59: Chapter 59 Underground Forbidden Zone

The moment that invisible thread pierced into his brow, Zhan Tianlong felt a chill run up his spine, as if a ten-thousand-year-old venomous snake had locked its gaze on his throat.

If he did not fight for his life, he would truly die.

This intuition was completely illogical, yet incomparably clear.

"Want to kill me? Dream on!"

Zhan Tianlong spat a mouthful of blood essence onto the dark yellow seal in his palm.

That was his father—the Alliance Leader of the Hundred Nations—left behind as his trump card for survival, the "Mountain-Crushing Seal."

"Open for me!"

Following his roar, the seal expanded rapidly in the wind and smashed heavily into the arena beneath his feet.

Rumble—!

This was not an attack on Ye Feng, but a destruction of his own Foundation.

The entire black rock arena, capable of withstanding attacks from the Golden Core Stage, actually split open from the center, revealing a bottomless chasm.

The originally sturdy ground collapsed instantly, and countless pieces of rubble, shrouded in a sky full of dust, swallowed everyone on the arena in one gulp, like the gaping abyss-maw of a giant beast.

A sense of weightlessness suddenly struck.

Ye Feng felt the ground vanish beneath his feet, and his body plummeted rapidly along with the falling rubble.

The light around him faded rapidly, replaced by a nauseating grey mist.

This mist stuck to his skin, emitting a sizzling, corrosive sound; his protective Spiritual Qi was as fragile as thin paper before it.

"There is something underground?"

Ye Feng frowned slightly, forcing his body to adjust its posture in mid-air.

Just then, an extremely faint sound of breaking wind, mixed into the howling gale, silently approached his back.

It was the shadow.

In the grey mist, a strange figure seemed to peel away from the void.

Yin Jiuyou.

This venomous snake, who had been lurking in the shadows, had finally found the perfect opportunity to strike.

The "Soul-Chasing Dagger" in his hand, quenched in deadly poison, possessed no earth-shattering momentum, only extreme malice as it stabbed straight at Ye Feng's heart.

With no leverage in mid-air, this was a guaranteed kill.

"I have been waiting for you for a long time."

Ye Feng did not even turn his head, a cold sneer hooking the corner of his mouth.

Ever since he entered this grey mist, his Chaos Sword Body had sensed an unusual fluctuation.

The blood and Qi inside Ye Feng reversed their flow, the pores on his skin locking instantly, and a strange suction force did not push outward, but collapsed inward.

The dagger, which was originally a guaranteed hit, was pulled by this sudden gravity the moment it pierced half an inch into Ye Feng's back, its trajectory forcibly shifting three inches, grazing his ribs and stabbing into empty air.

Yin Jiuyou's pupils contracted sharply.

Before he could react, a large hand like an iron pincer had already backhanded and clamped onto his wrist.

"Get down there and scout the path."

Ye Feng used his opponent's force against him, twisting his waist sharply, and the violent power of his Physical Body erupted through his arm, throwing Yin Jiuyou like trash into the deeper darkness.

The recoil from this throw caused Ye Feng's figure to pause for a fleeting moment in the air.

He happened to see a burly man, like an Iron Tower, clumsily waving his arms, trying to grab the surrounding rock walls, but his skin was being corroded and torn by the grey mist.

Is that the big guy from the barbarian tribe?

Back on the arena, this big oaf hadn't attacked him.

Ye Feng reached out and grabbed the animal-skin strap on the burly man's back, utilizing the momentum of the fall to stomp his feet hard against a protruding boulder.

The two of them slammed into the ground like cannonballs.

Dust swirled everywhere.

This was the underground of Tianji City, a silent ruin.

All around were broken walls and ruined pillars; the massive stone columns were covered in ancient, long-faded runes, and the air was filled with a stale, moldy, and bloody stench.

"Roar—!"

Before they could steady themselves, dozens of scarlet eyes lit up in the surrounding darkness.

They were Puppets clad in tattered armor, their joints flickering with ghostly blue spiritual light, holding rusted long halberds, swarming over with suffocating Evil Qi.

Forbidden Ground guards.

Just as Ye Feng was about to raise his hand, the barbarian youth beside him, named Iron Tower, moved first.

"Benefactor... rest! Let me handle this!"

Iron Tower wiped the dust from his face and pulled two black iron hammers, each the size of a millstone, from his back.

He did not understand any footwork, nor did he understand any Sword Intent; he relied purely on brute strength.

With one swing of the hammer, the air was compressed until it emitted a booming sound.

