130: Chapter 130 The Bronze Gate Opens

It was not a forceful tug, but a gentle yet irresistible guidance that penetrated deep into the marrow and reached straight to the Divine Soul.

Lin Haoyu instinctively raised his eyes and gazed into the deeper darkness of the cavern; the place pointed to by the silver thread was exactly where the jade talisman had been detonated after the Wutu Spirit Turtle's remnant Soul had desperately smashed the ink-colored crystals.

"Move!" Lin Haoyu let out a low shout without any hesitation.

He could feel that this silver thread, the jade talisman gifted by his father, and even the stone ring on his father's finger, all originated from the same source.

This power was vast and pure, standing in stark contrast to the deathly stillness of the Ink Abyss.

Following it might be the key to breaking the situation.

"Keep up!" Tie Xin shouldered his giant hammer. He glanced at the pile of shattered ink-colored crystal debris on the ground, then cast a look at the tortoise shell fossil embedded in the rock wall that had completely lost its luster. Although he was reckless, he was not stupid; what had just happened exceeded his understanding of the Secret Realm.

This Lin family brat seemed to know more of the inside story.

Yun Shang followed silently behind the two men. Her slender hands tightly gripped a jade flute, her footsteps were light, and her pair of cold, clear eyes scanned the surroundings vigilantly.

The cold air within the cavern seemed to have been dispelled quite a bit by that silver light, but the faint, lingering scent of decay and deathly stillness in the air clung to them like maggots on bones, refusing to dissipate.

The three of them followed the direction indicated by the silver thread and stepped into a newly opened passageway that had been blasted open by the explosive power of the jade talisman.

The passage was narrow, only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The rock walls were covered with scorch marks and signs of impact, and a trace of pure, vast silver aura remained, causing the Ink Abyss Qi that attempted to permeate the area to shrink back in fear.

After walking barely a hundred zhang, Tie Xin suddenly stopped. He rested the head of his giant hammer on the ground, producing a dull "thud."

"Be careful, there is something ahead," he said in a muffled voice, sniffing the air forcefully, "The smell of blood, very faint, but something is wrong."

Lin Haoyu's Divine Sense had already been occupied by that silver thread, making it impossible to project outward for exploration; he could only rely on his most primitive five senses.

He listened intently; apart from the sounds of his own breathing and heartbeat and those of his companions, the passageway was deathly silent.

But he trusted the intuition of someone like Tie Xin, who had been through many battles.

Yun Shang slowly closed her eyes, extending a strand of extremely fine spiritual sense along the ground ahead.

A moment later, she opened her eyes, her expression becoming rather unsightly: "It's corpses, and not just one."

The three quickened their pace and rounded a bend. The sight ahead made their pupils constrict simultaneously.

The passage suddenly opened up, connecting to a much larger underground space.

And right there on the ground of this space, seven or eight corpses lay scattered about.

These corpses were different from the corrupted ones they had encountered before; there were no traces of erosion by the Ink Abyss Qi on their bodies. Instead, it was as if their entire vital blood and spiritual power had been instantly drained, turning them into shriveled mummies.

Their clothing was varied; some were from the Danxia Sect, some from the Divine Weapon Pavilion, and there were even one or two female cultivators wearing the attire of the Miaoyin Valley.

"They..." Tie Xin walked forward and gently nudged the nearest corpse of a Divine Weapon Pavilion Disciple with his hammer handle. The body was light and airy, as if it were an empty shell.

"Look at their posture." Yun Shang's cold, clear voice carried a hint of trembling. She pointed to all the corpses, revealing a bone-chilling commonality.

Lin Haoyu looked in the direction she pointed, and his heart sank abruptly.

All the corpses, regardless of gender or where they had fallen, had their heads facing the same direction, their hands stretched forward, maintaining an eerie kneeling posture.

It was as if in the final moment of their deaths, they had been forcibly pressed to the ground by some invisible power, prostrating themselves before some existence and sacrificing everything they had.

And the direction they were kneeling towards was the deepest part of this underground space.

There stood an unimaginably huge bronze gate.

