The Old Ghost Beneath the Bone Sea

Xiao Chen decided to go to the vicinity of the City of the Dead to investigate and make things clear. Otherwise, he would not be at ease.

Liu Mu and Monk Yizhen had no intention of exploring the City of the Dead in the short term. At present, their priority was to train the two young dragon kings until the two Companion Dragon Kings gained sufficient self-protection strength and were unwilling to leave them. Now they needed to find a place to cultivate. The situation on Dragon Island was too complicated; only strength was the hard truth.

After the City of the Dead ordeal, combined with the earlier slaughter, several hundred cultivators on the island had died. Now, only about a hundred cultivators remained on the entire Dragon Island. These people were almost all lone wanderers. If they had also participated in the alliance battle that day and been forced into the City of the Dead, perhaps fewer than a few cultivators would be left on Dragon Island.

Xiao Chen had originally wanted to go to the vicinity of the City of the Dead to investigate immediately, but he sensed that the murderous aura in that area was piercing the sky and blood light was dazzling. He changed his mind. It was too dangerous there now, and he decided not to take the risk for the time being.

Walking through the mountain forest, several people were astonished to find that these regions had not received any blood rain at all. It seemed that the rare scene of blood rain had only occurred in the Bone Sea and the Dead Silent Forest. Several people sighed. That area was indeed a great place of danger, and they had happened to break into it on that night, truly courting death.

On Dragon Island, there were countless places of beautiful scenery. Soon, Xiao Chen and his group found a sacred mountain. Here, lush trees and entwined vines created a scene of flowers, birdsong, and dense spiritual energy, with waterfalls and springs decorating the area. After the tribulation of the City of the Dead, seeing such a beautiful piece of spiritual land, everyone felt a sense of delight and relaxation.

Among a bamboo grove, there was a clear small lake. At this moment, Xiao Chen was swimming in the lake. Washing off the blood and grime seemed to cleanse his spirit, leaving his heart empty and serene. Unconsciously, he began to circulate his profound art in the lake. The entire lake rippled, and Xiao Chen was shrouded in a faint mist. Then the lake calmed down again. He seemed to have merged into the lake, and the fish around him no longer feared him, swimming around him. Xiao Chen felt as if he had truly merged with heaven and earth, becoming part of nature. Finally, he sank to the bottom of the lake, entering a wonderful state of martial meditation. He no longer needed to breathe. Endless spiritual energy entered his body through his skin, and turbid qi was naturally expelled.

He did not know how long had passed before he opened his eyes and rose from the bottom of the lake. Surfaceing, golden rays of sunlight streamed from the east, bathing him in the brilliant morning glow. Liu Mu, who was taking a walk by the lake, was amazed: "Were you in the lake all night?" "Hmm, it seems so. I didn't expect to have sunk into meditation from yesterday evening until now." Xiao Chen shook his wet hair and walked toward the shore. His body surface glittered with a crystalline luster, as if coated with a layer of jade essence.

"You seem to have undergone a very peculiar change." "I also feel that some change has occurred." But Xiao Chen could not clearly perceive exactly what change had happened. At that moment, he spoke: "Yizhen has come over." After saying these words, he was momentarily stunned because he had not yet seen Yizhen or heard any sound, but he completely sensed Yizhen approaching. Sure enough, Yizhen walked over from the bamboo grove not far away, confirming his feeling. Liu Mu was dumbfounded. He only noticed Yizhen when he appeared in his field of vision. At their level of cultivation, walking was silent. Yet Xiao Chen, using his spiritual sense, had sensed Yizhen's arrival first. Although the distance was not great, this kind of foreknowledge was truly extraordinary.

"Our good captive is indeed hardworking, actually preparing breakfast for us: roasted leg of yellow goat, venison, coconut milk..." Xiao Chen listed them one by one. Liu Mu rushed into the bamboo grove and found that, as Xiao Chen had said, under Liu Ruyan's supervision, Yan Qingcheng was indeed preparing those breakfast items. Concerning Xiao Chen's sudden manifestation of this spiritual sense, Liu Mu and Monk Yizhen were both extremely surprised.

