287: Chapter 285 Something's coming up...

Su Lin crouched down, his gaze tightly locked on a deep scratch embedded in the edge of the white jade steps.

The surrounding space still held a faint, chaotic sensation of cutting.

He extended his finger, hovering it just above the mark, and closed his eyes, tuning his Divine Sense to its most acute state.

They had already personally verified the material of this Azure Jade Plaza.

It was Nine Heavens Immortal-Condensing Jade, which wouldn't even show a faint white mark from the full-force strike of a Mahayana Stage Body Cultivator.

To be able to gouge a trench several zhang long into it and escape while withstanding the terrifying turbulence of the Void Abyss that could crush all things...

This obsession with survival and the sheer strength of the Physical Body simply transcended common sense.

"Revered Master, have you discovered anything?"

Han Yue walked to Su Lin's side, her purple-gold dress swaying slightly in the cold wind of the void.

Her golden eyes also gazed into the abyss; her imperial intuition kept her highly alert toward the unknown.

Su Lin slowly opened his eyes and withdrew his palm.

"The edges of this scratch still carry an extremely dense aura of ancient vicissitudes."

Su Lin's voice was low, echoing across the empty ruins. "This is by no means a recently left mark.

The time it has existed must be measured in tens of thousands, perhaps even a hundred thousand years."

"A hundred thousand years?" Luo Ximei's brow furrowed slightly as she flicked her wrist, causing the Lunar Soul Bell to emit an extremely faint, crisp chime. "If it's as Revered Master says, then this Ascension Reception Platform became a slaughterhouse as early as a hundred thousand years ago.

For a creature to escape and carve out a path to life from such an ancient Inescapable Death Trap, how terrifying must its original cultivation have been?"

"Perhaps it wasn't a mark left by something escaping at all."

Mu Qingxue, who had been silent, suddenly spoke. Her Ice Sword pointed diagonally at the ground, and her extreme cold Domain froze all the drifting ash nearby.

"Revered Master said this place is a trap specifically for hunting ascenders. Those so-called Immortals who set the trap would surely have made every preparation and would never allow any prey to escape.

Is it possible... that this mark was left by some gargantuan creature as it forced its way up from the very bottom of that endless abyss?"

As soon as she said this, the surrounding air seemed to plummet to absolute zero.

The expressions of the disciples changed simultaneously.

If the scratch wasn't left by a survivor but by some monster climbing out of the abyss... it meant that beneath these ruins, a danger even more unknown than the slaughterers of old was hidden.

Su Lin did not immediately refute Mu Qingxue's hypothesis.

He stood up, his gaze deep as he stared down into the dark abyss that seemed capable of swallowing light itself.

There was no wind, no sound, and no sign of any Qi fluctuations.

It was as silent as a shroud of death.

"Whether it escaped down or climbed up..."

Su Lin's expression became more solemn than ever before. "At the bottom of this abyss, something is lurking that even this broken world cannot fully suppress."

Chu Weiwei gripped the jade bottles filled with potent poisons, her breathing quickening slightly.

At this moment, she felt an inexplicable chill coming from the soles of her feet, as if she were standing on the edge of a giant abyssal maw that could snap shut at any time.

"Revered Master, should we retreat behind that bronze door first?" Chu Weiwei suggested softly. "The aura here is too strange; even my poisonous Gu are in a state of suspended animation, having completely lost their vitality."

"It's too late."

Ye You suddenly interrupted Chu Weiwei coldly.

Her originally lazy, dark-green vertical pupils were now fully dilated, staring fixedly into the deepest depths of the abyss.

Her leather clothes made a faint straining sound due to the extreme tension of her muscles.

As a being possessing the Abyssal Devouring Primeval Vicious Beast Bloodline, her sense of danger surpassed everyone else present.

"Something... is coming up."

Ye You's voice held an unprecedented wildness and defensiveness. In the void behind her, hundreds of thick, dark-green demon vines spread out silently like venomous pythons ready to strike.

"What?" Su Hongling suddenly grabbed the no edge great sword she had planted in the ground. Dark-gold Dragon-Elephant war patterns instantly covered her arms as she rushed to the edge of the cliff and leaned out to look down.

The abyss remained a patch of pure darkness; nothing could be seen with the naked eye.

