Chapter 684 Thunder Pulp River and White Bone Lake
Four days later.
Shen Mo arrived at the Thunder Pulp River.
This river flowed out from beneath the Myriad Tribulations Thunder Prison, running across the Thousandfold Thunder Prison.
It was the largest and widest river within the Thousandfold Thunder Prison.
However, what flowed within it was not water,
but Thunderfiend energy so condensed with destructive force that it had taken on the form of liquid.
The rocks in the Thunder Pulp River, after tens of thousands of years of tempering by Thunderfiend energy, had become extremely hard,
and even contained a considerable amount of Thunderfiend power.
Such stone was collectively called "Thunderfiend Stone."
Once taken out of the Thousandfold Thunder Prison, it could be used to forge spirit artifacts.
It was a treasure much sought after by cultivators.
At this time, however, there were few beasts on the riverbanks.
The strongest and most fearsome beasts here resided within the Thunder Pulp River itself.
When Shen Mo arrived, he saw many cultivators' remains along the shore.
Without exception, they had been careless, their eyes fixed only on Thunderfiend Stone, ignoring the fish-type beasts hidden beneath the surface.
The result, naturally,
was that most ended up in the bellies of those fish beasts.
Shen Mo had no interest in dealing with such creatures.
He moved along the bank, searching directly for his target.
Within a single day, he found it—
a rusty iron rod planted in the river.
Few beasts dared to approach it,
as though deeply wary of it.
At first glance, one might mistake it for a rod-type spirit artifact.
In fact, it was one of the many railings from the Myriad Tribulations Thunder Prison,
called a Thunder Prison Rod.
For nearly ten thousand years, the conflict between the Myriad Tribulations Thunder Prison and the White Bone Yin Sha Scripture had grown ever more intense.
Many components from both had been thrown free.
This Thunder Prison Rod had, by chance, been flung out, drifting downstream along the Thunder Pulp River until it came to be lodged in its middle reaches.
Shen Mo's goal was to claim this Thunder Prison Rod.
At that moment, a dark shadow lay in ambush beneath the surface, waiting for its chance.
When Shen Mo approached, it suddenly burst forth.
Its body stretched a hundred zhang, its massive maw like a black hole capable of swallowing all things.
This beast was called the Greed Crocodile.
Its cultivation was at ninth-rank perfection, equivalent to a hundred-mark Nirvana Realm cultivator.
It was a creature that thrived on flesh and blood.
Now dwelling in the Thousandfold Thunder Prison, its body had been tempered by Thunderfiend energy, becoming even more formidable.
Many hundred-mark Nirvana Realm cultivators might not be its match.
After all, the Greed Crocodile rarely came ashore, spending nearly all its time in the Thunder Pulp River.
When a cultivator entered the Thunder Pulp River, it was like stepping from their own ground into the crocodile's domain.
Naturally, their strength was greatly reduced,
making it even harder to contend with the Greed Crocodile.
Now, the beast's jaws gaped wide, snapping toward Shen Mo with vicious intent.
Rows upon rows of dense teeth already ground together,
ready to bite him clean in half.
However, before its jaws could close,
two streaks of lightning suddenly flashed past.
The sharp brilliance cut it cleanly in two.
Its corpse crashed into the Thunder Pulp River, splashing up great waves of thunder pulp.
The once-calm river surface instantly churned.
A great number of fish-type beasts swarmed from all directions, fighting fiercely to snatch pieces of the Greed Crocodile's flesh.
Yet they instinctively avoided the area near the Thunder Prison Rod.
Clearly, they had seen from the Greed Crocodile's death the measure of Shen Mo's strength,
and dared not rush up to throw their lives away.
Shen Mo smoothly retrieved the Thunder Prison Rod.
Another four days passed.
Shen Mo appeared on the shore of a vast, dried-up lake.
This lake was called White Bone Lake.
During the last opening of the Thousandfold Thunder Prison, it had been filled with acidic water and strewn with corpses.
Now, it was utterly gone,
leaving only layers of ghastly white bones buried in the silt at the bottom.
At first glance, it seemed perfectly safe.
But Shen Mo had already seen on the map that White Bone Lake was densely packed with black dots.
This meant there were a great number of Thunderfiend beasts hidden underground.
The beasts here were called White Bone Fiends.
In truth, they were living creatures from within the White Bone Yin Sha Scripture.
Some had separated from the scripture during battle and fallen here,
choosing to remain and reproduce in this place.
Sure enough,
the moment half of Shen Mo's foot stepped into White Bone Lake,
the bones buried in the silt began to shift stealthily.
The deeper he went into the lake,
the more bones approached him from all directions, creeping closer and closer.
At times, when he suddenly turned his head, the bones were still over a hundred zhang away.
Yet with another glance, they were barely fifty zhang from him.
Shen Mo could not be bothered to act personally.
After all, these White Bone Fiends were not particularly strong.
A single one was only at ninth-rank minor completion, equivalent to a thirty-mark Nirvana Realm cultivator.
He simply infused the Black Dragon Shears with a wisp of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Flame and had Tai Er make the strike.
Tai Er was unusually diligent now.
Wherever the black light passed,
a great number of White Bone Fiends were blasted apart, reduced to nothing more than scattered bones.
For other cultivators, these White Bone Fiends were extremely troublesome to deal with.
Even if blasted to pieces, they could quickly revive and reassemble themselves.
But Shen Mo had the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Flame.
Just a trace of it on the Black Dragon Shears was enough to slay them with ease.
In less than an hour, the White Bone Fiends gradually dispersed, returning to their places.
Those that should lie prone lay prone, those that should lie flat lay flat,
continuing to feign death.
No matter how Shen Mo walked about, even stepping on their skulls, they no longer dared to appear.
Damn it, this man had the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder Flame that restrained demonic energy.
Why fight at all?
Shen Mo strolled leisurely across White Bone Lake.
Some White Bone Fiends stirred, thinking to ambush him while he was unprepared.
Yet they were grabbed back by the ones beside them.
The clacking of bones seemed to carry a message.
"What are you doing, trying to get yourself killed?"
"That guy's too strong—don't throw your life away!"
"If you want to die, don't drag us down with you!"
Seeing that the reckless White Bone Fiend still wanted to go forward,
a crowd of White Bone Fiends simply swarmed it, clattering fiercely until they had dismantled every bone in its body and scattered them everywhere.
Only then did they leave, satisfied.
Shen Mo heard it all,
and merely chuckled.
He thought to himself that these White Bone Fiends were rather sensible,
knowing whom they could provoke and whom they could not.
"Hm?"
Just then, Shen Mo noticed a large heap of bones piled up ahead.
It seemed these White Bone Fiends were trying to conceal something.
His brow rose, and he strode forward.
"Move aside."
Shen Mo used his foot to push the White Bone Fiends aside.
The bones he pushed away rolled and clattered,
only to return stubbornly to their spots.
Shen Mo was greatly pleased.
This must be exactly what he was looking for.
"Not moving, are you?"
He stretched out his hand, and an icy white ghostly flame rose in his palm.
In a flurry,
the White Bone Fiends scattered like startled rabbits, fleeing a thousand zhang away in the blink of an eye.
Only then was the scene before him fully revealed.
There, suspended in the air, was a single sheet of yellowed paper.
It did not touch the ground, simply hovering there.
Upon closer inspection, it was not made of bark or plant fibers, but of beast hide,
with clear veins and fine hair still visible upon it.
It was, without a doubt, a page torn from the White Bone Yin Sha Scripture itself.
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