93: Chapter 93 Citywide Lockdown

"My Lord, there is something in the hidden compartment beneath the stone table. It has a faint magnetic field shielding."

Gu Shen struck back with his blade, shattering the stone slab beneath the stone table.

A palm-sized jade box fell out.

The jade box was not locked; Gu Shen pried it open with the tip of his blade.

Inside, there was no Cultivation Technique, only a piece of an extremely ancient animal hide, and a thread about three inches long, pitch-black, and as thin as a strand of hair.

The moment Gu Shen's Divine Sense touched the black thread.

Hum!

An extremely cold, backlash force of Divine Sense suddenly pierced through the black thread!

Gu Shen let out a cold snort, the phantom of the Soul-Shocking Spike in his Sea of Consciousness trembled, instantly shredding that backlash force.

"What a tyrannical thread-control technique!"

Gu Shen picked up the piece of animal hide. Only a few lines of blood-written text were on it:

"The 'Soul-Pulling Threads' is not a Cultivation Technique, but a life-bound Magical Artifact. It requires the silk of a Nine Nether Silkworm as a base, supplemented by the Cultivator's blood essence and Divine Sense, and must be refined day and night for three years to take shape. Once the thread is formed, the Divine Soul can be divided, controlled as easily as moving one's own arm."

"Without the silk of the Nine Nether Silkworm, even if one obtains the technique, it is all in vain."

Gu Shen looked at these lines of blood-written text and suddenly realized the truth.

No wonder Wei Lingfeng dared to put the Incomplete Manual of the 'Soul-Pulling Threads' up for auction! Because what was recorded in that Incomplete Manual was only the method for controlling the threads, while the true core medium—the silk of the Nine Nether Silkworm—was not in the Incomplete Manual at all!

Without this silk as a medium for conducting Divine Sense, anyone who bought the Incomplete Manual would never be able to refine the Soul-Pulling Threads, let alone control a Puppet!

"What a cunning scheme!"

Gu Shen stored the three-inch-long black silk into his Storage Ring. This was clearly a scrap discarded by Wei Lingfeng.

"Nine Nether Silkworm..."

Gu Shen silently repeated this name in his heart.

In the Great Yu Cultivation World, the Nine Nether Silkworm is an extremely rare and extinct poisonous insect, growing only in the depths of ancient battlefields filled with extreme Yin and extreme malevolence.

"Since it requires the silk of a poisonous insect with extreme Yin and extreme malevolence as a medium..."

Gu Shen touched his Storage Ring.

He did not have a Nine Nether Silkworm, but he had the Spiritless Ruins! The mutated ecological jungle on the Fourth Underground Level, the poisonous Yin water swamp on the fifth underground level—which of the mutated poisonous creatures bred there was not more terrifying and more malformed than the Nine Nether Silkworm?

"If the Materials of the Cultivation World are extinct, I will go to the Wasteland to find substitutes!"

Gu Shen's figure flashed as he leapt out of the ground along the shaft he had dug.

The heavy rain was still falling.

Gu Shen opened his oil-paper umbrella and, instead of returning to his Immortal Cave in Qingyi Alley, walked straight toward the gate of the Outer City of Yunze Immortal City.

The Immortal City had become a place of trouble; he needed to find an absolutely safe wilderness to activate the [Heaven and Earth Furnace] and return to the Wasteland.

He would go to find the mutated silk that could replace the Nine Nether Silkworm, and refine his own 'Soul-Pulling Threads'!

What he needed to do now was to seize the perfect opportunity while the Immortal City was in chaos and everyone's attention was drawn to the underground, find an absolutely safe wilderness, activate the [Heaven and Earth Furnace], and return to the Wasteland world!

"I have already seen the remnants of the Nine Nether Silkworm's silk. In the mutated jungle on the Fourth Underground Level of the Wasteland and the poisonous Yin water swamp on the fifth underground level, I will surely be able to find a substitute medium for controlling the threads."

Just then, Crab's voice interrupted Gu Shen's thoughts.

"My Lord."

The black iron buckle at his collar vibrated slightly, and Crab's standalone electronic voice came through extremely faintly, "Microwave detection shows that an extremely massive high-energy magnetic field is rapidly forming above. This magnetic field has completely locked the surrounding spatial curvature."

Gu Shen's eyes sharpened as he looked up at the night sky.

He saw that above Yunze Immortal City, the originally transparent city-protecting array was now erupting with an extremely blinding dark golden light. Countless complex array patterns, like a giant inverted bowl, were tightly sealing the entire massive Immortal City.

"The Air-Prohibiting and Spirit-Locking Array."

Gu Shen's heart sank slightly. This was a high-level defense for the giant cities of the Great Yu Cultivation World. Once the array was activated, it not only prohibited all flying Magical Artifacts, but also completely locked the spatial fluctuations within the city.

