224: Chapter 224 Cleaning Up the Beginning and End

That blinding blood-colored light, triggered by the Boundary-Breaking Blood Talisman, had long since carried Core Disciple Qin Wuyan away, disappearing beyond the layers of toxic miasma in the northwest direction of Mang Mountain.

Gu Shen stood high in the air, his expression cold and solemn as an abyss. One should not pursue a desperate foe, and besides, that kind of life-saving trump card containing the pressure of a Nascent Soul far exceeded the speed limits of the thunder shadow boots. Being able to sever his arm and shave off a century of his Lifespan this time had already made this Sect Prodigy pay a heavy price.

He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, and the deep cyan toxic malice True Qi surging around his body was completely retracted into his Dantian Qi Sea.

With a light tap of his toes against the Void Realm, Gu Shen's figure drifted down like a grey leaf, landing gracefully in the center of the Desolate Valley basin from several dozen zhang in the air.

The surrounding scene could truly be called a purgatory of carnage.

Broken Profound Ice Formation Flags were scattered everywhere, and withered blood-thirsty vines were intertwined with severed limbs. Crimson blood gathered into streams, flowing gurglingly along the cracks in the rock strata, while the air was filled with a nauseating scent of blood and the stench of charred corpses.

Nine Demon Bone Iron Guards, as massive as iron towers, stood silently amidst this mountain of corpses and sea of blood. Their dark titanium-tungsten armor was splattered with viscous blood, yet their mechanical bodies maintained absolute silence and sternness.

Behind that Iron Guard No. 7, the young Mountain-Quaking Kui Ox lay prone on the ground. Its massive vertical pupils revealed a trace of awe as it breathed heavily, no longer possessing any of the violent ferocity it had shown earlier when fighting against the Beast Taming Sect army.

Gu Shen strode through the mess, heading straight toward a pile of rubble at the edge of the basin.

There, lying quietly, was a left arm severed at the shoulder, along with a white mountain-shaking bone zither covered in cracks and devoid of luster.

This was the most generous price Core Disciple Qin Wuyan had left behind.

Gu Shen reached out his right hand and grabbed through the air. The severed arm and the bone zither landed steadily in his palm.

With a flick of his hand, a mass of deep cyan True Qi washed away all the blood from the severed arm, revealing a white jade thumb ring worn on its finger, carved with strange beast-swallowing patterns.

"The Storage Ring of a core Disciple must contain resources beyond imagination."

Gu Shen applied force with his fingertips, forcibly removing this white jade thumb ring from the severed finger. As his Divine Sense probed slightly, a layer of resisting Restriction light immediately shimmered on the surface of the ring, clearly the Divine Soul imprint left by Core Disciple Qin Wuyan.

Gu Shen was not in the slightest hurry, directly storing it along with the mountain-shaking bone zither into the depths of his own Storage Ring. Such precious treasures bestowed by elders of a major Sect were highly likely to hide tracking auras within. Only after returning to the safe house in the Wasteland and carefully refining it with the Great Furnace to erase the marks would it be the foolproof plan.

After putting away the most core loot, Gu Shen's gaze swept across the vast Desolate Valley.

"Clean up the battlefield and collect all Storage Pouches."

Gu Shen's mental voice flowed, issuing instructions to the nine Demon Bone Iron Guards.

The nine steel behemoths moved instantly. They bent their massive metal bodies, carefully searching through the pools of blood and wreckage. Their thick titanium-tungsten alloy arms now displayed extremely precise operational accuracy, accurately picking up and removing the Storage Pouches from the waists of those Beast Taming Sect Disciples one by one.

Half an incense stick's time later.

No. 9 Iron Guard stepped forward, holding its mechanical arms up to Gu Shen. On its arms, more than sixty Sect Storage Pouches embroidered with star patterns were densely stacked, faintly emitting an alluring Spiritual Qi light.

Gu Shen swept his large sleeve, taking all the wealth of this group of Sect elites into his possession.

These Disciples, who had led the Nine Stars Spirit Binding Array and the Azure Wood Strangulation Array, were all the backbone of the Sect; their combined assets were enough to support the operation of the arsenal's assembly line for a very long time.

After the looting was finished, Gu Shen was not in a rush to leave.

He looked around; too many traces of battle remained in this valley. The brutal physical collision marks of the Demon Bone Iron Guards, the toxic malice radiation unique to his extreme Dao True Qi, and the corpses of the Sect Disciples littering the ground.

The Beast Taming Sect would never sit idly by while hundreds of its elites were wiped out; those old Nascent Soul monsters within the Sect who were proficient in heavenly calculation and source tracking could descend upon this place at any time. If these traces were left behind, it would be tantamount to announcing his methods and trump cards to the Great Yu Cultivation World.

