Ye Xiu's palm was slowly losing feeling under the impact of the Star Serpent, and he wanted to borrow some soul energy from Susu. However, the serpent's color began to pale, meaning it was about to dematerialize again: "Quick! It's getting away."

"No escape!" Mei Yi sharply cried out, causing the slender Crystal Wheel to emit the light of both ice and fire. Under that radiance, stray electricity spontaneously generated, and the resulting lightning bolt utterly imprisoned the Star Serpent within its grasp. "How can prey caught by the Crystal Wheel ever hope to flee!"

"Owww ah!" The Star Serpent realized it was trapped, its hammer-like head shaking wildly, unleashing countless broken swords toward Ye Xiu.

Ye Xiu released his hands, forming a shield of black flame to protect himself. But this allowed the rampaging Star Serpent, dragging the Crystal Wheel, to bore toward the blue halo on the mountain face: "Old Liu, you're up!"

"Thin Blade, now!" Old Liu tossed the Thin Blade, which, along with its silk thread, stabbed into the Star Serpent's body. Unexpectedly, the serpent’s force was immense. Before Old Liu could react, he was dragged along the serpent’s trajectory, hurtling toward the mountain wall: "Waa... Ahhh..."

"Go, you!" Ye Xiu launched himself off the mountain wall, kicking Old Liu squarely in the abdomen. That blow carried enough force to alter Old Liu's path, but the Star Serpent, clearly subdued by the Crystal Wheel, couldn't return to the blue light. It spun frantically around the mountain wall, taking Old Liu dancing through the nine heavens with it.

"Block! Chhh... Chhh..." Old Liu fiercely plunged the Demon-Slaying Sword into the nearby mountain face. Sparks erupted across the entire mountainside in that instant, the sword sliding from the upper to the lower section, carving out a beautiful fissure.

"Thump, thump!" Ye Xiu ran along the mountain face, following Old Liu closely, bombarding the serpent with black flames in an attempt to slow its advance. But the creature was like a missile, occasionally using its broken swords for cover while flying, which turned Ye Xiu’s black flames into the best shield for Old Liu. "Find an opening quickly and match its speed."

"I certainly know that..." Old Liu, utterly helpless from being dragged, finally managed to fish out a black talisman from his waist pouch, amplifying it onto his body with the Qijing Dao. At that moment, wind whipped around his feet. He yanked out the Demon-Slaying Sword and stepped onto the mountainside, chasing after the Star Serpent.

"Ya ah!" Ye Xiu saw Old Liu unleash his ultimate move, so he too blasted his black flames wide open, pushing back against his own body to rush forward, delivering another kick to Old Liu’s back. That surge of propulsion was enough to help Old Liu close the distance to the Star Serpent.

"Die!" Old Liu grit his teeth, enduring intense pain as he leaped onto the Star Serpent’s back. In a flash of lightning and sparks, he grabbed the Demon-Slaying Sword with both hands and drove it deep into the serpent’s skull. In that single instant, all the blue light within the mountain vanished.

"Aoooh!" Following a piercing shriek, the Star Serpent dissolved into the lightning of the Crystal Wheel, and Old Liu’s body plummeted rapidly downward. He looked back at Ye Xiu descending directly toward him and laughed, "Those two kicks you gave me were way too harsh; they hurt more than the serpent’s impact."

"Down!" At that moment, the Bright Moon Crystal Wheel returned to its original form. Mei Yi snatched Ye Xiu as he fell, together landing on the wheel and gliding smoothly downward.

"What about Bing Ao?" Ye Xiu looked back. A hazy mist had reappeared atop the mountain, and a figure stood there, perfectly still. "The Star Serpent is dead; he should be able to come down now."

"Forget him, better help me first." Old Liu's Qijing Dao had worn off; he was unusually fragile now and couldn't even muster the strength to use the Demon-Slaying Sword to fly. "Help!"

"Hoo..." A Crystal Wheel swooped toward him, catching Old Liu securely. The three of them landed on the ground simultaneously. The cave, which had been full of starlight moments before, instantly became a dark, enclosed space—nothing original at all.

Old Liu landed hard on his backside, sighing heavily. "Ye Xiu isn't even that handsome; why do you girls these days all like the outwardly reserved types?"

"Hmph. Does anyone actually like a Daoist priest?" Mei Yi retorted, kicking Old Liu. "Get up quickly and figure out how to leave this cave."

Ye Xiu ignored their bickering. As Bing Ao had said, the Sun, Moon, and Stars were the three core materials for forging divine weapons, suggesting that this remnant of the Blade-Sealing Alliance held many secrets. He just couldn't understand why Yan Luo would hide the relic deep within the mysterious Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.

"This is hardly difficult," Old Liu grinned wickedly and stomped his foot. "All that previous starlight came from the ground. If I'm not mistaken, the secret to this cave, aside from the entrance we used, lies underground."

Mei Yi stabbed her Crystal Wheel into the soil. The dirt supported the weight of three people, yet when confronted by a sharp object, it immediately softened, feeling like cotton candy. She couldn't help but marvel, "How is this dirt so soft? Yet we aren't falling through."

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..." The moment Mei Yi spoke, the ground began to fall away like flowing water, rushing down. Before she could react, she was the first to drop.

