Chương 166: Chapter 55: The Azure Jade Plate and the Corpse-Controlling Gu

"Let's see which of us expires first! Heaven-Turning Seal, crush him into the abyss!" Reyn's voice was a jagged snarl, raw with the strain of the struggle. High above, the massive golden artifact hovered for a heartbeat before descending with the weight of a falling star.

"Crush!"

"Crush!"

"Again!" The impacts were rhythmic, cataclysmic thuds that sent shockwaves through the very foundations of the earth. The ten-mile lake, once a mirror of the sky, was now a chaotic cauldron. An invisible, titanic hand seemed to be stirring the depths, churning the waters into a frothing frenzy. Waves reached for the heavens, and the silt of centuries rose to choke the clarity of the deep. The cyclopean monstrosity was a ruin of its former self.

Thick, foul-smelling emerald ichor erupted from its maw, staining the water a sickly hue. Its singular, massive eye was glazed, the light of life flickering like a candle in a gale. Yet, even in its death throes, it did not relent. The ancient green vines wrapped around Reyn tightened with a malignant, mindless intent. Inside the constriction, Reyn's skeleton began to protest, the sickening pop and crack of shifting bone echoing through his ears as the pressure mounted to a lethal degree.

"Die!!" Reyn's eyes were bloodshot, bulging with the effort to maintain his focus. With a guttural roar that tore through the water, he commanded the Heaven-Turning Seal one last time. The artifact blazed with a blinding amber radiance, its physical form swelling by another third until it resembled a literal mountain peak of divine judgement. It fell. The impact was absolute. The final spark of intelligence vanished from the beast's eye as the seal obliterated its resistance.

The tumorous, irregular mass of its body was flattened instantly, crushed into the lakebed. Strangely, despite the horrific pressure, the creature's hide remained intact—no further ichor leaked out, and the skin held its shape like a deflated, leathery balloon. As the life force extinguished, the vines lost their turgid strength. They went limp, sliding off Reyn's bruised body like dead serpents to settle into the mud of the lake floor.

"Hah..." Reyn gasped, immediately flaring his spiritual essence to reinforce his protective barrier. He took a ragged breath, his chest heaving. Shock still lingered in his gaze.

"This beast was far more troublesome than I anticipated. If not for the Thunderclap Walnut and my hidden trump cards, I might have been the one feeding the lake today." He stared at the flattened remains, his mind racing.

"The creature possessed a high degree of sapience. I saw the terror in its eye, the primal urge to survive. So why? Why did it choose a fight to the death instead of fleeing into the depths? There must be a secret here, something worth more than its own life." His expression darkened into one of cold calculation. With a flick of his wrist, he tapped his storage bag. A streak of obsidian light shot forth, manifesting into the Shura Secret Bone.

The skeletal artifact grew to the size of a man, its hollow sockets burning with a faint, ghostly fire. Without a word of command, it plunged a jagged bone-claw directly into the beast's dead eye. Tendrils of emerald light began to flow. They surged from the beast's massive carcass and the sprawling network of vines, converging into the bone-claw like a river of soul-essence. The beast was gargantuan, its flesh saturated with centuries of accumulated vitality. Even for the Shura Secret Bone, the feast was immense.

It took nearly half a quarter-hour of continuous devouring before the last of the essence was drained, leaving behind nothing but a hollowed-out husk. The transformation was immediate. Red light flared violently within the Shura Secret Bone's skull, and fine, azure veins began to weave through the ivory surface of its frame. A sudden, explosive burst of malevolent aura erupted from the artifact.

The temperature at the bottom of the lake plummeted instantly, the water turning frigid as the sheer killing intent of the ghost-path treasure saturated the area. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Reyn's lips curled into a thin, satisfied smile. When he first acquired the Shura Secret Bone, it was little more than a sturdy shield, lacking the raw power to be a true offensive threat.

But now, after gorging on the souls and flesh of powerful foes, its potency had surged through several tiers of evolution. Soon, it would be his most terrifying hidden blade. He recalled the artifact with a wave of his hand. Looking back at the shriveled hide of the demon beast, his curiosity piqued again.

