473: Chapter 473 Soul Devouring Domain, Old Schemer

Hearing Fang Cheng's question, a flash of light crossed Old Master Chen Hongye's crimson eyes.

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He glanced at Fang Cheng and asked with some doubt:

"Judging by your appearance, could this be your first time entering someone else's spiritual Secret Realm?"

Fang Cheng nodded noncommittally.

"I see."

Old Master Chen Hongye immediately assumed the posture of a Senior and patiently instructed:

"Little friend, do not be impatient. Entering a spiritual Secret Realm first requires establishing a spiritual beacon between the caster and the visitor."

"Now, relax your body, clear your mind of distractions, focus all your attention on the incantation I am about to recite, and remember it firmly."

"Then, you only need to recite it silently once, and your Divine Soul can leave the body, following the beacon to find the location of my Secret Realm."

With that, he sat cross-legged and uttered a long, obscure string of incantations in a slow and solemn tone.

Those syllables were extremely awkward to pronounce, yet they contained a certain mysterious rhythm, echoing leisurely in the silent night sky.

It was like an invisible key knocking open a door leading to an unknown space.

"This is my secret contact phrase."

After chanting, Old Master Chen Hongye's eyes flickered, and he said in a deep voice:

"Little friend, this old man will go first and sweep the couch to await you in the Secret Realm."

With that, he slowly closed his eyes.

That battered body trembled violently, and then stiffened like a wooden or stone sculpture.

All signs of life, breathing, heartbeat, and even the glow of the incantations on the surface of his body disappeared in an instant.

He maintained his sitting posture like this, his Soul seemingly drawn out from its shell, turning back into a cold corpse once more.

Gazing at Old Master Chen Hongye's lifeless Physical Body, Fang Cheng sat cross-legged in front of him as well.

Then, he closed his eyes slightly, gathered his focus, ran the extremely complex incantation through his mind once, and chanted it softly without a single error.

Soon, his breathing also became long, subtle, and barely perceptible.

His entire person seemed to have fallen into deep Meditation.

The lingering echoes of the incantation gradually drifted away with the night wind.

The two parties were now "offline", and the manor in the darkness was eerily quiet for a moment.

The bonfire still flickered, casting everyone's shadows onto the dilapidated walls and pulling them into distorted shapes.

The members of the Chen Family and the monks of Cuicheng Temple were still lying on the ground, unconscious and with their fates unknown.

Lin Chuqiao, Pan Wendi, and Bailing looked at each other, then split up to stand around Fang Cheng's body, quietly forming a protective circle.

Lin Chuqiao's expression was the most solemn; she tightly clutched her amulet, scanning her surroundings vigilantly without missing even the slightest sound of the grass stirring in the wind.

Pan Wendi and Bailing stared at Fang Cheng with nervous expressions, subconsciously holding their breath for fear of disturbing him.

Only Second Young Master Chen Xuan stood a little further away, his expression shifting uncertainly and his eyes full of complexity, unsure of what he was thinking.

Meanwhile, Fang Cheng's consciousness was traversing a thick bank of pitch-black mist.

Guided by the incantation, he quickly locked onto a coordinate hidden within the endless darkness.

At the edge of the subconscious world, a building emitting a dark red glow faintly emerged from the fog.

That was a building so bizarre that it defied description in words.

It possessed both the silhouette of an ancient temple and the appearance of a huge tomb, exuding gloomy Death Qi.

The walls were covered in face-like reliefs, and the lintel was embedded with the huge skull of an unknown creature.

When Fang Cheng's gaze touched it, he even faintly heard the shrill crying and howling of countless wronged Souls in his ears.

Fang Cheng's gaze flickered slightly. Without hesitation, he lifted his foot and took a step forward.

The next second, he was already standing before the door of this gloomy residence.

Before he could even raise his hand, the red door emitted an unpleasantly grating creak and slowly opened inward automatically.

A hazy bloody halo radiated from within, illuminating the tiny space in front of the door.

It was as if welcoming a traveler visiting from the darkness.

With an expressionless face, Fang Cheng stepped familiarly into the light door.

A flash of red light blinded his eyes, and space shifted abruptly.

His figure instantly appeared inside a spacious room.

As soon as his feet landed, a bone-chilling gust of cold wind hit him head-on.

The surrounding temperature seemed to plunge to freezing point in an instant.

Lifting his gaze, Fang Cheng saw that this was a dimly lit hall.

In the very center stood an altar piled high with piled white bones.

The eye sockets of every skull all faced the entrance uniformly, silently staring at the visitor.

There was no divine statue enshrined on the altar, nor could any offerings be seen.

Only a tombstone-shaped stone slab stood there alone, with dried dark bloodstains still remaining on its surface.

In addition, the walls and floor of this room were densely covered with various dark red incantations.

They slowly wriggled like living creatures, emitting an evil red light that illuminated the entire space as if it were purgatory.

Upon closer inspection, the style of these incantations was identical to those on the surface of Old Master Chen Hongye's Physical Body.

"Welcome, Little Friend Fang, to my humble abode."

