175: Scorpion Soul

“We cannot hold out.” Li Dong leaned against the cold stone wall, his voice hoarse yet carrying an unquestionable calmness.

Wei Zheng and Li Qingxuan exchanged a glance, both seeing deep worry in each other's eyes.

“Your body...” Li Qingxuan began, her words full of concern.

“My body is very honest,” Li Dong twitched the corner of his mouth, as if smiling, but it looked worse than crying. “It tells me that sitting here waiting to die is the only way to truly die. Going out might still offer a glimmer of hope.”

“Nonsense!” Wei Zheng shouted decisively. “You can't even stand steadily right now; what can you do if you go out?”

Li Dong didn't answer, just closed his eyes.

The mark of the God Lord between his eyebrows was like a red-hot branding iron, scorching his Soul, but his Perfect Dao Body was like a greedy glutton, stealing power from this mark bit by bit.

A strange balance, a deadly symbiosis.

He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at the sky outside the secret chamber, eroded to a gray decay by divine pollution. “I am going out.”

Without waiting for Wei Zheng to object again, Li Dong had already stood up, leaning on the wall, and walked out step by step.

His movements were very slow, every step like stepping on knife blades, but he did not hesitate at all.

Wei Zheng and Li Qingxuan could only follow.

The Royal Ancestor stood in place, looking at Li Dong's back, a complex expression appearing on his aged face.

Arriving in the courtyard of the Demon Suppression Division, the air was filled with a sweet, corrupt scent—the smell of divine pollution mixed with death.

Not far away, a small group of fanatics wandered like marionettes, their eyes hollow, muttering to themselves.

“What exactly do you want to do?” Wei Zheng finally couldn't help but ask.

Li Dong didn't speak, just slowly expanded his Spiritual Domain.

It wasn't a scene of brilliant golden light, but a nearly transparent ripple that spread silently with him as the center.

Wherever the ripples passed, the sweet, corrupt scent in the air seemed to be sucked away by an invisible sponge, and even the gray stone slabs on the ground seemed to recover a little of their original color.

The few wandering fanatics were touched by the ripples, and their bodies stiffened suddenly.

On their hollow faces, for the first time, an expression similar to pain appeared.

Immediately after, gray-white flames ignited on their bodies, without temperature, without sound, just burning quietly.

Within a few breaths, the fanatics turned into fly ash, leaving only a few rice-grain-sized, pure, and transparent light fragments, like startled fireflies, instinctively flying towards Li Dong.

The light fragments entered the mark between Li Dong's eyebrows, and the excruciating pain that scorched his Soul miraculously eased a little.

A stream of cooling energy flowed through the mark into his limbs and bones. The original cracks on his Golden Core, a small crack on the surface, were actually slowly healing under the nourishment of this energy.

What made Li Dong feel even stranger was that at the very last moment when the Souls of those fanatics completely dissipated, he captured a trace of an extremely weak, fleeting thought from his Spiritual Domain.

It wasn't hatred, it wasn't a curse.

It was... relief, and a trace of... gratitude?

“Ha.” Li Dong couldn't help but chuckle softly. “Eternal life? God Lord, you really made a losing deal.”

“What did you say?” Li Qingxuan didn't hear clearly.

“Nothing.” Li Dong felt his body recover a little strength. “It seems this thing is a great tonic for me.”

Just then, a captain of the Demon Suppression Division rushed over, looking panicked: “Lord Wei! Your Highness! The defensive Formation at the North City Gate has been polluted, and the energy circulation has started to become sluggish. I'm afraid it won't last long!”

Wei Zheng's face sank instantly.

The defense line was being dismantled from the outside, yet they were trapped in the city, not even fully understanding the enemy's true goal.

Li Dong ignored this urgent report; his attention was drawn by another matter.

As he took the initiative to purify the surrounding pollution, his perception of divine power became more acute.

He could “smell” that in a direction in the western suburbs of the capital, there was a particularly dense, particularly “fishy” source of pollution.

Like aged cheese that had been soaked in a cesspit for three days.

“What is in that direction?” Li Dong pointed to the west.

Wei Zheng looked in the direction he pointed: “That's the mass grave. After the Battle of the Capital, many corpses that couldn't be processed in time were temporarily piled there. Later, it was occupied by fanatics. We didn't have enough manpower, so we haven't been able to clear it.”

“Take me there.”

“You...”

“Take me there.” Li Dong repeated, his tone unquestionable.

Half an hour later, escorted by several Golden Core Cultivators, the three arrived at the edge of the mass grave in the western suburbs.

This place had become a land of demons, with black slime flowing on the ground, and the stench of decay in the air was almost suffocating.

As soon as Li Dong approached, the mark between his eyebrows jumped violently, and a tyrannical mental shock stabbed directly into his Sea of Consciousness.

[Blasphemer, this is not a place you should come!]

The God Lord seemed to value this “garbage dump” very much.

Li Dong sneered. Instead of retreating, he pushed the range of his Spiritual Domain to the limit.

Transparent ripples surged into the demonic land ahead like a tidal wave.

The sizzling sound was incessant, like a red-hot branding iron being plunged into snow.

In the process of purification, Li Dong was suddenly stunned.

He sensed a remnant Soul wrapped and imprisoned in the deepest part by heavy divine pollution. He was very familiar with the aura of that remnant Soul.

Nether Scorpion Elder!

Wasn't he dead? How could he be here?

This remnant Soul was bound by countless divine tentacles, like an energy battery, continuously providing evil power to this demonic land.

But unlike other assimilated Souls, deep within this remnant Soul, a trace of weak, self-struggle remained.

Interesting.

Li Dong tried to cautiously probe with his purification power, which had been transformed by his Perfect Dao Body and carried the aura of the Void Realm.

[Stop! You are blaspheming my gift!] The God Lord's will roared again, and the impact force increased sharply.

Li Dong ignored it.

The moment his purification power touched the remnant Soul of Nether Scorpion Elder, that remnant Soul trembled violently.

The excruciating pain of being stripped of divine pollution seemed to awaken a trace of its instinct.

It couldn't speak, couldn't communicate, but in that moment of clarity, this remnant Soul used its last strength to send out a weak, directional thought towards a certain direction.

It wasn't a call for help, but more like a kind of... guidance.

Li Dong's heart stirred, and he immediately compared this direction with the coordinates on the “Hunting Ground Map” in his mind.

It matched perfectly!

On the map, there were seven flashing blood-red light points around the capital, representing the “spiritual anchors” that were about to be completely formed.

And the direction pointed to by the Remnant Soul of the Dark Scorpion was exactly one of them!

So that's it! These so-called Elders and experts, even after death, their Souls couldn't rest in peace; they were made into key “nodes” to activate the sacrificial Formation!

“Lord Wei!” Li Dong turned his head suddenly, amazing light erupting in his eyes. “Forget about the defense line! The true key is those altars being built!”

The Golden Core in his body, after this large-scale purification and reverse absorption, had repaired nearly half of its cracks.

He could even feel that the barrier blocking his Breakthrough to the Middle Stage of the Golden Core had already begun to loosen.

“Immediately summon all available Golden Core Cultivators and prepare the fastest flying boat.” Li Dong's voice was decisive.

“We... are going to take the initiative!”