"There is a matter I wished to ask Fairy about."
After entering Man Prefecture and traveling for some time, Qin Sang remembered something. He took out the ice disk and handed it to Liuli. "Can Fairy sense anything unusual about the energy within this treasure?"
When it came to attainments in the Dao of Ice, Qin Sang could not hold a candle to Liuli.
Upon learning the ice disk's origin and function, Liuli looked it over carefully before sinking her awareness into it, sensing the cold fiend energy within.
Qin Sang watched her in silence. Only after she withdrew her divine sense did he speak: "My avatar achieved the Ice Soul Divine Light by comprehending this cold fiend energy, and even found the opportunity for a breakthrough through it."
Realization dawned on Liuli; no wonder the divine light unleashed by his avatar was so peculiar.
"It does not seem to be pure cold ice energy, yet it is completely harmonious and natural, not appearing to be forcefully fused. To think it can weaken heavenly tribulations—truly, I am ill-informed..." Liuli mused, eventually shaking her head. "It does not align with my Dao foundation, but it can serve as a point of reference."
From then on, Liuli contemplated the ice disk as they traveled, while Qin Sang accompanied her in silence.
Traversing countless mountains and rivers, the two finally arrived at the shore of a vast lake.
The lake spanned a full thousand li, yet in Man Prefecture it could hardly be considered the largest. What made it peculiar was its indigo-blue water; any cultivator familiar with the landscapes of the two southern Man prefectures could tell at a glance that it was laden with deadly poison.
Lush water weeds grew along the banks, all of them toxic varieties.
Except for a handful of naturally venomous creatures, no living beings could survive here. Beyond the northern areas near the Central Plains, most of Man Prefecture was like this—not only devoid of human habitation, but rarely showing any signs of life.
"The entrance is right here!"
Qin Sang flew to the center of the lake, scanned its surface, flew a hundred li to the west, nodded at Liuli, and dove into the water.
Liuli followed behind.
Shielding themselves with true essence, the two dove swiftly toward the lake bed. The deeper they went, the darker the indigo water became. Combined with the dim light, pitch darkness soon swallowed their surroundings.
After sinking an unknown depth, their protective true essence began to hiss and sizzle; the toxins in the water were potent enough to corrode true essence.
Yet with their profound cultivations, neither had reason to fear.
Near the bottom, they encountered strange creatures swimming through the lower depths. Grotesque in shape, they fed on foul rot and poison, every one of them a lethal venomous beast that would strike terror into the hearts of outsiders.
Cave Master Qiling had deliberately left these venomous creatures behind. While they could not stop top experts, they could scare off weaker cultivators and prevent trespassers from stumbling in.
Cave Master Qiling's caution went far beyond this.
Countless openings of various sizes dotted the lake bed, leading into subterranean rivers. The watery labyrinth was complex and branched in every direction.
After searching for a time, Qin Sang found a seemingly ordinary opening, sank into the underground river, and continued downward deep into the earth before finally sensing a unique fluctuation.
"We've arrived..." Qin Sang warned via voice transmission, suddenly accelerating.
Liuli followed close behind. Guided by Qin Sang, she unraveled the protective formation of the cave abode. Then, as if passing through an invisible barrier, a refreshing sensation washed over them, and the lake water was left behind.
What opened before them was a subterranean cavern drifting with crimson and gray mist. Upon stepping inside, an eerie, bone-chilling cold swept over them, penetrating to the marrow. The flowing mist sounded like the weeping of countless vengeful spirits.
Seeing the scene within the mist clearly, Qin Sang and Liuli fell silent.
Rather than an herb garden, it was more like a sacrificial ground.
Towering mounds of white bones stood throughout the garden, resembling the jingguan built by mortal armies to flaunt martial triumph. Encircling the bone mounds were spiraling, labyrinthine channels, except the liquid flowing within was bright red blood.
These rivers of blood connected together into what resembled a blood formation.
Yet the bloody water carried not the slightest metallic stench; instead, an exotic fragrance struck their noses.
The scent originated from the tops of the bone mounds.
A few were bare, but atop most of them glowed vibrant crimson light.
