123: Medicine to save lives? I'll dismantle your cauldron!

Inside the valley, a deathly silence reigned, with only the gurgling of the distant spiritual spring and the bubbling of liquid in the Medicine Cauldron echoing.

The Green Wood Sect Disciples, who had originally been arrogant and waiting for a show, had now even forgotten to chant their Fire Control Spells.

Their fingers were stiff in mid-air, their eyes bulging, staring fixedly at the headless corpse that still stood upright due to nerve spasms.

That was their Senior Brother, a Late Golden Core Stage Cultivator who had been laughing and talking just a second ago, yet in plain sight, he had been erased from existence as if flicked away like a fly.

Panic, like a breaching flood, instantly overwhelmed their reason.

"A demon... a devil! He's a killing god who crawled out of the Savage Domain!"

Someone let out a sharp shriek, completely breaking the frozen air.

The remaining few Golden Core Disciples were utterly terrified. How could they still care about protecting the Elder and that priceless Medicinal Pill furnace? They instinctively activated their Life-Saving Secret Techniques, and several streaks of emerald green escape light shot into the sky, madly trying to escape this valley of death.

"Since you're here, just get in the pot. Wasting food is shameful."

Gu Yang didn't even turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on Elder Qingmu, who was in the main seat, but his right foot suddenly stomped backward.

Rumble—!

The purplish-brown earth, originally as hard as iron, violently rippled under Gu Yang's stomp as if struck by a heavy blow on water.

A visible earthy yellow shockwave violently exploded outwards along the ground. This purely physical vibration, generated by Extreme Brute Force, was instantly amplified by the thousand-fold gravity of Qingzhou, transforming into a terrifying Earth Dragon's Upheaval.

A few Disciples who had just flown dozens of meters and thought they had escaped danger suddenly felt the Void Realm beneath them collapse. An irresistible suction force surged like a tidal wave—it was the instantaneous vacuum suction effect formed by the atmosphere being forcibly trampled and compressed by Gu Yang's stomp. Under this brutal interference of physical rules, all flying Spells lost their support.

"Puff! Puff! Puff!"

Several streaks of emerald green escape light, like kites with broken strings pulled down by immense force, crashed heavily to the ground due to losing their air anchor points, stirring up a sky full of dust.

Gu Yang's figure flickered. Under the pressure of a thousand-fold gravity, each step he took seemed to tear through space, leaving a trail of solid black afterimages.

Each punch landed without any superfluous movements, only the dull sounds of bones shattering and flesh exploding.

Those Golden Core Disciples didn't even have time to let out a wail before they were kneaded into masses of primal flesh and blood energy by a brutal force. Gu Yang casually waved, precisely drawing arcs, and tossed them into the boiling giant Medicine Cauldron.

"Extreme Dao—Violent Feeding."

Gu Yang's tone was flat, as if he were merely adding feed to his pigsty. This indifference, treating living beings as grass and trees, and Cultivators as elixir ingredients, was more chilling than any rage.

"Bastard! Do you really think this old man is made of mud?! Get in there!"

Elder Qingmu finally awoke from his extreme shock and anger. His sinister eyes were bloodshot, and his heart ached as if bleeding—those were all the elites of his Sect! He fiercely bit the tip of his tongue, and a mouthful of his Lifebound Treasure essence blood, containing hundreds of years of cultivation, shot out like an arrow onto the ten-foot bronze Medicine Cauldron in front of him.

"Myriad Wood Dragon Formation, Seal the Void!"

Buzz—!

The colossal bronze Medicine Cauldron instantly erupted with dazzling emerald green Divine Light, as bright as a scorching sun.

The countless intricate herb patterns and ancient Vicious Beast Totems carved on the cauldron's body seemed to come alive at this moment.

Accompanied by low Dragon roars, they transformed into tens of thousands of tough vines covered in sharp barbs and shimmering with dark green poisonous light, sealing off the space within a hundred zhang radius.

These vines crisscrossed, instantly weaving a massive green cage in the sky above the valley.

At the same time, the Spiritual Liquid inside the cauldron boiled to its extreme, and a grayish-brown poisonous mist with strong hallucinogenic, Divine Soul corrosive, and Physical Body paralyzing effects surged towards Gu Yang like a tide.

"Spells? Formations? Having stayed in this pampered greenhouse for too long, have you forgotten what absolute material strength is?"

Gu Yang sneered. His Physical Body, in its Peak Divine Demon Golden Body Second Turn (Mid-stage Spirit Transformation) state, fully revived at this moment.

Every cell in his body seemed to transform into a nuclear furnace operating at full speed, and a stream of extremely firm and Yang Qi, as hot as magma, burst forth from his body.

The originally cold valley instantly became scorching hot. Those highly toxic, corrosive mists, which would have caused headaches for ordinary Soul Transformation Cultivators, were directly vaporized by that ridiculously scalding and unreasonable Yang Qi before they even got close to Gu Yang's skin, leaving no residue.

"Open for me!"

Gu Yang didn't dodge. He stomped his foot fiercely. Facing the myriad emerald green vines coiling towards him, he directly swung the star shattering hammer, which was covered in brutal barbs and weighed 500,000 catties.

Whoosh—Boom!!!

The heavy hammerhead tore through the air, thick as mercury, emitting a piercing shriek like an ancient meteorite falling to earth.

