It was not until he rushed out of the hills that Qin Sang discovered the talisman formation laid by Gongliang Yu remained intact, yet there was no sign of Dongyang Bo; he had no idea where the man had fled.
Qin Sang surveyed his surroundings, musing to himself that with Dongyang Bo suffering damage to both his blood essence and magic treasures, it was uncertain whether he would still take part in the struggle against Sin Abyss.
Spreading his wings, he flew toward a distant hilltop and observed the cave entrance from afar.
His battle with Dongyang Bo had awoken a slumbering monster at the bottom of the Blood River.
Qin Sang had no desire for pointless fighting, so he had hurried away without even looking at what the monster was. He did not know how powerful it was or what its origin might be.
Even before it had fully awoken, Qin Sang had already felt a faint sense of threat; it was certainly no benevolent creature.
If the beast woke up and lingered around the entrance to Blood Lake, there might be further trouble when the time came to leave.
He kept his gaze fixed on the cave opening. Plumes of blood mist billowed outward, followed by a horde of blood shadows scrambling out in sheer panic, as though fleeing from a terrifying enemy.
Outside the cave, the blood mist was thin. Deprived of the mist's support, the blood shadows darted about wildly like headless flies, only to trigger the surrounding ancient restrictions and be reduced to ash.
The chaos did not last long; the mouth of the cave soon regained its tranquility.
Qin Sang watched for a while. Seeing no further developments, he decided to leave it be, flew far away, and found a secluded spot, where he placed the talisman puppet on the ground.
The talisman puppet was howling and thrashing. A fissure had already cracked open across the jade vase, which was on the verge of losing control.
It was so fierce and untamable—no wonder Gongliang Yu had been so gingerly in controlling it.
Qin Sang looked at the puppet, feeling at a total loss. Under the current circumstances, his only option was to find a way to place restrictions on it first, then study how to truly subdue it after getting out.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, he separated a sliver of divine consciousness and probed into the talisman puppet's body, only to be immediately shocked.
"Good heavens! What a mess!"
Countless soul silhouettes crowded within the Nascent Soul talisman puppet. The moment they sensed Qin Sang's divine consciousness, they turned to glare at him in unison, making his hair stand on end.
Immediately afterward, Qin Sang felt something tugging and tearing at his origin soul, while the soul silhouettes lunged forward in a mad frenzy like a nocturnal parade of a hundred ghosts.
"What kind of ghost puppet is this?! It's definitely an evil puppet!"
Even with the protection of the jade Buddha, Qin Sang's scalp tingled with numbness.
For a puppet to be so chaotic, who knew what evil arts Shangyuan Qingjing Palace had drawn upon to refine it?
Untangling it all in a short time was entirely out of the question. Taking advantage of the jade vase's spirit formation still barely suppressing the puppet, Qin Sang cast countless restrictions in succession, finally managing to seal it by force with the aid of the demonic fire.
Crack!
The spirit formation breathed its last.
A ray of black light flew into Qin Sang's palm.
The talisman puppet had been sealed into a palm-sized figure, still restless. Demonic fire swirled around it, turning into tadpole-like black runes that seemed branded into its flesh, keeping it temporarily sealed.
"Master, where are we heading now?"
Fat Chick was released by Qin Sang, looking somewhat anxious.
They had originally come to look for its mother, but Dongyang Bo's unexpected presence had complicated matters.
Dongyang Bo's ambush of Gongliang Yu and Qin Sang's clash with Dongyang Bo had not taken that long combined, but the earlier tracking had dragged on.
Regulating his breath to recover, Qin Sang stood up and said, "We need to sweep through the outer perimeter as quickly as possible, then hurry to regroup with the others."
Having unexpectedly exposed his identity made it even more imperative for Qin Sang to find the Thunder-Devouring Falcon Demon King.
First, he might bring back a legitimate demon king for the Thousand Mountains Bamboo Sea, giving the demon race an answer; second, he would gain another ally.
Life would not be all about fighting and killing from now on.
