Chapter 145: Breaking the Core of the Formation, the Altar Appears
Inside the Ten Thousand Bone Cave, cries of slaughter erupted, and the roar of energy exploded incessantly, as if threatening to completely overturn this place of death, which had been silent for ten thousand years. The four allied forces, like four arrows shot from a bow, shot towards their respective targets, and in doing so, completely stirred up the shadow demon forces entrenched there.
The direction of the blood pool of evil spirits.
This place was a vast natural cavern nestled in the heart of a rift valley. In its center lay a terrifying pool of blood, nearly a thousand feet in radius. The blood within the pool wasn't bright red, but a thick, dark red, almost black, as if it had been deposited for countless years. Countless twisted, tormented, and hideous faces constantly emerged from the pool's surface, struggling and wailing. A thick grudge, almost a tangible black mist, swirled above the pool. Surrounding the pool stood nine bronze pillars, engraved with blasphemous magic patterns, constantly drawing resentful energy from the pool, transforming it into energy to support the formation.
As the "Evil-Slaying Squad" led by Master Huijue approached, the blood pool reacted violently. Countless blood-colored wraiths, condensed from pure resentful energy, surged from the pool like a tide, emitting piercing screams as they charged towards the Buddha's light. Furthermore, several "Blood Demon Generals," whose strength rivaled that of peak Spiritual Mansion Realm cultivators, wielded blood-colored weapons composed of solidified, foul blood, roared and charged.
"Form a Vajra Circle to Subdue Demons! Recite the Amitabha Mantra!" Master Huijue shouted, his expression unchanged. The eighteen Arhats immediately shifted positions, and the Buddha's light merged into a vast golden halo, protecting the group in the center. The monks chanted in unison, a mighty sound of Sanskrit chanting echoing, and the golden swastika Buddhist script rained down upon the pool of blood and the vengeful spirits.
The Buddha's light and resentful energy collided fiercely, the purifying and polluting forces annihilating each other with a sizzling sound and billowing clouds of green smoke. The resentful spirits melted like ice and snow under the Buddha's light, but the pool of blood seemed endless, and the resentful spirits could not be slain. Master Huijue personally took action, his demon-subduing pestle transformed into a golden thunderbolt, blasting towards a bronze pillar, battling the powerful demonic guardian spirit that emerged from the pillar. The battle was extremely brutal, the Buddha's light and the blood light intertwined, illuminating the entire cave with flickering light and darkness.
Buried deep in the underground palace.
The "Breaking Formation Squad," led by Envoy Yunying, relied on the Star Palace elders' precise perception of energy flows and the Celestial Palace disciples' keen intuition for traps and mechanisms. They trudged through a maze-like underground palace filled with ancient restrictions and dormant bone demons. Vast, intact ancient remains littered the passageways. Some shimmered like jade, emitting a faint aura of power; others were pitch black, shrouded in a lingering demonic aura. They must exercise extreme caution; awakening powerful beings or triggering deadly restrictions could lead to disastrous consequences.
Along the way, they encountered several waves of patrolling Shadow Demon monks and bone demons native to the underground palace, resulting in several brief but fierce battles. A Star Palace disciple accidentally triggered a hidden "Soul-Crushing Thunder." Although Yun Ying quickly deflected him, he was also injured by the aftermath, hindering his movement. Following the map, they circumvented several obvious traps and finally approached the core of the underground palace—a tomb filled with massive stone coffins, with the foundation stone of a complex formation standing in its center. However, at the tomb's entrance, two Shadow Demon formation masters with the aura of the late Spirit Mansion Realm and several massive bronze coffins emitting the aura of the early Nirvana Realm blocked their path. A fierce battle was inevitable.
The edge of the evil eye.
The Golden Peng Demon King partially revealed his true form, wingspanning a full ten feet, his golden feathers gleaming in the dim light. Relying on his innate mastery of the laws of wind, he managed to maintain his composure amidst the savage, slashing winds. The members of his "disruption team" each employed their own methods, employing defensive magic weapons and employing evasion techniques, closely following him.