At that instant, due to the immense kinetic energy carried by the hammerhead, clear sounds of shattering glass actually came from the surrounding space.

Even in Qingzhou, the core region of the Spirit Realm with extremely stable Law of space, several dark spatial cracks faintly appeared under Gu Yang's full-force hammer blow.

The Formation vines, which Elder Qingmu believed could trap and kill Cultivators of the same Realm, were as brittle as dried autumn branches before the star shattering hammer's Extreme Heavy Blow, shattering upon impact.

With one hammer strike, the sky full of green light shattered into dust. The immense heavy hammer's momentum remained undiminished, carrying an overwhelming air pressure, and smashed directly onto the bronze Medicine Cauldron that served as the core of the great Formation.

Clang————!

A terrifying metallic collision sound rang out, capable of shattering the eardrums of all mortals within a ten-li radius and even causing low-level Cultivators to instantly go deaf.

Under the despairing, almost hollow gaze of the Nascent Soul Elder, his mountain-guarding Medicine Cauldron, hailed as a "High Grade Spiritual Artifact" and having refined countless great demon bodies, was as fragile as a copper basin struck by a heavy hammer under Gu Yang's blow. The cauldron's body instantly twisted, dented, and burst, finally being crushed into a flat, gigantic copper disc, deeply embedded into the earth's crust!

The Spiritual Liquid painstakingly collected within the cauldron splattered everywhere, mixing with the essence of flesh and blood just thrown in, staining the entire, originally elegant valley a bizarre and sickly sweet dark red.

"You... what Realm are you exactly?! This is definitely not a Physical Body a Soul Transformation Stage Cultivator could possess..."

Elder Qingmu's Lifebound Treasure was destroyed, and his Primordial Spirit instantly suffered heavy damage. He seemed to have had his spine removed, instantly aging several times over.

He slumped, pale-faced, in the pool of blood, his eyes unfocused. His former immortal-like demeanor had long since turned into endless terror.

"Realm? My Realm depends on how much I've eaten, not on the Bottleneck and bullshit insights you Spell Cultivators speak of."

Gu Yang slowly paced through the messy ruins. He walked to the pile of twisted scrap copper and iron, casually picking up a still-hot fragment of the Medicine Cauldron, soaked in the essence blood of a Cloud-Treading Leopard.

Under the Elder's terrified gaze, Gu Yang opened his stark white teeth and, with a "crunch," bit off a corner of the hard Spiritual Gold fragment as if it were a biscuit, chewing and swallowing it with a crunching sound.

"The taste is average, a bit too much rust, and too many Impurities. But this medicinal fragrance... it's indeed well-stewed, worthy of being a top-grade auxiliary ingredient from the Three Thousand Dao Provinces."

He closed his eyes, carefully feeling the greedy throbbing of the Five Elements Furnace within his body. With every piece of Medicine Cauldron fragment and High Grade Spiritual Liquid entering his stomach, the energy points value on his System panel, which had been silent for a long time, began to jump upwards at a pleasant frequency.

Although this amount of energy was just a drop in the bucket for the astronomical gap needed to break through to "Divine Demon Third Turn (Void Refining Stage)," this long-lost feeling of a "meal" filled with high-quality nutrition put Gu Yang in a great mood.

"Next, it's your turn, old man. I think you should be chewier than your Disciples."

Gu Yang squatted down, his dark golden shadow completely engulfing Elder Qingmu. His large, fan-like palm, carrying an irresistible heavy pressure, firmly clasped Elder Qingmu's withered head.

"Let me see what truly chewy and nutritious big guys Qingzhou has."

[Divine Soul Plunder—Savage Soul Search!]

Gu Yang had no patience to cultivate those profound and subtle Spells. His method of soul searching was as brutal as ever: forcibly shattering all defenses in the opponent's Sea of Consciousness through powerful Qi and blood vibrations.

"Ahhhhhh!!!"

A shrill scream, loud enough to make rocks tremble, echoed in the valley for less than three breaths before abruptly ceasing.

Elder Qingmu's eyes rolled back, and his already withered body rapidly shriveled under the pressure of Gu Yang's palm, like a piece of dregs from which all juice had been squeezed.

Gu Yang closed his eyes, digesting the fragments of memories flashing through his mind. Countless prosperous cities, powerful Holy Lands, and various rare resource production sites flashed by like a revolving lantern.

Suddenly, a very high-frequency keyword was caught by him.

"Qingzhou Holy Land... Myriad Beast Mountain... the 'Blood Pool Grand Ceremony' that occurs once every century?"

He suddenly opened his eyes, and an unprecedented greedy glint burst forth from his dark golden pupils.

"It's said that the Blood Pool gathers the remaining Origin essence blood of countless ancient Vicious Beasts hunted by Myriad Beast Mountain since ancient times? As long as one soaks in it, they can seize the creation of heaven and earth and refine a trace of ancient Divine Power?"

"Such a good thing, a pot-stew, and they didn't invite me?"

Gu Yang casually tossed Elder Qingmu, who had completely turned into a pile of mud, into the rubble. He twisted his neck, and his dark golden bones emitted crisp crackling sounds like stir-fried beans.

"Divine Demon Second Turn... my body has already started complaining about the low quality of Spiritual Qi. It feels like I really need a pot of this high-concentration 'tonic' to fill my belly."

"Myriad Beast Blood Pool, I, Gu Yang... am coming for an extra meal."