist.
A pitch-black Character Nail, accompanied by a piercing whistling sound as it cut through the air, struck with perfect precision into a highly concealed nerve cluster behind the beast's ear!
The Character Nail was coated with Ultimate Yin Qi drawn from the Black Water Pool, which had a natural restraining and paralyzing effect on such fierce creatures.
"Hiss!" The Split-Claw Lynx froze instantly, convulsing violently, its speed advantage completely nullified.
The next moment, a Devouring Vortex from the Demon Suppression Hall appeared beneath its feet, and its massive body was instantly sucked in without any chance to resist.
"Can Refine: Split-Claw Lynx （Swiftness Strain ）. Activate?"
"Yes!" Gu Xuan did not hesitate.
A pure and swift power instantly fed back into his limbs and bones. His muscle fibers and nerve reaction speed achieved a qualitative leap at that moment.
His figure flickered, leaving a faint afterimage where he stood; his speed increased by thirty percent!
The next evening, as Gu Xuan traversed Split-Claw Valley and stepped into a vast expanse of sand dunes, the quicksand beneath his feet suddenly began to surge strangely.
A sense of danger arose in his heart, and just as he was about to pull back, a giant scorpion-shaped monster covered in carapace, with its tail held high, burst from the sand! Its tail stinger, gleaming with a faint blue light, was like a poisoned dagger, stabbing directly toward his back!
Ringing-Sand Scorpion!
Its stinger contained venom potent enough to instantly paralyze an elephant. More troublesome was that the poisonous mist it spewed could corrode protective layers formed by Spiritual Energy and Yin Energy.
Gu Xuan rolled clumsily to avoid the stinger, only to find that the Yin Energy membrane of the Demon Suppression Hall surrounding him hissed and rapidly thinned upon contact with the pale yellow mist.
At the critical moment, a new trait he gained from refining the Pseudo-God Heart flashed in his mind—【Poison Resistance Enhancement】!
He stopped trying to create distance. Instead, enduring the stinging pain from the poisonous mist, he suddenly closed in on the Ringing-Sand Scorpion.
In the creature's moment of confusion, he pressed a Mayfly Remnant Core, already sealed with Yin Energy, like a bomb, firmly into a seam on the scorpion's back carapace, and then detonated it!
"Boom!" A muffled explosion sounded. Highly concentrated Yin Energy and the aura of the Black Water Pool erupted instantly, aggressively invading the Ringing-Sand Scorpion's body through the carapace seams, corroding its fragile joints and internal organs.
The scorpion let out a mournful shriek, its massive body collapsing to the ground, completely devoured by the Demon Suppression Hall's vortex that followed immediately.
Refinement complete. Not only did Gu Xuan feel his body's resistance to various toxins increase significantly again, but a faint, almost imperceptible perception also appeared in his Spirit Sea—it was the residual unique perception of how the Ringing-Sand Scorpion sensed the flow of sand while burrowing beneath it.
As night fell, Gu Xuan set up camp in a sparse forest of Poplar trees.
The bonfire flickered, stretching his shadow long and short.
Suddenly, a shadow, almost merged with the darkness, flashed fleetingly through the woods.
Gu Xuan did not even lift his eyelids, but his spiritual power had already spread out.
Shadow Mane Wolf, a pack-hunting fierce beast skilled in stealth and illusory attacks, moving without a sound.
He deliberately exposed a seemingly unguarded weak spot on his back.
As expected, a few breaths later, three identical wolf-shaped illusions lunged simultaneously from the left, right, and rear, carrying three distinctly different gusts of wind—impossible to distinguish the real from the fake!
Just as the illusions were about to reach him, Gu Xuan suddenly activated 【Crisis Warning】!
The alarm bells in his Spirit Sea rang wildly. A fatal chill came not from the front or sides, but from a treetop twenty meters away to his rear-left!
The real body is there!
Gu Xuan neither dodged nor blocked, allowing the three illusions to pass through him.
He spun around abruptly, flicking his wrist. Three beast bone darts, tempered with the potent venom of the Ringing-Sand Scorpion, whistled out in a triangular formation, like three black lightning bolts, heading straight for that seemingly empty treetop!
"Thud!" A muffled sound, accompanied by a suppressed howl, a gray figure fell from the treetop. A bone dart was lodged precisely in its throat—it was the true body of the Shadow Mane Wolf.
The Demon Suppression Hall's vortex reappeared and swallowed it.
However, the moment refinement was complete, a whisper seemingly from the Nine Hells sounded in his ear without warning: "The Eye of the Spring Bottom... is about to awaken."
Gu Xuan frowned sharply and stood up abruptly, looking around. Apart from the sound of the wind, there was nothing else.
