147: Sin City! The prices here are a bit harsh!

Rumble—!

As the Mutated Juvenile's mountain-heavy body slowly descended beneath the thick grey clouds, the entire ground of the "City of Sin" let out a dull tremor.

Gu Yang sat on the Kunpeng's massive back, which was covered in dark purple bone spikes, resting his chin on one hand as he gazed below.

Before his eyes was a twisted city filled with a sense of Gothic absurdity. There were no orderly streets; all the buildings were constructed directly from the wreckage of ancient ships submerged in the seabed for tens of thousands of years, temple pillars, and the ribs of unknown giant beasts.

The air was thick with a mixture of the stench of seawater, the embers of Laws, and the extremely dry smell of gravitational friction. Due to its location at the gravitational singularity of the Eye of the Return to Ruins, the direction of gravity was no longer a constant downward pull, but rather presented a sense of disordered tugging... "Gu... Fellow Daoist Tie Niu, the Laws here have completely collapsed into chaos."

Saintess Feng Ni walked out of the cabin looking somewhat disheveled. Her originally pristine Heavenly Phoenix Brocade Robe, the moment it touched the abyss air, actually showed tiny cracks along its edges due to its inability to adapt to the violent "gravitational shear force" here.

She had to constantly circulate her spiritual power to maintain her posture; otherwise, in this disordered gravitational field, even walking normally would become a form of torture.

"I think it's alright. The air here... has quite a bit of chew to it."

Gu Yang flipped and jumped down from the back of the ten-thousand-zhang giant Kun.

Thud!

His feet landed on a plaza paved with some kind of black Ore. In that instant, the originally chaotic gravitational field within a three-foot radius of him eerily calmed down. This was due to the high-quality physical field inherent in his "Vacuum Physique" after the Third Turn, which forcibly smoothed out the surrounding Law fluctuations... "Roar—!"

The Mutated Juvenile, beaten black and blue by Gu Yang, now shrunk its head like a well-behaved quail, following closely behind Gu Yang. Its ten-thousand-zhang body cast a massive shadow over the city, almost obscuring half the sky of the City of Sin.

Near the city wall, several guards wearing bone armor and holding Nether Tridents froze in place.

They had originally come to "collect taxes."

As the gateway to the first level of the abyss, most of the guards in the City of Sin were ruthless characters exiled from the Three Thousand Dao Provinces' Holy Lands. The cultivation of the leading captain had shockingly reached the Early Void Refinement Stage.

However, seeing that "Overlord of the Sea Eye," which usually only made a brief appearance during abyss riots, being walked like a pet by a bare-chested man, the captain's mind instantly short-circuited... "H-Halt! Entering the city requires paying an 'Abyss Tax'!"

The captain forced his knees, which were about to give way, to stay upright, while the trident in his hand hummed in the gravitational field. His voice sounded particularly abrupt in this silent plaza.

"Tax?"

Gu Yang stopped, looked back at the mountain-like Kunpeng, then at the captain who wasn't even as tall as his calf, and revealed an extremely pure and honest smile.

"My old man said that people who collect money usually need to have some real skill. Brother, do you want to collect my fee... or do you want to enter my pet's stomach?"

The Kunpeng cooperatively opened its huge maw, and a blast of extremely foul abyss aura containing a Concept of destruction instantly sprayed all over the captain's face... Clang.

The trident in the captain's hand fell directly to the ground, shattering a floor tile.

"No... no fee! How could we charge a Great Commander for entering the city! Quick! Open the city gates! Welcome the Great Commander of the Abyss!"

The captain turned around and, almost crawling on all fours, screamed toward the city tower. In this hellish place where the strong live and the weak die, logic was always simpler than Law. A man who could subdue a Mutated Juvenile was a living ancestor in their eyes.

Gu Yang accepted this new title as a matter of course and swaggered across the magnificent city gate built from countless sea monster skulls... After entering the city, Gu Yang's originally decent mood instantly collapsed by half when he saw the price list of the first small stall on the street.

"What is this 'Black Hole Steamed Bun'... made of?"

Gu Yang squatted in front of a stall, pointing at a sphere emitting dense dark energy that looked like a lump of compressed coal.