Deep in his Sea of Consciousness, the [Heaven and Earth Furnace] emitted a faint sense of stagnation.

Gu Shen instantly understood.

"The array has locked the space. If I force the Great Furnace to cross the boundary now, it will surely trigger a violent backlash from the array. At that moment, all the Foundation Establishment old monsters in the entire Immortal City will instantly lock onto my location."

The path to cross the boundary had been temporarily cut off.

"Wei Lingfeng's move of luring the tiger away from the mountain has completely infuriated the Danding Sect. The city lockdown is meant to shut the door to beat the dog, investigating the entire city thoroughly."

Gu Shen wiped the rain from his face with extreme calmness. He exerted a slight amount of magical power, and the Thousand Faces quickly squirmed.

That sinister, gaunt middle-aged face faded away, transforming into a pale, sickly young man with sunken eye sockets. He suppressed his cultivation level firmly to Qi Refining Stage 4, and even his breathing became intermittent.

After making these preparations, Gu Shen hunched his back, opened a worn-out oil-paper umbrella, and walked out of the dead-end alley with a stumbling gait.

The streets of the Outer City were already in chaos.

Teams of Danding Sect enforcement Disciples, dressed in green robes and holding Magical Artifacts, shuttled through the streets and alleys with murderous intent. Any Loose Cultivator they encountered who looked suspicious or had the scent of blood on them was seized on the spot without any questions asked.

Gu Shen walked slowly with his head down, hugging the base of the wall.

In the eyes of the enforcement Disciples, his appearance as a terminally ill Qi Refining Stage 4 Cultivator was like an ant; they couldn't even be bothered to scan him with their Divine Sense.

Half an hour later.

Gu Shen returned to his Grade C Immortal Cave in Qingyi Alley without any mishaps.

He pushed open the heavy stone door and locked it from the inside.

He cast out four Formation Flags, and the earthy-yellow light shield of the Thick Earth Array rose silently, completely isolating the inside of the Immortal Cave from the outside.

Only at this moment did Gu Shen's tense nerves relax slightly.

He took off his soaked robes and changed into a dry set of black short-sleeved martial attire. He walked to the stone table, sat down cross-legged, and probed into his Storage Ring with his Divine Sense.

"The Immortal City is on lockdown, and I cannot go to the Spiritless Ruins to find mutated poisonous silk to replace the Nine Nether Silkworm in the short term. The plan to refine the 'Soul-Pulling Threads' must be temporarily put on hold."

Gu Shen was not anxious. The essence of the Dao of Survival lies in going with the flow.

Since he could not make a Puppet, he would improve himself.

He flipped his wrist.

A half-foot square black iron box landed on the stone table.

He lifted the lid of the box.

Boom!

An extremely violent, destructive thunderous aura instantly filled the Immortal Cave. In the center of the box, that piece of dark golden Tier 3 Demon King Thunder Bone Demon Ape finger bone was flickering with blinding, deep blue electric arcs.

"The bone of a Tier 3 Demon King."

Gu Shen's eyes burned with heat. He opened the grayish-white Jade Slip that recorded the 'Bone Refining Art' and carefully deduced the method for the Breakthrough to the second level with his Divine Sense again.

"For the second level of Bone Refining, one must introduce an extremely intense substance into the marrow, to break and then rebuild. Thunder tempering the bones is the most tyrannical method."

Gu Shen's brows, however, gradually furrowed.

At the end of the Jade Slip, there was a line of extremely faint blood-colored annotations: "Although the Thunder Bone is intense, solitary Yang cannot last long. If there is no extreme Yin substance to neutralize the violence of the thunder, forcing the refinement will surely result in being burned by thunder fire, and the bone marrow will be reduced to ashes."

"Neutralize with an extreme Yin substance?"

Gu Shen's eyes flashed. He looked at the three-inch-long remnant of the Nine Nether Silkworm silk in his Storage Ring.

This remnant was pitch black, exuding an extremely pure aura of extreme Yin and extreme malevolence.

"No wonder that Wei Lingfeng wanted to find the Nine Nether Silkworm. This kind of extreme Yin substance is not only an excellent medium for controlling threads, but also a top-grade auxiliary material for neutralizing violent spiritual power."

A flash of inspiration struck Gu Shen's mind.

"If I can find enough extreme Yin spiritual Materials and turn them into a medicinal liquid to protect my heart meridians and bones while refining the Thunder Bone, I will be able to perfectly absorb the thunderous essence of this Tier 3 Demon King!"

But he only had this one three-inch-long remnant in his hand, which was far from enough.

"I must find an extreme Yin substance within this Yunze Immortal City."