105: Chapter 105 The spiritual contract under the monument

Lin Haoyu suddenly looked up. Deep in his eyes, a sliver of silvery-white Sword Intent flashed like a meteor. In the surrounding air, a shrill, metallic sound like the grinding of iron—reminiscent of a Dragon's roar—echoed out of nowhere.

That Dragon roar was not real; it was the result of Sword Intent condensed to the extreme, causing the surrounding Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi to resonate and be sliced apart.

Lin Chen could clearly feel the heavy sword wrapped in coarse cloth on his son's back emitting a low hum, like a Vicious Beast waking up, yearning to drink blood.

"Go." Lin Chen's voice was soft, yet carried an unquestionable weight.

His gaze passed over his son's shoulders and looked toward the wasteland.

Tonight's wind seemed colder than usual, making people's robes flutter and scattering the mixed auras left behind by several factions.

Lin Haoyu didn't say another word, just nodded heavily.

His turn was clean and decisive, and every step he took was extremely steady, as if he were treading not on soft soil, but on hard bluestone slabs.

Lin Chen did not follow; he just stood quietly at the gate of the Geng No. 9 Courtyard, his right hand subconsciously rubbing the rough stone ring on his thumb.

The cold touch spread from his fingertips, calming his chaotic thoughts.

His son had to go. And it could only be him.

Because the resonance of the stone stele was aimed at Lin Haoyu's Sword Seed; this was an Opportunity that no one could fake.

In the center of the wasteland, that half-broken stele glowed with a cold, eerie light under the moonlight.

Young Master did not go far. He was like a lone wolf lurking in the shadows, his figure hidden in a forest of dead trees a hundred paces away, his eyes locked onto the direction of the stone stele.

The few Cui Family guards beside him held their weapons, their spiritual power restrained but ready. Clearly, with a single command, they would rush up regardless of the cost.

And in another direction, a more concealed aura was lurking.

Lin Chen's spiritual sense swept over, capturing a trace of a disguised aura.

That person was dressed as a peddler collecting night soil, pushing a dilapidated wooden cart, slowly approaching the edge of the wasteland. He appeared to be clearing garbage from the roadside, but his eyes were like those of a hawk, never leaving the broken stele for a moment.

People from the Zhao Family.

Lin Chen sneered in his heart.

Zhao Chong, an inconspicuous character from the Zhao Family's side branch, with the cultivation of the Ninth Level of Qi Refining, famous for his skills in tracking and breath-concealment.

Lin Chen's attention did not linger on Zhao Chong for too long; he was more concerned with another almost imperceptible fluctuation of spiritual power lurking around Zhao Chong.

That fluctuation came from the air, like a circling night owl.

Chu Yun's Puppet bird.

This inconspicuous little thing was the true eye of tonight.

Lin Haoyu walked to the broken stele.

He did not draw his sword immediately; instead, he extended his left hand, his fingertips touching the cold stone surface gently, with a trace of reverence.

The moment his fingertips touched the stele, a vast, desolate, yet incomparably sharp Sword Intent rushed into his Sea of Consciousness along the patterns of the stele!

That Sword Intent carried no Killing Intent; it was more like an inquiry spanning a thousand years, an inspection of a power of the same origin.

Lin Haoyu groaned, his face instantly turning pale, but his back straightened even more.

He could feel that the Sword Seed, which had been gestating in his Sea of Consciousness for many years, was emitting an excited vibration under the scouring of this surging Sword Intent.

He slowly closed his eyes and gripped the hilt of the heavy sword on his back with his right hand.

"Clang—"

The heavy sword left its sheath, bringing with it a clear, resonant sword hum.

Moonlight spilled onto the sword body, reflecting a chilling, cold light.

He did not use any flashy Moves; he just gently tapped the tip of the sword against the two blurred ancient characters on the stele.

Immediately, all the spiritual power in his body, along with the power of the Sword Seed vibrating violently in his Sea of Consciousness, was poured into the broken stele through the tip of the sword without reservation.

In an instant, a sudden change occurred!

The half-broken, dark stele seemed to have been injected with life.

The stele body trembled violently, and countless fine, silvery-white threads of light burst forth from the tip of Lin Haoyu's sword, instantly crawling over the entire face of the stele like a spider web.

Those originally blurred carvings were outlined and lit up one by one under the movement of the silver threads.

The two ancient seal characters at the very top of the stele inscription bloomed with dazzling radiance, a light that even outshone the moon in the sky.

"Qinghe!"