"Pluck the goose as it flies, destroy the corpses and erase the traces; only then can future troubles be cut off."

Gu Shen formed an ancient Dharma seal with his palms in front of his chest, his divine intent piercing straight into the deepest part of his Sea of Consciousness.

"Clang—!"

A vast, ancient bell chime that shook the Void Realm resounded thunderously within the Desolate Valley.

The ancient and heavy phantom of the [Heaven and Earth Furnace] emerged from Gu Shen's brow, expanding against the wind and transforming into a bronze giant tripod several dozen zhang high, inverted over this piece of heaven and earth.

"Burn."

Gu Shen issued the Dharma decree.

The tripod lid opened with a roar, and the pale white flames of the rules, like an inverted heavenly river, poured down, instantly submerging the Desolate Valley within a radius of a hundred zhang.

This pale white phantom fire lacked the heat of ordinary flames; it bypassed the temperature burning on the physical level and pointed directly at the underlying structure of matter and the Karma ties between heaven and earth.

The sea of fire churned.

Those severed bodies of the Beast Taming Sect Disciples, the broken Magical Artifacts, and the blood-stained soil, the moment they touched the flames of the rules, melted silently like residual snow under the scorching sun.

Following that, a deeper level of purification began.

The residual wood-element and earth-element Spiritual Qi in the air, the Formation fluctuations, and the violent toxic malice left behind by Gu Shen himself were all forcibly extracted and crushed by this pale white phantom fire, restored back into the most basic attribute-less Spiritual Qi particles between heaven and earth.

The Sect Karma and resentment that clung to the corpses, invisible to the naked eye, were even more domineeringly burned into nothingness by the Great Furnace.

The entire extraction and purification process lasted for a full incense stick's time.

When the pale white firelight receded like the tide and the phantom of the Great Furnace retreated into his Sea of Consciousness, the scene within the Desolate Valley had undergone an earth-shaking change.

All blood stains, corpses, and Magical Artifact fragments had disappeared without a trace. The rock strata on the ground were as clean as new, and the pungent smell of blood in the air was replaced by a pure fragrance of plants and trees. Not to mention traces of battle, even a single shred of Karma aura had been completely wiped away.

No matter how mysterious the heavenly calculation techniques of the Great Yu Cultivation World were, facing this blank slate that had been thoroughly "rebooted" by the flames of the rules, they could only calculate a void.

And in front of Gu Shen, a mass of light emitting rich vitality was floating quietly.

That was the residual life Origin of hundreds of Beast Taming Sect Cultivators, the essence transformed after being extremely compressed and purified by the Great Furnace.

Gu Shen spread his palm, and the light dissipated, turning into dense, milky-white droplets that fell into a jade box.

[Refining complete. Obtained: essence white dew (medium) 60 drops, essence white dew (inferior) 120 drops. Refined a batch of miscellaneous Spiritual materials.]

This terrifying gain of life essence was enough to ensure that Gu Shen would have no worries about Qi-blood exhaustion or Lifespan loss for a very long time.

Gu Shen properly put away the jade box.

Thus, this earth-shattering "mantis stalks the cicada, oriole follows behind" scenario had been cleaned up completely by him, leaving no loose ends.

He turned around, his gaze falling on the massive young Mountain-Quaking Kui Ox behind him.

The young beast was covered in blood, and those wounds visible to the bone were still oozing blood. It was currently looking at Gu Shen with an extremely complex gaze, containing both submission to the strong and the sorrow of losing its herd.

Gu Shen slowly stepped forward, his body exuding the purest and gentlest wood-element vitality of the Longevity Art.

He gently placed his palm on the young beast's scale-covered head, and a strand of pure True Qi was transferred into its body, protecting its heart pulse that was about to dry up.

"You and I can be considered to have fate. Saving your life today, in the future, you will have your own fortune."

With a thought, Gu Shen untied a specially made Spirit Beast pouch from his waist and raised it.

Feeling that nourishment of vitality, the young Mountain-Quaking Kui Ox completely gave up resistance and turned into a streak of cyan light, being collected into the pouch.

The hunting ground was cleared, and the spoils were fully loaded.

Gu Shen's figure rose into the air, and the nine Demon Bone Iron Guards turned into streams of light, disappearing into his fingers.

As his grey robes fluttered, his figure merged into the vast toxic miasma, speeding away in the direction of the Yunmeng Great Swamp, leaving behind only an empty, seemingly ancient and unchanging valley.