At that moment, an old and resounding voice echoed through this space.

Fang Cheng withdrew his observing gaze and looked toward the source of the sound.

He saw that beneath the white bone altar in the center of the hall, another figure had appeared at some point.

That person had a youthful face with white hair, wore a large white Daoist robe, and had a lean visage, carrying quite a bit of an otherworldly Daoist aura.

However, that pair of eyes, which should have been wise and serene, were an alarming crimson.

This ruined his overall aura, making him look like a Daoist priest who had undergone Qi Deviation.

This person was none other than Old Master Chen Hongye, who had been waiting for a long time.

Here, he was no longer charred and battered, but presented a completely different appearance.

Seeing the slight surprise in Fang Cheng's eyes, this "Old Master Chen Hongye" in the guise of a Daoist priest smiled slightly and then explained:

"I forgot to introduce myself. My Daoist name is 'Xuanzhen', and my secular birth name need not be mentioned; over the past one hundred and twenty-four years, it has long since become a thing of the past."

Hearing this, Fang Cheng nodded and got straight to the point:

"Now that we have entered, can you tell me the name of that person?"

"No rush."

Xuanzhen wore an unfathomable smile and raised his hand:

"Little Friend Fang, how do you find the construction of my Secret Realm?"

The moment his words fell, the surrounding scenery changed abruptly.

Before Fang Cheng could reply, the bloody incantations on the walls flared with blinding light.

Countless thick iron chains shot out from the surrounding walls and ground like venomous snakes, rushing straight at him with a shrill tearing sound in the air.

In the blink of an eye, those iron chains had coiled around his limbs and torso like maggots on rotting bone.

A tremendous force came over him, and Fang Cheng only felt his feet go empty.

When he came to his senses, he found that his position had been transferred.

His body had abruptly appeared on top of that white bone altar, tightly bound by the iron chains.

"Old Master Chen Hongye, what is the meaning of this?"

Fang Cheng pressed his back against the cold tombstone, his gaze piercing directly at Xuanzhen.

"Didn't we reach a cooperative agreement?"

As he spoke, he exerted sudden force with his hands and feet, attempting to break free from the restraints.

Clatter—

The iron chains winding around his body dozens of times tightened instantly in unison.

And the other end of the iron chains plunged deep into the walls and ground.

No matter how much Fang Cheng strained with bulging veins on his forehead, it only caused dust to rattle down without loosening them by even a fraction.

With every struggle, the incantations all around lit up with an eerie red light.

An invisible binding force drilled into his limbs and bones along the iron chains, making his entire body feel heavy and unable to gather strength.

"It means nothing."

Old Master Chen Hongye—no, he should be called Xuanzhen—paced around the altar leisurely with his hands behind his back.

"It's just that you are truly too foolish to actually believe the words of a dead man."

He then stopped in front of Fang Cheng, his crimson eyes filled with mockery.

"This old man has roamed the Jianghu for a hundred and thirty-two years. It has always been my turn to scheme against others; when is it ever a junior's turn to point at my nose, order me around, and humiliate me like this?"

"We haven't settled the score from earlier at the Chen Family Manor where you ruined my Physical Body yet. Now that you've delivered yourself to my doorstep, it's just right to let you repay this debt."

Hearing this, Fang Cheng snorted coldly:

"Do you think doing this can threaten me? I can gather my mind, break away from this space, and return to reality at any time."

Xuanzhen immediately pointed a finger at Fang Cheng and threw his head back in roaring laughter, as if he had heard an extremely funny joke:

"Kid, you are welcome to try."

Fang Cheng said no more, immediately closing his eyes and concentrating all his mental energy to try and cut off the connection with the Secret Realm and return to his Physical Body.

Yet the next second, his expression changed drastically, and his body suddenly trembled slightly, as if encountering something bizarre.

Then, a few more seconds passed.

He suddenly opened his eyes, the calmness in his pupils completely gone, replaced by poorly concealed terror:

"How is this possible... You... What on earth did you do?"

"Very simple."

Xuanzhen seemed quite satisfied with Fang Cheng's reaction and rarely had the mood to introduce his trump card:

"Because this is not a pure spiritual Secret Realm. After my Physical Body died, I refined it into a Soul-Devouring Domain using my lingering Soul as a guide."

"After centuries of nurturing, it has deeply fused with my conscious world. The moment you stepped in here, you became a fish in a net."

As soon as the words fell, the dark red incantations on the surrounding walls suddenly flared with a blinding light, weaving together like an airtight prison that enveloped the entire hall.

A swirling blood-red vortex emerged from the ceiling as well.

Within that vortex, countless distorted faces could be vaguely seen rising and falling, men and women, old and young.

Their facial features were scrunched together, emitting silent wails that looked exceptionally tragic, as if they were desperately trying to crawl out from within.

The entire space was filled with chilly gusts of wind, instantly permeating an atmosphere of bloodshed and decay.

"This is like a tomb where I sleep ordinarily, and it is also used to imprison the remaining wandering Souls after predation."

