Inside the Yuan Magnetic Light-Traversing Shuttle.
Three figures stood in silence, each looking somewhat tense.
Only after they smoothly traversed the Yuan Magnetic Mountain Pass did Kongchan and Liu Jun let out sighs of relief.
"As expected of the prized tool the Yuan Demon Sect once used to enter and leave the Yama Heavens. Though this Yuan Magnetic Light-Traversing Shuttle is slow in the outside world, within the Yuan Magnetic Aurora it moves without hindrance," Kongchan praised.
Liu Jun nodded with a smile. "Next is the Soul-Locking Grand Array laid down by the Soul Refining Patriarch. However, ever since I destroyed the array eye at Three Pillars Gorge back then and channeled the power of the Sunken Sea inside, that formation has essentially been broken."
Kongchan did not deny this. Had Shark Emperor Liu Jun not rendered that great service back then, there was no telling how much longer the demons of the Northern Sea would have remained trapped in the Yama Heavens.
Next, so long as they returned to the Yama Heavens and channeled back the millennium of accumulated power from the Sunken Sea, they would have a chance to open the Land of the Fallen Demon ahead of schedule.
When that time came, he would be able to search within for a method to break through to Transformation God.
At this thought, he cast a subtle, fleeting glance at the two beside him.
These two still possessed value for now, but once they entered the Land of the Fallen Demon... Hm?
Kongchan looked quizzically at the plump man.
"Taisui, what is wrong?"
Taisui frowned. "Nothing. I just feel inexplicably uneasy."
Liu Jun gave a soft laugh. "Is Fellow Daoist Taisui overly tense? We have already passed the Arctic Monster-Sealing Array and the Yuan Magnetic Mountain Pass. Ahead lies a clear path."
Taisui shook his head and said in a heavy voice, "My heart has been pounding with foreboding, as if someone is watching us from the shadows."
At these words, the other two grew solemn as well.
"Could it be the person who opened the grand array earlier and slipped inside?"
"It is possible. Anyone bold enough to force their way through the Arctic Monster-Sealing Array is by no means weak—even if the array has yet to recover to its peak state! The last one who dared to barge through this formation was that madman."
"As this Emperor sees it, that person should not be as formidable as the madman; otherwise, why slip into the array so stealthily?"
"Regardless, we must remain cautious!"
After a brief exchange, the three sharpened their vigilance.
The Yuan Magnetic Light-Traversing Shuttle cut through the wind and snow, gliding through the Yuan Magnetic Mountain Pass in a flash.
Not long after they departed, a hazy phantom slowly followed behind. It was none other than Xiao Bai.
She trailed cautiously far behind, her aura concealed to perfection. Aided by the terrain, she went completely unnoticed by the three ahead.
Before long, she too crossed the Yuan Magnetic Mountain Pass.
The instant she entered the Yama Heavens, a restrictive sensation welled up within her.
Xiao Bai glanced back. At the entrance, remnants of array power clearly lingered.
"Is this the remnant of the Hundred Million Soul Monster-Locking Grand Array laid down by the Soul Refining Patriarch before his death? I wonder where all those souls went after the array was shattered."
Pondering, Xiao Bai did not pause her steps, officially stepping into the Arctic Yama Heavens.
What met her eyes gave her a feeling of trance-like awe.
Layer upon layer of glaciers stretched beyond the horizon.
The bone-chilling cold bit so deep that even the soul shuddered.
In the far distance, towering mountains pierced straight into the crisp sky; standing atop them, one felt as though the heavens were within arm's reach.
This was the Arctic Yama Heavens, the mountain gate of the Yuan Demon Sect!
With a trace of shock in her eyes, Xiao Bai stepped onto the glaciers.
Beneath her feet lay corpses frozen in the ice—both human and demon beast—with countless severed limbs and shattered bones. Some of the better-preserved corpses still wore looks of sheer terror from the moments before their demise.
"Just how brutal was that battle back then?"
Xiao Bai murmured to herself. Just as she was about to press forward, an inexplicable sense of horror gripped her heart.
She whipped around to scan her surroundings, yet saw nothing.
"What is it?"
All around was silence, save for the howling northern wind and the rustle of drifting ice flurries.
