The President of the Giant Wave Merchant Guild sat enthroned at the center of the pool, clutching an ornate casket forged from Heavenly Fragrance Calming Jade. His handsome features were etched with profound gravity, and as his eyes opened and closed, faint streaks of lightning whipped out like errant serpents.
The tens of thousands of restriction arrays carved into the colossal palace walls suddenly flared to life, emitting kaleidoscopic waves of energy. Those intricate, ancient formations on the walls seemed to awaken, manifesting as towering mountains, boiling oceans, or drifting clouds...
Many of these primordial, miraculous arrays, originally formed by nature—the pinnacle of all worldly formations—had been acquired by this man at immense cost. He had commissioned the Guild’s Grandmasters of Formations to meticulously transplant these natural wonders directly into the murals adorning the walls.
The man remained silent for a very long time, then suddenly threw open the lid of the jade casket.
Surprisingly, the casket was utterly empty!
Yet, a strange light burst from his eyes. He began caressing the interior of the casket with an expression bordering on obsessive rapture, as if something unseen, perceptible only to him, resided within.
His caress was intensely focused, consumed by devotion...
Innumerable restrictions and miraculous formations pulsed with shimmering, colorful light, the beams converging like flowing rivers above his head.
A magical, seven-hued spring suddenly materialized, containing the deepest mysteries of heaven and earth. This spring began to descend from the direction of his head, plunging forcefully into the jade casket he held.
As the seven-hued water rushed in, the previously vacant interior of the casket was struck, and a substance that had been entirely invisible suddenly manifested.
It was a bone, dark blue-black!
The bone was about half a meter long, its substance dark blue-black and covered in natural striations, tapering to a sharp point on one end and blunt on the other.
The moment the bone appeared, an unhealthy flush instantly bloomed across the Giant Wave Guild President’s face—a look of extreme, frenzied obsession! He stared fixedly at the bone, veins visibly standing out on his handsome face!
His fair fingers trembled violently. Suppressing the surging, wild ecstasy within his heart, he slowly reached out to touch the bone, bit by bit.
As his finger drew extremely close to the bone, an immediate suction force erupted, like a magnet gripping iron filings.
“Snap!”
His finger was instantly clamped fast onto the bone!
Suddenly, his entire body shuddered violently, his divine power within hemorrhaging uncontrollably. Even his vital essence and blood qi began to dissipate at an alarming rate.
That handsome face visibly withered at a speed discernible to the naked eye; in a single instant, white hairs bloomed upon his head!
Utter dread flared in his eyes. With a swift shift of thought, he spat out a mouthful of blood, severing the finger that was glued to the bone with a swift slash of a blade!
“Thud!”
The lid of the jade casket slammed shut, and the seven-hued spring above his head ceased to pour forth. His face was ashen, his eyes filled with desolate terror, and blood continued to stream from the corners of his mouth.
He sat immobile in the pool for a very long time, taking out and swallowing the rare spiritual medicines he had treasured for a thousand years. The wrinkles on his face and the white hair gradually receded. His aged features grew young again, and the lost power was slowly replenished.
His complexion remained pale, his eyes clouded with bitter incomprehension. Shaking his head, he muttered softly, “Still not enough. What kind of power is it that can be so terrifying?”
...
Deep within the bizarre, shifting currents of chaotic space.
Countless streams of light zipped and darted, numerous gusts of chilling, biting astral winds raged, capable of instantly annihilating any soul. Many violent explosions erupted in every corner, seemingly without end.
There was no energy here, no air, no sun, moon, or stars—only the dead, violent, absolute void—a fissure between heaven and earth, the most dangerously peculiar place in existence.
Unless one cultivated the profound mysteries of space to an exceptionally refined degree, no ordinary person would dare set foot here.
This place signified death, signified eons of desolation.
If one could not find an exit, even a powerhouse at the Third Heaven of the Primal God realm would become lost, their energy slowly eroded until they ultimately vanished into nothingness.
At this moment, near a shattered void rupture, a single figure hung motionless.
He rested calmly in the gravity-less nothingness. Nearby, savage, intensely cold astral winds howled; behind him, bizarre currents of light intertwined and spread, inching closer to him.
Ahead lay a terrifying field of explosion capable of crushing the flesh and blood of all living beings, with no escape even for the soul.
He did not have much time to linger.
He was utterly composed, watching the myriad changes around him with calm eyes, observing the approaching dangers, all while furrowing his brow in deep contemplation.
After a stretch of time, he produced a jade casket, the one forged from Heavenly Fragrance Calming Jade. Within it rested a finger, the finger bearing the Blood-Patterned Ring—the finger belonging to Bloodlust!
The reason he had come here was because this location could not be probed or tracked by any faction or powerhouse. He required an absolutely safe and quiet zone where he could settle his thoughts and attend to certain matters in peace.
Bloodlust’s Eight Vassals were dispatched across the eight directions. Phileth and Xuan He favored his succession of Bloodlust’s heritage, taking charge of the lineage to resist the God Clan.
These two had been monitoring him since early on, silently arranging everything for him. The ruined formation that he first escaped through from the Continent of Divine Grace in the Blazing Star Territory seemed to bear the traces of both of them and of Luo Luo.
Further back, the blood pool in the stone cave of the Gloomy Forest was also an arrangement by Luo Luo and the Ring Spirit, having drawn his soul across from another universe.
