Shi Yan awoke abruptly, his head throbbing with an agonizing pain, feeling as though his skull were packed with lead, impossibly heavy.

It was a dim, cavernous stone grotto, roughly the size of a basketball court. The stone floor was littered with piles of white bones, and beside him lay more than ten freshly deceased bodies, clad in bizarre, colorful attire. The clothes were still vibrant, suggesting they hadn't been dead long.

Where was he? Was this still the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea?

Shi Yan was an extreme sports enthusiast whose passion bordered on obsession. At twenty-seven, his mother had passed away early. His father, who had accumulated a lifetime of wealth, died of cancer in his prime, leaving Shi Yan the inheritance—a fortune he could never spend in a hundred lifetimes.

Everything others spent their lives striving for, he possessed instantly, having it from the outset.

With his prime years stretching before him, yet lacking any true direction, this feeling of wealth without purpose left him perpetually melancholic.

It wasn't until he encountered extreme sports at seventeen that life suddenly found its meaning. Armed with vast financial resources, he was able to indulge wildly in activities far beyond the reach of ordinary folk.

Free solo climbing, crocodile bungee jumping, BASE jumping, volcano boarding, cliff diving, and skating beneath moving vehicles—these frenetic, high-stakes sports became his greatest joy.

He lived for the terrifying thrill of that razor's edge where life teetered on the brink of suffocation!

For ten years, he systematically conquered every one of the most reckless and life-threatening extreme sports. Wherever danger lurked, wherever death beckoned, he ran towards it.

A decade of this had forged Shi Yan’s physique into something extraordinary. Hundreds of brushes with death had rendered his nerves unnaturally tough; he often joked that he was the man closest to the Grim Reaper.

His final challenge was exploring the Blue Holes in the Bahamas. Some of these sinkholes plunged hundreds of meters deep; others were labyrinthine complexes. Moreover, the slightest disturbance would churn up the silt at the bottom, rendering visibility zero, no matter how powerful the dive light.

Thus, every expert diver entering a Blue Hole had to tether themselves with a steel cable—their lifeline. Reaching the end of the line meant the dive was over. To swim further was suicide, as no one could navigate out of the "maze" without the line. According to the Bahamian Maritime Department, an average of twenty elite divers perished in the Blue Holes annually, most lost to disorientation.

In this globally perilous adventure, Shi Yan deliberately discarded the life-saving steel cable, engaging in a suicidal, wild pursuit that ultimately left him lost within the enigmatic depths of the Blue Hole.

And in the Blue Hole, being lost meant certain death...

Shi Yan lay sprawled on the cold rock floor, using the faint, eerie glow reflecting off the cavern walls to survey his surroundings. A sudden influx of fragmented memories, clearly not his own, flooded his mind.

They were the memories of another Shi Yan...

That other individual shared his name, was only seventeen, and was an obsessive archaeology enthusiast, bordering on fanaticism regarding the study of ancient ruins. Driven by a tattered old map, he had journeyed here after half a year of hardship, accompanied by a few household guards.

Shi Yan frowned and slowly rose, feeling utterly weak, his body frail.

In the next instant, Shi Yan realized this body was not his own; it belonged to the other seventeen-year-old Shi Yan.

His face changed drastically, freezing him in stunned silence.

I did die in the Blue Hole, didn't I? No, I am clearly alive, just existing in an inconceivable way!

...

Through the fragmented memories of the other Shi Yan, he learned that this place was called the Divine Grace Continent—a world devoid of technological civilization, perpetually wracked by conflict, and ruled by martial practitioners!

Here, many individuals were born with extraordinary talents, displaying mysterious gifts shortly after birth. Some carried the power of lightning within them; others could command plant life; some moved freely through the earth; still others possessed an innate mystical sense that allowed them to telepathically communicate with demonic beasts, while some harbored the strength of frost in their bodies...

These innate gifts were myriad and utterly bizarre. Those so blessed almost invariably became martial practitioners, and their inherent talents were known as "Martial Souls."

"Martial Souls" were almost exclusively congenital. Only a minuscule number could be acquired through some rare fortuitous encounter—a probability so small it was negligible. This was why the continent was called the Divine Grace Continent; martial practitioners believed the "Martial Souls" were gifts bestowed by the Celestial Gods.

Not all martial practitioners possessed a "Martial Soul." On the contrary, the vast majority did not. Ordinary people could cultivate to become martial practitioners, but they could not acquire a "Martial Soul" through mere practice. However, a special "Martial Soul" could drastically accelerate a martial practitioner’s cultivation speed, massively boost their combat strength, and grant them unique abilities...

Consequently, martial practitioners of the same realm who possessed a "Martial Soul" were invariably far more formidable, destined for much greater achievements than those without. Those with "Martial Souls" enjoyed inherent advantages throughout their cultivation journey, taking the lion's share of benefits.

"Martial Souls" could be inherited through bloodlines, often with a high probability.

Generally, if one parent possessed a "Martial Soul," there was a high likelihood their child would manifest the same one. If both parents held a "Martial Soul," the child had an even greater chance of inheriting one—either the father’s or the mother’s, but typically only one.

