The Central Stele and the Karmic Duel

Undoubtedly, these were the pair of experts whom Yizhen had glimpsed before—mortal enemies, locked in a deadly struggle even after entering the ancient city. Black mist and drifting colored clouds veiled their forms, hiding their true appearances, leaving only blurred silhouettes to be seen.

"The power of time! True divine law!" Liu Mu exclaimed, his voice trembling with excitement. He seemed eager to rush forward and test his skills against the woman.

Without a sound, a murderous aura pressed in. Xiao Chen spun around, his left hand enveloped in the Big Dipper Sealing Divinity's light screen. In an instant, he caught a gleaming blade—translucent, crystal-clear, almost like a work of art. It was the Little Li Flying Dagger.

The fierce battle ahead had not dulled Xiao Chen's vigilance. He neutralized the assassination in a heartbeat, flicking his wrist. The dagger-light tore through the void, streaking upward like a comet.

Blood splattered. A figure in the air, wounded, fled. Liu Mu began to rise but Xiao Chen grabbed his arm. "Don't chase. Your wounds have not healed. You cannot afford any misstep."

"Wang Tong and Kailuo are determined to destroy you," Liu Ruyan purred, her voice like honey laced with poison. "But you can still collect some interest." She laughed, a bewitching sound, then cupped Yan Qingcheng's chin. "Such a peerless beauty as interest—how exquisite. I wonder what kind of pet I should tame her into."

Deeper into the ancient city, the dragons' curse attacks could no longer reach them. Although assassinations still erupted from time to time, they were survivable compared to the dragons' destructive power.

Yet Xiao Chen felt a foreboding. Some malevolent spirit seemed to be watching them from the shadows. He turned sharply and glimpsed a massive figure—over twenty meters tall—darting between the ancient structures.

Liu Mu dispatched a rain of light, condensed from spatial essence, toward a patch of darkness ahead. The brilliant rays illuminated a corner, revealing a black cat the size of a pony. With a startled yowl, it vanished into the gloom. Around its neck hung a string of skulls, a gruesome and mysterious necklace.

A cluster of white skulls rolled down the ancient street, stopping at Xiao Chen's feet. King Qin Guang, King Yan Luo, and King Reincarnation seized them with evident interest, their jaws clacking.

Xiao Chen took one skull. The white frontal bone bore a lotus brand, similar to those on his skeletons' foreheads—but dim, with only faint traces remaining. The skulls crumbled into pale dust like dry sand, as if they had endured endless ages. An omen, perhaps.

Liu Mu glanced at the three kings and said to Xiao Chen, "Skulls marked with a lotus brand can grow into undying kings—beings that make even gods tremble. Those skulls seem to be the remains of a true king, destroyed long ago."

"This city grows more mysterious and terrifying by the moment," Xiao Chen murmured.

Unknown mysteries hold an irresistible allure for humans. Xiao Chen and his companions could have stopped here, but a powerful urge to explore pushed them forward, deeper into the dead stillness.

After careful sensing, Liu Mu said solemnly, "The ancient city is sinister. A force seals the space above; even spiritists and spellmasters cannot fly out. Only a dragon could break through."

The Heavenly Soldiers and Infernal Soldiers they occasionally passed did not block them, but their cold gazes swept over the group as if looking at the dead.

Ahead, the roar of surging water reached them, along with a murderous aura that rushed skyward and a stench of blood that choked the air. A red mist churned, and a boiling river of blood cut across their path. The nauseating smell left no doubt—it was real blood.

Even Xiao Chen began to believe that this truly was the Nether Capital of the Dead Realm's overlord.

Stone bridges spanned the river at regular intervals. The ancient spans were carved with depictions of gods, demons, and monsters, etched with the wear of ages, as if revealing some hidden truth. Scattered bones lay on the bridges, weathered nearly to dust by the long years. Xiao Chen and his group did not pause; they crossed one of the bridges.

Before them lay the heart of the ancient city—a vast central plaza. At its center stood a colossal stele, over a hundred meters tall!

Xiao Chen was stunned. Was this not the divine stele from the Bone Sea? How had it appeared in the city? There must be a profound connection between the two locations.

The plaza was vast and empty. Besides the towering, sinister stele at its center, the surrounding railings were also peculiar—constructed from long, tombstone-like slabs of stone.

