Chapter 560 - 516: The Legend of Jishui

Chapter 560: Chapter 516: The Legend of Jishui

’I’m still missing a Soul-Ensnaring Mandala Flower and a Three Immortal Corpse Toad...’

An ugly-looking venomous scorpion was pinned to a block of bluestone, its stinger still thrashing violently with a sharp SSSSSS.

Venom splattered, and the bluestone, like foam, was easily corroded, forming small pits.

A few drops also landed on the sword’s blade, which shimmered like flowing moonlight. Wisps of green smoke rose as the poisonous mist and the moonlight mingled into a dazzling, illusory glow.

This venomous scorpion had reached the level of a Tier Three Peak Spirit Insect, yet it took Bai Zichen only a single sword strike to rob it of all power to resist.

With a flick of his Sword Light, he severed the stinger and Poison Sac, placing them in a silk pouch.

After advancing to the Mid-Stage Nascent Soul realm, Bai Zichen continued his journey through the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains.

The increase in his True Essence was secondary. The most significant improvement was the expansion of his Divine Sense’s range, which raised his search efficiency to a whole new level.

He had already collected all nine hundred and ninety-nine poisonous substances required for the Cultivation of the Hundred Poison Green Scale Bone.

With only the final two items remaining, he could begin the Cultivation of this Immortal Bone.

However, after killing the venomous scorpion, Bai Zichen took one last, deep look into the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains, recalled his Moon Xuan Sword, and resolutely turned to leave.

Aside from the approaching date of the sword-retrieval mission he had planned with the Po Jun Star Monarch, there was another reason: the deeper he ventured into the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains, the more a persistent shadow clouded his mind.

This faint, unsettling sense of a potential threat had forced Bai Zichen to remain on high alert.

This Spiritual Sense was vague and indescribable, with no tangible basis, but he chose to trust it.

The Soul-Ensnaring Mandala Flower could condense the Soul and solidify the Primordial Spirit. For those with an incomplete Innate Divine Soul, consuming a single petal could make it whole.

Moreover, a Cultivator who had seized another’s body could use it to accelerate the fusion of soul and flesh.

But it had a major drawback. Consuming the Soul-Ensnaring Mandala Flower would inflict a poison known as ’Soul-Ensnaring Silk,’ which caused white threads to slowly grow within one’s Sea of Consciousness.

The effects might not manifest for decades, but eventually, the ’Soul-Ensnaring Silk’ would completely envelop the Sea of Consciousness, leaving one’s Divine Sense muddled forever.

There is no cure for this poison. It delves deep into the Sea of Consciousness, its threads becoming so entangled that no external force can unravel them.

Only by crystallizing one’s own Divine Thought could one break the ’Soul-Ensnaring Silk’—a feat that required the Divine Sense strength of the Divinity Transformation Level.

This drawback meant the Soul-Ensnaring Mandala Flower was popular for only a century before its negative side effects caused it to fall into obscurity.

As for the Three Immortal Corpse Toad, it was a Tier Four poisonous creature, as well as a unique being that existed in a state between life and death.

Many of the native tribes in the Southern Border practiced the Insect Gu Technique, and the Three Immortal Corpse Toad was the ancestral Gu Insect of the largest of these tribes, the Gu Immortal Race.

It could exhale a poisonous mist that spread for a hundred miles, and contact with it meant instant death.

It also had three heads, each representing a separate life and possessing a unique Lifebound Divine Technique.

The Gu Immortal Race raised the Three Immortal Corpse Toad with the goal of dominating the Southern Border and enslaving the other tribes.

When Cultivators from the Central Domain migrated south, a violent conflict erupted between them, with the Gu Immortal Race putting up the fiercest resistance.

The war between the two factions raged for several hundred years, ultimately ending in the defeat of the Gu Immortal Race.

The entire race relocated, retreating into the deepest recesses of the Southern Border.

There, no Spirit Veins formed, Insects swarmed chaotically, and poisonous flames erupted from the ground. It was nearly impossible for any crops or spiritual plants to grow, let alone survive.

Not only was the environment unsuitable for a Cultivator’s Cultivation, but even mortals would find it exceedingly difficult to survive there.

He had no leads on the two remaining items. Searching for them could easily cost him years with nothing to show for it.

The moment he left the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains, the shadow in his mind instantly dispersed, and the oppressive feeling of darkness vanished.

Bai Zichen felt a sense of relief, knowing he had made the right decision.

’If I kept wandering through the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains, there’s no telling when I might have run into a legendary Tier Five demonic creature.’

’Judging by how the threat vanished the moment I crossed the mountain’s border, that demonic creature must be under some kind of movement restriction, unable to leave the Hundred Thousand Evil Mountains.’

’Otherwise, for a being at the Divinity Transformation realm, a distance of a thousand miles is nothing; they could cross it in an instant.’

Bai Zichen paid a visit to the Five Elements Sect. He offloaded a pile of useless Demon Beast Materials onto Master Qingmu and had him send a message to the three Nascent Soul Sects in Dian Country, telling them to be on the lookout for the Soul-Ensnaring Mandala Flower and the Three Immortal Corpse Toad.

He promised that the first Cultivator to present either of the two poisonous items would have one wish granted.

Given Bai Zichen’s current prestige and status in the Cultivation Realm, this promise was priceless.

Afterward, he flew north on his sword, crossing several countries before returning to the Central Domain.

’What a brutal battlefield,’ he thought. ’A true meat grinder. It’s said that at the height of the fighting, tens of thousands of Cultivators and even more members of the Demon Race die here every day...’

On both banks of the Jishui River, specks of phosphorescent light drifted everywhere—along the shores and over the water’s surface.

The earth on both sides was stained brown with blood. Every few steps, one could see a corpse buried under a pile of rubble or a Demon Body being washed downstream by the current.

The ground was scarred with countless deep, crisscrossing gouges. Pits left behind by Flying Swords and Magical Treasures dotted the landscape, and the devastation wrought by powerful Magic and Divine Techniques had completely transformed the appearance of the riverbank for a thousand miles.

Even the Jishui itself—the largest Great River in the Cultivation Realm, nearly ten thousand zhang wide at its broadest point and spanning the entire continent—had its course altered multiple times by the war between the two races.

The river’s waters had overflowed their banks, submerging vast swathes of fertile farmland. Numerous cities, both upstream and downstream, had been affected, their inhabitants forced to relocate to survive.

Bai Zichen donned the Star God Mask and, under the guise of the Ziwei Star Star Monarch, concealed his tracks as he made his way to the front lines of the war between the Human-Demon Races: the Jishui Camp.

With the Moral Sect at their core, thirty-seven renowned Sects had joined forces to set up the Circulation Star Battle Formation beside the Jishui River.

On the opposite bank of the Jishui was the allied army of the Outer Sea Demon Clan and Lankao Mountain, a dark, oppressive mass that stretched as far as the eye could see. When a strong wind blew across the river, it carried an unbearable stench of brine and blood.