Within the red light grew spirit herbs of every description—some shaped like lingzhi mushrooms, others blooming as blood flowers or ghost vines, and the most bizarre even bore fruit shaped like bloody infants, with startlingly distinct facial features.
It was difficult to find any real-world counterparts to these spirit herbs. All had been cultivated through Cave Master Qiling's secret arts and nourished with refined souls, their original forms distorted long ago into 'blood medicines.'
Liuli cast a glance at Qin Sang.
Qin Sang understood what she meant: Was it really safe to consume medicine like this?
If the memories extracted from soul searching were accurate, these blood medicines had been painstakingly cultivated by Cave Master Qiling. The cultivation process could be likened to alchemy—a method that paved an entirely different path.
Unless one intended to switch to the corpse-ghost path, ingesting them would cause some residual side effects, but as long as one focused on refining them away, those could all be resolved.
Strange as their appearance was, their medicinal efficacy was genuine. Compared to the benefits, such a small price was entirely acceptable.
The blood medicines remaining atop the bone mounds were not yet fully mature, so their potency was greatly diminished. However, Qin Sang urgently needed spirit herbs to heal his injuries and had no intention of nourishing them with refined souls, so he decided to harvest them directly.
The memories from the soul search were incomplete, and Qin Sang did not recognize some of the blood medicines. Liuli went out to capture demon beasts and venomous creatures to test their properties, cataloging them one by one.
Once the white bones and blood were cleared away, the place finally looked somewhat like a proper cave abode.
Within the quiet cave abode, Qin Sang took the medicines to heal his wounds, while Liuli contemplated the ice disk at his side.
Once his condition showed slight improvement, Qin Sang turned his focus to the toxins in his body—the prime culprit behind his worsening injuries. The poison had to be expunged first.
Channeling the power of the poison pearl in conjunction with medicinal pills, he expelled the toxins strand by strand, and some color gradually returned to his face.
Time trickled by.
Qin Sang's condition improved day by day, yet his foundation had been damaged, and full recovery was not something that could be achieved in a short time.
With his true body healing in Man Prefecture under Liuli's protection, the avatar could cross north into Beihuang without worry.
The snow disaster had just ended, and the skies had cleared.
Snow lay thick and pure white.
A blanket of snow completely covered the earth and mountains. Fierce winds whipped up powdery flakes, sending them dancing across the sky in a blinding expanse of white.
His appearance disguised, the avatar swept low over the snowpack. After flying for a long time, he stopped above a snowdrift, stared downward for a moment, formed an incantation seal, and cast it beneath the snow.
"Who goes there?!"
The snow suddenly parted, revealing the silhouette of a mountain below, and a figure flew up.
"Senior, it is me," the avatar said softly. Seeing that Ghost Mother and Yagu were unharmed, he finally felt at ease.
The newcomer was indeed Ghost Mother, who said with a faint, mocking smile, "Ah, so it is Lord Fire Demon, freshly returned from turning Zhongzhou upside down! Slaying the foster son of a Deity Transformation master, destroying the phantom incarnation of a Saint King—what fearsome renown! Tsk, tsk, it seems I underestimated you."
"Senior, please do not tease me. Hunted by formidable foes, this junior is already running like a stray dog," the avatar replied with a wry smile.
By now, rumors concerning the Wuxiang Immortal Sect had spread like wildfire across Zhongzhou. Tremendous events such as the ancient demon's capture and Violet Thunder's demise paled in comparison to the colorful tales surrounding Qin Sang.
He had been painted as a peerless monster rarely seen in ten thousand years.
The rumors grew more exaggerated by the day. Listening to those tales, Qin Sang felt he wouldn't even need to flee—he could slay two Deity Transformation masters in a row and single-handedly suppress the ancient demon without breaking a sweat.
A few more people emerged from the cave abode.
Alerted by the commotion above, the others had come out to check.
The avatar glanced down: there were three of them.
One was his nominal disciple Shen Chen. The other was a boy holding the hand of a young girl. Carved as if from fine jade, the girl appeared six or seven years old, stealing peeks at the avatar with a mixture of curiosity and fear. The boy was older, perhaps twelve or thirteen, and carried himself with composure.
