Chapter 42 Chaos Altar and the Resonance of Straight Men’s Souls
Chaos Altar Resonates with Straight Men's Souls
A turquoise halo flowed through the altar like liquid jade, the aura of chaos intertwined with the vitality of the Jianmu tree, forming a strange energy field. Jiang Xuelan and Li Jiuyou were forced to sit cross-legged, their knees almost touching. The blood pact vine mark on their wrists glowed faintly, binding the two enemies to the core of the altar like an invisible chain.
"Fuck! Is this vine embedded in my bones?!" Li Jiuyou lashed out with his wrist in a rage. The red-gold demonic fire sliced through his skin, but burned nothing. He glared fiercely at Jiang Xuelan, who had her eyes closed across from him. "Ice-face, why are you pretending to be in a trance? If you can, take back the cold! You're giving me goosebumps!"
"Noisy." Jiang Xuelan's eyelashes didn't flutter, and the two words uttered like ice chips from his thin lips. But a closer look revealed that his fingers, resting on his knees, were twitching slightly. The heat from Li Jiuyou's body, mixed with the chaotic aura, was madly attacking his dantian through the blood contract. The heat from his demon core was like a lit firecracker, colliding left and right in his frozen meridians. The mark of the God-Slaying Gu on his lower back throbbed, and a dark red tinge had already spread beneath his ice-blue robe.
"My two ancestors, please save your energy!" Xuanjia circled anxiously at the edge of the altar, pointing his tortoise claws at the swaying shadow of the Jianmu sapling in the center. "Don't you see that the sapling is wilting? The gravekeeper said we need to activate the origin! Do you understand the origin?"
As if responding to its cry, the gravekeeper's dry, branch-like palm suddenly pressed down on the edge of the altar!
The chaotic lines suddenly lit up with a dark gray light, and the Jianmu seedlings spread their leaves with a swish. Jiang Xuelan groaned, and the ice fragments in his sea of consciousness shook violently. Fragments of memories from three hundred years ago, wrapped in wind and snow, came crashing down on him.
Sky-high flames devoured the blue tiles and white walls. His mother's fingertips trembled as she shoved him into the cellar. The nine-year-old clutched the jade buckle of his father's Frost Silence Sword, hearing the immortal cultivators sneer from beyond the flames: "Divine bloodline? Perfect for refining medicine for His Majesty..."
Almost at the same time, Li Jiuyou's demonic fire exploded with a bang! The blood moon of the wasteland was reflected in his red-gold pupils:
At ten years old, he was pressed against the Zerg Clan's altar, the elder's bone knife slashing his back. "A worthless piece of mixed-blood is worthy of inheriting the Chaos Fire?" Amidst the jeers, the ancient tome his brother had secretly slipped him stabbed against his waist—the only warmth unstained by blood in the entire clan.
"Ugh!" they both cried out in pain. The Jianmu seedling trembled joyfully, transforming the two cruel memories into green points of light and absorbing them into its leaves.
"Brother!" Ah Che tried to rush over, but was stopped by Man Gu. The Bull Demon clutched his bandaged shoulder and muttered, "Don't make things worse! That Chaos Qi is bleeding them to cure the poison!" Sure enough, the wound on Li Jiuyou's back, inflicted by the Soul Mist, was oozing black energy, while the dark red around Jiang Xuelan's waist gradually faded.
Suddenly, the swirling chaotic airflow intensified!
Jiang Xuelan's icy soul power and Li Jiuyou's demonic fire erupted uncontrollably, colliding in the center of the altar with a "crack" of blue and gold sparks! The two men were thrown back as if electrocuted, their heads slamming against the bronze altar.
"Did you do this on purpose?!" Li Jiuyou roared, rubbing his head.
"I should be the one asking that question." Jiang Xuelan held down his throbbing temples with a cold expression. "If you can't control the demonic fire, chop your hands off."
"I'll chop you up..." Li Jiuyou's harsh words caught in his throat. The Jianmu seedling suddenly split open two strands of light, gently wrapping around their colliding fingertips. The sharp pain receded like a tide, replaced by the crackling sound of an icy spring extinguishing a branding iron. The demonic fire actually flowed along the light strands into Jiang Xuelan's meridians, precisely enveloping the restless demon core. Meanwhile, the icy spirit power flowed back into Li Jiuyou's body, freezing the poison of the Soul-Sinking Mist into icy slag.
"Holy crap..." Xuanjia's eyes widened, "Blood pact plus Jianmu... can they really reconcile ice and fire?"