In the dead tree forest a hundred paces away, Young Master gasped in shock, as if struck by lightning.

He stared fixedly at those two characters, the shock in his eyes beyond words, turning into a near-manic ecstasy and greed.

Qinghe Sword Art! The foundation of the Cui Clan that had been lost for five hundred years!

Almost at the same time he shouted, another change occurred.

The light of the two characters "Qinghe" flared brightly, and a sword shadow, as solid as water, slowly emerged from within, circled the stele, and finally turned into a stream of light, shooting straight into the clouds.

"Crack—!"

A crisp shattering sound was exceptionally harsh in the quiet night.

Young Master looked down abruptly, only to see the warm jade pendant at his waist, passed down through generations and representing his status as a direct descendant, splitting down the middle without warning.

Immediately after, cracks spread like a spider web, and in his horrified eyes, the entire jade pendant crumbled into a handful of powder, slipping through his fingers.

This was not the jade pendant being destroyed; it was a sign that the Bloodline mark had been activated by a higher-level power of the same origin, causing the old token to crumble because it could no longer bear it!

This meant that the lost Cui Clan Sword Dao Legacy had been reactivated at this moment by an outsider, a youth from the Lin Family!

Meanwhile, inside the Geng No. 9 Courtyard, Lin Chen's body shuddered violently.

The stone ring on his thumb transmitted a burning sensation, and a cold, mechanical stream of information rushed directly into his Sea of Consciousness, forcibly interrupting his perception of the outside world.

[High-dimensional Sword Intent Law detected... Scanning started...]

[Analyzing Law... Structure comparison... Data matching...]

[Ring Spirit feedback: Stele inscription scan complete.]

The next second, a complete, clear, three-dimensional map, even with 3D coordinates, unfolded in Lin Chen's mind.

The background of the map was a dark and deep fault zone, marked with three blood-red characters: Zangtian Abyss.

And deep in the Zangtian Abyss, at a depth of about seven thousand zhang, a steep rock wall was clearly marked.

On that rock wall, a complete sword manual, exactly the same as the one on the "Qinghe" broken stele, was engraved!

Every character, every stroke, contained the terrifying power to slice through space.

What made Lin Chen's heart race even more was that next to the sword manual, there was a line of small text marked in ancient divine script.

[Void Crystal Essence reserves: Seven units.]

Void Crystal Essence!

That was a supreme treasure capable of directly repairing damage to spatial Laws!

The value of one unit was enough to buy ten Jieyin Citys!

This was not a Cui Family sword manual; this was clearly a treasure map!

A treasure map that could make the entire Central Continent go crazy!

Just as Lin Chen's mind was surging, at the edge of the wasteland, the Zhao Chong who was disguised as a peddler suddenly had a trace of imperceptible light flash from his cuff.

He appeared to be bending down to clean up trash on the ground, but in fact, he had already completely recorded the entire process of Lin Haoyu activating the broken stele with a special image-recording jade.

However, the moment he was about to put the image-recording jade back into his bosom, a black shadow swept over his head like lightning.

"Chirp!"

With a sharp bird cry, the Puppet night owl controlled by Chu Yun dived down like a black arrow, its sharp beak pecking fiercely at Zhao Chong's cuff.

"Rip—" With a sound, the fabric tore.

An image-recording jade no larger than a fingernail fell out of his damaged cuff and hit the ground.

Zhao Chong's face changed drastically, and ignoring his disguise, he turned to grab it.

But the Puppet bird was faster; its wings flapped, whipping up a gust of wind that sent the image-recording jade tumbling a few times.

Just then, the side of the jade piece flipped over, reflecting a glimmer in the moonlight, briefly revealing an image.

Although the image was blurry, Lin Chen's eyesight was astonishing, and he saw it clearly.

In the image, it was a simple and solemn ancestral hall, and on the altar in the very center of the hall, half a broken stele was also enshrined!

Although the shape was different, the material and the cloud patterns faintly visible on it were of the same origin as the one on the wasteland in the western suburbs!

The Zhao Family actually had half a piece too!

Zhao Chong saw this,

Lin Chen did not pursue. There were already enough fish tonight.

"Haoyu, come back." Lin Chen's voice sounded clearly in his son's ears through spiritual sound transmission.

Lin Haoyu sheathed his sword, bowed deeply to the broken stele, and turned to return.

As he left, the light on the broken stele gradually faded, returning to its dark appearance, as if everything just now had been an illusion.

