52: Chapter 52 The Fire Well in the Underground Palace: Who is Whose Sacrifice?

The mellow aroma of wine still lingered on the tongue, yet that so-called "Sword Dissolving Powder" didn't even make a sound; it was like a clay ox entering the sea, completely broken down into the purest Spiritual Qi nutrients by the Chaos Devouring Sword Body.

In the shadows of the post house's back alley, the heads of three secret guards from the Fire Refining Sect were neatly stacked in the corner of the wall.

Until they died, they never saw where that non-existent "sword" had been swung from.

Ye Feng crouched down and rummaged for a moment in the chest of the leader's corpse, which was still warm. His fingertips touched a sheepskin scroll made of a material that was neither gold nor jade.

By the faint moonlight, he unfolded it and saw that it was densely marked with the ley line paths of the entire Red Lotus Ancient City, with all the nodes ultimately converging toward a red dot deep underground.

That was not some deployment map for capturing fugitives.

That was a "World Refining Formation" that used all the living beings in the city as fuel.

"So this is what they call 'official business'."

Ye Feng casually shattered the sheepskin scroll into powder.

Shen Fen, that old dog, certainly has a large appetite; not only does he want to kill people, he also wants to destroy their hearts, and even the hundreds of thousands of lives in this city have become stepping stones for his Breakthrough to the Nascent Soul Stage.

Since you want to play with fire, let's see who ends up burned to ashes in the end.

With a flicker of his figure, Ye Feng blended into the night, following the Formation eye entrance marked on the map, and silently infiltrated the underground.

Deep in the underground palace, waves of heat surged to the heavens.

This was no longer the mortal world, but a purgatory churning with magma.

A massive altar floated in the center of a magma lake, and at the very center of that altar, Princess Hong Ling was suspended in mid-air, her four limbs chained in a "big" shape by glowing red chains.

Her face was as pale as paper, and her luxurious palace attire had long been soaked through with sweat, clinging tightly to her body and outlining breathtaking curves, yet at this moment, this beautiful sight exuded a sense of despairing Death Qi.

Directly beneath her was a huge, budding red lotus.

That red lotus was not a physical entity, but the Origin of an Exotic Fire condensed from countless vengeful souls and earth fire—the Karma Fire Red Lotus.

"Soon... it will be soon!"

Shen Fen stood at the edge of the altar, appearing like a madman.

In his hands, he held a pitch-black alms bowl, continuously grabbing handfuls of dark red stones that exuded a thick, fishy stench and crazily scattering them into the magma lake below.

Blood Essence Stones.

Each one was refined using the heart blood of ninety-nine living people.

Sizzle! Sizzle!

As the Blood Essence Stones fell into the magma, they instantly stirred up towering pillars of blood-colored fire.

That originally tightly closed red lotus bud, after absorbing this evil power, actually began to slowly squirm, and its petals struggled to open outward.

Rumble!

The entire underground palace trembled violently.

The surface of the magma lake suddenly exploded, and a flaming phantom a hundred zhang high slowly rose.

The phantom's beard and hair stood on end, its eyes like two scorching suns, emitting a suffocating pressure of the Nascent Soul Stage; it was none other than the founding Old Ancestor of the Red Lotus who had "fallen" a hundred years ago—Old Ancestor Huo Ran.

"Shen Fen... where is the Physical Body you promised?"

The grand voice echoed within the enclosed underground palace, shaking the magma until it churned.

"Old Ancestor, please calm your anger!"

Shen Fen knelt on the ground with a thud, his forehead heavily striking the scorching stone slab, "The royal Bloodline is already in place; as long as we use Princess Hong Ling's primordial yin blood to irrigate the red lotus, once the Exotic Fire matures, Old Ancestor, you can be Rebirth through the fire! As for the vessel to carry your Divine Soul..."

He turned his head abruptly, his venomous gaze locking tightly onto a patch of shadow at the entrance of the underground palace.

"Since you've come, don't hide. You killed so many of my scouts along the way; this Foundation Establishment Stage Physical Body, although a bit weak, is barely enough for you to snack on, Old Ancestor!"

Ye Feng slowly walked out from the shadows.

He brushed off non-existent dust from his body, his gaze sweeping over the arrogant phantom in the air, a mocking arc curling at the corner of his mouth.

"It seems I arrived just in time to catch this grand performance of honoring one's ancestors."