The eye of the storm lay within a vast fissure. A pitch-black storm roared forth from the earth like a mighty dragon, its wind mingled with shrill demonic sounds and a sinister aura so intense it could etch the bones and soul. Their mission was to locate the veins connecting the eye of the storm to the formation's energy and disrupt them. The Golden Peng Demon King's piercing gaze penetrated some of the storm, locking onto several demonic patterns that pulsed like blood vessels, channeling dark energy. With a long roar and a fierce flap of his wings, two massive azure wind blades slashed out like crescent moons, attempting to sever the patterns. However, the eye of the storm immediately repelled them fiercely, sending even more powerful gale force crashing down like a sledgehammer. Simultaneously, several "Wind Demons," condensed from pure demonic energy, swooped down from the storm, attacking the Golden Peng Demon King and his companions. Trapped between the raging wind and the demonic forces, they faced a perilous situation.
Meanwhile, the main force, led by Qin Yixuan and Ye Li, quietly lurked within a hidden forest of massive animal bones near the main entrance of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave. Everyone's minds were tense, their consciousness focused, closely monitoring the energy fluctuations emanating from three directions within the valley. As time passed, the roars, explosions, Buddhist chants, and demonic roars within the valley grew increasingly intense and intensive. Clearly, the battles on the other three fronts had entered their most brutal and critical phase.
Qin Yixuan's body was shrouded in a restrained, nine-colored glow, but her eyes were as sharp as an eagle's. Ye Li gripped the hilt of the Xuanbing Sword, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force. The throbbing of the Samsara Mirror in her sea of consciousness echoed with the sinister call from the valley floor, intensifying her murderous intent and sense of urgency.
Sudden!
Buzz——!!!
The entire Ten Thousand Bone Caverns shook violently! It was as if a giant heart had been violently gripped! The spatial restrictions and illusionary formations at the entrance of the valley, once as solid as a lid and shrouded in magical patterns, began to flicker violently, flickering unsteadily like a lamp with poor electrical contact. Its stability visibly declined, its power plummeting! Then, the slowly swirling, leaden-like deathly energy cloud within the valley seemed to lose its support. Visible energy vortices and collapse points appeared simultaneously in three different directions (the blood pool, the underground palace, and the eye of the storm), and the cloud became thin and chaotic!
"Signal! The node has been destroyed!" Ye Li's eyes flashed with a sharp light, and his suppressed low growl was full of determination and fighting spirit.
"Now is the time! Follow me! Go straight to Huanglong!" Qin Yixuan shouted, without any reservation. The power of Xuannv broke out in full force. The nine-colored rays of light were like the first ray of sunshine at dawn, and like a divine sword that cut through the chaos. It suddenly exploded and turned into a sacred passage across the sky, forcibly splitting the entrance restriction that had become weak, and rushed into the deepest darkness of the Wangu Cave!
Ye Li's figure was as fast as lightning, following closely behind the nine-colored rays of light. The Mysterious Ice Sword was already unsheathed, its icy sword intent fixed on the source of evil that stood out like a beacon at the bottom of the valley. Like a torrent bursting through a dam, the main force of the coalition forces roared and followed the relatively safe passage opened by Qin Yixuan's divine power. With unwavering momentum, they charged into the deepest part of this forbidden zone for living creatures!
Along the way, those scattered vengeful spirits and demons, deprived of the support and unified command of the formation, shone brightly under the Mystic Goddess's radiance, like demons exposed to the scorching sun, wailing shrilly as they twisted, dissipated, and retreated. Occasionally, some unconvinced and powerful demon cultivators tried to stop them, but they were instantly killed by Ye Li's merciless, lightning-fast sword light, unable to delay the team even a little.
The group raced down the steep valley wall at breakneck speed. The deeper they went, the dimmer the light grew. The deathly aura and demonic energy thickened almost like liquid, and the oppressive feeling intensified. Black barriers and traps, condensed from demonic energy, materialized all around them. But before Qin Yixuan's seemingly endless purifying divine light and Ye Li's all-severing sword intent of annihilation, these obstacles were forcibly breached and destroyed!
