Translator: CinderTL
Song Wen asked, "Since the Six Fiends Hall has Body Integration Stage cultivators stationed there, why did you choose to live in seclusion?"
Ji Lin replied, "Who doesn't have secrets they wish to keep hidden? But guarding this secret cost me my life."
Song Wen said, "I'm curious now. What exactly was this secret?"
Ji Lin answered, "A secret art for rapidly replenishing blood essence. It's stored in my storage ring."
Song Wen immediately lost interest. Such a technique might be invaluable to others, but it was useless to him.
"Within the Six Fiends Hall, are there other Void Refinement Stage cultivators who also live in seclusion like you?" Song Wen asked.
Ji Lin replied, "I don't know. Secrets concerning one's safety aren't easily shared."
"The Divine Blood Gate and the three great sects of the Southern Nether Continent are sworn enemies. Yet your Six Fiends Hall, with only two Body Integration Stage cultivators, dares to slaughter mortals so brazenly. Aren't you afraid of exposing your location and provoking the three great sects to launch a purge?" Song Wen pressed.
"The three great sects?" Ji Lin sneered. "They're not as righteous as you think. They've long reached an understanding with the Divine Blood Gate: the Six Fiends Hall won't venture into the Southern Nether Continent's heartland, and the sects won't bother us near the Primordial Qi Death Zone. We keep to our own territories."
Hearing this, Song Wen remained silent for a moment before activating the Black Hole in his Sea of Consciousness, devouring Ji Lin's divine soul.
Keeping Fu Liang's divine soul would likely draw the Six Fiends Hall's pursuit. It was best to eliminate it swiftly.
This urgency also explained why Song Wen had been so eager to interrogate Fu Liang.
Only after traveling 50,000 kilometers into the Primordial Qi Death Zone did Song Wen finally stop. He found a mountain cave and settled in temporarily.
After setting up concealment and defense formations, and tasking Shadow Void and Nether Fox with guarding the perimeter, Song Wen retrieved Fu Liang's corpse and began absorbing its spiritual power.
Pure, potent spiritual power surged into Song Wen's meridians, where it was assimilated by his own spiritual power. The two forces mingled, coursing through his limbs and bones before converging in his dantian.
The nascent soul within him pulsed with brilliant spiritual light, devouring the spiritual power like a whale gulping water, rapidly growing stronger.
However, an invisible barrier soon appeared, halting Song Wen's continued growth.
Song Wen channeled the Corpse King's Rebirth Art with all his might, determined to break through this bottleneck in one fell swoop and advance to the late-stage Void Refinement.
But the bottleneck proved far more resilient than he had anticipated. It remained unshaken by the surging torrent of spiritual power.
Seeing that the bottleneck refused to yield, Song Wen hesitated no longer. With a flick of his wrist, he produced a jade bottle.
Applying slight pressure, he shattered the bottle, revealing a thumb-sized medicinal pill—the Interpretive Cloud Pill.
Song Wen opened his mouth and swallowed the pill.
The moment the pill entered his body, it transformed into a scorching, overwhelming medicinal force, surging through his meridians like molten lava.
As if being burned alive, Song Wen felt excruciating pain throughout his body.
Gritting his teeth, he continued to circulate his cultivation technique.
The spiritual power and medicinal force merged into an unstoppable torrent, finally converging in his dantian, where they crashed against the bottleneck like a raging storm.
Under the relentless assault, the bottleneck gradually weakened, then shattered with a thunderous roar.
In an instant, Song Wen felt his entire body lighten, as if he had broken free from some invisible shackles. His spiritual power surged through his meridians like a river bursting its banks. The nascent soul continued to greedily devour the incoming spiritual power, solidifying its own foundation.
After a moment, Song Wen slowly opened his eyes, a sharp glint flashing within them.
Though the breakthrough process had been slightly unexpected, he had ultimately succeeded in advancing his cultivation.
Worried that the recent breakthrough might have attracted unwanted attention, he quickly dismantled the formation and left the cave.
He traveled hundreds of thousands of miles westward before finding another cave to settle in.
For the next eight years, Song Wen remained on the outskirts of the Primordial Qi Death Zone, refining his newly surged spiritual power.
During this time, the Nether Fox thrived like a fish in water.
As a high-ranking void clan member, the shadow void could sense low-tier void beasts within a fifty-thousand-mile radius. This provided the Nether Fox with a constant supply of miraculous elixirs, allowing its strength to advance by leaps and bounds, smoothly reaching the fifth-tier mid-grade.
Once his cultivation had fully stabilized, Song Wen departed from the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
After consulting a map for a moment, he set off in a northwest direction.
Song Wen was disheveled and filthy, fine grains of sand clinging to his matted hair. His tattered clothes were stained with dust and sweat.
His cheeks were dark and flushed, his lips cracked into tiny fissures that oozed faint streaks of blood.
The scorching sun hung high in the sky, baking the earth until the air itself seemed to shimmer with heat.
Song Wen dragged his heavy legs across the parched, cracked yellow earth, his steps labored and unsteady.
As he crested another hill, a city came into view ahead.
The city was in a state of extreme decay.
Its walls were riddled with holes and had collapsed in several places.
Inside, low mud houses stood in haphazard clusters, their thatched roofs sparse and revealing the rafters beneath. It looked as though a strong gust of wind could topple the entire settlement.
Song Wen followed a narrow path down the hillside, where a shaded pit lay at the foot of the slope.
Four gaunt men stood guard beside the pit, their ragged clothes barely concealing the gleaming steel sabers in their hands.
The pit contained a shallow layer of murky water at its bottom.
Clearly, they considered the pit their private property and were preventing others from drawing water.
Song Wen gazed at the damp stone walls of the pit, licked his parched lips, and then entered the city.
This was Luyang City, located just tens of thousands of miles from the Primordial Qi Death Zone. The absence of Spiritual Qi and severe desertification had rendered the land virtually uninhabitable for humans.
Song Wen's purpose in coming here was to investigate the Six Fiends Hall.
However, Song Wen hesitated to approach the Six Fiends Hall directly, fearing he might alert the Body Integration Stage cultivators within. He also dared not use his divine sense or shadow void to investigate.
Instead, he disguised himself as a Mortal and entered the city, hoping to encounter Six Fiends Hall cultivators seeking entertainment or to cross paths with passing cultivators.
Song Wen had intended to find a place of pleasure, but after searching through most of the city, he couldn't even find a single tavern, only a small shop offering rest and meals.
Upon entering the shop, Song Wen noticed several customers already present. However, each person had only a bowl of clear water and two coarse flatbreads before them, with no sign of meat or alcohol.
He couldn't help but shake his head. The living conditions in this city were truly harsh.
The Six Fiends Hall cultivators were unlikely to come here for entertainment.
The women in this city had rough skin, dull eyes, and a numb indifference, resembling walking corpses. Even the most lustful corpse cultivator would find little to interest them.
He even suspected that the Six Fiends Hall wouldn't bother refining corpses or extracting blood essence from the Mortals here.
Song Wen didn't leave immediately. Instead, he found an abandoned, dilapidated house and settled in.
He reasoned that if he waited long enough, Six Fiends Hall cultivators would eventually pass through.
He ended up staying for over a month.
Yet Song Wen never encountered a single Six Fiends Hall corpse cultivator. Instead, he encountered six Orthodox Path cultivators, all at the Body Integration Stage.
(End of the Chapter)
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