On the third day of traveling south across the Huang Yuan, the sky above was choked with heavy, solidified leaden clouds that showed no sign of dissipating, shrouding the entire world beneath a layer of dead, gray gauze.
Gu Xuan’s figure moved through the cracked, dry riverbed, each step kicking up fine dust. The surroundings were so quiet that only the sound of the wind could be heard, like a ghostly whisper.
Suddenly, his steps halted, and his brow furrowed tightly.
A searing heat abruptly shot from his chest, as if he had been branded fiercely by a red-hot iron.
Gu Xuan’s expression shifted slightly, and he quickly reached inside his robes, pulling out the cold Copper Token engraved with “Xu Zi Ying · Chen Qi.”
At this moment, the metal plate was astonishingly hot. The crimson patterns on its back, previously dim, were now flickering with faint light, alternating between on and off. It was as if an ancient heart, dormant for millennia, had been forcefully awakened by a power from a distant realm, beginning a weak yet stubborn pulse.
This was absolutely not a normal change!
The moment his fingertips touched the glowing patterns, deep within his Spirit Sea, the majestic and solitary Demon Suppression Hall trembled violently!
A hum, deeper and more oppressive than any before, boomed up from the depths of the Hall’s pitch-black foundation. The frequency of its vibration formed a bizarre and precise resonance with the pulse of the Copper Token in his palm.
Gu Xuan’s pupils instantly contracted to pinpricks.
“It’s not a coincidence…” he lowered his voice, his words carrying a cold finality. “This thing recognizes me, or rather, it recognizes *it*.”
The “it” he referred to was the Demon Suppression Hall.
Without the slightest hesitation, his figure flashed, darting like a nimble wildcat into a wind-eroded hollow on the riverbank. He pressed his body tightly against the cold rock face, concealing his presence to the extreme.
After confirming the surroundings were safe, he slowly closed his eyes. His consciousness flowed like spilled mercury, instantly sinking into the vast Spirit Sea.
Inside the Demon Suppression Hall, the scene remained the same.
The Black Water Pool, formed by the convergence of countless Spook Ghost Yin Sources, was slowly rotating at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye. A deep vortex formed at the center of the pool, seemingly ready to devour everything.
But now, several wisps of residual soul-white energy, which should have been completely annihilated, were being forcibly drawn out from the bottom of the pool by an invisible force. They twisted and stretched painfully in mid-air, eventually piecing together fragmented, flickering dynamic images.
It was a dying memory belonging to “Chen Qi.”
In the scene, a soldier clad in tattered armor knelt on his knees in the muddy battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of his comrades.
He looked up, gazing desperately at the sky. The heavens above were not blue, but split open by a massive, gaping Crimson Giant Mouth, like a bleeding scar on the world.
Countless twisted Black Shadows rained down madly from that Giant Mouth, like a torrential downpour.
The soldier let out a beast-like roar, using the last of his strength to raise his broken saber, attempting to meet the apocalyptic sight.
However, in the next instant, a thread of blood as fine as a hair appeared out of thin air, precisely wrapping around his neck. An irresistible, immense force pulled, dragging his wailing body forcefully into the writhing earth…
The memory fragment abruptly ended there. But in the soldier’s final glance before being dragged away, a vague outline flashed at the edge of the image—it was a colossal stone gate, half-buried in the yellow sand, its height immeasurable, its surface covered in terrifying, distorted Fu Wen.
And directly in the center of the stone gate, a bottomless fissure ran from top to bottom, as if, not long ago, someone or something… had opened it.
Gu Xuan abruptly opened his eyes, his chest heaving violently, his breathing becoming somewhat labored.
Cold sweat had already soaked his back.
He finally understood completely.
He understood the Lao Shao Chang’s near-pleading gaze, and why the old man would rather die than stop him from heading south.
South of the Huang Yuan, there was no so-called city of survivors; there was only a “Gate” leading to the unknown!
And the Copper Token in his hand was not some ordinary military identification token.
It was a “mark,” or perhaps, a fragment of a “Yao Jian.”
It recorded the holder’s death and guided those who followed toward the same Destiny.
A more terrifying speculation surfaced in his mind: the Demon Suppression Hall and that colossal gate likely originated from the same place.
Its actions of devouring strange entities and absorbing Yin Energy were perhaps like lighting a torch in the darkness, step by step alerting some terrifying entity slumbering behind that gate!
For any normal person, the only choice now would be to turn back and flee as far as possible.
But Gu Xuan did not.
The horror in his eyes quickly receded, replaced by an almost maniacal, cold smile.
He looked down at the Copper Token in his palm, which was still slightly warm, and a bloodthirsty curve touched his lips: “Interesting… If this token is a lock, then I will use it to open it. If this Hall is a cage, then I will use it to smash this damned prison!”
Retreat?
That word was long gone from his vocabulary.
The powerlessness and despair of being confined to a sickbed in his previous life made his desire to control his own Destiny surpass his fear of death.