"You dared provoke even Deity Transformation cultivators. The Xie family and Loutai Temple were dragged in by your wake, their fates uncertain. Moving too many people risks exposing our tracks, so I could only bring out these few. Additionally, the two factions selected several promising disciples and sent them away in secret. As for the rest who couldn't easily be relocated, their whole families were told to charter flying vessels from Longju Grotto-Heaven and openly travel to Ganlu Zen Monastery to weep and plead at their gates. As for these three, you will have to figure out how to arrange them yourself."
Ghost Mother was seasoned and experienced. Upon receiving his warning, she had taken charge of Qin Sang's rear affairs. With this arrangement, even in the worst-case scenario, the lineage and incense of the Xie family and Loutai Temple could endure.
The boy was named Xie Yi. Qin Sang recalled hearing of him—said to be a rare genius upon whom the Xie family pinned great hopes.
The avatar descended to the ground. Shen Chen stepped forward to salute, while Xie Yi pulled the girl down to kowtow; all of them already knew the avatar's true identity.
Looking closely at the girl's facial features, they seemed somewhat familiar.
"Are you the daughter of Zhou Jin and Ruan Yu?"
When the couple had visited him, they mentioned worrying that they might never break through to the Nascent Soul realm and planned to carry on their bloodline first. They had nourished their vitality with secret arts for years and intentionally brought it up before Qin Sang to see if there was any chance their child could enter his tutelage.
However, Qin Sang had remained noncommittal, so they hadn't dared bring it up again.
"My name is Zhou Li. Father and mother told me to follow Old Ancestor from now on and be obedient," the girl chirped crisply, kowtowing meticulously to Qin Sang.
The avatar pointed at Zhou Li and Xie Yi and said to Shen Chen, "From now on, they are your disciples."
The Demon Sealing Stake had been given away, but the Meteoric Iron Divine Whip remained, and Qin Sang could hardly burn bridges after crossing the river.
Fortunately, this disciple still had some use.
"This... disciple obeys!"
Shen Chen was dumbfounded. Looking at his two cheap disciples, his head throbbed—he was going to have to babysit first.
Yet with his master's order, he dared not disobey.
Especially after hearing from Ghost Mother about Qin Sang's exploits in Nanzhou, Shen Chen revered and feared his master all the more.
Dismissing the disciples with a wave, the avatar and Ghost Mother entered the quiet chamber. Yagu slept peacefully on an ice bed, her breathing steady and her aura noticeably more substantial than before.
"I hear your harvest this time was quite bountiful?" Ghost Mother asked unabashedly, raising a brow.
The avatar offered his thanks: "I must thank Senior for informing me in time, preventing me from missing this opportunity! Following the Witch Clan imprint Senior left behind, I found the skeletal remains of that Witch Clan Deity Transformation master within the immortal estate. Like the masters of the Wuxiang Immortal Sect, he must have been infected by demonic corruption during the demonic tribulation and sealed himself on Mount Dishou, meeting a tragic end..."
How difficult it was to cultivate to the Deity Transformation realm in this world! Yet just as that Witch Clan master was about to break free of the cage, disaster struck, and he perished in a foreign land.
Ghost Mother remarked flatly, "Time and fate."
"In that senior's legacy, there is a sea chart of the Canglang Ocean. Would Senior be interested in traveling there to see your fellow Witch Clan descendants?"
Qin Sang had later found the chart among the miscellaneous items.
The Canglang Ocean was located southeast of Zhongzhou, even farther than the North Sea. Since Qin Sang did not know the exact location of Guixu, he could not tell where the Canglang Ocean lay in relation to it.
"With Yagu here, what would be the point of going? My own path forward remains uncertain; how could I have spare strength to save others? The same clan does not make them of the same bloodline. Do you treat the mortals and cultivators of Zhongzhou with special favor simply because they are human?"
Ghost Mother's expression was indifferent. After a pause, she added, "Yagu's condition is better than anticipated, and our progress during this period has been exceptionally smooth! I am already preparing to traverse the void. Once preparations are complete, I will select an auspicious day to ascend."