"Fourth Sister, don't scare us. It's pitch black down there; how could there be anything?"

Though Su Hongling said this, her hands gripped the sword hilt tightly, pushing the Bloodline power of a Mahayana Stage Body Cultivator to its Peak.

"Shut up and listen carefully," Ye You barked in a low voice.

Su Lin also noticed something was wrong. He raised his hand, signaling everyone to be silent.

The surroundings instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Ten breaths.

Twenty breaths.

Thirty breaths.

Just as everyone thought Ye You's perception might have been off, an extremely faint but real tremor was slowly transmitted to everyone's feet through the indestructible Nine Heavens Immortal-Condensing Jade square.

It was a very low-frequency thud, sounding neither like footsteps nor a beast's roar.

Following this thud, thick clouds of dense, grayish-white mist suddenly billowed up from the darkness of the abyss.

This mist was completely different from the illusory fog they had seen before in the Ancient Landscape Painting.

It was heavy and viscous, emitting a nauseating stench of rot and blood, like the Corpse Qi produced by countless bodies fermenting over countless eons.

"Defensive formation!"

Su Lin gave a sharp command, acting decisively.

The seven disciples reacted instantly, forming a perfect circular defensive formation with Su Lin at the center.

Mu Qingxue was at the front, her Law of extreme cold transforming into a hundred-zhang-thick transparent ice wall that stood across the edge of the abyss.

Su Hongling and Han Yue stood on the left and right; one with Qi like a dragon, the other radiant with Imperial Golden Light.

Luo Ximei and Chu Weiwei guarded the rear, their black and white Devilish Qi and purple-green poisonous miasma weaving into an airtight Inescapable Net.

Ye You remained in the center to provide support, her numerous demon vines acting like flexible arms, ready to patch any opening at any moment.

The tremors grew stronger and stronger.

Tiny cracks actually began to appear on the surface of the square paved with Nine Heavens Immortal-Condensing Jade.

Those Immortal Dao array patterns, which had not been worn away by a hundred thousand years of time, let out a strained wail before the terrifying power rising from the abyss.

"What on earth is that thing!" Su Hongling gritted her teeth, staring fixedly at the roiling grayish-white mist.

Suddenly, the mist split open to the sides.

A massive hand, composed entirely of pale bone and rotting dark-red flesh, reached out from the abyss and slammed heavily onto the edge of the square with a loud smack!

The size of this hand was unimaginably large; a single finger bone was like a towering mountain Peak.

Countless tattered remnants of Magic Treasures and shriveled corpses of Cultivators hung from the joints of those finger bones, as if this hand had scavenged trophies from countless battlefields.

The moment this giant hand gripped the edge of the square, the incredibly hard Immortal jade slabs were like fragile tofu, with five deep, bottomless holes gouged into them.

Hiss.

Everyone present, including the widely experienced Su Lin, couldn't help but gasp.

Just a single hand already occupied half of their field of vision.

How horrifyingly massive must the main body hidden beneath the abyss be?

"This aura..." Luo Ximei's platinum-colored heterochromatic eye stared fixedly at the giant hand, her voice carrying a rare tremor. "This isn't a single creature!

These are the countless ascenders who died on this reception platform. Their resentment, remains, despair, and unwillingness have devoured and fused with each other within the Law turbulence at the bottom of the abyss, eventually giving birth to this Monstrous Amalgamation!"

Just as Luo Ximei finished speaking, another dull boom came from the abyss.

Another giant claw, equally massive but covered in countless sharp bone spurs, reached out from the grayish-white mist and gripped the cliff edge several hundred zhang away from the first hand.

Then, both giant hands exerted force together.

The entire floating square tilted violently.

Accompanied by an earth-shattering roar, a terrifying head slowly rose from the darkness of the abyss.

It had no facial features; the entire face was composed of tens of thousands of distorted, wailing human faces stitched together.

These faces belonged to the Human Race, the Yao Race, and even some strange races with horns and compound eyes.

They were pressed and fused together, each face frozen in the ultimate moment of terror and pain before death.

In the center of these densely packed faces, a giant crack a thousand zhang long opened up—the monster's mouth.

Within the bottomless maw, there were no teeth, only countless thick, dark-red tentacles writhing frantically like tongues.

