501: Chapter 518 Good words are useless against a damned ghost!

In the darkness, an unknown amount of time passed.

Perhaps it was an instant, perhaps a day, or perhaps ten thousand years.

The consciousness of the Yuantu Clone slowly revived within the darkness.

The cold, deathly aura surrounding him gradually dissipated, and his memories began to warm up; the Yuantu Clone let out a long sigh of relief.

"That person... should be gone by now, right?"

He didn't rush to undo his transformation; instead, he cautiously released his five senses and six consciousnesses, and his spiritual intuition didn't sense any immediate threat.

Only then did he completely release his Divine Sense.

In his perception, he was currently in a rugged valley covered in gray-blue patterns.

On either side stood five towering peaks that reached into the clouds.

In the far distance, two orbs—a sun and a moon—hung in the sky, emitting a cool, clear radiance.

He felt somewhat dazed, not knowing where he was.

Before sealing his consciousness, hadn't he hidden at the bottom of a deep pool? Why was he here upon waking up?

Just as the Yuantu Clone was still confused about his location, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet vibrating.

The five giant stone peaks reaching into the clouds were also moving.

Even the sun and moon hanging at the edge of the sky were rapidly expanding, like falling stars.

A sudden gale swept through, carrying a cold, bloody scent that made the Yuantu Clone shudder.

"This... what is going on!"

The sudden change filled the Yuantu Clone's heart with alarm, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Until he looked up and met those two rapidly expanding suns and moons, and then it suddenly dawned on him.

Oh, so those weren't the sun and the moon; they were... a pair of eyes!

In an instant, Yuantu's pupils abruptly contracted to the size of needle tips.

A thought surfaced in his mind that was hard to accept; the Yuantu Clone even wanted to immediately extinguish that thought, but reality would not change because of his will.

It turned out he wasn't in some so-called valley.

Instead, he was on the palm of a hand!

It was just that the palm was as vast as a plain, the five fingers towered into the clouds, and the lines on the palm were like dried riverbeds, crisscrossing in a way that made him mistake it for a valley.

At this moment, the Yuantu Clone felt as tiny as an ant. Even his Perfection Dao Heart, which had inherited the main body's consciousness, was wavering and on the verge of collapse.

It turned out he had been in someone else's palm from beginning to end.

He thought that by sealing his senses he could deceive the heavens and the earth, but in the end, he was nothing more than a plaything in a palm.

Everything he had done was like a joke!

The Yuantu Clone unconsciously dropped his disguise, but he couldn't hide his pale face and trembling lips.

At this time, he watched as the palm slowly rose, the sun and moon expanded, and a giant face finally appeared fully before him.

The Yuantu Clone gave a miserable laugh.

He didn't beg for mercy or struggle, but cracks began to appear all over his body, spreading from his limbs to his torso, and from his torso to his head.

Various colors of spiritual light seeped from the cracks; that was the last bit of mana remaining in this Clone.

He was actually resolutely self-dissolving!

In truth, Yuantu didn't want to die; he just didn't want to fall into the opponent's hands alive.

The Clone's memories were shared with the main body; he knew he couldn't escape, and he knew even better that the owner of this hand wouldn't let him go.

Even if he didn't self-dissolve, the opponent would crush him like an ant.

Self-dissolution was the only thing he could do for his main body.

At least he could let the information in his head vanish along with him, leaving nothing useful for the opponent.

Murong Jingyang looked down at the crumbling little figure in his palm, his expression indifferent.

He didn't stop it; his task was to eliminate all Clones.

Now that the opponent was ending himself, it saved him the trouble.

Until the spiritual light completely dispersed into nothingness, and even all traces of Karma belonging to this Clone had vanished, Murong Jingyang nodded with satisfaction and withdrew the Divine Ability.

The giant hand as large as a plain slowly shrank, the mountains and rivers receded back into palm lines, and the sun, moon, and stars shrank back into his eyes.

This was a Divine Ability he had obtained from Lu Ming.

Similar to the Buddha Kingdom in the Palm, it was derived from the profound mystery of 'Mount Sumeru in a Mustard Seed' within the "Miluo Heaven Gathering Ten Thousand Treasures Bright Venerable Image."

A world in a palm, a Bodhi in a leaf.

Catching a Golden Core Clone was truly no different from catching an ant.

This scene was simultaneously playing out in various regions across the Xuanling Secret Realm.

In a coastal area, a Clone transformed into a bird and flew south, blending into a flock of seagulls.

His disguise was seamless; both his aura and physique were identical to a real seagull.

But before he had flown even ten miles, a Puppet dove down from the clouds, its five fingers like hooks, clutching the bird's neck.

Before he could react, dozens of Talismans were slapped onto his chest, and a Tier 3 High Grade Thunder Talisman exploded violently.

The bird didn't even let out a chirp before turning into charcoal and falling into the sea.

