bookbashuk Chapter 78 Extracting the Spiritual Vein and Taking It All Away
Chapter 78 Extracting the Spiritual Vein and Taking It All Away
A deafening roar!
The main hall of Kunlun, with its thousand-year-old heritage, could not withstand Lu Yuan's stomp imbued with immortal power. The sturdy glazed dome and carved load-bearing walls crumbled and collapsed instantly, like thin sheets of paper. Blue tiles flew and fell everywhere, and the thick, solid golden nanmu main beam snapped and crashed down. The once solemn and majestic holy hall, worshipped by thousands, was now reduced to a scene of devastation.
With one step, earth and rocks surged, the ground cracked and mountains collapsed.
The ground was crushed into a huge, dark crater, hundreds of feet in diameter and bottomless, penetrating through the thousand-year-old palace foundation and layers of rock, leading directly to the deepest part of the Kunlun Secret Realm.
The next second, a thick, almost liquefied, and powerful spiritual energy, mixed with a strong stench of blood and decay, surged wildly out of the gap in the giant pit, rushing towards us. This was the entire foundation that Kunlun had accumulated over thousands of years by plundering the earth's veins and squeezing the nation's fortune; it was violent and turbid, filled with endless resentment.
Lu Yuan's body was straight as he plummeted downwards with the airflow. The wind howled and roared in his ears, and the surrounding temperature rose steadily. The underground space, hundreds of meters deep, was unbearably hot, with scorching air waves rolling endlessly, enough to turn an ordinary cultivator into ashes.
Upon landing, his feet firmly planted on a hot, reddish rock, his body stable without the slightest sway.
Looking around, a magnificent and vast underground cave comes into view, its space comparable to several football fields. The rock walls shimmer with an eerie dark red light, making the entire underground space appear sinister and terrifying.
In the very center of the cave, a gigantic pool, over a hundred meters in diameter, lay silently. The water was not the clear, limpid spring water, but a dark red, thick, and heavy color, as if it were the blood of countless living beings mixed with violent energy, simmered and fermented for millennia. The surface churned and surged, with fist-sized bubbles bursting and rising, emitting a pungent, nauseatingly sweet and foul odor.
This is the ultimate foundation of Kunlun, hidden for thousands of years—the Dragon Transformation Pool.
Nine thick, jet-black chains hang from the domed rock wall directly above the pool. The chains are covered with eerie, blood-red runes, rooted deep within the rock strata, firmly locking the void. At the center where the nine chains converge, a massive, semi-transparent dragon-shaped phantom is imprisoned.
The illusory earth dragon had its eyes closed, its body withered and dim, and its body was covered with dense sealing runes that penetrated deep into its flesh, binding it like shackles. With each weak breath, the formation would forcibly strip away a wisp of its original spiritual energy, which would fall into the blood pool below, day after day, year after year, mercilessly extracted by Kunlun to nourish the sect.
Lu Yuan gazed at the dragon-shaped phantom, forcibly imprisoned, its life force drained day and night, teetering on the brink of collapse. A chilling coldness surged in his eyes, and a sudden surge of rage rose within him. He knew all too well what the dragon veins meant. They were the very foundation of this world, the lifeblood that nourished countless lives and sustained the mountains and rivers—sacred and inviolable. Yet these people before him treated the bounty of heaven and earth as their private property, using insidious formations to lock up the earth dragon, relentlessly exploiting its life force for millennia—selfish and despicable.
They drain the foundation of the earth's dragon veins, deplete the national fortune of the Chinese people, and nurture the selfish lives of their sect.
He had traversed countless ages of cultivation, spanning the nine heavens and ten earths, witnessing countless insidious and bizarre forbidden techniques and cruel and tyrannical cultivation methods—some involving devouring demons to attain enlightenment, others involving stealing lifespan for immortality, and still others involving blood sacrifice to prove the Dao. Yet, he had never seen such despicable, short-sighted, and utterly ungrateful behavior. While those of other paths at least fought openly and honestly, this group from Kunlun hid in their homeland's secret realm, consuming the foundations of their nation and overdrawing the lifeblood of the people, exchanging the well-being of countless individuals for their own wretched longevity—utterly vile.
Lu Yuan was filled with contempt and impatience. Cultivators should, through their practice, defy the heavens, protect the land, and give back to the world. Yet the Kunlun lineage, possessing a uniquely blessed spiritual land, had long since abandoned the fundamental principles and righteousness of cultivators. For a thousand years, they had secluded themselves, indifferent to the suffering of the world, becoming parasites feeding on the dragon veins of China. If they were allowed to continue their plundering, within a century, the dragon veins of this land would wither, the nation's fortunes would decline, and countless lives would suffer the backlash. Now that he had returned, he would not allow such despicable behavior to continue.
hum-
Just as Lu Yuan was concealing his anger, the blood pool, which had been churning and surging, suddenly began to boil violently!
