You Owe Me One

No one could have imagined that the ancestral shrine, vast as a sprawling city, would be shattered by a single blow from Wei Yuan. Every gesture of Wei Yuan's was imbued with the boundless might of his domain. Each motion felt as if he were dragging the entire domain along with him, making his movements noticeably sluggish and heavy, yet multiplying their destructive power several-fold, even dozens of times over. The base of the ancestral shrine was cracked, though the fragments had not scattered. Wei Yuan slowly raised a hand and brought it crashing down. The largest fractured block of the pedestal erupted with a muffled rumble like rolling thunder, bursting into a field of rubble. Reaching out again, Wei Yuan gave a push and a sweep, toppling the remaining chunks. He then brought both hands together and slowly pulled upward, wrenching the final foundation stone—a hundred zhang across—straight from the earth before tossing it aside. Even after clearing away the ancestral shrine, Wei Yuan did not stop. Though treasures beyond count filled the shrine, they possessed status in name only, completely devoid of karmic luck. Genuine treasures, placed in a sanctuary like an ancestral shrine and tempered by tens of thousands of years, would inevitably amass an immense reserve of karmic luck. That sort of precious fortune was the true linchpin used to suppress the feng shui of the ley lines and ensure endless generations of prosperity. Wei Yuan had dismantled the ancestral shrine precisely to unearth the supreme treasure that successive generations of the Silver Moon Great Khan had used to anchor their domain's feng shui and ley lines. With the foundation stripped away, flat ground lay exposed. Casting his divine sense downward, Wei Yuan saw only a hazy gray vapor. Down to a depth of a hundred zhang, there was nothing but dense, solid bedrock. Any other immortal would have given up right here. This gray vapor possessed an extraordinary power to obstruct divine sense. Formed from the faith and aspirations of the Liao people who had lived on this land for over a million years, it had merged with the ley lines to become part of this very world. Even for an immortal, extending divine sense another hundred zhang deeper through it was difficult in the extreme. Wei Yuan's divine sense far surpassed that of an ordinary stray immortal, yet even he could only see a little over three hundred zhang down—and it remained solid rock. To all appearances, there was truly nothing beneath the surface. Yet Qingming possessed methods that even immortals could scarcely anticipate. Flicking his fingers, Wei Yuan effortlessly bored several deep holes into the ground, then summoned hundreds of engineering cultivators from his Spirit Herding Ring. The cultivators set to work immediately, drilling holes, burying explosives, and deploying various monitoring instruments across the ground. A short while later, after a series of muffled booms and frantic calculations, the cultivators finally confirmed that a massive subterranean space lay roughly fifteen hundred zhang below. Wei Yuan's spirits lifted. Just as expected, a secret was hidden underground. Furthermore, such a space could never be located too far from the ancestral shrine. Silver Moon's arrangements were meticulous, but while they could guard against an immortal's divine sense, they could not prevent physical detection. Entering and leaving such a hidden space was almost certainly done via a teleportation array, but with no telling where the exterior array disc was concealed, Wei Yuan had no intention of wasting time hunting for it. His vanguard had brought along over ten thousand tons of explosives for this push, which would now serve their purpose perfectly. Drawing the Scarlet Night Immortal-Slaying Sword, Wei Yuan drove a burst of sword qi a hundred zhang into the earth, then packed the shaft with explosives and detonated them. Repeating this several times, he carved a shaft a hundred zhang deep through the rock layers. What followed was relentless repetition. After over a hundred blasts, a passage leading straight into the underground space was finally opened. Wei Yuan traversed the tunnel in person. What met his eyes was a colossal natural cavern traversed by an underground river. At the center of the subterranean palace lay a natural pool, its contents flowing with pure, natural mercury. Even Wei Yuan was stirred by the sight. This was a natural entrance to an abyss, a convergence point of ley lines capable of nurturing such a yin spring. No wonder Silver Moon had chosen to establish his royal court right here. The cavern palace was devoid of embellishment, bearing virtually no signs of artificial construction. Only black jade coffins lay scattered about. Though placed seemingly at random, each rested precisely atop a node of the ley lines, turning the entire subterranean palace into a natural formation. Wei Yuan walked over to the yin spring first, scooped up a handful of the mercurial fluid, and found it brimming with unimaginable precious fortune. Just this single handful held fortune equivalent to the karmic luck of a million mortals. Wei Yuan appraised the pool of the yin spring. Given its volume, it likely held precious fortune equivalent to tens of billions in human luck. The accumulated foundation of an established immortal tier over hundreds of thousands of years was truly terrifying. The subterranean palace also contained several immortal artifacts. Beside each black jade coffin grew several stalks of peculiar, distinct flora, unmistakably spirit herbs of the immortal tier with at least ten thousand years of maturity. Clearly, those black jade coffins were no ordinary objects either. Yet Wei Yuan did not spare those immortal items a single glance, his eyes fixed entirely on the