Finally, after breaking through the last barrier of dark red magic fog filled with a strong smell of blood, which seemed to be condensed from countless blood souls, the scene in front of them suddenly became clear, but it also made all the coalition monks who saw this scene, including Qin Yixuan and Ye Li, gasp in shock!
At the bottom of the valley lay a vast, seemingly artificially leveled platform. In its center, a massive altar stood a hundred feet tall, constructed entirely of countless massive, twisted, darkly shimmering, unknown black bones. Its shape was hideous and blasphemous, like the magnified skull of some dormant, ancient beast. Its surface was engraved with countless writhing, twisting, and ominously glowing magic patterns. These patterns breathed like living things, devouring all light and life around them.
Evenly distributed around the altar were nine even larger, seething pools of blood! The pools were no longer filled with dark red, foul blood, but a thick, pungent, hot substance like magma. Countless souls, agonized beyond recognition, their faces twisted and deformed beyond recognition, floated and howled within them. These were the purest essence and the most core souls extracted from the most talented cultivators who had disappeared from various parts of the spiritual world in recent years! Their power and destiny were being frantically drained by the altar!
At the top of the altar, there were three things suspended that made Ye Li's pupils shrink suddenly and Qin Yixuan's expression extremely solemn:
At the very center, a massive heart, the size of a small mountain, beat slowly and powerfully. Its body was pitch black, its surface covered in thick, blood-veined protrusions! Every beat exuded a sickening, evil aura and terrifying pressure, as if it were the source of the demonic energy of the Ten Thousand Bone Cave, the core of power for the dormant evil being!
Diagonally above the heart, a palm-sized, irregularly shaped fragment, which should have been crystal clear, was now tightly wrapped, entangled, and corroded by a thick, ink-like black aura! The fragment constantly twisted and struggled within the black aura, emitting an aura that was the same as the fragment of the Samsara Mirror within Ye Li's body, but with an incomparably painful and foul aura—it was the other contaminated Samsara Mirror fragment!
And in front of the heart and fragments, there was a phantom of Ling Hao made of pure magic energy, which was countless times more solid than the previous clone, with a clearly visible face (exactly the same as the betrayed junior brother Ling Hao in Ye Li's memory), and his eyes were full of fanaticism, greed and desire for destruction. He had his arms outstretched, chanting ancient and blasphemous spells, as if guiding the power of the altar, performing the final stage of some terrible ritual!
Even more terrifying was the moment, directly above the altar, an indescribable force forcibly tore the air apart, creating a massive, unstable rift, its edges gleaming with chaotic lightning! On the other side of the rift lay not a starry sky, but endless chaos and darkness that seemed poised to devour all light and hope! A terrifying aura, as if emanating from the very end of an era, threatening to annihilate everything, faintly emanated from it, becoming increasingly clear!
"The channel to the Eclipse Realm... They are not summoning, they are forcibly opening and stabilizing a channel leading to the 'Eclipse Realm'!" Qin Yixuan screamed in shock, and for the first time, a look of near horror appeared on her beautiful face. She felt the ultimate threat coming from the other end of the channel, which was enough to bring the entire spiritual world to destruction.
"Ling! Hao!" Ye Li's gaze was fixed on the shadowy figure atop the altar, and the tainted, struggling fragment of the Samsara Mirror. Raging murderous intent, deep hatred, and uncontrollable rage burned madly in her eyes, threatening to transform into tangible flames. The pain of betrayal and death in her past life, combined with the rage of witnessing such heinous crimes in this life, erupted completely in this moment!
As if sensing their arrival, dozens of powerful demonic figures silently emerged from the shadows surrounding the altar, like ghosts! Leading them was none other than Ling Hao's clone, re-condensed from the escaping demonic thoughts, his aura even more concentrated than before. He was joined by two other shadow demon elders, clad in ancient demonic robes and possessing auras as profound as the ocean, no less powerful than the ghost-faced men of the past! Their gazes were cold and cruel, like venomous snakes stalking their prey, locking onto the invading coalition's main force.
The final showdown will take place at the bottom of the Cave of Ten Thousand Bones, before the altar of blasphemy and despair. There is no room for maneuver and it is about to begin!
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