Only then did they realize how badly each other was in. Li Jiuyou saw an old scar on Jiang Xuelan's collarbone below his collar—the very scar from his own sword wound in the Soul-Sinking Mist. Meanwhile, Jiang Xuelan noticed a scar on Li Jiuyou's back, next to a recently healed wound, in the same spot as his own sword wound.
"Look at your shit!" Li Jiuyou suddenly pulled the tattered red gold fur coat tightly.
"You're worrying too much." Jiang Xuelan straightened his collar with an expressionless face.
An eerie silence permeated the altar. The brief interplay of soul memories just now made the mutual insults about "bird flu blood" and "virus source" suddenly pale in comparison. As Ah Che cautiously approached, holding the water bag, they both reached out simultaneously—
"Give it to me!"
Li Jiuyou's claws slapped the back of Jiang Xuelan's hand. They both pulled their hands back as if struck by electricity, and the water bag slammed onto the altar with a thud.
"Yes, I'm sorry!" Che was about to cry.
"Promising." Jiang Xuelan rolled up the water bag with a flick of his sleeve, but his fingertips paused when they touched the leather bag - this was obviously Li Jiuyou's style, rough rhinoceros skin inlaid with ferocious beast fangs.
"What are you hesitating about!" Li Jiuyou snatched it away, tilting his head back and guzzling it. The water flowed down his rolling Adam's apple and into his collar. Jiang Xuelan suddenly turned his face away, but the mark of the God-killing Gu on his lower back gave him a warm feeling—the spiritual spring in the water bag was soothing his internal injuries through the blood contract.
The gravekeeper's hoarse sigh broke the deadlock: "...The vines are grown...The door will open..."
The Jianmu sapling at the center of the altar suddenly exploded! Its green light solidified into a solid form, its roots digging deep into the chaotic lines. The entire ruins began to rumble, and the vine patterns on the giant bronze gate gradually lit up!
"No!" Xuanjia suddenly screamed. The Bagua formation on the tortoise shell spun wildly. "That ghost thing outside is banging on the door!"
As if to confirm its words, a muffled "dong! dong!" A thick gray mist seeped through the crack in the door, condensing into the familiar giant eye of resentment!
"Soul-Sinking Mist Tail?! How did it get in?" Man Gu swung his bone stick and was about to charge.
"It's a blood contract." Jiang Xuelan suddenly stood up, the Frost Silence Sword condensing into a phantom in his palm. "The aura leaked while we were healing..." Before he could finish his words, three cones of mist burst through the door! They shot directly at the Jianmu seedling!
Li Jiuyou's hair rose red with anger, and the demonic fire turned into a wall of fire and rushed forward: "You are looking for death!" However, the fog cone made a strange turn when it touched the flames, biting towards Jiang Xuelan's back like a venomous snake -
"Brother, be careful!" Amidst Ah Che's exclamation, Jiang Xuelan spun around and swung his sword. The moment the Frost Silence sword's tip struck the mist cone, the Blood Pact Vine Seal on his wrist suddenly heated up! Li Jiuyou's demonic fire actually flowed through the contract channel into the sword's body!
The sword energy, a fusion of ice and fire, exploded in a dazzling explosion, and the mist cone wailed and dissipated. The two were thrown by the recoil and stumbled into each other, Li Jiuyou's chin hitting Jiang Xuelan's shoulder hard.
"you..."
The two men pushed each other away at the same time, but a suspicious dark red appeared on their ears. Jianmu Seedling took the opportunity to slap the last of the Chaos Power into the altar.
The huge bronze door burst open!
Behind the door was no longer a passage through the ruins, but a swirling void vortex filled with nebulae! In the center of the vortex, the remains of a half-burned giant tree floated quietly, blood-red chains entwined between its branches.
The gravekeeper suddenly knelt on the ground, digging his withered hands deep into the altar's patterns: "...the first generation of Jianmu...suppressed...the remains of the evil god..."
His tattered robes were torn into pieces, revealing the dark red curse patterns all over his body - they were actually the same blood chain that locked the remains of Jianmu!
"Senior!" Ache exclaimed in surprise.
The gravekeeper looked up, his cloudy grey eyes clearly reflecting everyone's figures for the first time. "Let's go... before He wakes up..."
Before he finished speaking, the entire altar tilted violently! Amidst the cracking sound of blood-red chains, a huge scarlet eye suddenly opened from the cracks of the charred Jianmu!
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