Under these circumstances, rare exceptions could occur. One was when the child inherited neither parent's "Martial Soul," becoming an ordinary person. This probability was small, perhaps occurring only once in a hundred such couples.

A hundred times rarer was the other scenario: the child inheriting both parents' "Martial Souls"! Such souls were termed "Twin Martial Souls," and individuals possessing them were known as "Favorites of the Gods"!

This probability was infinitesimally small, appearing perhaps in only one outlier couple among ten thousand pairs where parents possessed different "Martial Souls."

Shi Yan remained motionless, continuing to sift through the chaotic memories in his head...

The original owner of this body hailed from the Shi family of the Merchant Alliance. The Shi family possessed the "Petrification" Martial Soul, which allowed them to turn their bodies to stone during combat, making them as hard as bedrock and capable of repelling some influx of vital essence. As their cultivation realm increased, the "Petrification" Martial Soul would grow stronger, rendering them nearly invulnerable to blades and arrows.

Unfortunately, this young man had not inherited the "Petrification" Martial Soul and was thus deemed unsuitable for martial arts by the family. Moreover, he held no personal interest in the martial path, spending his youth entirely on exploring ruins.

This journey was undertaken because of that tattered old map, leading him through myriad dangers to this very spot. Without the map's guidance, he would never have found this ancient stone grotto, so thoroughly concealed by layers of tangled foliage.

"Woooo... Hoooo..."

A sound like a ghost’s weeping suddenly echoed within the stone cave. Shi Yan jolted in alarm and whipped his head toward the source of the noise: a pool of blood.

The blood pool occupied the center of the cave, spanning about ten square meters. It was filled with a horrifying, blood-red liquid. Bubbles rose from the depths with a gurgling sound; when they burst, they emitted a terrifying, ghostly shriek—utterly bizarre.

He understood now: the recently deceased guards beside him had gone violently mad, slaughtering each other inside the cave, driven insane by the shrieks emanating from the pool. The other Shi Yan had also collapsed unconscious after being affected by those terrifying sounds.

It was all because of the blood pool!

Shi Yan stared at the pool, his expression grim. The incessant howls assaulted his nerves, stirring a deep, primal urge for slaughter within him, inciting a powerful compulsion to eliminate everyone near him!

Shi Yan's head still split with pain, the shrieks from the pool torturing him and making concentration impossible.

The blood pool was certainly hiding something sinister!

Shi Yan set his face, fortifying his mind. The hardened nerves forged through years of life-or-death explorations served him now. Though the headache persisted, he managed to remain relatively calm and began to walk deliberately toward the pool.

"Crack! Crack!"

Splinters of ash-white, brittle bones broke under his feet. Shi Yan’s expression was grave. Judging by the endless piles of white bones in the grotto, many people had died here before they even arrived. The blood pool was the source of this wickedness. Was seeking its mysteries tantamount to seeking his own death?

The closer he got, the sharper the piercing shrieks became, like daggers stabbing viciously into his brain. The furious, homicidal aura contained within the cries threatened to shatter every shred of his reason and composure. Had it not been for the almost pathologically resilient nerves cultivated over years of extreme challenges, he would have succumbed long ago.

Around the pool lay the remains of many, and amidst the crimson liquid, milky-white skeletons faintly surfaced. This small pool resembled an Asura’s sea of blood, having undoubtedly swallowed countless lives.

Shi Yan vaguely felt that his soul's journey here was intrinsically linked to this bizarre blood pool. He suspected that perhaps he could use the pool to return—back to the familiar world, back to the Blue Hole in the Bahamas.

As he neared the pool, Shi Yan noticed a peculiar phenomenon: although the liquid was thick and scarlet, he detected absolutely no metallic scent of blood.

On the contrary, the air here was surprisingly fresh, carrying an almost irrational, faint, sweet fragrance. Concentrating, he realized the unusual scent was emanating directly from the blood pool!

Shi Yan was consumed by curiosity, solidifying his belief that the pool held profound secrets.

Walking a few more steps, a vast illusion of a blood-red ocean flashed across his mind. In this sea, endless corpses formed islands; some skeletal remains were perfectly preserved, as large as mountain ranges, like the fossilized bones of creatures from the Cretaceous period. A voice seemed to resonate ceaselessly throughout the sea, repeating: "Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Shi Yan fought to hold onto his core self, but his heart began to accelerate uncontrollably. A suffocating pressure washed over him. He recognized the familiar taste of impending death, feeling closer to it now than ever before.

He knew the next step might be fatal!

However, years of death-defying exploration had not instilled fear; instead, they made him relish this very moment! Confronting death head-on, surviving within its jaws—this was the essence of extreme sports!

Step by step, he moved forward again!

Under the overwhelming pressure exerted by the blood pool, Shi Yan finally reached its edge. Gazing at the small basin, the manic side of his personality surged forth, and he roared, "I want to see what kind of mystery this little blood pool holds!"

With that declaration, Shi Yan gave a cold laugh and leaped into the pool.

...

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