"Without using eyes or ears, how far can you perceive?" Liu Mu asked. "Probably about a hundred meters." "Truly terrifying. From now on, no one can ambush you." Monk Yizhen spoke with some emotion: "This seems to be a phenomenon that cultivators at the Spirit-Treasury realm would have." Mortal-Shedding, Spirit-Treasury, Sky-Mastery, Nirvana, and Deathless Longevity are the five great realms of cultivators. Once entering the Spirit-Treasury realm, cultivators would manifest some extraordinary divine abilities. Xiao Chen's ability to perceive without seeing or hearing, to have foreknowledge, was already counted as a divine ability. Xiao Chen had just broken into the Seventh Heaven of the Mortal-Shedding realm, still some distance from the Spirit-Treasury realm, yet he had already manifested a divine ability, which was certainly a rare occurrence.

"Time to eat..." The alluring Liu Ruyan called the three from the bamboo grove. Enjoying the generous breakfast provided by the beauty, sensing the nearby flowers and birdsong, the clear mountain stream, everything was so pleasant. The tense emotions of the past few days finally fully relaxed.

In this piece of spiritual land with flowers and birds, Xiao Chen practiced with a relaxed mindset. His true essence became more and more condensed. The perfection of his technique made him feel that he could absorb heaven and earth's spiritual energy faster than before. It must be said that Liu Ruyan was truly 'dutiful,' actually wanting to train Yan Qingcheng into a city-toppling seductress. She gave diligent guidance every day, making Yan Qingcheng gnash her teeth in shame and anger. The three skeletons were cultivating. Liu Mu and Monk Yizhen were also cultivating. Everyone worked hard to improve their cultivation. According to Liu Mu, one year of cultivation on Dragon Island was equivalent to three or five years of cultivation elsewhere, because on Dragon Island, insufficient strength could lead to death, forcing everyone to find ways to make breakthroughs.

Only Keke was most at leisure, idly provoking the two young dragon kings, causing birds to flee and beasts to scatter, and dragon roars to shake the heavens in this area.

"Is that the true Divine-Slaying Hand you displayed?" Yizhen was sparring with Xiao Chen. Seeing him display the Divine-Slaying Hand, he asked in surprise after learning of it: "Legend has it that when the Divine-Slaying Hand reaches a certain realm, it can cleanly slaughter gods, an extremely terrifying killing technique. But it seems no one has ever trained it to completion." Seeing that Xiao Chen could already exert great power at his current cultivation level, Yizhen felt a bit alarmed. Xiao Chen did not hold back and taught him this technique. However, Monk Yizhen, using Buddhist heart method to drive it, could hardly exert any power. It seemed that this killing technique was specially created for the Divine Stele heart method.

When he heard Xiao Chen's introduction that there were also the three techniques of Heaven-Confounding, Demon-Suppressing, and Earth-Shattering, not inferior to Divine-Slaying, Monk Yizhen was somewhat speechless. In fact, Xiao Chen currently only focused on training Divine-Slaying, because a single technique could evolve infinite variations, and he had not yet mastered the essence of this first technique.

In truth, after Monk Yizhen entered the ancient city and experienced a life-and-death trial, his gains were also great. An ancient scripture from the Buddha's Dharma Wheel was forever imprinted into his heart, and the Buddha's Dharma Wheel also forcibly raised his cultivation from the Fifth Heaven to the Seventh Heaven.

After cultivating for a few days on this beautiful sacred mountain, Xiao Chen and the others clearly felt that the murderous aura in the central area of the island seemed to have weakened. That day was the seventh day since the City of the Dead appeared. Xiao Chen hurriedly left here to go to the vicinity of the Bone Sea to investigate. Liu Mu and Yizhen did not go because of the Azure Dragon King and the Green Dragon King. The three skeletons also did not go and continued to cultivate here. Only Keke joyfully followed Xiao Chen on the journey.

With his current cultivation level, a journey of tens of li was nothing. He soon entered the Dead Silent Forest and then arrived at the periphery of the Bone Sea. Several dozen cultivators were hidden here, all watching the City of the Dead, closely observing everything there. Xiao Chen arrived just in time. The sea of blood in the sky was slowly receding, and the Brass Eight Trigram, the Divine Halberd, and the Iron Seal in the City of the Dead transformed into three beams of light, leaving the city. As for the Buddha's Dharma Wheel, it embedded itself again on the gateway tower of the ancient city.

