153: Chapter 153 Welcome, please get on your way.

Their feet touched the ground, silent and soundless.

Gu Yan was like a drop of ink merging into rice paper, instantly vanishing into the shadows behind a stone pillar.

Jiang Wanrou followed closely behind, stumbling slightly upon landing, but Gu Yan caught her by the elbow, steadying her.

The main hall of this Blood River Palace before them was even more magnificent than imagined.

The dome, thirty zhang high, was embedded with hundreds of night-luminescent pearls, but the light they emitted was not a soft white, but a ghastly blood red.

The floor was paved with solid obsidian, smooth as a mirror, reflecting the breathtaking scene in the center of the hall.

There was no throne there, only a massive blood pool suspended in mid-air.

Above the blood pool, a fist-sized crimson bead was slowly rotating.

blood river bead.

It did not seem like an inanimate object, but more like a heart that had been ripped out and was still beating.

With every throb, it emitted a visible red ripple that struck the four walls of the hall, producing a dull "thump-thump" sound.

"That is a fourth-tier Restriction."

Jiang Wanrou stared at the bead, her face turning pale: "Without the correct method to unlock the Restriction, anyone below the Golden Core Stage will die upon touching it. Forcing a break of the formation will cause the entire hall to collapse."

"That is why Lin Canghai is in such a rush to get that secondary flag."

Gu Yan did not look at the alluring bead, but quickly crouched down, tapping his fingers on the obsidian floor.

Thump, thump, hollow.

"Here."

Gu Yan exerted force with his fingers, the spikes of his soul-shattering knuckles inserting into the stone gap, prying up a floor tile intact.

"Give me the yin thunder bead."

Jiang Wanrou handed over the three black jade bottles.

Gu Yan took them, his movements as gentle as if he were caressing a lover's cheek.

He carefully placed one bottle of yin thunder bead into the hollow under the stone tile, adjusted the angle to ensure the bottle opening was facing upward, then grabbed a handful of the "sinking evil mud" he had scraped off earlier from his storage ring, filling the gaps around the jade bottle.

He covered it with the floor tile and wiped away the dust.

Everything looked seamless.

"This is the only path to the blood river bead," Gu Yan stood up, brushing the dirt off his hands. "Greedy people only keep their eyes fixed on the treasures in the sky; they never look at the path beneath their feet."

Boom!

A loud bang came from the main entrance of the hall, the entire palace shaking violently as dust rained down from overhead.

The heavy bronze door had already severely deformed, bulging into a shocking arc as if an ancient beast outside was frantically ramming against it.

"They are coming in," Jiang Wanrou's voice was somewhat tense.

"We need to add a little more flavor."

Gu Yan's figure flickered as he darted toward a hideous ghost statue on the left side of the hall.

This ghost statue had its mouth wide open, facing the direction of the main gate.

Gu Yan pulled that dark red "skull" from his bosom—the modified version of the funeral bell.

He shoved the funeral bell into the ghost statue's mouth, jamming it deep into its throat, then pulled out a few pieces of blood marrow crystal he had dug out from the pipes and stuffed them into the energy slot of the funeral bell.

Hum.

The eye sockets of the funeral bell lit up with a red glow, then quickly extinguished, entering standby mode.

"Let's go, up to the beams."

Gu Yan grabbed Jiang Wanrou's waist, using the tip of his foot to borrow force from the ghost statue's shoulder, and the two of them, like large geckos, silently slid up to the crossbeams at the top of the hall.

The crossbeam was wide and perfectly situated in a blind spot of shadow.

As soon as the two lay down, a deafening explosion came from below.

Rumble—!

That indestructible bronze door had finally met its end.

The two ten-thousand-jin door panels collapsed inward, crashing onto the floor and kicking up clouds of dust.

Blinding sunlight shot in from the doorway, tearing a rift through the blood-colored gloom inside the hall.

Dozens of figures charged in against the light.

The leader, with wild white hair, wore a blood-stained red robe with gold trim, holding a dripping long saber in his hand.

His entire body was surrounded by the violent pressure of a Golden Core Stage cultivator, forcing the surrounding dust back by three zhang.

Lin Canghai.

This overbearing Elder of the Lin family looked somewhat disheveled at the moment.

