177: Chapter 177 This kind of sound can usually only be heard in hell.

Gu Yan slammed heavily into the pile of rubble in Soul-Falling Valley.

"Bang!"

Gravel sprayed everywhere as he rolled twice on the ground, only stopping when he collided with a massive piece of weathered rock.

He knelt on one knee, gasping for air, his chest heaving like a broken bellows. His left arm hung limply at his side, and the glow on his asura armguard had completely extinguished, making it look like nothing more than a piece of scrap metal.

"Run? Why aren't you running anymore?"

Above his head, a blood mist surged.

Saint Son Li Tianxing stepped on that viscous river of blood and descended slowly, hovering thirty zhang above the valley entrance.

He was in no rush to act, instead acting like a cat toying with a mouse, looking down from a high vantage point at the prey that had nowhere left to run.

"The scenery here is not bad."

Saint Son Li Tianxing surveyed his surroundings.

Soul-Falling Valley had a long, narrow terrain with cliffs as sharp as knife cuts on both sides, with only a thin line of light visible from above.

"It is a good place to be buried."

He raised his right hand, and blood-red light condensed in his palm, forming a blood-colored spear three zhang long.

Dark red runes flowed across the surface of the spear, emitting a suffocating stench of blood.

"Die."

Saint Son Li Tianxing waved his arm.

Whoosh!

The blood spear tore through the air with a shrill whistle, heading straight for Gu Yan's glabella.

He used his full strength for this strike.

He did not want to give this strange Body Cultivator any chance to turn the tables again.

Gu Yan looked up abruptly.

But he did not dodge, nor did he bring out any defensive Magic Treasure.

He simply made a strange gesture at the incoming blood spear—he covered his ears with both hands.

"Boom—!!!"

It was not the sound of the blood spear hitting its mark.

Instead, it was a thunderous roar, as if the earth itself were splitting apart, that erupted without warning throughout the entire Soul-Falling Valley.

The rocks on the cliffs on both sides shattered instantly, and countless streaks of purple lightning erupted from the ground.

The one hundred and eight "yin thunder beads" buried at the bottom of the valley detonated simultaneously at this moment.

Smoke billowed and lightning fire raged.

The blood spear was knocked off course by the explosive shockwave, grazing Gu Yan's shoulder as it shot into the cliff wall, blasting out a bottomless hole.

"A trap?!"

Saint Son Li Tianxing's expression changed in mid-air, his figure shooting upward as he tried to escape this area of lightning fire.

"Too late."

Gu Yan's voice suddenly rang out beside his ear.

It was not a sound transmission, but rather, through some massive amplification device, the voice had been magnified a hundredfold, causing Saint Son Li Tianxing's eardrums to ache.

"Jiang Wanrou, activate the formation!"

Following Gu Yan's violent shout.

The formation patterns already carved onto the cliffs surrounding Soul-Falling Valley suddenly lit up.

That was not a killing formation, nor was it a trapping formation.

It was a super amplification field formed by the overlapping of thirty-six "echo formations."

The originally open valley instantly turned into a closed echo chamber.

Gu Yan stood in the center of the lightning fire, unharmed—the detonation points of those yin thunder beads had been precisely calculated, perfectly avoiding the spot where he stood.

He pulled a dark red skull from his robes.

The Death Bell.

After Jiang Wanrou's repairs over the past few days, although it had not fully recovered the power of a Quasi-Magic Treasure, in some aspects, it had become even more extreme.

"Saint Son Li Tianxing, don't you like to hear loud noises?"

Gu Yan held the Death Bell in both hands, pouring his spiritual power into it frantically.

Two blinding rays of blood-red light instantly lit up in the skull's eye sockets, and its jawbone clicked as it opened to its limit.

"This tune is to send you on your way."

"Death Bell—Soul Death Sonata!"

"Hum————!!!"

The moment the sound rang out, the world seemed to stand still.

That was not a sound that a human could produce, nor was it a melody that any musical instrument could play.

It was a high-frequency shriek, filled with resentment and curses, that acted directly upon the Soul.

Layered, amplified, and reverberated through the thirty-six echo formations, this sound wave transformed into tangible, transparent blades, crazily refracting and slicing within the narrow valley.

"Ah!!!"

Saint Son Li Tianxing let out a miserable, earth-shattering howl in mid-air.

He felt as if his head had been shoved into a high-speed meat grinder.

His Protective Aura shattered instantly.

Blood sprayed from his eyes, eardrums, and nasal cavities simultaneously.

"What... is... this..."

Saint Son Li Tianxing clutched his head tightly with both hands, the river of blood behind him dissipating instantly.

He thrashed in the air in agony, wanting to escape this terrifying Hell of sound, but the surrounding cliffs acted like the walls of a speaker, reflecting all the sound waves back and bombarding his Divine Soul once more.

Hum, hum, hum—

The sound waves rose higher and higher, wave after wave.

Saint Son Li Tianxing felt his Sea of Consciousness collapsing, and a tiny crack even appeared on his brilliant Golden Core.

His movements became stiff, and he twitched in the air like a marionette.

"Now is the time!"

The exhaustion in Gu Yan's eyes vanished in an instant.

He threw away the Death Bell, which was already glowing red and scorching hot, bent his knees slightly, and the ground shattered.

Boom!

He was like a black arrow released from a bowstring, stepping on the chaotic sound wave shockwaves in the air as he shot straight into the sky.

His left arm shook.

All the dark gold scales on the asura armguard stood up, looking as ferocious as barbs.

"Get... down!"

Gu Yan rushed in front of Saint Son Li Tianxing, and taking advantage of the moment when his opponent's Divine Soul was violently shaken and unable to mobilize his spiritual power, he clamped his hands onto Saint Son Li Tianxing's shoulders like iron pincers.

"Crack."

The sound of shoulder bones shattering was drowned out by the massive sound of the bell.

Gu Yan kicked his feet against Saint Son Li Tianxing's chest, and using gravity, he brought this Golden Core Mid-Stage Blood Scion down like a falling meteorite, smashing fiercely toward the bottom of the valley.

Whoosh—

The wind whistled.

Saint Son Li Tianxing endured the excruciating pain in his brain, barely opening his blood-filled eyes to see a ghost-face mask inches away, and the bone-chillingly cold eyes behind that mask.

"You..."

"Shut up."

Gu Yan gave a cold shout, his knee slamming heavily into Saint Son Li Tianxing's lower abdomen, interrupting his final spell-casting attempt.

Boom!

The two of them slammed heavily onto the ground.

The earth shook violently, and smoke and dust rose everywhere.

A massive crater, several zhang deep, appeared in the center of the valley floor.

Gu Yan straddled Saint Son Li Tianxing, his left hand pressing tightly against his throat, his right hand raised high.

The spikes on the soul-shattering knuckles glittered with a bloodthirsty, cold light under the reflection of the lightning fire.

"Golden Core Mid-Stage?"

Gu Yan gasped for breath, his voice icy:

"Nothing more than this."