"So soon?" The avatar frowned.
Ghost Mother shook her head and muttered, "I have waited far too long."
Traversing the void relied on Witch Clan secret techniques, an area where the avatar could offer no input. Gazing outside the cave abode, he said, "If Senior requires any assistance from me, do not hesitate to ask—my only wish is for Yagu's safety. However, before that, we must find a secure resting place."
Saying so, the avatar shook his sleeve, sending two clusters of eerie light flying out.
One cluster enveloped a tattered banner, while the other held Su Zinan's crippled Nascent Soul. Both had been brought along by the avatar.
The tiny Nascent Soul's eyes were tightly shut, its consciousness faded.
Su Zinan had first been severely poisoned, then scorched by fire. After being imprisoned by Qin Sang, he had nearly perished when the toxins flared up; fortunately, the avatar noticed in time and suppressed the poison, keeping his meager life hanging by a thread.
Qin Sang had originally kept the crippled Nascent Soul merely to search its memories.
However, after finding the cultivation art Su Zinan practiced among his belongings and inspecting the condition of the Three Corpse God-Perishing Banner, he had changed his mind.
If the Three Corpse God-Perishing Banner assembled three Late Nascent Soul demonic souls and subdued them entirely, it could actually use the three souls as a foundation to assist in breaking through the Deity Transformation bottleneck. The catch was that using the three souls for this breakthrough required pairing it with a specific cultivation art to take effect.
All of this was the product of Old Demon Lu's experiments, created by combining blood path arts, the Three Corpse God-Perishing Banner, and his own secret cultivation methods.
The two demonic souls Su Zinan had gathered were destroyed by the Sun Divine Bird, leaving the banner battered. The third soul had survived, though it remained in the form of a faceless human head, having yet to merge with a Nascent Soul.
Qin Sang intended to save this spot for Su Zinan.
He had no intention of changing his cultivation art, so the Three Corpse God-Perishing Banner could only serve as a lethal weapon in his hands. Furthermore, repairing the treasure was extraordinarily difficult.
Even with the legacy of a Deity Transformation master and subordinates like Elder Wu and the Dark Moon Guards, Su Zinan had still found gathering the necessary spiritual materials an uphill struggle.
However, if he could perform basic repairs and fuse Su Zinan into the demonic soul, he would not only gain a powerful combat asset, but could also easily obtain all the secrets Su Zinan possessed.
On his journey north, the avatar had studied the demonic banner and gradually grasped the fundamentals, but encountered a dilemma.
Su Zinan's cultivation had been a realm higher than the avatar's, making the chances of failure extremely high. He needed Ghost Mother's assistance.
Learning the details, Ghost Mother took the banner and the crippled soul, sneering immediately, "For the dignified foster son of a Deity Transformation master to end up in such a state—even if Old Demon Lu found out, he would only feel humiliated and too embarrassed to seek vengeance against you."
"Eh?"
Holding the Three Corpse God-Perishing Banner, Ghost Mother inspected it closely, appearing quite intrigued. "This tattered banner is somewhat interesting."
The avatar recalled that the Heavenly Corpse Talisman had originated from Ghost Mother's hands, and his gaze turned strange.
One imprisoned living Nascent Souls, while the other controlled living corpses—could Ghost Mother have some peculiar penchant?
More than ten days later.
The group departed the snow peak and turned eastward, their destination set for Luye!
With the demonic banner binding the crippled soul, they learned the origin of the Plain of Luye from Su Zinan's mouth.
The Plain of Luye was an ancient cave abode that Old Demon Lu had stumbled upon while traveling the North Sea.
Because the Plain of Luye drifted between Beihuang and the North Sea year-round without any fixed pattern, and its grand formation was exceedingly concealed, it wasn't until Old Demon Lu took possession of it that the secret abode saw the light of day again, becoming his Daoist sanctuary.
Without the master's guidance, no one could tell where Luye was located. There was no better hiding place.
Su Zinan had anchored Luye by the shore of the Eastern Sea; now, it was an ownerless prize.
Chapter 1693