The stall owner was a three-headed alien who was currently looking at the shadow of the Kunpeng behind Gu Yang with awe, answering tremulously: "Reporting to the Great Commander... this is steamed from 'Return to Ruins Water Grass' mixed with 'Deep Sea Demonic Core' powder. One piece... costs only three 'will fragmentss'."

"will fragmentss?"

Gu Yang frowned. He rummaged through his Storage Pouch, and inside, besides a few crates of Top-Grade Source Stones snatched from the Central Province and a pile of Low-Grade Spirit Crystals, there wasn't even a single hair of those so-called fragments... "Fellow Daoist, Spirit Crystals are not recognized beneath the abyss."

Saintess Feng Ni stepped forward and explained, "The Laws here extremely reject external spiritual energy. Whether it's Top-Grade Spirit Stones or Source Stones, their dissipation rate here is a hundred times faster than outside. Only these 'will fragmentss' formed under high pressure in the abyss, or 'Demonic Cores' obtained by killing abyss Demonic Beasts, are the hard currency here."

Gu Yang casually took out a fist-sized Source Stone containing Law fragments and handed it to the stall owner.

As expected.

As soon as the Source Stone touched the abyss air, the originally brilliant Law light inside dimmed and turned murky at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if its vitality were being forcibly sucked away by some invisible vacuum cleaner.

"Dammit... my Central Province wages have shrunk."

Gu Yang watched the Source Stone rapidly turn into a grey-white rock, and the corners of his eyes couldn't help but twitch. This feeling of "exploding prices" made this "nouveau riche" who was used to ransacking Holy Lands feel an unprecedented crisis of survival... "Great Commander, if you are short on money... you can go take a look over there."

The three-headed alien stall owner pointed toward a black pyramid-shaped building in the center of the city.

"That is the 'Return to Ruins Auction House,' jointly controlled by the Three Sages of the Abyss. Not only do they accept external treasures, but occasionally, weapon fragments left behind after the fall of 'Ancient War Gods' also appear. Of course... if you are willing to sell your mount, you would instantly become the richest person in this City of Sin."

Hearing this, the Kunpeng shuddered all over, its massive eyes looking at Gu Yang pleadingly.

"Sell my mount? That's my transport, not for sale."

Gu Yang patted the Kunpeng's cold skin. His gaze turned toward the black pyramid, and a familiar, violet light belonging to a predator gradually lit up in his eyes.

"However... since I don't have money to buy, it shouldn't be a problem if I go there to 'restock,' right?"

...Just as Gu Yang was planning how to "restock reasonably," in the shadow of a ruin at a corner of the plaza, a crazed old man wearing tattered grey robes, whose legs had already rotted into white bone, was staring fixedly at Gu Yang.

The old man's eyes had no pupils, only two clusters of pale white flames flickering.

"God-Fiend... Golden Body..."

"Another... 'kindling' coming to seek death?"

In his hand, he held a short staff ground from a dragon's spine, tapping it rhythmically on the ground. Each tap seemed to fall exactly on the beat of Gu Yang's heartbeat.

Gu Yang suddenly turned his head, his gaze like lightning as it swept across the dilapidated shadows.

There was no one there.

Only a trace of extremely decayed, yet extremely noble... True Dragon Qi remained... "Fellow Daoist Gu, what's wrong?" Feng Ni noticed Gu Yang's abnormality.

"It's nothing, it just felt like some beggar was staring at me."

Gu Yang tightened his grip on Er Gou on his shoulder and strode toward the depths of the city.

"Sister Feng Ni, help me keep an eye on the location of that auction house. I feel like there's a good treasure buried down there... one that makes even my bones want to have a chew."

At this moment, Er Gou was on the verge of evolution. Its silver scales had completely transformed into dark gold, and every breath it took devoured the chaotic spatial points around it.

On the System interface, a new entry was flashing frantically:

[Detected ultimate evolution material for "myriad poison star shattering hammer": Abyss Black Hole Iron!] [Location: Underground Core of the City of Sin—Auction House Vault!]

Gu Yang grinned, and the gravity Laws on the roadside were instantly shattered by the blood-qi fluctuations from his smile.

"The appetizers of the Central Province are finished. This abyss main course... I, Tie Niu, have arrived!"