Translator: CinderTL
Half a month later, Song Wen returned to Cloudstream Valley.
During this time, he had visited over twenty cities and markets, purchasing vast quantities of demon beast souls, which rapidly depleted his spirit stone reserves.
Originally possessing nearly 190,000 high-grade spirit stones, he now had less than 50,000 remaining.
Additionally, he had sold off batches of unused treasures, regardless of their quality, earning another 70,000 to 80,000 high-grade spirit stones, all of which he had spent.
Entering the canyon, he ignored Guan Lin's attempts to curry favor and went straight to his pavilion.
After releasing the Nether Fox and several Gu insects, Song Wen began his seclusion.
Time flew by like an arrow, and twenty years passed in the blink of an eye.
During these two decades, Song Wen's cultivation realm remained stagnant, but his divine sense realm reached the late-stage Void Refinement.
While this advancement in divine sense was cause for celebration, something even more gratifying awaited him.
Through Song Wen's relentless and costly feeding, the shadow void had devoured countless Soul Source Essences. These essences proved remarkably easy for the shadow void to absorb, requiring minimal refinement to enhance its cultivation. As a result, the shadow void finally broke through its bottleneck, successfully advancing to the mid-stage seventh-tier.
In addition to enhancing his divine sense, Song Wen also took the time to refine the Blood Essence Pill.
Whether due to his previous experience refining similar medicinal pills or simply good fortune, Song Wen successfully developed the desired pill, which he named the Blood Luo Pill.
The Blood Luo Pill consumed blood essence at an alarming rate, nearly draining all of Song Wen's reserves. However, this extreme consumption also resulted in a significant boost to his spiritual power.
Song Wen estimated that with a sufficient supply of Blood Luo Pills, he could cultivate to the peak of the mid-stage Void Refinement realm within a century.
However, he had no intention of doing so. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so eager to advance the shadow void's cultivation realm.
Song Wen stepped out of the pavilion and stood on its roof, gazing westward across the canyon.
There, Guan Lin was tending to the Bodhi Spirit Cores in the Spirit Field.
The Bodhi Spirit Cores were thriving, radiating a dense aura of Spiritual Qi.
The Nether Fox trailed beside Guan Lin, chattering incessantly.
Guan Lin, however, seemed increasingly annoyed by the constant chatter.
Having spent considerable time with the Nether Fox, she had come to realize it posed no threat to her, and her initial fear had gradually dissipated.
But this newfound familiarity had robbed the Nether Fox of much of its amusement.
"Nether Fox, come here."
The moment Song Wen spoke, the Nether Fox's towering figure materialized before him.
"Master, you've finally emerged from seclusion," the Nether Fox said, a hint of grievance in its eyes. "I haven't tasted blood food in over a year. I'm dizzy, my vision is blurred, and I have no strength left."
Having remained secluded for twenty years, Song Wen had exhausted the demon beast corpses he had stored for the Nether Fox.
"This time, I'll let you feast to your heart's content," Song Wen promised.
"We're going out again? Where to?" the Nether Fox asked.
A cold glint flashed in Song Wen's eyes. "The Primordial Qi Death Zone!"
The Nether Fox's eyes blazed with excitement. In a blur of motion, it vanished into the Spirit Beast Pouch at Song Wen's waist.
Just then, Guan Lin finally arrived before Song Wen.
"Greetings, Master," Guan Lin said, offering a graceful bow.
"You've tended the Spirit Field well these past years," Song Wen acknowledged. "Here are some spirit stones for your daily cultivation and nurturing spirit grass."
With that, he tossed her a storage pouch, recalled his Gu, and soared into the sky, leaving Cloudstream Valley behind.
The wind swept across the desolate land, stirring up layers of yellow sand.
The earth was crisscrossed with deep fissures, and a few gnarled, withered trees stood scattered across the barren landscape.
A four-legged grass snake burrowed into the decaying roots of a dead tree and disappeared.
To the north, the sky was painted with a poignant, crimson-orange hue by the setting sun.
To the south, the sky was as dark as ink, as if marking the end of the world.
Song Wen hovered high above, gazing eastward across the boundless desert.
According to intelligence he had extracted from Blood Scar, an oasis untouched by the encroaching sands lay approximately ten thousand miles to the east.
Deep beneath this oasis, hidden within the earth, was a branch of the Divine Blood Gate known as the Six Fiends Hall.
The Six Fiends Hall served as the Divine Blood Gate's monitoring outpost for the Primordial Qi Death Zone. It was guarded by two Body Integration Stage cultivators, with over a dozen Void Refinement Stage cultivators at their disposal.
The location of the Six Fiends Hall's headquarters was not fixed; it relocated every few years or decades, always remaining near the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
Therefore, Song Wen couldn't be certain if the underground base beneath the oasis had already been abandoned.
Unwilling to risk a personal investigation, he released a Shadow King Gu, which burrowed into the desert sands and headed toward the oasis to scout ahead.
Meanwhile, Song Wen descended into a ravine, clutching an Earth Evasion Talisman. If anything happened to the Shadow King Gu, he would immediately activate the talisman, burrow into the ground, and flee toward the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
Time flowed slowly as Song Wen waited. After an hour, the Shadow King Gu returned safely.
Through the mental connection granted by their contract, Song Wen sensed the Shadow King Gu's consciousness. Deep beneath the oasis, there indeed existed a vast and intricate underground space, but it had long been abandoned.
After a moment's contemplation, Song Wen decided to investigate personally. He soared into the air and headed toward the oasis.
The oasis was small, spanning only a few miles in diameter.
Although the Gu had already discovered the entrance to the underground space—located at the base of a hill beside the oasis—Song Wen didn't rush in. Instead, he stopped several hundred miles away and used his divine sense to probe the area.
His divine sense followed the entrance into a cavern several dozen feet high.
After traveling about a mile, the cavern's path shifted vertically downward. Descending roughly fifty miles, it opened into a vast underground cave hundreds of feet in diameter.
The cave's walls were riddled with over a dozen tunnel entrances.
At the ends of these tunnels lay various chambers: some were cultivation caves, while others were massive underground halls.
One hall, spanning over twenty miles in width, still retained faint traces of corpse qi.
The cave floor wasn't the usual gray stone but a mottled, dark red, stained by repeated blood soaking and drying.
In one corner of the hall, a deep pit stretched over three thousand feet in diameter.
The deep pit was filled with layers upon layers of decaying bones, countless in number.
No wonder the three great sects of the Southern Nether Continent despise the Divine Blood Gate so much, Song Wen thought to himself.
At least the members of the three great sects wouldn't slaughter mortals so wantonly, as the Divine Blood Gate did.
After thoroughly exploring the underground space, Song Wen found nothing of use and shook his head slightly.
He had hoped to find clues about the whereabouts of the Six Fiends Hall cultivators.
With a swift movement, Song Wen flew southward into the dimness.
Before long, he entered the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
From Blood Scar, he had learned another piece of information:
The Six Fiends Hall controlled an unknown number of Divine Transformation Stage cultivators. These individuals served as peripheral members of the Six Fiends Hall, spending most of their time monitoring the outer regions of the Primordial Qi Death Zone. Just as Qiu Shan and Zhu Hui, whom Song Wen had slain when he first encountered Xu Mengyu and the other two women, had been responsible for monitoring changes within the Qi Death Zone.
Within the Primordial Qi Death Zone, the shadow void's perception range extended over ten thousand miles. Song Wen planned to attempt to locate one or two Divine Transformation Stage members of the Six Fiends Hall and then use them to track down the Void Refinement Stage cultivators behind them.
(End of the Chapter)