Xiao Bai took a deep breath, forming several hand seals in succession to thoroughly mask her aura once more.
"For now, finishing Master's task is what matters most!"
Xiao Bai transformed into a wisp of green smoke and drifted across the mirror-smooth glaciers.
After she departed, beneath the glacier, a corpse suddenly opened its eyes!
Not only that—more and more corpses, one after another, opened their eyes. It was a terrifying sight that chilled one to the bone!
……
The Arctic Yama Heavens was not particularly vast—at least, far smaller than the Mingyuan Sect during its heyday.
Yet measured against the Jade Cauldron Domain of the Eastern Desolation, it was at least the size of five Jade Cauldron Domains.
Such an area seemed somewhat unworthy of the status of a Transformation God sacred ground.
However, this was tied to several factors.
First, two natural barriers constrained the Yama Heavens' outward expansion; the Sunken Sea and the Yuan Magnetic Mountains served as defenses, but also acted as boundaries.
Second, it was related to the relatively small number of cultivators in the Yuan Demon Sect.
The demonic sect encouraged competition, and their internal strife was often bloody and brutal, leading to sparse numbers.
As such, an area equivalent to five Jade Cauldron Domains was more than enough to sustain the core powerhouses of the demonic sect.
For Xiao Bai, this was a blessing; she quickly caught up with Kongchan and the other two demons.
Yet she did not disturb the trio, merely following at a distance to observe what they intended to do.
Throughout this, she paid special attention to the plump cultivator.
This was Luo Chen's instruction!
"Master said he felt a familiar and intimate aura from him, but why don't I feel anything of the sort?"
Xiao Bai was filled with confusion.
Before long, Xiao Bai came to a halt.
Because the three ahead had stopped as well.
And there was only one reason they were forced to halt!
In the middle of the boundless glacial wilderness stood a colossal lake.
Unlike an ordinary lake, its waters displayed two distinctly separate colors: red and black!
A foul, bloody stench of rot permeated the entire Yama Heavens.
"What kind of lake is this?" Xiao Bai looked horrified.
By the lakeshore, Kongchan and the other two demons wore solemn expressions.
The battle back then had caused rains of blood to pour over the Yama Heavens, drenching the earth in the blood of countless demon beasts and human cultivators.
Three hundred years had passed, yet rather than drying up, that blood had actually pooled into such an immense lake.
Not only that, another power had blended into it.
Liu Jun took a deep breath and said solemnly, "The black lake water must have formed when the power of the Sunken Sea surged in, corroding all things!"
Kongchan looked toward Taisui. "Fellow Daoist, didn't you say earlier that you had a way to guide this power back to the Sunken Sea?"
Yet Taisui shook his head with a bewildered look.
"This power has long since fused into the Yama Heavens. It cannot be channeled out at all."
Kongchan and Liu Jun froze.
"How can that be?"
Taisui also gave a wry smile. "I don't know either. The power of the Sunken Sea is rather peculiar, forged by Heaven Refining Demon Lord with an unfathomable grand array. Logically speaking, no ordinary mortal should be able to utilize this power, should they?"
The three stared at one another in mutual dismay, utterly lost for a moment.
If they could not reclaim the power of the Sunken Sea, what was the point of all the painstaking effort they had spent coming here?
Suddenly!
"Look! What is that?"
The demon monk Kongchan pointed toward the blood lake.
They all looked over together, expressions turning to sheer shock.
Within the blood lake, a diminutive figure was bobbing and sinking amidst the waters.
It was a person!
Centered on that person, a tiny vortex seemed to have formed, steadily absorbing both the red and black powers.
The bloody aura and the corrosive power of the Sunken Sea merged with each other, forming an extraordinarily distinctive power within his body.
"It's demonic qi! Pure demonic qi!" Taisui blurted out, eyes flashing sharply. "That person is using this blood lake to practice Demon Race techniques!"
Kongchan was puzzled. "Demonic path techniques?"
Taisui waved his hand and explained, "Not demonic path techniques, but Demon Race techniques! The Demon Race is a collective term for the myriad races dwelling within the Demon Realm, and the power they command is demonic qi. This power is exceedingly overbearing and repels all else, equal in every way to the dharmic powers of human cultivators. The demonic path arts you know of were merely created by brilliant humans imitating the Demon Race. The foremost among them, such as the Yuan Demon Lineage of the Yuan Demon Sect, can cultivate pure demonic qi."