yin spring. It was precisely through the suppressing power of this spring that Silver Moon had been able to effortlessly unravel the womb delusion, completing a cycle of reincarnation every hundred years. After a long while, Wei Yuan finally withdrew his gaze and approached one of the black jade coffins. Reaching out, he snapped the chains binding it. The coffin immediately shook violently as a beast-like roar erupted from within, followed by heavy thudding impacts, as though the creature inside were about to burst forth through the lid. Wei Yuan did not even fear heavenly demons, so he naturally had no dread of mere ghosts or yin corpses. He promptly lent it a hand and pulled off the coffin lid. Lying inside was a Liao youth, his chest and abdomen split entirely open and stuffed with a Tantric ritual implement. Vajra pestles were plunged into both of his ears, his eyes and mouth were sewn shut, and his nose had been sliced away, then sealed with tin and lead and stamped with a vermilion grand seal of execution. Multiple iron chains pierced through the youth's limbs, while several metal rings impaled his ribs, each tethered to chains welded securely to the walls of the coffin. At that moment, the youth was struggling frantically, but the chains only tore through his flesh. He tried to open his eyes and seemed desperate to speak, but the stitching was extraordinarily sturdy; his thrashing only tore open fresh wounds, spilling bloody fluid that was swiftly absorbed by the black jade coffin. Even if he managed to tear them open, it would have been useless. The youth's eyes had already been gouged out, his tongue was long gone, and the flesh of his throat was charred black, as though scorched by heavenly fire. Though the body appeared to be that of an adolescent, its physical constitution was undeniably of the immortal tier—indestructible and unperishing—which allowed it to endure ten thousand years without decaying, retaining vibrant vitality. A thick layer of yellowish putrid fluid had pooled at the bottom of the coffin, yet it gave off a rich, intoxicating fragrance. If an ordinary cultivator caught a whiff of it, their innate skeletal foundation would improve by thirty percent. Wei Yuan leaned down and wiped away the blood from the youth's face. The youth suddenly fell still, ceasing his struggles and tilting his head upward, as if sensing something. Looking at the youth's face, it gradually overlapped with the face of the Silver Moon Great Khan in Wei Yuan's memory—bearing a seventy to eighty percent resemblance! Wei Yuan's figure blurred as he moved through the chamber, severing the chains on each coffin and flinging open their lids. Sure enough, every black jade coffin held a youth arranged in the exact same manner. The only variation was a slight difference in their physical ages, ranging from eighty to a hundred years old, all falling within that span. Gazing upon the dozens of youthful bodies, a chilling thought surfaced in Wei Yuan's mind: across the past several hundred thousand years, every reincarnated Silver Moon Great Khan likely lay right here. Then what was the Silver Moon walking outside? The waters of the Liao domain were far deeper than ordinary. Wei Yuan cast his gaze around once more, his mind fully made up. Since he had already dug up the other party's ancestral tombs, why should he care how deep the waters ran? Opening the Spirit Herding Ring, Wei Yuan swept his arm wide. Every black jade coffin was wrenched from the earth and vanished into the ring. Nor did he spare the flowers and grasses beside the coffins, excavating them along with the soil. In any case, the Spirit Herding Ring had room to spare; storing a bit of miscellaneous clutter was effortless. Finally, Wei Yuan drew the Scarlet Night Immortal-Slaying Sword and began prying loose the yin spring bit by bit, stowing it away in its entirety. Truth be told, the nature of this immortal spring was so extreme and singular that even a master of karmic luck like Wei Yuan had no immediate idea how to use it. Yet it did not matter if he had no immediate use for it; so long as Silver Moon suffered the loss, it was equivalent to his own gain. Having gone this far, Wei Yuan looked at the underground river's water vein, which was an authentic subterranean ley line. Dispensing with all restraint, he extracted tens of thousands of tons of it before finally calling it a day. *** On the Wuliao frontline, the silver wolf in the sky was battered with wounds, yet it fought on with feral ferocity, locked in a relentless battle to the death against Youfeng, who was several times its size. Suddenly, the wolf let out a roar of utter fury and violently spat out a massive mouthful of blood! Amidst the spray of blood, several hundred translucent souls actually emerged, scattering in frantic flight the moment they surfaced in the world! The silver wolf opened its jaws and inhaled sharply, pulling most of the souls back in. Youfeng transformed into a black-robed woman and swept her arm out, snatching several for herself. Another two managed to slip away, their whereabouts unknown. The silver wolf turned its head toward the Moon Sea, its eyes streaked with crimson. But the woman in black transformed once more into the colossal Nether Phoenix, mounting relentless assaults that pinned the silver wolf down. She could naturally tell that this formidable opponent had run into dire trouble; whatever trouble it was, she could not allow it to pull away and deal with it now. Even as it fought for its life, the silver wolf threw its head back and howled toward the heavens. A moment later, a ten-thousand-zhang Dharma God materialized, intercepting Youfeng before turning back to say, "You owe me one." The silver wolf was already far in the distance, answering only with a low growl from afar.