The world behind the stone wall was hauntingly quiet. There were no complex traps or hidden sentries only a heavy, suffocating stillness.
The air was thick with a medicinal fragrance so cloying it was nauseating a sweet, sickly scent like fresh herbs mixed with decaying meat. Li An walked down the dark tunnel, his footsteps clicking against the black jade floor, sending hollow echoes through the cavernous space.
Instead of lamps, the walls were lined with rows of glass jars. Inside were fragments of human anatomy preserved in glowing fluid: fingers as translucent as jade, hearts covered in moss that were still feebly beating, and even a head floating in green brine, its eyes wide with a permanent expression of terror.
"Alchemical stockpiles," Li An whispered, his pale fingers tracing the cold glass. His violet pupils remained unmoved. The "noble" foundation of the sect was built on a secret stained in dark, bloody red. The so-called "Refining Pills to Save the World" was nothing more than dismantling one's own kind like common spiritual plants.
As he reached the end of the tunnel, the space opened into a massive cavern. In the center stood a colossal tree, nearly a hundred feet tall. Its trunk was a pale, fleshy pink, its texture somewhere between wood and raw muscle. Beneath its translucent bark, thick red fluids pulsed slowly with a sickening "gurgle," like a giant circulatory system.
Thousands of vein-like tendrils hung from the canopy, each ending in a semi-transparent "flesh cocoon" that pulsed in the dark.
Li An stopped and looked up. Inside those hundreds of cocoons, he saw familiar faces geniuses from the sect's archives who had supposedly "disappeared" or "succumbed to inner demons." They were the former star pupils, the alchemy prodigies.
They weren't dead. They had been stripped of their minds and grafted onto the tree like living bonsai, serving as "biological batteries" to nourish the valley's spiritual aura. Conductors were pierced into their temples, spines, and dantians, juicing their spiritual power and talent to sustain the sect.
[Host, detecting a faint but high-level consciousness at the core of the tree. It's not human anymore it's a "Living Corpse" that has merged with the flora over centuries. He's using these disciples as fuel to prolong his own withered life.]
"Child... you have finally come..."
A raspy, ancient voice dripping with hunger echoed in Li An's mind. A crack appeared in the center of the trunk, revealing a withered, skeletal face. Its eyes had devolved into black rifts, yet it "stared" directly at Li An's pure, violent divine bloodline.
"Come closer... offer your bone and marrow... and I shall grant you... eternity with the Ancestor..."
The voice carried a hypnotic psychic wave. Any ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator would have lost their mind and walked forward as a willing sacrifice. But Li An stood beneath the tree, a mocking smirk crawling across his lips. He showed no fear, only a cold retort:
"Eternity? With a decrepit thing like you, hiding in the dark eating the rot of your own students?"
Li An tilted his head, his snowy tiger ears standing sharp in the dim light, making his pale face look even more otherworldly. He wasn't suppressed by the Ancestor's Nascent Soul-level pressure; instead, he unleashed the demonic qi he'd been holding back a force so dense it nearly ruptured his meridians.
"Ancestor, you probably didn't know your beloved student Leng Heng is currently busy having his house torn down by a Fire Drake above. And you... you're about to face judgment very soon. This sect treats me like the ultimate catalyst, yet they don't even know if I'm the cure or the poison," Li An sneered.
He had a more direct, insane plan for this wood-hardened old monster. He slammed his right hand into the fleshy trunk, his fingers clawing deep into the pulp like steel hooks.
Rip!
Red sap sprayed onto Li An's pale face, dripping down his jawline and blooming into stark, bloody flowers on his tattered white robes. He didn't flinch. Instead, he dropped every ounce of his defense, letting that massive, decaying life force surge through his fingertips and into his marrow.
"You're right. Merging is the key to immortality."
Li An's voice was crystalline and cold, carrying a jagged edge of ruthlessness. His demonic blood boiled, and the markings etched into his meridians seemed to come alive, turning into hungry tendrils that clawed back into the tree's fleshy core.
"But whether you merge with me, or I drain you dry... that's my call to make."
The tree erupted in a series of agonized shudders. The hanging cocoons swung violently, and the Ancestor's face on the trunk shifted from hunger to sheer terror. In a thousand years, he had never seen a predator like this. This boy wasn't accepting a legacy; he was devouring the very foundation of the sect.
"Stop... you little parasite... you can't hold it all... you'll explode!"
The Ancestor's raspy scream echoed through the cavern, triggering a psychic storm. Li An merely tilted his head back, his snowy tiger ears standing sharp against the tide of energy. His skin began to crack under the pressure of the stolen essence, glowing with a violent violet-gold light, but he didn't so much as blink. Instead, he let out a cold, ecstatic chuckle.
"Oh? Then let's see who explodes first me, or you getting drained dry."
As Li An intensified the siphoning, the tree's fleshy bark began to shrivel and grey. The red fluids beneath its surface grew sluggish and dim. One by one, the "genius cocoons" grafted to the branches withered and died as their life support was ruthlessly rerouted.
At the peak of this primal consumption, the stone wall at the entrance shattered with a deafening roar.
BOOM—!
The enchanted barrier was cleaved open by a jagged, desperate arc of white sword-qi.
Leng Heng stumbled into the chamber, drenched in blood. His left arm hung uselessly at his side a testament to his narrow escape from the Fire Drake and the others hunting him. He had come as a last resort to seek sanctuary from the Ancestor, but the sight before him froze the marrow in his bones.
Li An the "medicine" he had looked down on for years was currently pinned to the Ancestor's physical form, wreathed in terrifying waves of violet-red energy. The fleshy tree, the very root of the sect, was already half-charred and withered.
"Li An... you... you monster!"
Leng Heng's eyes turned bloodshot. Ignoring his wounds, he forced his remaining spiritual power into his blade. The sword transformed into a streak of pale light, lunging directly for the center of Li An's back.
Li An didn't even turn around.
When the blade was half an inch from his spine, a pair of shadow-wings woven from demonic qi erupted from his back like demon wings. The sword struck the darkness with the screech of metal on metal.
Li An turned his head slowly. The butterfly markings at his eyes had deepened into a permanent, bloody crimson. He looked at the horrified Leng Heng, his gaze devoid of anger there was only a vast, chilling emptiness.
"Perfect timing, Senior Brother Leng."
Li An released his grip on the trunk. The ancient tree was now nothing but a blackened husk. Feeling the immense, world-shaking power thrumming through his frame a power that felt like it might tear him apart Li An offered Leng Heng a smile that was as elegant as it was lethal.
"The Ancestor is taking a permanent nap. I think it's time we finished our business."