213: Lone smoke rises from the desert, ancient temples stand withered and bare.

Stepping out of Black Stone City, the world changed color.

The greenness at the edge of the horizon was completely erased, replaced by endless withered yellow.

The sky was a vast expanse of gray, and the sun hanging above it had lost its luster, resembling a piece of residual charcoal about to burn out.

The Spiritual Qi in the air was no longer the sweet dew that nourished all things; it had become thin and violent, causing a fine stinging sensation when it scraped against the skin, as if countless invisible blades were slicing through flesh and blood.

If an ordinary Qi Refining Cultivator were here, even maintaining basic respiration would be a luxury; their entire cultivation base would be mercilessly drained by this environment.

Shen Yuanmo, however, walked as if strolling through a garden.

His Physical Body was as strong as precious gold; the erosion caused by this harsh environment was nothing more than a gentle breeze across his face.

He maintained a constant pace, neither fast nor slow, like a solitary traveler measuring this desolate, dead land.

Sandstorms roared past his ears, raising a curtain of yellow sand that obscured the sky and sun.

He walked like this for three days and three nights.

During this time, he saw no living creatures, not even the root of a dead blade of grass.

On the morning of the fourth day, he stopped in the shade of a majestic sand dune.

A completely wind-dried skeleton was quietly sitting cross-legged there.

The posture was the standard five-hearts-facing-heaven, and the Magic Robe on its body had long been torn into tattered strips by centuries of sandstorms, clinging tightly to the bones.

Faint Spiritual light still flickered on its bones, indicating the person's identity during life.

A Golden Core Immortal Master.

Just like that, silently, he had passed away while meditating deep within this unknown sea of sand.

Shen Yuanmo walked forward, and his immense Divine Sense, like mercury flowing across the ground, instantly enveloped the corpse.

He "saw" that the Golden Core Cultivator's Dantian Qi Sea was already dry, and the Golden Core, once brilliant and flawless, was now dim and covered in spiderweb-like cracks.

Died from the exhaustion of Spiritual Qi.

In this Spiritual Qi desert, he failed to wait for the moment he could escape the predicament, and was drained to death by this environment.

Just as Shen Yuanmo was about to withdraw his Divine Sense, his eyebrow twitched slightly.

Deep within the corpse's Sea of Consciousness, he made a new discovery.

There, besides the shattered remnants of the Golden Core Cultivator's Divine Soul, two completely different external Auras were entangled.

One was peaceful and serene, carrying the warm essence of myriad household lights—it was the same Incense Power Of Will he had sensed on the old Cultivator in Black Stone City.

The other, however, was its extreme opposite.

It was a mass of ink-black Aura, filled with chaos, destruction, and the primal desire to devour everything; it was utterly tyrannical and highly aggressive.

Shen Yuanmo's Divine Sense merely brushed against it lightly.

A thought mixed with madness and distortion instantly counterattacked along his Divine Sense, attempting to corrupt the Origin of his Divine Soul.

"Demonic corruption, is it..."

There was not a ripple in Shen Yuanmo's eyes.

With a slight shift of his mind, a wisp of the Dao Rhyme of Destruction, imprinted deep within his Divine Sense, quietly circulated, transforming into an invisible millstone that effortlessly ground the counterattacking demonic thought into the purest mental dust.

[Perfect Deduction], activate!

Using these two completely different Auras as the Foundation, a super-high-speed simulation began in Shen Yuanmo's mind.

In an instant, the most primitive prototypes of two new power systems, vastly different from the Immortal Dao, were derived after he used Insight into Origin.

One system involved gathering the spiritual beliefs of living beings through specific rituals and methods, transforming vague prayers into genuine power of protection and purification.

The other was plunder. It involved devouring and sacrificing the essence, Qi, spirit, and even the Souls of other living beings, turning them into resources for rapid self-growth.

This method advanced with divine speed and possessed astonishing destructive power, but its Foundation seemed built upon enormous hidden dangers.

"Buddha and Demon... quite fitting."

Just as Shen Yuanmo was pondering, the wind between heaven and earth changed.

Woo—woo—

The sound of the wind was no longer a roar, but a sharp shriek, as if heaven and earth were letting out a painful wail.

The sky-high yellow sand was swept into the air by an irresistible massive force, gathering into a colossal, dusky yellow wall connecting heaven and earth, pushing toward his location with a posture capable of crushing everything.

The light of the sky was completely swallowed.

The Black Sandstorm, the most terrifying disaster in the Western Desert, had arrived.

Shen Yuanmo raised his eyes, calmly observing the terrifying might of nature that could tear a Golden Core Cultivator and their Magic Treasure into shreds.

He merely sank a trace of Dharma Power into the soles of his feet, and his entire being became like a divine mountain rooted in the earth for billions of years; despite the fierce winds tearing and his clothes wildly dancing, his body remained completely motionless.

He did not evade.

Instead, he opened his Divine Sense, actively merging it into the storm to comprehend that purest and most primal force of heaven and earth—Destruction.

It was at this moment that his Divine Sense captured a trace of disharmony among the billions of dancing sand particles.