"Sharp-tongued!"

Old Ancestor Huo Ran's phantom let out a cold snort, and a terrifying Divine Thought pressure slammed toward Ye Feng like Mount Tai pressing down, "A mere ant, being able to become this seat's vessel is a blessing you've cultivated over several lifetimes!"

"Do it!"

Following Shen Fen's sharp shout, the Formation Flags that had long been buried around the underground palace lit up simultaneously.

Countless chains condensed from earth core fire broke through the ground, like venomous snakes hunting for prey, instantly wrapping tightly around Ye Feng's limbs and hoisting him into mid-air.

This "Red Lotus Formation" was a fourth-rank killing Formation; in this environment abundant with earth fire, even a Cultivator at the Late Golden Core Stage would be refined into a pool of blood in an instant if trapped.

"Kid, no matter who you are, this underground palace is your burial ground!"

Shen Fen stood up with a sinister grin, his hands forming seals, preparing to activate the Formation to forcibly extract the essential blood from Ye Feng's body and sacrifice it to the red lotus that was about to bloom.

However, Ye Feng, who was tightly bound by the fire chains, showed no fear on his face.

In fact, he even seemed to be enjoying it.

"A fourth-rank Formation? Earth core fire essence?"

Ye Feng licked his lips, feeling the violent fire poison that was crazily surging into his body along the chains; every cell in his body was cheering and leaping with joy.

This was no punishment; it was clearly takeout delivered to his door.

"Shen Fen, did you forget how I passed that hurdle at the city gate?"

Ye Feng suddenly looked up, his originally pitch-black pupils instantly turning into strange, vortex-like shapes.

Chaos Devouring Sword Body, fully activated!

A suction force more overbearing than magma and greedier than an abyss suddenly erupted from within his body.

The fire chains that were originally crazily burning his Physical Body suddenly began to tremble violently.

Those violent fire Spiritual Qi were no longer sharp blades of attack, but instead, like wanderers who had found their home, they scrambled to drill into Ye Feng's body, and even the Formation core could not pull them back.

"This... what kind of demonic art is this?!"

Shen Fen's eyes were about to pop out.

He saw with his own eyes that those fire chains, capable of melting gold and iron, upon touching Ye Feng's skin, actually dimmed at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into gray-white waste gas.

Not only that.

Hum—!

Deep in Ye Feng's Dantian, that broken sword fragment from the ancient times, which had been sleeping, seemed to sense something and emitted a clear, passionate sword hum.

The sound was not loud, but it exuded a supreme majesty.

That was the call of the ancestor of all swords.

In the center of the magma lake, the Karma Fire Red Lotus, which was originally about to bloom under Shen Fen's control, suddenly seemed to be subjected to some kind of fatal attraction and actually broke free from the restraints of the altar by force.

A scarlet stream of light shot out from the pistil, ignoring all the barriers of the Formation, and like a swallow returning to the forest, it drilled directly into Ye Feng's chest.

That was the Red Lotus Fire Seed!

It was an Exotic Fire of heaven and earth, possessing spirituality; it instinctively felt that compared to that old ghost reeking of decay and that sinister and vicious Shen Fen, the body of the young man before it was the true habitat it longed for.

"No—!!"

Old Ancestor Huo Ran's phantom let out a desperate roar.

Having lost the Fire Seed, his grand plan for resurrection was all for nothing!

"That is mine! Give it back to me!"

Shen Fen was even more furious, his eyes splitting, and without thinking, he rushed forward to snatch it.

But just the moment he activated his Spiritual Qi, his expression changed drastically.

The Formation hub that was originally connected to him and used to control the Red Lotus Formation had now turned into a huge blood-sucking pump.

It was just that the one being sucked was not anyone else, but himself!

Because Ye Feng had devoured the energy source of the Formation and even merged with the Red Lotus Fire Seed, he was now the true master of this Formation.

"Since you want to make a sacrifice, then I will fulfill your wish."

Ye Feng hovered in mid-air, his body wreathed in the eerie Karma Fire Red Lotus, looking like a demon god reborn in fire.

He reached out and grabbed at Shen Fen from a distance.

At the center of the altar, the blood sacrifice energy that was originally surging toward Shen Fen, preparing to help him break through to the Nascent Soul Stage, was forcibly intercepted by an invisible hand, and then it took a sharp turn in the air, roaring as it rushed into Ye Feng's body.