Now that both sides stood openly in the daylight, they were bound to tread with extreme caution and give each other no easy opening to strike.
Qin Sang's foundation in the cultivation world was still shallow compared to Dongyang Bo's.
Since he intended to establish the lineage of Qingyang Temple, the future sects would be inevitably affected by the enmity between them. Making broad alliances so that Dongyang Bo would hesitate to strike—taking things one step at a time—was the proper path forward.
Taking Fat Chick along, Qin Sang brought out the ebony sword and traveled via sword escape, making a broad sweep of the outer region.
Fat Chick's Thunder Rosary Bead remained completely unresponsive throughout.
It seemed that if the Thunder-Devouring Falcon Demon King were still alive, she could only be deep within Blood Lake.
Fat Chick was dejected. It was already so perilous out here; it was hard to imagine what the depths of Blood Lake would be like. No matter how strong its mother was, the chances of surviving in a place like this were slim.
...
At this moment, Qin Sang was traveling through the mountain ranges with Fat Chick.
After flying for some time, Qin Sang came to a halt atop a peak, looking up at the mountains ahead, each taller than the last. More than a dozen mountain ranges lay in orderly rows, rising step by step like a flight of stairs.
"Master, that looks like the place!"
Fat Chick pointed a wing toward the foremost mountain.
The peak of that mountain was most peculiar; something had sheared it flat, creating a massive platform.
This was the designated rendezvous point for the Nascent Soul cultivators!
Qin Sang nodded slightly, remarking with some surprise, "Not a soul is here. Could they have all gone inside already?"
Flashing into motion, he leaped onto the stone platform, and his view opened up immediately.
Beyond this mountain, no further ranges blocked the view.
Stretching out before his eyes was an exceptionally vast basin shrouded in blood mist.
Mist surged like tides across the basin.
Even with the Heavenly Eye Butterfly's vision, he could not pierce the blood mist to see what lay beneath.
This place differed from the Blood River they had seen earlier; there were no blood shadows swimming about everywhere, but the blood mist was densely packed with ancient restrictions, making it far more dangerous than the river.
According to the information they had previously gathered, the so-called depths of Blood Lake referred to this mist-cloaked basin.
Years ago, the seal on Blood Lake had somehow loosened, and a phantom silhouette of the Boundless Blood Mulberry was projected outside Blood Lake, where it was discovered.
Later, several seniors had pooled their strength to break the seal and enter. Upon reaching this platform, they saw the true body of the Boundless Blood Mulberry floating amidst the blood mist.
Standing on this very platform, one senior had wielded a grand divine ability and actually managed to fish the Boundless Blood Mulberry out.
As for why they had turned against one another, shattered the Boundless Blood Mulberry, and what had transpired afterward, nobody knew.
The pieces of the Boundless Blood Mulberry scattered outside were incomplete, leading everyone to suspect that a portion might have fallen back into the basin.
Thus, their journey was not entirely to thwart Old Demon Ye's plot; they also harbored hopes of finding the divine wood.
Standing there, Qin Sang peered into the distance and noticed a black speck emerging through the blood mist in the middle of the basin. Looking closer, it resembled the spire of some building.
"Master, there's a message left here!"
Fat Chick called out from the edge of the platform upon making a new discovery.
Qin Sang saw it as well.
At the edge of the platform, a message condensed from true essence hovered just above the blood-colored stone, only lightly concealed.
Moreover, it bore the joint blessing of Demon Monarch Tongyou, Xiang Qing, Daoist Chongyi, and Qingjun using special methods; it could not be faked.
Aside from Dongyang Bo, nearly all the strongest figures of the Xiaohan Realm had arrived.
The gist of it was that shortly after arriving, they had noticed an anomaly deep within the basin. Fearing it was Old Demon Ye's doing, they could not wait for everyone to assemble and had proceeded ahead.
They indicated the direction and promised to mark dangers along the way, urging late arrivals to catch up as soon as possible.
Qin Sang looked all around, but saw none of the anomalies they had mentioned.
Chapter 1246