"Were those built from the gravestones of ancient times?" Liu Mu wondered, eyeing the railings.

By now, the surviving cultivators had arrived one after another, including the man shrouded in black mist and the woman wrapped in glowing colored clouds. They had ceased their battle and now occupied separate corners. Some thirty-odd people remained—the true elites among the practitioners. Hundreds had perished; only a few dozen had survived.

Far off, the Heavenly Soldiers and Infernal Soldiers in their ancient armor paid no attention to the group, as if they did not exist.

In the distance, savage dragons howled, still assaulting this city of the dead.

Suddenly, the colossal stele at the plaza's center erupted with a flood of divine radiance, tearing apart the dim sky. The torrents of blood rain could not fall; they were blocked high above. An overwhelming wave, vast as the ocean, surged through the plaza. Though not a destructive force, the spiritual pressure it exerted was immense, triggering a soul-deep terror within every cultivator.

Half of those present could not withstand it; they fell to their knees, like lowly ants cowering before the master of all things. The majestic pressure, the ancient, weathered aura, truly shook the soul.

Xiao Chen, Liu Mu, the mysterious man in black mist, and the woman in colored clouds all strained to resist, and in the end, they did not kneel.

In the next instant, the divine light pouring from the hundred-meter stele completely withdrew. Yet in that moment, it conjured multiple heavy afterimages. The plaza now seemed to hold several giant steles—but on closer inspection, only one was real; the others were near-substantial phantoms, standing together at the center.

All present longed to approach the mysterious stele. Though clouds roiled around it, they could glimpse what seemed to be mysterious carvings on its surface.

Yet no one could draw near. The great stele and its surrounding afterimages were wreathed in an invisible force. One cultivator attempted to approach; at first there was no danger, but as soon as he advanced a few feet, he dissolved into a heap of bloody mud upon the plaza stones.

No one dared try again. The crowd fell back, circling the giant stele at a distance.

Then someone noticed carvings on the surrounding railing stones and cried out in surprise. All turned to examine the black monoliths that stood like rows of tombstones. The carvings seemed to record many ancient events, but they were too obscure to decipher. Not a single stone bore intact images—critical portions appeared to have been deliberately erased.

Still, the cultivators gained something. They discovered what appeared to be cultivation diagrams. Liu Mu quietly told Xiao Chen that he had found engravings left by a powerful Space Spiritist. Though the diagrams were blurred and the meanings complex, they gave him important insights.

Silence fell over the plaza as everyone searched the railing stones for more valuable engravings.

Xiao Chen searched as well, but he paid little attention to martial arts cultivation methods. He sensed intuitively that those techniques were far inferior to the Heaven-Bestowed Qi-Refining Diagram he practiced. Yet he still made significant discoveries. The stones recorded many lost techniques and legendary killing moves, such as the Slay God Dispersing Hand, the Three Reversal Styles, and the Eight Demon-Subduing Methods.

"See the true form; all dharmas are empty. In a flash, enlightenment unites all laws. When the scenery can no longer be hidden, the naked face is met directly." A clear Buddhist chant reached their ears. Yizhen the monk had arrived, drifting down like a transcendent being.

No trace of his former grief could be seen. He appeared ethereal and aloof, fixing his gaze on the mysterious man in the black mist. "Dugu Jianmo, today I have come to end a karmic tie between us."

Yizhen spoke these words calmly, with perfect composure, even bearing a hint of a Buddha's smile—ineffably otherworldly. Evidently, the Buddha's Dharma Wheel had allowed this young monk to undergo a nirvana-like transformation, as if he had achieved sudden enlightenment.

The black mist stirred, and Dugu Jianmo's tall figure emerged. He was a man with a cold, stern expression—not particularly handsome, but radiating an aura as sharp as a sword's edge. He seemed like an unsheathed blade.

"It is you," Yizhen said, utterly tranquil.

"So the Buddha's legendary powers are indeed real. A single artifact allowed you to undergo such a transformation. I thought the Bodhidharma lineage had gone to waste, but you have proven otherwise." Dugu Jianmo's voice was as cold as his appearance.

"Born many times, died many times, everlasting and eternal; faces of gods and ghosts, returning to the origin, nothing remains." Yizhen softly intoned a Buddhist verse, his deep realization evident in every syllable.