After offering this explanation, Taisui exhaled a breath of turbid air.
"I wonder what sort of fortuitous encounter this person had to reverse his human body and cultivate a demonic physique? Who is he?"
That final question was answered almost immediately.
Shark Emperor Liu Jun, who had remained mostly silent, studied the person in the blood lake closely before softly uttering three words:
"The Mad Hermit!"
Taisui was perplexed. "Who is he?"
"The madman we spoke of earlier. He was once hailed as the foremost of the Northern Sea's Three Great Loose Cultivators, a figure even the Yuan Demon Sect in its prime could do nothing against."
With that explanation, Taisui understood at once.
He had roamed the Northern Sea cultivation world before and naturally knew of the renowned Three Great Loose Cultivators.
The Mad Hermit had originally been known as Layman Fengling, the successor of the Northern Sea's Fengling Temple.
Later, Fengling Temple was wiped out and seized by the Yuan Demon Sect, and Layman Fengling became the Wind Hermit. Afterward, he ventured into the Sunken Sea; upon emerging, he had gone mad, and the Wind Hermit came to be called the Mad Hermit.
During his rare moments of lucidity, he joined with the Moon Hermit and the Blood Hermit to establish the Myriad Immortals Association.
However, the Myriad Immortals Association eventually fell under the de facto control of the Moon Hermit, and the Mad Hermit vanished without a trace. Who could have thought he was actually here?
Recalling that the Mad Hermit had once entered the Sunken Sea, Taisui immediately deduced that he might have serendipitously obtained Demon Race techniques in the Land of the Fallen Demon, and that his madness might have been caused by forcefully practicing Demon Race arts with a human body.
"Reconstituting his flesh and blood with countless corpses and channeling demonic qi with the power of the Sunken Sea left by Heaven Refining Demon Lord to forcefully cultivate a demon physique... This Mad Hermit truly is mad enough!"
Taisui praised him with a sigh, then struck upon a sudden inspiration.
"Actually, it isn't impossible to take away the power of the Sunken Sea!"
The two beside him looked over curiously.
Taisui pointed toward where the Mad Hermit lay. "We only need to wait. Once he absorbs all the power in the blood lake, we bring him back to the Sunken Sea—won't that solve it?"
Hearing this, the other two saw the light immediately.
If the power of the Sunken Sea had completely merged into the Yama Heavens, they truly had no recourse.
Yet if this immense power was held within the Mad Hermit, it became far simpler to handle.
As for whether they could succeed?
The demon monk Kongchan indicated it was worth trying.
"The Mad Hermit's mind is unhinged; he has been raving mad for all these years. And my Chanting Monk race is best at soul-bewitching and spirit-capturing techniques. When we attacked the Yuan Demon Sect back then, this old monk did not even fear the late-stage Nascent Soul grand cultivators of the Soul Refining Lineage, let alone a lunatic whose wits are gone like the Mad Hermit."
"Then we wait!"
"Wait for him to finish absorbing it!"
Having made up their minds, the three began making preparations along the lakeshore.
After all, though Demon Monk Kongchan spoke lightly, if any mishap occurred when the time came, it would spell trouble.
Moreover, while laying out the array, they could take the opportunity to search for that fellow who had sneaked in earlier.
"Take my Morning Bell and Evening Drum and arrange them on both sides of the blood lake!"
"Once he finishes absorbing the power of the Sunken Sea, I shall activate these two true artifacts, empowering my Buddhist chants and Sanskrit hymns to cleanse his soul!"
The demon monk Kongchan instructed.
This was his forte.
The Morning Bell and Evening Drum were true artifacts handed down through generations of the Chanting Monk race from ancient times, perfectly matching their clan's methods of combat.
Empowered by these two true artifacts, the might of Kongchan's Buddhist chants and Sanskrit hymns could be amplified several times over, pushing his strength to its zenith. That was the very foundation of his confidence when confronting the powerhouses of the Yuan Demon Sect's Soul Refining Lineage head-on back then.
While laying down the formation, a sudden thought also occurred to Kongchan regarding the Western Desert Buddhist Lands.