A dense breath of death erupted from that giant mouth, turning into a gray storm that swept through the world.

"On guard!" Su Lin shouted. The Myriad Heavens Star Chart within him operated frantically, and the Law of Stars transformed into a layer of dazzling golden light that firmly protected the disciples.

The gray storm slammed into the hundred-zhang ice wall Mu Qingxue had set up.

The Mystic Ice of extreme cold, said to be able to freeze time, actually began to melt at a visible rate before this death breath that had gathered a hundred thousand years of resentment, like snow meeting a fierce fire.

"What tyrannical corrosive power!"

Mu Qingxue's face was cold as she poured her Mahayana Middle Stage ice Origin into the ice wall without reservation, fighting to resist the storm's erosion.

"Let this old lady meet it!"

Su Hongling couldn't stand this passive situation.

She roared and kicked off the square with all her might.

Under that kick, a huge crater instantly collapsed in the Immortal jade square. Su Hongling turned into a meteor burning with golden Bloodline power, charging into the sky against the gray death storm.

"Great Sword Technique: Heaven Splitting!"

The no edge great sword in her hand expanded rapidly, turning into a dark-gold heavenly sword a thousand zhang long.

Layer upon layer of heavy ripples of the Law of Strength appeared on the blade, carrying the terrifying power to split a Small World as it slashed down fiercely toward the giant head made of countless faces.

"Roar!"

The monster felt the lethal threat from above.

Its massive head jerked upward, and the writhing dark-red tentacles in its mouth instantly turned into ten million long whips, lashing out frantically toward the descending heavenly sword.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Dense sounds of clashing metal exploded in the void.

Su Hongling's mountain-toppling sword power was actually blocked in mid-air by those seemingly soft tentacles!

Furthermore, the moment the tentacles touched the blade, they secreted an extremely viscous black liquid. This liquid seemed to have intense polluting properties, instantly dimming the dark-gold light flowing on the no edge great sword.

"What is this disgusting thing!"

Su Hongling felt as if the great sword in her hand had fallen into a mire; the unstoppable Law of Gravity was actually diverted by more than half in an extremely bizarre way.

Just as she prepared to forcefully pull back the great sword to strike again, the monster's giant hand covered in bone spurs had already swung silently from the side, swatting at the mid-air Su Hongling like she was a fly.

"Second Senior Sister, watch out!"

Below, Chu Weiwei gave a sharp cry and thrust her hands upward.

A cloud of extremely dense purple-green poison rose into the sky, accurately meeting the swinging giant hand.

Sizzle...

This poison, meticulously prepared by Chu Weiwei, could even melt the Laws of space, but now it only corroded a shallow layer of bone meal on the surface of the giant hand, failing to stop its momentum at all.

"This monster's physical strength definitely surpasses that of an old monster Undergoing Tribulation!" Chu Weiwei's expression changed drastically.

Seeing the giant claw about to strike Su Hongling.

"myriad soul banner Command, Divine Soul Strangling!"

Luo Ximei made her move.

Her long black and white hair danced wildly in the wind, and the myriad soul banner in her hand turned into a screen of darkness that blotted out the sky.

Countless shrill phantoms of malevolent ghosts broke free from the banner, turning into invisible Soul blades that bypassed the monster's physical defense and stabbed fiercely into its head made of countless faces.

The monster let out an extremely painful, earth-shattering roar.

The giant hand swinging toward Su Hongling jerked to a halt in mid-air.

Taking advantage of this moment of hesitation, Su Hongling finally pulled back her great sword, her body making an incredible mid-air maneuver to narrowly avoid the lethal blow, tumbling back to Su Lin's side.

"Old Man, this big guy is too tough! Its strength is ridiculous, and it's not afraid of poison at all!" Su Hongling panted heavily.

Su Lin didn't speak; his gaze was locked onto the monster that had already pulled more than half of its body out of the abyss.

As the monster continued to rise, its massive full appearance was finally revealed to everyone.

This monster was the Scavenger of this Ascension Reception Platform for a hundred thousand years. It had devoured all the ascenders who died here, fusing their power, flesh, resentment, and even the remnants of their Magic Treasures into this gargantuan shell.

"It has no intelligence, only the most primitive instinct to devour."