But his gaze was sharp as an eagle's. When he swept across a distant cliff face, he clearly spotted an armored mercenary rapidly retracting his figure behind a rock.
The insignia on that person's shoulder armor—a Barbarian Bull with a broken horn. He recognized it; it belonged to the Broken-Horn Barbarian Bull merchant team!
They had actually followed him here!
On the seventh day, Gu Xuan finally arrived at Gurgling Valley.
The valley was aptly named; the sound of trickling spring water sounded like a woman sobbing softly, and the air was filled with a strange, sweet and fishy scent mixed with floral fragrance.
On a broken stone tablet at the valley entrance, half a sentence was carved in ancient script: "...The Lock Dragon Pillar is broken, ten thousand souls wail."
Gu Xuan's vigilance intensified, and he walked step by step into the valley.
Suddenly, the entire valley began to shake violently, as if the earth dragon was turning over.
The pool ahead exploded, and a colossal beast, the size of a mountain with jagged bone spurs growing on its back, shot into the sky!
It resembled a giant wild boar, its eyes blood-red. As soon as it appeared, it opened its massive maw and let out a heaven-shaking roar!
This roar was not merely a sound wave, but a bizarre attack that struck directly at the Soul!
Gu Xuan's mind buzzed, and the scenery before his eyes instantly distorted. The image of his mother collapsing in a pool of blood before her death appeared with terrifying clarity. That sense of despair and powerlessness, penetrating to the Bone Marrow, almost tore his spirit apart and devoured him!
"Pfft!" He fiercely bit his tongue. The intense pain restored a sliver of clarity to his mind.
He rapidly retreated, but the giant beast—the Zhi Ge—was already charging forward like an out-of-control war chariot.
A sharp bone spur grazed his left arm, accompanied by a crisp "crack." The pain of the broken bone made his vision go black.
At the razor's edge between life and death, clues from a mural he had seen in some ruins suddenly flashed through his mind!
Enduring the intense pain and dizziness, he chose not to flee toward the valley exit, but staggered into an inconspicuous cave on the side.
The cave was a world unto itself, its rock walls covered in mottled, ancient murals.
In the painting, nine colossal pillars reaching the heavens suppressed the endless Shen Yuan, and countless chains bound a black dragon whose face could not be discerned.
In one corner of the mural, three ancient characters were inscribed—"Subduing Abyss Chronicle."
This is it!
A fierce look flashed in Gu Xuan's eyes. He extended his bleeding left arm and smeared his warm blood onto a formation eye pattern at the core of the mural!
Instantly, the entire cave, and even the ground of Gurgling Valley outside, lit up with complex and profound golden patterns. A massive Suppression Formation instantly took shape!
Within three breaths, all Spiritual Energy and malevolent energy within a hundred-zhang radius were forcibly suppressed and sealed!
The Zhi Ge rampaging in the valley let out a roar mixed with shock and anger. Its massive body seemed to be stuck in an invisible swamp, its movements instantly becoming sluggish.
Now is the time!
Gu Xuan seized this rare opportunity. Ignoring the stabbing pain in his Soul, he fully activated the Demon Suppression Hall in his Spirit Sea, locking onto the Zhi Ge's true body!
Blood-Colored Runes flashed again: "Can Refine: Zhi Ge （Frenzied Sound Strain ）. Activate?"
"Yes!"
Agony, pain unlike anything before, as if his Soul was being violently stripped from his flesh!
But his eyes were blood-red, and he held on fiercely, refusing to let go.
After an unknown amount of time, only when the bell signaling refinement completion rang in his Spirit Sea did he finally relax, drenched in cold sweat.
In the Spirit Sea, the illusion of the "Alchemy Workshop" stabilized by one-third due to the infusion of the Zhi Ge's essence spirit.
At the same time, a new notification appeared: "Essence Fluid collected ×1. Remaining needed ×2."
Meanwhile, in the shadows outside the cave, the mercenary from the Broken-Horn Barbarian Bull quietly put away a jade slip in his hand, which was faintly glowing and had completely recorded the thrilling battle just concluded. He retreated silently like a ghost, vanishing into the depths of the dense forest.
Gurgling Valley returned to silence, leaving only the weeping of the spring water.
Inside the cave, Gu Xuan leaned against the cold rock wall, breathing heavily.
The sharp pain of the broken bone in his left arm, the tearing sensation from his overtaxed Soul, the violent power surging into his body after refining the Zhi Ge, the bizarre whisper of "Eye of the Spring Bottom," and the chill of the mercenary's surveillance—all intertwined into a chaotic storm in his mind.
He knew that a much larger crisis had quietly begun in the shadows.