His robes were torn in several places, and his aura was somewhat chaotic; clearly, forcefully breaking through the main gate of the Secret Realm had consumed a significant amount of his Origin Qi.

But the fanaticism in his eyes was even more glaring than the blood-colored light filling the hall.

"blood river bead... it really is here!"

Lin Canghai locked his eyes instantly on the throbbing red bead in the center of the hall, his throat emitting a laugh like a broken bellows: "Hahahaha! So what if that little beast Gu Yan stole the secondary flag? In the face of absolute power, all schemes and tricks are a joke!"

Behind him, more than twenty elite Disciples of the Lin family filed in.

They were all injured and looked exhausted, but when they saw the legendary treasure bead, the greed in their eyes instantly overcame their fear.

"Elder, we are going to be rich!" one deacon said, his voice trembling with excitement. "With this bead, the Lin family will be able to produce another Nascent Soul Old Ancestor!"

"That is only natural."

Lin Canghai took a deep breath, raised his saber, and walked step by step toward the blood pool.

He stopped ten zhang away from the blood pool, his gaze vigilantly scanning the surroundings.

"Be careful of tricks."

Lin Canghai said in a deep voice: "Since that brat Gu Yan snatched the secondary flag, he must have entered here too. Search! Drag that little beast out for me!"

"Yes!"

A dozen or so Disciples scattered and began searching around the hall.

Above on the crossbeam, Jiang Wanrou held her breath, her fingers gripping the wood tightly.

Gu Yan, however, was expressionless, even pulling a piece of dried meat from his storage ring and stuffing it into his mouth to chew slowly.

He was waiting.

Below.

A Late Stage Foundation Establishment Protector of the Lin family, in order to show off before the Elder, rushed toward the blood pool first: "Elder, I will go test the Restriction first!"

The Protector was extremely fast, crossing the central axis of the hall in a few steps.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

When the sole landed on the floor tile that Gu Yan had tampered with.

Click.

An extremely faint, crisp sound.

The Protector was stunned for a moment, not yet realizing what the sound was.

On the crossbeam, Gu Yan swallowed the dried meat in his mouth and silently spat out one word: "Collapse."

Boom—!!!

The floor tile exploded.

A pillar of black thunder-fire light erupted from underground, instantly swallowing the Protector.

The yin thunder bead was refined by collecting the extreme yin Evil Qi of the earth's veins; when it exploded, there was no high heat, only extreme corrosion and impact.

The Protector didn't even have time to scream before the lower body was blown into a bloody mist.

The upper body was sent flying by the shockwave, landing like a broken sack at Lin Canghai's feet, still twitching unconsciously.

"Enemy attack!!!"

"There's an ambush!"

The crowd fell into instant chaos.

"Bastard!"

Lin Canghai roared, waving his saber to disperse the black smoke spreading over.

His hair and beard stood on end, his Divine Sense frantically scanning the surroundings: "Gu Yan! Get out here for this old man! Using only these kinds of low-class tactics, what kind of skill is that?!"

No one responded to him.

Only the echoes reverberating inside the hall.

And...

In the corner, a flash of red light suddenly lit up in the mouth of that ghost statue.

"Hum—"

A deep, muddy bell toll, as if coming from the depths of Hell, sounded abruptly.

The sound was not loud, but it felt like countless steel needles simultaneously piercing the eardrums of everyone present.

"Ah!!!"

Several Disciples with lower cultivation at the Qi Refinement Stage fell to the ground clutching their heads, bleeding from their seven orifices, their eyeballs directly bursting.

Even the deacons at the Foundation Establishment Stage felt a sharp pain in their brains, as if someone were using a spoon to stir their brains, their bodies instantly stiffening, unable to even mobilize their spiritual power.

Even Lin Canghai swayed, his face turning suddenly pale.

"Divine Soul attack... soul-locking bell?!"

He looked toward the source of the sound in horror, only to see an ugly, dark red skull inside the ghost statue's mouth "grinning" at him.

Just at this critical moment when the whole scene was paralyzed.

In the shadows at the top of the hall.

A black figure, like a hunting hawk, fell silently.

Gu Yan wore a hideous ghost mask, the soul-shattering knuckles on his right hand tracing a jet-black line of death in the air.

Target—

The back of Lin Canghai's head.

"Old dog, accept this welcome gift."