Xuanzhen flicked his finger against a white bone skull on the altar, making it ring crisply, and said leisurely:

"If an outsider accidentally strays into this place and wants to leave, there is only one way: completely defeat my Domain."

"Of course, you can also try using your fists to beat this old bag of bones of mine to death..."

At this point, Xuanzhen grinned widely, a fierce glint suddenly flashing in his eyes.

The iron chains binding Fang Cheng tightened even further, leaving deep grooves on his limbs, hands, and chest.

Even his bones emitted an unpleasantly grating creak.

"However, do you, a reckless brute who only relies on muscle and brute force, have such an ability?"

Xuanzhen raised his voice, the cruelty in his eyes intensifying.

Before his voice faded, the iron chains binding Fang Cheng suddenly grew dense black thorns, stabbing into his muscles like the fangs of a venomous snake.

Fresh blood dripped along the tips of the thorns, falling drop by drop onto the white bone altar and flowing into the eye sockets of those skulls.

"Heh, you pretended to be a spiritual superpower user earlier and tricked me. Don't you wish right now that you truly possessed powerful spiritual special abilities?"

A triumphant smile of turning the tables appeared on Xuanzhen's face.

But soon his eyes narrowed as he noticed that those black thorns only pierced into Fang Cheng's surface muscles and could not penetrate a single fraction further.

His brow furrowed slightly, and then he clapped his hands as if suddenly enlightened:

"As expected of Fang Shijie's son. It seems you still inherited his Bloodline. Although you didn't form a substantive ability, your spiritual energy far surpasses ordinary people. You really are good material."

Hearing this, Fang Cheng abruptly raised his head and glared furiously:

"When I tear these iron chains apart, it will be your doomsday!"

As he spoke, the veins on his forehead bulged and he struggled a few more times, but it remained entirely futile.

"Young people are simply hot-headed!"

Xuanzhen shook his head, his tone full of disdain:

"As your Senior, I am quite looking forward to you reaching this level."

"However, even if your father Fang Shijie came here, it would be impossible for him to shatter my Domain, let alone a misguided physical enhancer like you."

"You must be clear about one thing: the time and space here are entirely controlled by me."

He raised a hand and snapped his fingers, and a gleaming, bone-chilling short blade instantly appeared in the air.

"Here, I am an omnipotent god. With a single thought, I can create hundreds of weapons to deal with any enemy."

As if to verify his words, that short blade shot out with a "whoosh" sound, piercing accurately into Fang Cheng's shoulder.

Fang Cheng let out a muffled groan, cold sweat sliding down his cheek, yet he didn't utter a single plea for mercy.

Following that, Xuanzhen threw both hands wide.

More knives, swords, and long spears emerged from the Void Realm, densely suspended before Fang Cheng with cold light that almost blinded people's eyes.

"The pain you suffer here is exactly the same as in reality. Care to guess how long you can hold out?"

The corners of Xuanzhen's mouth curled into an arc, watching Fang Cheng with keen interest.

"If it were in reality, you would indeed have hope of breaking free from the iron chains with brute force. But here, you have all brawn and no brain—it has zero effect at all."

His voice was as cold as a venomous snake flicking its tongue, deliberately using words to goad and mock, filled with the pleasure of revenge.

"Kid, what do you have to fight me with?!"

Fang Cheng gasped a few heavy breaths, his gaze still sharp:

"What is the use of imprisoning me here?"

"Imprisoning?"

Xuanzhen acted as though he had heard the greatest joke in the world, laughing so hard he couldn't straighten his back:

"I never intended to imprison you. What I want to do is devour your Soul and occupy your Physical Body!"

He reached out, stroking Fang Cheng's arm from afar with eyes as greedy as if he were looking at a peerless treasure:

"Old Master Chen Hongye's Physical Body has long since rotted beyond repair. Even if you hadn't ruined it, it wouldn't last a few years."

"But you are different. You are so young and possess such a strong physique, plus Fang Shijie's Bloodline—you are simply the perfect vessel!"

"Once I devour your Soul and live on using your body, who will still remember that Old Master Chen Hongye died in the Chen Family Manor?"

Fang Cheng gradually stopped struggling, his chest rising and falling violently, his breathing growing heavier and heavier.

Xuanzhen assumed he had finally resigned to his fate, and the smile on his face became even more smug.

"Xuanzhen, I admit, you win this round."

Fang Cheng let out a long sigh, his voice carrying a hint of exhaustion:

"However, before I die, I want to know, who on earth was the leader that orchestrated the Guangwumen Shooting Incident? Just so I can die in peace."

"That lord's name, you ask..."

Xuanzhen deliberately dragged out his tone, watching Fang Cheng's posture of weakness and feeling thoroughly gratified:

"Sorry, but I refuse to state his name plainly. After all, I still want to rely on his protection to continue living using your body."

He paused, as if suddenly struck by a whim, leaned closer to Fang Cheng, and whispered:

"Still, seeing that you are sensible, this old man can tell you a secret."

"During the Guangwumen Shooting Incident back then, I was one of the principal culprits."