The gate, of unknown height, was deeply embedded into the dome and the ground. The gate was covered with ancient runes identical to those on the tortoise shell and the stone ring—complex and mysterious, exuding an aura of desolation that seemed to suppress eternity.

At this moment, this gate, which should have been tightly shut, had actually opened a gap about a palm's width wide.

Endless darkness and Chaos seeped out from the gap, and those deathly still auras that extinguished all life were precisely leaking from behind the gate!

Between his eyebrows, the silver thread guiding Lin Haoyu was now trembling violently, pointing straight at the gap in the gate.

"Heh heh..."

A familiar, hoarse laugh that made the Divine Soul ache drifted eerily from behind the gap, as if whispering right in their ears.

The Bone-Eroding Demon General!

Tie Xin's face hardened, and he roared, "Stop playing tricks!" He took a large step forward, intending to use brute force to push the gap shut.

"Don't touch it!" Lin Haoyu shouted sharply to stop him.

Tie Xin's steps faltered, and he turned back to glare at him.

"The runes on this gate are the same as those on the tortoise shell; it is a Seal," Lin Haoyu explained calmly. "Forcing it to close will only trigger a more violent backlash. Look at those corpses; it is very likely they were drained of their vital blood because they tried to do just that."

Tie Xin glanced at the eerily posed mummified corpses on the ground, a layer of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, and he took a few steps back.

Lin Haoyu walked to the gate and cautiously approached the gap. Enduring the chill that seemed to want to freeze his Soul, he peered inside.

Uneasy, Tie Xin carefully extended his giant, door-like hammer, using the thick handle to firmly wedge the gap, preventing it from suddenly closing or opening further.

Through the gap, the scene behind the gate made the three of them hold their breath completely.

It was a void of Chaos, and in the center of the space floated hundreds of fist-sized black crystals condensed from pure Ink Abyss Qi.

Twisted blood-colored runes were engraved on the surface of these crystals, and their energy fluctuations and aura were exactly the same as the token of the True Blood Temple dead soldier from before!

The hundreds of crystals were connected to each other by black energy threads, slowly rotating and outlining the prototype of a huge, complex Formation.

A Teleportation Formation!

Just as their minds were shaken to the core, in the center of the Teleportation Formation, countless tiny ink-colored crystal particles gathered and ascended like dust.

They rapidly condensed and stretched, finally forming a complete, clear humanoid silhouette in mid-air.

It was a demonic shadow standing a zhang tall, its entire body composed of countless tiny ink-colored crystals flickering with a ghostly light, as if it were wearing armor woven from shattered obsidian.

It had no facial features; its face was a smooth crystal surface, with only two bottomless vortices slowly rotating, devouring all light in the surroundings.

The Divided Soul of the Bone-Eroding Demon General was displaying its complete form for the first time.

It seemed to have sensed the peering eyes outside the gap, and its smooth face slowly turned towards the direction of Lin Haoyu and his two companions.

"Three... ants..."

What it emitted was no longer hoarse sound waves, but a Divine Thought that rang directly in their minds—cold, malicious, and filled with lofty contempt.

Before the words faded, it slowly raised its right arm composed of crystals and made a grasping motion towards the direction of the gap.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Three black chains, even more solid than those that had trapped the Wutu Spirit Turtle earlier, erupted from its palm. Ignoring the obstruction of the bronze gate, they shot through the gap like venomous snakes, aiming separately at Lin Haoyu, Tie Xin, and Yun Shang!

What made Lin Haoyu's scalp tingle even more was that at the tips of the three chains, within the churning black mist, a blurry yet recognizable face appeared on each—Venerable Xueli!

That face was filled with ferocity and malice, as if Venerable Xueli had used a portion of his own Divine Soul as a catalyst to empower this fatal strike!

Crisis descended in an instant!

Tie Xin roared and held his hammer horizontally to defend, while sound blades erupted from Yun Shang's fingertips.

However, before they could make a more effective response, the jade talisman on Lin Haoyu's chest, which had just absorbed the Wutu Origin and was cracked on the surface, burst apart with a "bang"!

What exploded was not jade, but the disguise wrapped around the outer layer.