"The soil is changing..." Old Liu didn't even finish his sentence before he too followed them down.

Ye Xiu snatched Mei Yi's hand while simultaneously grabbing the Bright Moon Crystal Wheel suspended in mid-air. He looked at the collapsing ground and suddenly realized, "The soil hasn't changed at all. Because the Star Serpent was here, we were in a state of weightlessness. It’s only natural we’d fall now that it’s gone. Be careful!"

"Splash!" With a sound, Old Liu's legs plunged straight into water. He instantly held his breath and scanned his surroundings. The water wasn't clear like normal water; it was viscous and intensely irritating to his skin.

Ye Xiu and Mei Yi landed near the water’s edge and quickly plunged a hand into the liquid, pulling Old Liu up before he could be completely submerged.

"Hoo..." Old Liu crashed heavily onto the ground, feeling a throbbing numbness in his legs. "Is this an underground river? Did this tomb really dig into an underground spring?"

"No, this isn't water," Ye Xiu crouched by the riverbank, gazing intently. It turned out this world was filled with flowing water. It was vast, with several tributaries merging into a larger riverbed, but the water flowed silently, as if dormant and lifeless. "Legend says that in Qin Shi Huang's subterranean palace, quicksilver formed the great rivers, symbolizing the First Emperor’s desire to view the nation's magnificent scenery even in death. Could this be the River of Quicksilver?"

"Damn, quicksilver is poisonous!" Old Liu quickly shook the droplets from his legs. He stood up, facing the vast River of Quicksilver beneath the earth, and cursed, "I don't know which damned idiot of a craftsman melted down this much quicksilver."

Mei Yi looked around; the scene contained only the river and the earthen banks, nothing else. The quicksilver didn't seem to flow either. "Quicksilver must have been precious in the Qin era. Since so much is preserved here, could the raw material be deeper underground?"

"Look over there..." At that moment, above the distant River of Quicksilver, a full moon rose inexplicably, its appearance so poetic it evoked the feeling of 'The bright moon rises above the sea, shared by all at the edge of the world.' Ye Xiu stared at the beautiful scene, feeling unaccustomed to it. "Sun, Moon, and Stars—the three foundational materials. This must be where the second material is."

"Pfft!" As the moon appeared, the River of Quicksilver seemed liberated from Earth's gravity, and surging tides of quicksilver rushed toward the figures on the bank, shaped like beasts eager to swallow them whole.

"Dodge." Mei Yi grabbed the two of them and returned to the Bright Moon Crystal Wheel. Perhaps sensing the moonlight, the Crystal Wheel was larger and more agile than usual.

"Aoooh..." As the quicksilver tide retreated, monstrous howls echoed from the bank. Numerous creatures, clad in tough green armor and shaped like crocodiles, surfaced. Their eyes were as large as lanterns, and their front claws, like swords, thrust out long. Their back claws, functioning as stakes, dug firmly into the ground, and their tails split into three chains that whipped through the air. Their sheer numbers and scale were enough to make one's scalp tingle.

Old Liu drew his Demon-Slaying Sword the moment he saw the things, bringing it down in an attempt to slay one for a test. However, the sword's shadow was instantly bound tightly by numerous chain-like tails: "Demon-Slaying Sword..."

"Hmph!" Ye Xiu gathered his energy, intending to hurl a ball of black fire onto one of the crocodile-monsters. At that moment, a beam of light materialized from the moonlight, and a long sword descended flawlessly, swatting the fireball into the River of Quicksilver while embedding itself in the ground.

"It’s a sword," Mei Yi retreated with the two back onto level ground. She stared closely at the long sword. It was exceedingly slender, the blade narrow yet constantly radiating the glow of the moon. Both the hilt and the blade had a warm yellow tint. Other than a row of minute, countless serrations along one edge of the blade, there was nothing else particularly remarkable about it.

Just then, a warm light washed over the area, and the figure of a white-haired, childlike old man landed gracefully on the flat ground. He shook his horsetail whisk toward the monsters behind him, and those beasts immediately retreated back into the River of Quicksilver. The old man retrieved his long sword and looked at the three newcomers with a hint of kindness in his eyes: "It has been a long time since outsiders visited the remnants of the Blade-Sealing Alliance. Tell me, what do you want?"

Mei Yi, truly believing herself to be a member of the Blade-Sealing Alliance, stepped forward and raised the iron scroll again. "Senior uses a sword; could you be the Sword Fanatic Elder Bing Ao mentioned? This junior is also a member of the Blade-Sealing Alliance, specifically here to ask Elder Yan Luo to restore my friend's weapon. Please forgive this intrusion."

"So you seek Yan Luo," the old man raised his sword, using the whisk to brace the weapon. He glanced at Ye Xiu and Old Liu. "Yan Luo only forges divine weapons; ordinary weapons probably won't catch his eye."

Ye Xiu felt it was time to show sincerity. He took out and displayed his broken Scythe of Death. "The weapon this junior uses was forged by Elder Yan Luo—the Holy Sword of the Underworld. Unfortunately, it was shattered in the battle against Jun Tianxia. I ask for the Sword Fanatic Senior's understanding."