In a vast snowy plain, a Clone hid beneath the ice, freezing himself into a block of ice.

Unexpectedly, a Zen staff descended from the sky, shattering the ice layer.

When a Puppet walked out from the crack and retrieved the Zen staff...

The ice layer behind it collapsed, and the person inside was shattered into dregs.

There was also a desert somewhere, filled with swirling yellow sand.

A Clone burrowed deep into the sand layer and subsequently turned into a patch of quicksand.

He stayed there motionless, burying himself for three days and three nights.

But late on the fourth day, the sound of a Phoenix's cry suddenly echoed from the sky.

Then, a beast claw wrapped in crimson flames slammed down.

This Clone thought that by turning into quicksand he could escape the disaster, but he didn't expect this Flaming Phoenix to have no regard for immortal ethics, directly beginning to bake the earth with the flames surrounding its body.

The pale yellow sand began to turn dark brown, then started to soften, and finally melted completely.

It actually turned this place directly into a land of lava.

Afterward, in the night wind, it solidified into an obsidian-like glass block.

Finally, the beast claw closed, the ice crystals shattered, and the Clone's miserable scream was squeezed out from between the fingers, only to be quickly swallowed by the wind and sand.

Dozens of Clones, dozens of ways to die.

Some were split in half, some were blown to pieces, and some were refined into ash.

As the threads of Karma were severed one by one, the Clones that Yuantu had split off disappeared one by one.

Until the very last one!

At the edge of the Xuanling Secret Realm, within a Void Realm rift, Yuantu's final Clone was fleeing frantically.

At this moment, his Daoist robe was in tatters, his hair was disheveled, his body was covered in wounds, and his aura was withered to the extreme.

"Damn it, why is this happening!"

Since only this Clone remained after the others disintegrated, the main body's consciousness naturally revived within this last Clone.

But he didn't feel happy; instead, his heart was full of despair and frantic unease.

This was because, through his connection, he could feel the other Clones disappearing one by one.

The nodes on the threads of Karma belonging to his Clones were being extinguished one by one, like candle flames being pinched out.

He didn't know how the opponent was doing it.

Those Clones were scattered in various places; some were even only vaguely sensed by him, yet the opponent could precisely capture the trace of every single Clone.

No matter how deep they hid or how well they were disguised, they would be found and then hunted down and killed.

These guys were like they had the perspective of the Heavenly Dao; every movement was within their grasp.

Including this final Clone!

From the time his main consciousness revived until now, he had been fleeing for three days and three nights.

He traversed through Void Realm rifts, ran through dense forests, and rolled across snowy plains, almost crossing more than half of the Secret Realm.

But he still didn't dare to stop his pace, because when he looked back, he saw dozens of figures following closely behind him.

They were neither fast nor slow, like a cat playing with a mouse; no matter how Yuantu fled, he couldn't shake them off.

The Yuantu Clone's face was pale, and a deep sense of powerlessness welled up in his heart.

Now only he remained; all the other Clones were dead.

If even he died now, then he would truly be dead.

He desperately channeled the remaining mana in his body, pushing his speed to the limit.

The dozens of figures behind him still followed unhurriedly, the distance shortening bit by bit.

Yuantu's vision gradually began to blur, a sign that his mana was about to be exhausted.

Finally, he could run no longer.

But before he could do anything, a Puppet flanked him from the side and knocked him to the ground with a palm strike.

Another foot stepped on his back, pinning him firmly to the ground.

More Puppets closed in, surrounding him in layer upon layer, airtight.

He wanted to struggle, but his body was pinned; he wanted to self-detonate, but his mana was sealed.

He could only lie on the ground, his face pressed against the cold mud, unable to move.

Just then, Murong Jingyang walked out from the crowd of Puppets.

He crouched down, looking at Yuantu's grimy appearance.

Without a word, he simply reached out and gripped Yuantu's head.

Murong Jingyang didn't kill him; this person's memories might still be useful to his master, so he could make use of this waste.

So he immediately closed his fingers, mana pouring into Yuantu's Sea of Consciousness, sealing his Divine Soul layer by layer.

From the Sea of Consciousness to the Divine Soul, he wrapped his consciousness like a spider spinning a cocoon, leaving no gaps.

Yuantu's eyes gradually changed from terror to confusion, from confusion to emptiness, and finally completely lost focus.

Murong Jingyang stood up, carrying the Yuantu Clone, and turned to walk into a Void Realm rift.

The Puppet army followed behind him, and soon, they also vanished completely.

...

The hunt for Yuantu on this side had gone very smoothly.

Led by Murong Jingyang, wherever the Puppet army went, not a blade of grass remained, and not a soul was left alive.

But on the other side, things were not going as smoothly for Lu Ming.

It wasn't that the spiritual item hadn't been found, but rather that someone had beaten him to it.

And those occupying the spiritual item weren't Grotto-Heaven Cultivators, but that group of fellows who hadn't entered the core secret area.