An ancient stone ring, identical to the one on his father Lin Chen's thumb, broke free from the shattered jade, turned into a streak of light, and before Lin Haoyu could react, it slipped onto the index finger of his right hand, where he wore his storage ring!

Hum—!

The ring felt ice-cold against his skin, and a vast, righteous power instantly erupted from the ring, surging through his arm and flooding his entire body!

The silver thread between his eyebrows suddenly shone brilliantly, echoing the ring from afar.

An incredibly solid silver sword shadow erupted from the ring. It struck after the chains were launched but arrived first, slashing fiercely at the three incoming black chains with the momentum to sever space and time!

"Clang!"

A deafening sound of metal clashing exploded!

The three chains, containing the resentment of Venerable Xueli, were actually severed in one stroke by this silver sword shadow!

The broken chains let out a shrill shriek before dissipating into black mist that filled the sky.

However, the terrifying energy fluctuation erupted from the collision between the sword shadow and the chains, like a giant boulder thrown into a calm lake, slammed fiercely against the bronze gate!

"Creak—!!"

The gap wedged by the hammer handle, under the impact of this immense force, not only failed to close but, with a teeth-grinding screech, suddenly expanded outward by more than half a foot!

A more dense and terrifying aura of deathly stillness surged out like floodwaters from a breached dam!

"Not good!" Tie Xin's face turned deathly pale, and he gripped his giant hammer, which was vibrating with a humming sound, tightly.

Behind the gate, the crystal body of the Bone-Eroding Demon General clearly swayed, evidently having been impacted as well. However, its two vortex-like eye sockets were locked firmly onto the stone ring on Lin Haoyu's finger, revealing endless greed and suspicion.

Just at this critical moment, the ground beneath the three of them suddenly began to heave violently.

A huge mound of earth rose from the ground, and a warm, earthy-yellow light bloomed from it, rapidly forming an incredibly thick hemispherical barrier that firmly protected the three of them, barely blocking the surging Ink Abyss Qi.

It was the final power of the Wutu Spirit Turtle!

"Ring-bearer..."

An aged, weary, and intermittent voice transmission rang in their Seas of Consciousness; it was the final imprint of the Spirit Turtle's remnant Soul.

"Quick... quickly leave... behind the gate is..."

Its voice came to an abrupt end.

"Skree—!!!"

A shrill shriek filled with rage and killing intent came from behind the gate, directly tearing apart and annihilating the Spirit Turtle's final, faint voice transmission.

The earthy-yellow barrier trembled violently amidst the shriek, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on its surface; it clearly could not hold for much longer.

"Go!" Lin Haoyu's eyes were bloodshot. Without the slightest hesitation, he turned and sprinted towards the passage they had come from.

Tie Xin and Yun Shang followed closely behind; they knew that staying any longer would mean certain death.

Just as they retreated, the stone ring on Lin Haoyu's right index finger grew hot again, and a stream of pure energy flowed down his arm.

He felt his entire right arm burning, and looking down, he saw that beneath the skin of his arm, five spiritual patterns representing the Origin of the Five Elements—Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth—were rapidly taking shape.

This was the Wutu Origin being thoroughly activated by the stone ring, resonating with the other four elemental powers within his body, and automatically constructing an incredibly profound Five Elements Formation!

The moment the final Earth-element rune was completed—

The Five Elements Formation suddenly lit up, forming a perfect cycle on his arm.

And at this very moment, a powerful palpitation from the deepest part of his Bloodline, crossing the spatial barrier of the Secret Realm, exploded in his heart without warning!

Lin Haoyu's body stiffened abruptly, and an indescribable panic gripped his heart.

He perceived with absolute clarity that at the distant Lin family encampment, the Golden Core aura belonging to his father, Lin Chen, was climbing and boiling crazily at a highly abnormal speed!

That was the sign that the Golden Core Lightning Tribulation was about to descend!

But according to his father's plan, the Breakthrough required at least several days of preparation; why would it be so hasty?!

Something is wrong! This is not a normal Breakthrough!

This is a crisis!

It is a fatal crisis warning, transmitted across the entire Secret Realm through the resonance of their father-son Bloodline!