The Puppet at the Late Stage of Foundation Establishment, which was charging at the front, was smashed directly into the ground by this hammer, turning into a metal pancake.

"My mother said that a drop of water in need shall be repaid with a gushing spring. You saved my life, so I will smash them to pieces for you!"

Iron Tower roared honestly, charging into the group of Puppets like an enraged rhinoceros, his two giant hammers dancing so fiercely that not even wind could pass through, forcibly smashing a vacuum zone within the encirclement.

This big guy is quite earnest.

Ye Feng did not attack again; his gaze pierced through the chaotic battlefield and looked toward a cliff high up in the ruins.

That was the core of the kill Formation.

Zhan Tianlong stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down from a high position at Ye Feng, who was like a trapped beast, his face wearing a look of morbid excitement.

Behind him, apart from a dozen or so powerful Prodigies, stood a withered, thin old Daoist.

Deadwood Daoist.

"Ye Feng, do you really think I collapsed the arena just to escape?"

Zhan Tianlong laughed loudly, pointing at these ruins, "This is the 'Ruins of the Gods,' the Formation eye of the Spiritual Vein beneath Tianji City! It is also your burial ground!"

The Deadwood Daoist behind him smiled sinisterly, his withered fingers flicking the yellowed Formation Plate in his hand.

"Twilight of the Gods Formation, arise."

As the Formation Plate turned, the entire underground ruin trembled violently.

The Spiritual Vein, which had been buried deep underground and flowing gently, seemed to be angered by some force and instantly boiled over.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!

Countless purple-black thunderbolts surged out from the ground without warning, climbing wildly along the ancient stone pillars, and in the blink of an eye, they wove into a massive thunder net, completely sealing off the area where Ye Feng and Iron Tower were located.

This thunder was not ordinary lightning, but the product of Evil Qi and Spiritual Qi that had accumulated for ten thousand years in the Spiritual Vein, transformed under high pressure.

Even if one touched a single strand of it, a Golden Core Cultivator's Divine Soul would be torn apart instantly.

"Ah!!"

The unlucky Loose Cultivators who had also fallen down and hadn't died from the fall, the moment they touched the thunder net, couldn't even finish their screams before they were turned into fly ash.

"This energy..."

Ye Feng stood at the center of the Formation eye, feeling the terrifying pressure that was almost enough to crush his bone marrow, and his expression changed slightly.

It was too violent.

This level of energy density had already exceeded the limit that his Physical Body could "comfortably" devour.

But he had no choice.

"Devour!"

Ye Feng let out a low shout, his Chaos Sword Body operating at full power, attempting to forcibly plunder this violent energy.

Sizzle!

The moment the first strand of purple-black thunder entered his body, Ye Feng's body shook violently, his skin instantly cracking open with countless fine bloody wounds, and the blood was vaporized into red mist by the high temperature of the thunder before it could even flow out.

It felt like ten thousand blunt knives were crazily cutting inside his Meridians.

"Hahaha! Holding on? Let's see how long you can last!"

On the high platform, Zhan Tianlong watched the blood-soaked Ye Feng, laughing wantonly, "Great Master Deadwood, increase the intensity! I want to refine him into a dried corpse and use his blood to sacrifice to the ancient Sword Tomb beneath this ground!"

Upon hearing this, the Deadwood Daoist changed the hand seals, and the speed at which the Formation Plate turned suddenly increased.

Boom!

The purple-black thunder turned into ferocious thunder dragons, roaring as they rushed into Ye Feng's body.

Ye Feng's body trembled violently, and blood seeped out from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose simultaneously.

But amidst this excruciating pain, he sensed something unusual.

The thunderous Evil Qi rushing into his body did not destroy his Meridians as expected; instead, under the tyrannical suppression of the Chaos Sword Body, it was forced to compress crazily toward his Dantian.

Quantitative change leads to qualitative change.

Under that world-destroying pressure, his liquid spiritual power, which had already reached its limit, began to undergo a strange solidification.

A solid core, only the size of a grain of rice but shimmering with the color of Chaos, was slowly taking shape under the tempering of the thunder.

Ye Feng suddenly raised his head, a fierce and crazy smile appearing on his blood-stained face.

Want to refine me?

I am afraid even the Heavens do not have the appetite for that!

He could clearly feel that the first pattern was slowly yet firmly emerging on that core.

That was Karma, that was destruction, and that was also rebirth.

It was the legendary prototype of the Nine-Pattern Golden Core that only existed in ancient texts.

Crack, crack, crack.

The Formation barrier above his head seemed to sense the terrifying aura brewing from the "anomaly" below, emitting a groan of being unable to bear the burden.