"This skin is peculiar. It's incredibly resilient—so much so that even the Shura Secret Bone couldn't break it down for essence." He reached out to claim the hide, but as he lifted the leathery remains, a small object tumbled out from a fold in the skin: an Azure Jade Plate, ancient and weathered.

"What is this?" Reyn murmured, picking it up. The moment his skin touched the jade, the artifact reacted. It erupted in a brilliant, ancient cyan luminescence. Within the glow, the shimmering phantom image of a teleportation array materialized, surrounding him in a cage of light. Reyn's instincts screamed. His body blurred as he attempted to use his movement technique to escape the radius, but the array was faster. The space around him folded. With a final flash of azure light, Reyn vanished from the lakebed.

Silence returned to the depths. Moments later, a streak of light descended cautiously to the shoreline. A cultivator emerged—the one known as Xiao Hu. He stood alone, his companions nowhere to be seen, his eyes scanning the disturbed waters with a mixture of greed and trepidation. The man's gaze fell upon the shoreline, where the violent tides had uprooted and shattered countless ancient trees. A flash of profound shock instantly clouded his features.

It took several long breaths for his heart to steady before he murmured into the silence, "The Mu Jade Sword and that enigmatic cultivator... their auras vanished at the exact same moment. They are completely beyond my perception. How is this possible?"

"One can hide their own presence with high-level stealth arts, but to mask the innate resonance of the Mu Jade Sword as well? Does he possess an artifact capable of such absolute suppression?" His brow furrowed into deep ridges of frustration. After a moment of grim contemplation, he plunged back into the depths of the lake, scouring the silt for another half-hour. Finding nothing but cold water and mud, he finally surrendered to the inevitable, igniting his escape light and streaking toward the horizon....

"This realm is treacherous beyond measure. We must remain vigilant and move as one. To separate is to invite death; only together can we withstand the horrors of this place," Yang Dawei commanded. Above the trio hovered a single Luminous Jade Pearl, its steady glow indispensable in the oppressive gloom. The darkness here felt physical, a heavy shroud that seemed to press against their very souls, threatening to extinguish the flickering hope provided by their magic. Li Zhupu and Zi Luanxing nodded in grim unison.

Within the vast, lightless expanse of the hall, their expressions were etched with tension. They scanned the darkness, fingers white-knuckled around their magic treasures, advancing with agonizing caution. The pearl's radiance carved out a fifty-zhang sanctuary of light, yet the boundaries of the hall remained swallowed by the void. Clack. Clack. Clack. Sudden, rhythmic footsteps echoed from the darkness ahead. The trio stiffened, halting as their gazes locked onto the source.

Several silhouettes detached themselves from the shadows, accompanied by a rising, cloying stench that turned the air thick and rancid. As the figures entered the light, Yang Dawei and Zi Luanxing's faces drained of color, but Li Zhupu's stomach buckled. She doubled over, retching violently at the sight. The shadows were the animated remains of cultivators, their flesh encased in a thick, translucent layer of yellowish, oily grease.

The substance glistened with a sickly, iridescent sheen under the pearl's light, dripping slowly from their chins like liquid gold turned poisonous. Through the shimmering coating, the horror within was visible: rotting corpses, many missing limbs or severed at the waist, held together only by the adhesive strength of the foul lipids. Within the liquefying marrow, tiny, ant-like insects—the Corpse-Controlling Gu—scuttled in frenzied patterns. The nauseating odor of decay radiated from them in waves.

"Corpse-Controlling Gu!" Zi Luanxing shrieked, her voice trembling with a primal terror as if he had stared into a forgotten nightmare. Yang Dawei's complexion shifted to a deathly ashen. His eyes narrowed into slits of cold fury.

"The ancient plague," her hissed.

"This toxin was purged from the cultivation world eons ago. To think it still festers here!"

"Keep your distance!" he barked, his voice cutting through the panic.

"Do not let those husks touch you. Unleash your fire-attribute arts and treasures—we must incinerate every single one of those Gu seeds before they find a host!" Li Zhupu, hearing the name of the legendary horror, lost the last vestige of color in her face. She knew the history; these were the creatures that had once brought the entire cultivation world to the brink of extinction.