Chapter Seventeen: The Struggle

“This little banner is a hidden card,” Li Ruoyu thought to himself.

Following the trail of the golden skeleton, Li Ruoyu returned to the surface. He was about to search the surroundings when he suddenly heard voices not far away. Quickly, he concealed himself among the ruins, suppressing his aura. Soon, five figures appeared in the distance—two men and three women—all at the Divine Connection realm, judging by their attire, disciples of the Grand Dream Sect, one of the Four Great Sects of the Zhao Kingdom.

The leading man said, “The Marrow Transformation Pool Master spoke of is nearby. The map hasn’t changed since Master entered here a hundred and fifty years ago. This is the place.”

Marrow Transformation Pool.

Li Ruoyu was inwardly startled. The Marrow Transformation Pool was a pool of fortune, a place where ancient divine blood had gathered and, through the evolution of heaven and earth, had become a pool capable of rebirthing the bone and body. Within the pool was marrow-transforming liquid, containing mysterious divine substances, able to induce a fundamental transformation and lay a solid foundation.

Suddenly, the leading man shouted in Li Ruoyu’s direction, “Come out!”

Knowing he’d been discovered, Li Ruoyu stepped out from his hiding place.

“Senior brother, what do we do?” Another man among the five transmitted a message to the leader.

“Kill him,” the leader replied with a secret transmission to the others.

Though Li Ruoyu couldn’t hear their hidden exchange, he sensed the danger as the five began to close in, forming a loose encirclement. Passive submission was never his nature; he struck first. He summoned the Order Divine Bell, sending it crashing toward the leader, while simultaneously activating the “Demonic Fist” and aiming it at a woman clad in pink, intending to eliminate one adversary quickly.

The Demonic Fist, a martial art brimming with devilish energy, was derived from the relic “Supreme Evil Heavenly Art” left behind by the Great Evil Lord. Its creator was unknown; only the Earth-Forging level of the technique remained, making it incomplete.

Propelled by the force of the Demonic Fist, Li Ruoyu hurtled toward the woman in pink. As his understanding of this fist deepened, its power grew ever more terrifying. In an instant, he gravely wounded her—though her own carelessness played a part.

The leader, blocking the Order Divine Bell, cried out, “Sister Hua!” Clearly, he hadn’t expected Li Ruoyu’s decisiveness and ferocity. Taking advantage of their surprise, Li Ruoyu pressed his attack, using the Demonic Fist against another man. In just three punches, the man too was severely injured.

The leader stared in shock. Even while defending against his own attack, this stranger had managed to maim two of his companions. The strength Li Ruoyu displayed was astonishing.

Having already struck, Li Ruoyu resolved to leave no survivors. Though he had not experienced much bloodshed, he knew better than to let a tiger return to the mountain. He turned his assault on the remaining two women—one dressed in blue, the other in fiery red. Together, they mounted a defense, causing Li Ruoyu some trouble.

But since he intended to eliminate them all, he held nothing back. Li Ruoyu began to awaken the power in his left little finger. As the finger revived, it unleashed an attack with the might of a Dao Body practitioner, instantly killing both the blue-clad and red-dressed women. He had used this trump card so swiftly for fear that the leader would flee at the first sign of danger.

After dispatching “Sister Hua” and the other man, Li Ruoyu immediately pursued the leader. This man proved slippery—seeing his four companions fall in rapid succession, he made no attempt to fight head-on, choosing instead to escape. Had Li Ruoyu not acted decisively, even with the Order Divine Bell entangling him, the leader would likely have gotten away. In the end, after a relentless pursuit, Li Ruoyu killed him as well.

With all five dead, Li Ruoyu reflected on himself. “When did I change? To be so ruthless… Is this still me?” he asked in silence. Such was the cruelty of the cultivation world, he sighed.

Li Ruoyu collected the possessions left by the five and examined them one by one. It turned out they were indeed disciples of the Grand Dream Sect from the Zhao Kingdom. Their master had entered the Abyss of Fallen Demons a hundred and fifty years ago, bathed in the Marrow Transformation Pool, and seized many fortunes in the valley, rising rapidly in power and recording the location of the pool on a jade slip.

Jade slips in the cultivation world were used to record information, readable by infusing them with soul light. The “Blood-Refining Evil Art,” for example, was preserved in such a slip. In contrast, the “Demonic Crossing Scripture” practiced by the Demon Daoist and the “Supreme Evil Heavenly Art” of the Great Evil Lord were each written in a mysterious book, neither gold nor wood, lending them an air of strangeness.

This particular jade slip contained not only the location of the Marrow Transformation Pool but also the sites of other fortunes and forbidden zones within the Abyss of Fallen Demons, as well as large areas marked as unknown.

If the Abyss were divided into north, south, east, west, and center, Li Ruoyu was now in the southern region, which was most clearly annotated on the jade slip. This included the White Bone Wasteland, the canyon, and the Fire-Devouring Ant Desert he had already traversed. The plain he now stood on was recorded as the “Fallen Plain.” The slip also noted another place of fortune in the plain—the “Bloodline Fruit.”

After briefly studying the jade slip, Li Ruoyu began searching for the Marrow Transformation Pool as marked. Before long, he found it—a pool about ten feet across, oval in shape, filled with greenish marrow-transforming liquid.

Li Ruoyu entered the pool and began absorbing the divine substances within. A great tide of divinity poured into his body, and he felt his foundation strengthening, his bones becoming imbued with the essence of the divine.

As he gazed at the pool, a sudden notion struck him. He dove beneath the surface, discovering that the pool was quite deep and grew wider as he descended. At a depth of about sixty feet, he saw a mass of bones and remains, so numerous and chaotic that he couldn’t tell what creatures they had once been.

He swept his gaze over the bones. “Hmm? Why is that section of breastbone a different color?” He swam toward the peculiar bone.

“It really is different. If I hadn’t been paying close attention, I would never have noticed,” Li Ruoyu thought.

He retrieved a device from his spatial ring and smashed the breastbone free before storing it away. Then he returned to the surface and resumed absorbing the pool’s divine substances. As he continued, he felt his cultivation base slowly rising, approaching the Heaven-Linking realm.

A sudden boom resounded in his mind. Li Ruoyu felt as if some shackle had fallen away, and he could sense the profound mysteries of heaven and earth. The world looked different to him now—subtly, yet unmistakably so. He felt as though he could manipulate some of the world’s arcane laws.

So this was the Heaven-Linking realm. Heaven-Linking—it meant beginning to merge with heaven and earth, to control their power from within to without, however tentatively.