Young Master stared fixedly at Lin Haoyu's back, the greed and Killing Intent in his eyes almost turning into substance.

But in the end, he did not make a Move because he saw that more than a dozen strange auras had appeared around the wasteland at some point.

That was the warning Formation set up by Chu Yun being activated.

Lin Haoyu returned to the courtyard, his face still pale, but his eyes were shockingly bright. His entire temperament had undergone a transformation, like a peerless famous sword hidden in its sheath, its edge restrained but even more dangerous.

"Father, that stele..."

"Let's go inside and talk." Lin Chen interrupted him and led him into the secret chamber.

Meanwhile, on the wasteland, Qin Ruowei and several newly promoted members of the Lin Family, under Chu Yun's command, began to carefully excavate the soil around the broken stele.

"Clan Chief's wife, the Formation Plate shows that the spiritual reaction thirty zhang below this stele is extremely strong, but... something is wrong." Chu Yun said, frowning while controlling a dozen Formation Flags.

"What's wrong?" Qin Ruowei asked.

"The direction of the Spiritual Vein... is too orderly." Chu Yun pointed to the glowing Formation Plate. "Look, this Spiritual Qi is not naturally dissipating, but is being guided by an invisible conduit, straight... toward the Zhao Family's black gold mine in the east of the city!"

Everyone gasped upon hearing this.

This was no ownerless Spiritual Vein; this was clearly an "underground stake" the Zhao Family had been setting up for hundreds of years to secretly absorb the earth vein's Spiritual Qi to nourish their own mine!

Now, this stake had been accidentally discovered by the Lin Family.

In the forest of dead trees, Young Master was preparing to take people to evacuate first, but a carrier pigeon landed on his shoulder, flapping its wings.

He untied the letter tube and pulled out a piece of letter paper as thin as a cicada's wing.

The letter paper was blank. He frowned and held it up to the flame of a fire starter.

The next second, lines of blood-red text slowly appeared under the roasting of the flames.

"Decision of the Clan Elder Council: The appearance of the Qinghe Sword Art concerns the rise and fall of our clan. Within three days, if you cannot bring back the complete sword manual, you... will be expelled from the main branch and demoted to a side branch."

"Bang!"

The fire starter in Young Master's hand was crushed to pieces by him by mistake, and sparks flew everywhere.

His face was livid, then turned pale, and his hand holding the letter paper trembled violently from excessive force.

Expelled from the main branch! These four words were like four of the sharpest daggers, stabbing fiercely into his heart.

He looked up abruptly at the direction of the Geng No. 9 Courtyard. The gaze that still held a trace of reason now only had reckless madness left.

Inside the secret chamber, Lin Chen was checking his right arm.

He slowly unwound the layers of ice silkworm silk bandages.

As the bandages were unwound layer by layer, a cold spatial chill spilled out again, but this time, he did not feel that piercing, excruciating pain.

He was surprised to find that the ice silkworm silk bandages, which were originally as white as snow, had automatically woven themselves into an arm guard that clung to his arm after absorbing the aftermath of the high-dimensional Sword Intent that had erupted from the broken stele earlier.

On the surface of the arm guard, a very faint layer of runes, almost invisible to the naked eye, was slowly flowing. The shape of those runes was seven or eight parts similar to some of the patterns on the "Qinghe" broken stele!

[Ring Spirit feedback: Ice silkworm silk 'Law filter' function evolved. Starting to autonomously absorb, analyze, and simulate external spatial Law application techniques... Conversion rate increased to 0.03%.]

This ice silkworm silk was actually evolving itself by borrowing the Cui Clan's sword manual!

Lin Chen could feel a repairing energy, several times purer than before, slowly seeping out of the arm guard, nourishing his damaged Meridians.

Just then, the corner of his eye caught the bronze token left by Young Master during the day on the table.

The token flickered in the candlelight, looking exactly like a pair of eyes peeping from the shadows.

A meaningful arc slowly curled at the corner of Lin Chen's mouth.

He picked up a brush, spread out a new piece of beast skin paper, and began to copy something onto it.

What he wrote was not the complete sword manual given by the Ring Spirit located in the Zangtian Abyss, but the incomplete "Qinghe" characters that appeared on the stele when Lin Haoyu activated it, as well as some broken Sword Intent patterns around it.

He wrote very slowly, deliberately imitating that desolate Sword Intent with every stroke, seeming real yet fake, but carrying a deadly temptation.

And this Incomplete Manual was the first "generous gift" he had prepared for Young Master.