Because there were only so many xuanling tokens, those who could enter had already done so.

Those without the qualifications could only pick up some scraps on the periphery.

They thought the greatest opportunities of this trip were already beyond them, and they would be lucky to just drink some soup or gnaw on some bones, so they had resigned themselves to their fate.

As it turned out, that Tier 4 spiritual item fell from the sky and landed right in front of them.

In that instant, everyone was stunned.

It wasn't that they didn't want it, but that they couldn't believe it.

They had only heard of spiritual items of this level in rumors, but now it was lying right before them, within reach.

Then everyone went crazy and pounced on it.

They fought for an entire night; severed limbs were scattered everywhere, and blood stained the entire ground a dark red.

In the end, three Blessed Land families, relying on their deep foundations and years of accumulated resources, forcibly subdued the other Loose Cultivators and other forces.

The Loose Cultivators were almost entirely wiped out; those who could run had long since fled.

Several small forces were completely annihilated, with not a single survivor left.

Of course, these three Blessed Land families also paid a heavy price, but compared to the harvest, everything was worth it!

At this moment, the leaders of the three Blessed Land families stood in the middle of the pile of corpses.

Each of them was covered in blood and breathing heavily.

But as they looked at each other, their eyes were full of vigilance.

Now only the three of them remained; who would take the final Opportunity?

All three were Blessed Land families, all three had Golden Core Perfection experts presiding over them, and the strength of the three families was roughly equal.

None were much stronger than the others, and none were much weaker.

So the situation suddenly reached a stalemate, with no one willing to back down.

Nonsense, of course they couldn't back down.

This was a Nascent Soul Opportunity!

How many Golden Core Cultivators in the entire Profound Spirit Domain were stuck at the Perfection stage, unable to even touch the threshold of Nascent Soul in their entire lives?

Now that the Opportunity was right before them, asking them to hand it over was worse than just killing them.

But they knew in their hearts that staying in this stalemate was not an option.

The people from the Grotto-Heavens were not fools; the commotion here would eventually spread.

Given the nature of those from Taixuan, Qingwei, and Zixiao, they would inevitably follow the scent and find this place.

When that time came, let alone the spiritual item, even whether they could keep their lives would be a question.

But what could they do?

Whoever backed down first would be handing the Opportunity to others on a silver platter.

Whoever tried to grab it first would be jointly attacked and killed by the other two families.

The gazes of the three family leaders grew colder and colder, and the atmosphere became tense to the extreme.

Just then, they heard a voice.

"Hand the item over, and you may live."

The voice wasn't loud, and the tone was casual.

The three people turned their heads at the same time and saw a young man in a blue-and-white Daoist robe standing with his hands behind his back at the edge of the corpse pile, a half-smile on his face.

He looked to be only in his twenties or thirties, with a handsome face and calm eyes, and no aura leaking from his body at all, just like an ordinary person.

"Where did this arrogant fool come from?"

The head of the Lingxiao Blessed Land family sneered as he sized up this young man who didn't know the heights of the heavens or the depths of the earth.

"The Blessed Land families are conducting business; bystanders, withdraw."

The head of the Qingyun Blessed Land family squinted at Lu Ming and gave a cold snort.

The head of the Tianque Blessed Land family was even more direct, manifesting a Magical Artifact and saying coldly, "One more step forward, and you die."

None of them took this suddenly appearing fellow seriously.

A Loose Cultivator, alone, dared to shout in front of their three Blessed Land families?

In this Secret Realm, aside from those Grotto-Heaven Prodigies, no one had dared to speak to them like that.

Lu Ming looked at them and sighed.

He truly didn't want to kill anymore.

It wasn't out of soft-heartedness, but because he felt it was unnecessary.

He was about to condense his Nascent Soul; the karmic fruit of killing was too heavy and wouldn't be good for him.

Besides, the human emperor banner wasn't with him; these people were high-quality resources.

Killing them was a waste, but not killing them was a nuisance.

"Fine, good words can't save a ghost bent on dying!"

Lu Ming sighed lightly, feeling that he should still respect the fate of others.

Before the three could simultaneously manifest their Magic Treasures to attack, Lu Ming had already raised his hand.

In an instant, a hazy gray giant hand descended from the sky.

The giant hand blotted out the sun and sky, its five fingers spread wide, covering everything within a hundred-zhang radius.

The lines on the giant hand were clearly visible, each one an extension of a Law.

Gray light seeped from between the fingers, making the entire world look as if the apocalypse had arrived.

The faces of the three people changed drastically; they wanted to flee but found they could no longer move.

This was because the giant hand had sealed the entire space.

They could only watch helplessly as the giant hand slowly descended, its five fingers like five pillars supporting the heavens, enveloping everyone from the three Blessed Land families along with that four-colored spiritual item.

"No—!"

The giant hand closed, and all returned to peace.