Bone Curse

The twelve demonic banners and the ebony sword shielded their master, yet Qin Sang suffered no attack; the tremors had simply grown more violent. He steadied himself and warily observed his surroundings. The sealing power here was cut from the very same cloth as that outside. This was the true core of the seal. The secret realm on the other side was merely part of the overall sealing power, somehow protruding beyond the Abyss Ruins. It was precisely through the connection between the altar and the seal that the Heavenly Corpse Sect had communicated with the trapped mysterious person. The tremors originated from above. However, drawing on his past experience to analyze the restrictions in the water, Qin Sang discovered that the sealing power converged in the opposite direction—deep beneath the water. After some thought, Qin Sang decided to head down first. Clearing the way with his flying sword, he dove rapidly and soon reached the place. Peaks as steep as sharp swords rose from the waterbed. These mountains were bare, devoid of the slightest vitality. At the crest of each peak was a cavern opening, pitch-black within and bottomless. The seal seemed to be suppressing these mountains, or perhaps the unknown existences within them. The caverns resembled cages, their entrances standing wide open. Qin Sang remained cautious, observing his surroundings quietly with the aid of the Heavenly Eye divine ability. If anything were amiss, it would not escape his Heavenly Eye. Once certain nothing was out of the ordinary, Qin Sang moved to the edge of the peak and deployed the twelve demonic banners outside to secure an escape route. If anything bizarre lurked inside the cave, catching it off guard would yield far better results. The peaks and caves looked largely alike. Qin Sang casually chose one at the periphery and cautiously made his way inside. The moment he stepped into the cave, Qin Sang felt an immediate suppression. Even though the seal had already been broken, its remnant power still sought to subdue prisoners. Qin Sang's protective divine astral qi fluctuated. He realized the seal was not mere suppression; its power condensed into needle-thin threads of lightning to inflict punishment, retaining a fraction of its former might even now. Were the seal still intact, it was unimaginable how anyone suppressed here could have endured endless years of such agony. Shielding himself with sword qi against the punishment, Qin Sang descended slowly into the belly of the mountain. This was the end: an orderly, square chamber carved within the mountain's core. Streaks of lightning serpents slithered through the space. The seal's punishment targeted only living beings. Sensing Qin Sang, it lunged frantically toward him, but he easily fended it off. This was where the sealing and punitive powers were at their peak, yet the place was deserted, with no unusual traces to be found. He explored several caves in succession, finding the exact same scene in each. Qin Sang arrived at the tallest mountain in the center. The sealing power here was strongest of all, and as soon as he entered, he spotted something unusual. Unlike the other chambers, this mountain belly was not empty; from above, Qin Sang caught sight of a pale white light. When he saw the source of the white light clearly, his expression shifted slightly, and he brought himself to an abrupt halt. On the ground, unlike in the previous caves, stood a stone platform—though it was empty. And before the stone platform lay a bone array! A single glance was enough for Qin Sang to be certain that this bone array was constructed from human bones. The bone array had existed here for who knew how many years, long drained of all blood. The ghastly white light emanated from the bones' own luster, appearing exceptionally eerie in this place. Humerus, tibia, clavicle, patella, phalanges, ribs... Every bone in the human body could be found here. There was even a complete spine curved and arranged at the center of the array. All had been refined, shaped into a yin-yang diagram. They had come from a single person! The one who laid this array was exceptionally ruthless, flaying a living person and tearing them bone from bone to arrange this grand formation. Yet as Qin Sang counted them one by one, he found no skull. Though the bone array had fallen somewhat into disarray, Qin Sang's experience still allowed him to discern clues: this array was likely meant to resist the seal's punishment. "Has the skull been destroyed, or could it be..." Qin Sang paused. Perhaps he had made the wrong assumption; what if the array's creator hadn't torn apart someone else's bones, but their own? In a place like this, how could a second person have appeared for the trapped captive to refine into a bone array? Unless two people had been imprisoned here from the start. Countless bizarre things existed in the cultivation world. When on the verge of exhaustion, refining one's own physical body into a bone array to withstand the punishment and hiding one's soul inside the skull to cling to life was entirely plausible. Seeing this, Qin Sang roughly understood why the mysterious person had spared no effort to seek help from the outside world. Most likely, the bone array could no longer hold out, and facing death in this place, she had made a desperate final gamble. The seal was broken and the skull was gone, indicating she had escaped. At this thought, even Qin Sang felt a chill down his spine. Put in her place, he might not have mustered the resolve to use such a ruthless secret bone array technique. Qin Sang focused his gaze and scrutinized the surroundings, hoping to find more clues. Otherwise, the trail might go cold once again. Barring any unforeseen developments, Tan Hao had already rescued the mysterious person, only to vanish without a trace afterward, leaving his whereabouts an enigma. This was Qin Sang's greatest perplexity. Just as in the previous mountains, the ground and walls were smooth and bare, without any patterns or inscriptions. In the end, Qin Sang's gaze returned to the bone array. "Huh..." Qin Sang made an unexpected discovery. With a flash of his figure, he landed beside the bone array. Across every single bone ran twisting patterns, resembling runes he had never seen before. These runes were carved directly into the bone, seemingly some peculiar bone curse. "Bone curses and corpse refining... could there be a connection?" Qin Sang pondered. The dao of white bones differed from the corpse dao, but both operated on the dead. He suspected that the Heavenly Corpse Sect's inheritance had been obtained from the mysterious person through the altar. Back then, the Heavenly Corpse Sect had possessed a refined corpse on par with a Corpse King, yet failed to rescue her. Perhaps they were wary of her and wanted only the benefits without freeing her, or perhaps the seal had been too strong back then for even a Corpse King to break... Thoughts tumbling through his mind, Qin Sang gathered the bones one by one. Since he couldn't find Tan Hao or the mysterious person, these bone curses were still a harvest. Once back, he might be able to comprehend something from them. As he picked up the spine, Qin Sang's expression suddenly changed. He stared intently at the bone curse etched into a section of the vertebrae. "This rune..." Qin Sang's heart skipped a beat, and the image of the Heavenly Corpse Talisman surfaced in his mind. The rune in this section of the bone curse was remarkably similar to one on the Heavenly Corpse Talisman! "There really is a connection!" Qin Sang felt a surge of joy. Perhaps the second half of the Heavenly Corpse Sect's inheritance was not purely a corpse dao secret technique, but one fused with the dao of white bones. No wonder he had made no headway all this time. Unfortunately, he still hadn't found the method to unravel the Heavenly Corpse Talisman. While gathering the bones, Qin Sang committed the bone curses to memory, hoping that using them as a starting point would aid in breaking the Heavenly Corpse Talisman. In addition, he could take them back for Bai to study. Bai had held the Corpse Soul Pearl for decades and remained in seclusion, yet had never been able to refine it, leaving his advancement to Corpse King indefinitely out of reach. Now it seemed that the issue was not insufficient strength, but following the wrong path.