After that, many Savage Dragons flew out of the City of the Dead. Their divine abilities seemed to weaken rapidly. After leaving the City of the Dead, they all fell to the ground. Finally, the Ancestral Dragon Horn and the Ancestral Dragon Claw flew out of the ancient city and rushed toward the direction of the Sacred Mountain.

Everyone was extremely astonished. It seemed the Savage Dragons had truly lost their divine abilities. They had only possessed their abilities for seven days, then were forced back to their original forms. Whether it was the royal Lion King Dragon and Tyrant Dragon among the dragon species, or the ordinary Serpent-Elephant Dragons, they all ran into the distance with brute force, not a single dragon could fly anymore.

Seven days! Mysterious seven days! Why did these things happen? The City of the Dead in the Bone Sea also gradually faded, finally completely disappearing from the vast expanse of white bones. Only a hundred-meter-tall ancient divine stele stood there. Everything was gone, as if nothing had happened. However, both the Dead Silent Forest and the vast Bone Sea bore traces of blood rain—the only remaining evidence.

Only after the Savage Dragons had all gone far away and the forest was completely silent, after a long time, some cultivators walked toward the Bone Sea to see what was happening. Among the several dozen cultivators, most had not entered the City of the Dead. When the blood rain fell, they were not in this terrifying ground. They included Spellmaster Schrod and Spiritist Blue Rain, whom Xiao Chen had met once. Xiao Chen did not recognize almost anyone else. Xiao Chen also walked into the Bone Sea. Here, he discovered Dugu the Sword Demon, as well as the mysterious woman in rainbow mist. Almost all the survivors who had entered the ancient city had come; they were the most concerned about all this.

Suddenly, Xiao Chen felt someone spying on him. This was the foreknowledge from perceiving without seeing or hearing—his newly acquired divine ability. Fifty meters behind him, a young man with a pale complexion was sizing him up. Although there was some distance between them, Xiao Chen felt that this person was very dangerous. He had a feeling that even Dugu the Sword Demon might not be a match for that person. Without turning back to look, his spiritual sense had already clearly captured the person's appearance. This was a young man in his twenties, of medium build, not particularly handsome, with an abnormally pale complexion, as if no blood flowed in him.

For some reason, Xiao Chen felt a strange sensation in his heart, as if he had seen this person somewhere before, but he could not recall it at the moment. The young man with an abnormally pale complexion was not only spying on Xiao Chen but also on experts like Dugu the Sword Demon, Blue Rain, and Schrod. Xiao Chen clearly perceived all this. What did he want? Xiao Chen remained expressionless, still tracking him with his foreknowledge divine ability. Suddenly, Xiao Chen's eyes shot out two divine rays of light. He felt a chill in his heart. He 'saw' a red birthmark on the young man's left wrist, which shockingly matched a certain memory in his mind. He had once dug out three ice coffins in the snowy mountains, each containing a shed human skin. The left wrists of all three human skins had such a red birthmark, exactly the same.

Now, Xiao Chen finally knew why he felt this young man looked familiar. If the young man's pale cheeks were wrinkled up, and his hair turned into sparse white, it would be exactly the same as the appearances of those three human skins. The old ghost in the ice coffins! Xiao Chen secretly drew a cold breath. How could this be? His earlier speculation had come true, and there really was such an eerie old ghost existing! In that case, this old ghost must have been living on this Dragon Island all along, having experienced at least several hundred years of time. But why is he spying on me? Xiao Chen had such a question. Being targeted by such an eerie old ghost, anyone would feel very dangerous. Who knew what this old ghost was planning?

Now, looking again at the old ghost's youthful but pale countenance, it truly resembled a living corpse, indescribably eerie and frightening. In the end, the old ghost went far away and then disappeared from this Bone Sea. This is a great menace. He must find a way to guard against it, even eliminate it.

Just as Xiao Chen was feeling unsettled, he felt another familiar aura. The Barbarian clan young expert Kai'ao seemed to be not far behind him, looking around. However, Xiao Chen was then greatly startled. Although the aura was very similar to Kai'ao's, the person was not him.