As night fell, the cold wind howled. Gu Xuan found a wind-sheltered cave to rest temporarily.
He lit a torch, its dim yellow glow flickering in the small space, casting his shadow onto the rough rock wall, distorted and elongated.
He did not rest. Instead, he took out a sharp Terracotta Plate and began carving onto the rock wall.
On one side, he drew a rough map of the Spook Ghost nest distribution based on what he had seen these past few days, with each mark representing an area polluted by Yin Energy.
On the other side, he replicated the outline of that massive stone gate from the memory fragment, relying on his astonishing memory.
He stared at the two drawings, lost in thought.
After a moment, he pushed his Yin Air Perception to its limit, like an invisible, fine net, slowly sinking into the earth beneath his feet.
Soon, he found something.
About three *zhang* deep underground, there was an extremely faint yet incredibly pure Yin Vein, flowing silently like the meridian of a living creature.
Its direction pointed precisely toward the southwest.
A bold conjecture instantly formed: these Spook Ghosts scattered across the Huang Yuan were not generated randomly.
They were like fungi attached to tree roots, being nourished by this underground Yin Vein.
And the source of this network was very likely… that Gate!
The next dawn arrived, but the sky had not improved; instead, it grew even darker.
The persistent dark clouds overhead began to rotate slowly at a visible speed, gradually forming a massive, low-hanging vortex in the center of the sky, like a single eye gazing down at the earth, exuding a suffocating sense of pressure.
Gu Xuan followed the direction of the Yin Vein and stepped into a lifeless, withered forest.
Just then, the ground beneath his feet suddenly trembled slightly, like the heavy breathing of a giant beast.
He stopped immediately, his gaze sweeping the surroundings like lightning.
In the woods, wisps of black mist began to seep from the hollow eye sockets of the broken skeletons half-buried in the soil.
Their limbs began to twitch unnaturally, and their joints made crisp cracking sounds—they were struggling to rise from their Deep Sleep!
“Wrong!” Gu Xuan immediately sensed the anomaly.
This was not a natural revival caused by dense Yin Energy; this was a… “summoning”!
A more powerful, willful force was forcibly awakening all the dead creations on this land!
Without hesitation, he stomped hard on the ground, leaping up like an arrow. With a few bounds, he scaled the main trunk of a tall, withered tree, using the dense dead branches to conceal himself perfectly.
He activated the night vision ability granted by the Demon Suppression Hall and gazed into the distance.
At the edge of his vision, on the horizon, a vague, massive black shadow was slowly moving.
It was too far away to discern its exact form, only vaguely recognizing its square outline, like a colossal moving monument magnified millions of times.
Wherever the Black Shadow passed, the cracked earth split open with fine fissures, and wisps of pure Yin Energy escaped from them, all absorbed by it.
Gu Xuan lay motionless on the tree trunk, almost stopping his breath.
A drop of cold sweat slowly slid down his temple.
The Black Shadow did not approach his direction but stopped about ten *li* away, standing still for a moment, like a monarch surveying the borders of his territory.
Then, it slowly turned and moved in another direction, finally vanishing beyond the opposite end of the horizon.
Only when that heart-palpitating pressure completely disappeared did Gu Xuan’s tense muscles finally relax, and he slid silently down from the tree.
He quickly walked to a skeleton that had just been twitching but was now still and dead.
The skeleton was frozen in the posture of having been about to climb up.
Gu Xuan squatted down, his gaze falling upon the decayed belt of the skeleton.
Hanging there was a Copper Token of the exact same style as the one he possessed.
He reached out and took it, wiping away the grime.
Engraved clearly on the front of the Copper Token were four characters: “Xu Zi Ying · Shi Er.”
Gu Xuan tightly gripped this new, equally cold Copper Token, then looked at the still slightly warm “Chen Qi” token he held, his eyes becoming deeper than ever before.
“So… I’m not the only one,” he muttered to himself, his voice devoid of emotion. “Those so-called ‘Xu Zi Ying’ soldiers, those ‘Chen Qi’s’ and ‘Shi Er’s’… are they all Sacrificial Offerings?”
As soon as his voice fell, the Demon Suppression Hall in his Spirit Sea vibrated silently once more, as if affirming or perhaps urging him on.
He took a deep breath, suppressing the surging turmoil in his heart, and continued forward.
The withered forest stretched endlessly. The ground beneath his feet had become soft due to the recent disturbance, as if skeletal hands might reach out at any moment.
After walking for an unknown time, the trees ahead suddenly thinned out, and a relatively open area appeared before him.
Gu Xuan stopped at the edge of the withered forest, his gaze piercing through the sparse branches toward the area shrouded in Yin Energy—the center where the underground Yin Veins converged.
He slowly raised his hand, placing his own “Chen Qi” token and the newly acquired “Shi Er” token side-by-side in his palm.
The two cold Copper Tokens lay there quietly, appearing as nothing more than two ordinary relics of death.
However, under his Yin Air Perception…