Along the storm's path, the flow of sand in one area exhibited an extremely unnatural deflection and detour.

It was as if an invisible reef existed there, one that could not be shaken no matter how ferocious the tsunami.

Shen Yuanmo's mind stirred, and he walked step by step against the storm capable of blowing away mountains, heading toward the anomaly.

Passing through the layers of sand curtains, the scene suddenly cleared.

A ruined Ancient Temple, half-buried under the yellow sand, appeared before his eyes.

The Ancient Temple was a relic from an unknown era; the walls were mottled and peeling, and most of the roof had collapsed, leaving only a Stone Buddha statue missing half its head, standing silently in the storm.

Scattered around the temple were circles of withered bones, already indistinguishable as human or beast.

Strangely, the terrifying storm that could tear through metal and iron automatically parted like docile flowing water when it approached within three feet of the Ancient Temple, bypassing it on both sides.

In the center of the temple, a faint Buddha Light, almost extinguished, stubbornly held up an invisible protective shield, sheltering this last remaining patch of land.

Shen Yuanmo stepped into the Ancient Temple, and the noise and fury from the outside were instantly isolated.

He walked up to the ruined Stone Buddha.

The face of the Buddha statue should have shown the compassion of saving all sentient beings, but due to weathering and erosion, it now appeared strangely eerie in the gloom.

Shen Yuanmo stretched out his hand, his fingertip gently touching the cold Stone Buddha.

[Insight into Origin]!

Buzz!

Fragmented scroll paintings spanning a thousand years of time exploded in his mind!

A thousand years ago, during a Black Sandstorm that also obscured the sky.

An Old Monk, clad in a golden Kasaya and possessing a solemn, dignified appearance, was fighting a life-and-death battle here against a terrifying demonic creature that was pitch-black, had eight ribs, and emanated endless chaos and ominous Aura.

That demonic creature was not a being of this realm; it had crawled out of a pitch-black spatial rift, and the Aura it emitted was the source of the Power of Demonic Corruption that Shen Yuanmo had just crushed.

In the end, the Old Monk knew he could not completely eradicate this Extraterrestrial Evil, so he made a decisive choice.

He burned away his Buddhist Essence, Divine Soul, and even all traces of his existence, transforming himself into a Supreme Seal, firmly suppressing the remnant Soul of the Extraterrestrial Evil beneath this Ancient Temple!

He himself transformed into this Stone Buddha, intending to use the Incense Power Of Will gathered by believers over thousands of years to wear down the Devil Head's existence day and night.

The scene ended here.

Shen Yuanmo slowly withdrew his finger, his gaze penetrating the ground and settling directly beneath the Stone Buddha.

The source of that Demonic Corruption Aura was right there!

He could clearly see that the Seal underground was already covered in cracks and on the verge of shattering due to a thousand years of erosion. The remnant Soul of the suppressed Devil Head was frantically charging the weak points of the Seal, ready to break free at any moment!

Once freed, even a mere wisp of remnant Soul, its characteristic Demonic Corruption would be enough to instantly turn an area of a thousand miles into Demonic Land, devoid of all life.

Shen Yuanmo looked at the Stone Buddha before him, which had exhausted all its power and whose Buddha Light was as faint as a candle in the wind, his expression calm and unmoving.

"I shall borrow your Dao for a look."

He extended a finger, without any earth-shattering Aura, and simply, plainly, tapped the center of the Stone Buddha's brow.

A vast and mighty stream of Dharma Power, perfectly fused from the Power of Great Five Elements and the Dao Rhyme of Destruction, surged through his fingertip and into the Stone Buddha's body!

Buzz—!!!

The Stone Buddha, silent for a thousand years, violently shook after receiving this replenishment of power far exceeding its comprehension!

A pure golden Buddha Light shot out from within the Stone Buddha, tearing through the temple roof, piercing the dome of the Black Sandstorm, and soaring straight into the sky!

The golden light surged, instantly dyeing the entire gloomy world into a sacred and solemn Buddhist Pure Land!

"No—!!!"

A shrill shriek, filled with endless malice and terror, emanated piercingly from deep underground.

Immediately, the immense Buddha Light rapidly condensed in the air, transforming into a slowly rotating golden swastika millstone, radiating magnificent heavenly might!

A wisp of pitch-black Devilish Qi that had just squeezed out of a Seal crack was ruthlessly drawn into the golden millstone, crushed, decomposed, and purified before it could even struggle!

Ultimately, that wisp of Devilish Qi, along with its remnant Soul Origin deep underground, was completely erased from existence and turned into nothingness beneath this vast Buddha Light.

Having completed all this, the sky-high Buddha Light slowly receded, returning once more into the Stone Buddha.

And within Shen Yuanmo's Sea of Consciousness, two streams of pure Origin information, fully analyzed by [Perfect Deduction], quietly appeared.

One was the incomplete Buddhist Cultivation Technique cultivated by the Eminent Monk—the Great Sun Glazed Sutra.

The other was the core Legacy of that Extraterrestrial Evil, an equally incomplete Demonic Path Secret Art—the Great Demonic Disintegration Technique.