A towering, crimson mist shot into the sky, instantly enveloping the entire cavern with a dense, malevolent aura. A low, hoarse, ancient, and violent voice, as if crawling from the depths of hell, echoed throughout the underground space, causing rocks to crumble and fall from the cave walls.
"Who... dares to disturb my millennia-long slumber?"
boom!
Suddenly, a towering wave of blood erupted from the center of the blood pool, and turbid blood gushed out everywhere!
A humanoid monster, covered entirely in crimson scales and topped with two ferocious short horns, slowly rose up, stepping on a blood-red aura. Its body was massive and terrifying, shrouded in an extremely dense blood-red malevolent energy, and every inch of its scales exuded a highly poisonous aura that could corrode everything.
The aura of cultivation emanating from it completely overwhelmed the previous withered wood Taoist!
Peak Nascent Soul stage!
Moreover, his aura was powerful and profound, faintly breaking through the shackles and touching the threshold of the Nascent Soul Realm!
This is Kunlun's true ultimate trump card—the remains of the first ancestor.
When the first patriarch of Kunlun was nearing the end of his lifespan, in order to achieve immortality, he did not hesitate to abandon his human body. Using his own divine soul as a guide, the evil energy of the Dragon Transformation Pool as a foundation, and the blood and energy of countless living beings as nourishment, he refined himself into a blood-fiend corpse puppet that was neither alive nor dead, and never ceased to exist. He lay dormant underground for a thousand years, guarding the sect's forbidden area.
A thousand years of sedimentation and endless nourishment have long since allowed its power to transcend the limits of the mortal world.
"Anyone who trespasses on the forbidden area of Kunlun... shall die!!"
The Blood Fiend Corpse Puppet suddenly opened its eyes, and two scarlet, bone-chilling beams of blood light pierced through the mist, locking onto Lu Yuan with overwhelming killing intent!
It suddenly opened its blood-red maw, filled with sharp fangs, and a deafening, ferocious roar exploded out!
The crimson sound waves, imbued with a highly toxic corrosive law, transformed into tangible ripples, sweeping across the entire cavern. Wherever they passed, the hard rock was instantly corroded and melted, turning into foul-smelling, rotten sludge, and the entire space was shrouded in a deadly aura.
Faced with this terrifying offensive capable of obliterating an entire secret realm and corroding even the most powerful cultivators, Lu Yuan remained standing calmly, his posture upright, his expression indifferent and undisturbed, his heart utterly unmoved. What was a world-destroying killing move in the eyes of mortal cultivators was, in the eyes of this Mahayana Immortal Venerable, nothing more than a flawed and murky low-level technique. Power built by devouring national fortune and refining malevolent energy, seemingly ferocious, was in reality weak and easily defeated.
He gazed silently at the ferocious, menacing corpse puppet, his tone flat and even, yet laced with profound sorrow and mockery, his heart filled with endless sighs.
"In order to prolong their lives for a few more years, they did not hesitate to fall into the demonic path, abandon their human form, refine their evil body, and become such a monster that is neither human nor ghost."
"Pathetic, and laughable."
As soon as he finished speaking, Lu Yuan slowly raised his right hand, bringing his index and middle fingers together, forming a sword-like shape.
There were no earth-shattering phenomena, no overwhelming pressure, no complicated and obscure incantations, and no roaring sounds from activating immortal power.
From beginning to end, it was just a simple, extremely casual horizontal stroke.
Sizzle—!
A wisp of slender, hair-like, pure and brilliant dark gold Gengjin sword energy suddenly burst forth from the fingertip!
This sword, though seemingly delicate, was sharp enough to sever the laws of heaven and earth. The moment it was drawn, the entire underground cavern space suddenly froze, and a thin but unhealable spatial rift quietly spread. The chilling sword intent suppressed all kinds of evil energy!
The venomous, blood-red sonic waves that the corpse puppets were ferociously attacking were as fragile as warm butter meeting a sharp blade in the face of this extremely pure Geng metal sword energy. It was instantly split in two and silently dissipated!
The sword energy continued its relentless advance, piercing through layers of blood mist and precisely striking the vital point between the Blood Fiend Corpse Puppet's eyebrows!
At that moment, time seemed to stand still.
This Nascent Soul Peak Corpse Puppet, hailed as Kunlun's ultimate trump card, possessing an immortal body, indestructible malevolent energy, and even difficult to completely destroy with mortal nuclear bombs, suddenly froze in mid-air, all its violent aura instantly returning to zero.
A straight, fine line of blood ran from between his eyebrows down to his crotch.
(Thank you for your support. I'm adding an extra chapter today. I'll be updating two chapters daily from now on.)