He had heard that the sacred ground there, the Hanging Temple, had been sealed. As a result, there was no longer an Arhat comparable to a Transformation God cultivator to suppress the Western Desert.
With his strength, he could easily spare time to journey to the Western Desert and gather the Buddhist classics there, which might allow him to take another step forward.
If so, when he subsequently entered the Land of the Fallen Demon, his chances would be even greater!
As these thoughts ran through his mind, the zen staff in Kongchan's hand slammed heavily into the layer of ice.
This would serve as the array eye from which he would deploy the Ten Thousand Buddhas Sanskrit Chanting Grand Array later!
Yet after the zen staff drove into the ice, Kongchan felt a strange, soft sensation beneath it, and his expression instantly changed.
"Careful!"
Hearing this warning from afar, Liu Jun and Taisui turned to look in unison, expressions bewildered.
Immediately after, a surging tremor violently erupted from underground.
The three soared into the sky at the same moment, looking down upon the ground.
The glaciers stretching for ten thousand li cracked open at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Crack! Crack!
From within the shattered ice, corpses that should have long been dead swayed and stood up one by one.
These corpses belonged to demon beasts and human cultivators of the Yuan Demon Sect alike. Some were intact, others mangled, yet all now awakened from their deep burial.
Such a bizarre mutation stunned everyone.
A charming, delicate cry of shock even rang out from inside an iceberg.
Kongchan and the other two looked over, only to see a wisp of green smoke drifting into the sky before transforming into a glamorous woman.
After the glamorous woman flew out, the iceberg where she had been hiding collapsed into rubble, and the corpse of a colossal snow ape stepped out from within.
"Someone truly was spying on us!" Taisui stared fixatedly at Xiao Bai, killing intent boiling in his heart.
By now, the three had gathered together, and Liu Jun held him back.
"Ignore that woman for now! The urgent priority is figuring out why these dead beings are waking up. Among them are even the remains of my jiaoren kin!"
The demon monk Kongchan focused all his attention on the countless thousands upon thousands of corpses below.
Sensing them closely, a look of horror spread across his face.
"Complex souls trapped within lifeless corpses, yet they move with unified action. These ghosts... they are the lonely spirits and wild ghosts that the Soul Refining Patriarch detained in the Hundred Million Soul Monster-Locking Grand Array!"
As if to confirm his words, the countless 'corpse ghouls' below made their move.
Paying no heed to Kongchan and the other two demons, nor glancing at Xiao Bai, they sprinted madly toward the blood lake at the center.
As they ran, these corpse ghouls piled on top of one another in an endless rush, actually beginning to merge and stack together.
As time passed, a thousand-zhang-tall giant standing tall between heaven and earth towered over the fractured glacial wasteland.
The giant's body was composed of countless corpses, an utterly chilling sight to behold.
Countless pairs of eyes glowed with eerie green flames, staring in unison at that blood lake.
"Roar..."
A sound that resembled both a wailing lament and a furious roar burst from the corpse giant. Then, shifting its writhing steps, it strode into the blood lake.
Its target: the sunken Mad Hermit!
Kongchan, Liu Jun, and Taisui watched all this in silence, realizing that their arrival had awakened these undead spirits and provoked them into attacking the Mad Hermit.
"No, nothing must happen to the Mad Hermit. We need the power of the Sunken Sea!" Taisui made his judgment.
Shark Emperor Liu Jun felt somewhat powerless; the oppressive presence exuded by that corpse giant far surpassed that of any Nascent Soul powerhouse. "We cannot stop it."
"There is no need to stop it for now. The Mad Hermit will handle it himself." Kongchan pointed at the blood lake, where bubbles were surfacing one after another. Clearly, the Mad Hermit was not entirely unconscious, especially when his life was under threat.
Liu Jun hesitated. "Then we sit back and watch the tigers fight?"
"No!" Taisui's expression turned vicious, his gaze snapping toward the delicate woman hovering in midair beneath the shattered iceberg in the distance. "Kill this spying intruder first!"
Liu Jun and Kongchan exchanged a glance, then nodded in tacit agreement.
Clear the field first!
Without a word, all three charged in unison toward the panic-stricken woman.
Backing away rapidly, the woman cried out in desperation, "Master, save me!"
Chapter 1055