He felt a sense of helplessness, as if his life were being plotted, as if a rope were tied around him, forcing him step-by-step along someone else’s predetermined script, like a puppet.
He did not want this life, and he certainly did not want this feeling of everything being pre-ordained!
He needed to temporarily break free from that restraint for a moment, to think clearly about the path his future life should take, and how he should approach his relationship with the Bloodlust lineage.
The leaders of the Soul Control School, using Mu Wei and Bai Yefeng as puppets, clearly intended to seize the Bloodlust Finger and the Blood-Patterned Ring. They did not want him to ascend, did not want him to become the true leader of the Bloodlust lineage, or perhaps they simply desired the Ring and the Finger for their own sake...
The instant the jade casket was flipped open, hundreds of thousands of lives in Black Iron City perished—the resulting shockwave was beyond imagination.
On any living star, or even on a desolate meteor, if he were to open that casket again, he might be instantly detected.
Considering all these factors, he came to this place, this fissure in space, the most perilous and miraculous location in the cosmos, where no powerhouse of any strength could lock onto him or know what he was doing.
He caressed the jade casket for a while, attempting to lift the lid.
Surprisingly, unlike what Wu Lie had experienced before, he encountered no resistance and lifted the lid directly.
He was instantly stunned, his eyes flashing with incredulous light. He stared blankly at the inside of the casket: only the Blood-Patterned Ring remained. The finger seemed to have vanished into thin air.
This time, no torrent of malevolent energy erupted from the casket, nor did any living being suffer harm. Looking at the Blood-Patterned Ring, he stood in a daze, stunned for a long moment, before instinctively reaching out to touch the Ring...
“Huh!”
He froze sharply.
The finger was still inside the casket, the Blood-Patterned Ring still fitted upon it—which was why he hadn’t immediately grasped it!
The finger was clearly in the box!
He could touch it, but he could not see it. The finger seemed to neither refract nor reflect light, existing in a state of invisibility, undetectable by the eye or even by spiritual consciousness. Only by physical touch could he confirm its presence.
It was utterly bizarre.
He stroked the invisible, yet tangible, finger, gently tracing the Blood-Patterned Ring. He called out repeatedly with his soul consciousness, summoning the Ring Spirit, attempting to re-establish their connection.
The Ring Spirit remained unresponsive.
He pondered for a moment, then a drop of dark crimson demonic blood forced its way through the skin of his fingertip and dripped onto the Blood-Patterned Ring.
A wisp of blood mist curled up from the ring’s surface, and then, the long-absent soul thought of the Blood-Patterned Ring resonated powerfully within his mind.
“I have only one Master, and I shall always have only one Master...”
The Ring Spirit’s voice was soft, yet it repeated this statement constantly, its resolve unyielding, seemingly unchanged forever.
Shi Yan suddenly fell silent.
He understood now, his expression dark and unreadable. He let out a quiet sigh.
From the moment he first obtained the Blood-Patterned Ring, since the Ring Spirit first appeared, up until this very day, the Ring Spirit had never voluntarily addressed him as Master. It had never truly acknowledged his status.
Perhaps when the Ring Spirit was with him before, it believed that Bloodlust had truly perished, leaving no trace in the world. Thus, it remained by his side, seeing him as a vessel for Bloodlust’s legacy.
However, the moment the Ring Spirit saw that Bloodlust Finger, everything changed...
“Talk to me properly,” he transmitted mentally.
The Ring Spirit ceased its repetitive murmuring, and after a few seconds, it spoke slowly, “The final piece of memory has returned and merged. I now know that the Master’s remains are not destroyed. His skeletal fragments are scattered, drifting to the edges of the firmament, through various voids in the sea of stars. Some fragments were obtained by those people, and some remain undiscovered.”
“You don't need to sever ties with me. I understand your loyalty to your former Master. I have never forced you, and you may regard him as your Master if you wish. In fact... I can even help you search for his remains,” Shi Yan frowned.
Blood-red light shimmered across the face of the Blood-Patterned Ring, and the intricate, mysterious lines on its surface writhed. Shi Yan’s words seemed to excite the Ring Spirit. A strange transformation occurred within it, and it responded swiftly: “If you can help me find the Master’s remains, I will continue to assist you. I can help you reach the peak.”
“Can you tell me about him? Where did he come from, how did he forge you, and what... was his true identity?”
“The Master is the Master. I am merely the Ring Spirit; I cannot fathom the Master’s mysteries. I was merely forged by him. I no longer remember what I was before.”
“What are the names and identities of the eight supreme leaders of the Bloodlust lineage? How many have perished, and how many still survive? Do you know this?”
“Help me find a piece of the Master’s remains, and I will answer these questions for you.”
“How do I find it?”
“I can sense the Master’s aura. Very far from here, there is a fragment of the Master’s remains. Go and retrieve it for me.”
“Here? This spatial rift?”
“Exactly here.”
“Point me in the direction.”
“Very well.”
“One last question: why is his bone sometimes invisible, undetectable by the soul, only perceivable by touch?”
“Because the Master commanded a certain power, an energy that only he alone among all living beings in the myriad worlds understood and mastered. The Master’s demise is also related to that energy.”
“What kind of energy is it?”
“You do not need to know that for now.”
...(To be continued)