The Ultimate Land

What secrets did the Corpse-Suppressing Art conceal? Why did the great powers of the Primordial Age create such a forbidden technique? Xiao Chen had no way of knowing. At this moment, he no longer controlled his own body.

With a dull thud, his right hand closed around the stone arrow buried in the woman's left eye. Slowly, he drew it out. Drops of blood, like tears of blood, rolled down her cheek.

When he cast the stone arrow to the ground, it rang out with a crisp sound. At the same moment, light swirled in the woman's left eye, and the wound healed instantly. Her eye, now as beautiful as a black gem, slowly closed.

Her face was now perfect, her eyes half-lidded, her long lashes seeming to tremble. She was like a stunning beauty lost in slumber, too beautiful for words.

Then Xiao Chen's hand reached out again. He seized the dagger in her left palm. With a soft chime, the stone dagger fell to the floor. Her slender, snow-white hand was freed, gleaming like polished jade, radiating a bewitching luster.

"No!"

Xiao Chen fought to stand up. Being forced like this to draw out those stone weapons, to have his body controlled, filled his heart with growing unease.

But his mind and body were not his own. An inexplicable pressure was bearing down on him, forcing him back into a crouch.

Crack! Crack!

Every bone in Xiao Chen's body groaned. It felt as if a hammer weighing ten thousand jun was pounding against him. His whole body was on the verge of shattering. He trembled violently, unable to control himself.

"What kind of cursed creature are you? Are you truly not dead?" Xiao Chen shouted in a low voice. "If you want something from me, then speak plainly. Otherwise, I will not yield!"

Just then, a haze fell over Xiao Chen's vision. His consciousness began to cloud. What he saw and heard grew indistinct. Chaotic voices seemed to come from a distant, ancient age.

"The great powers of the Primordial Age..."

A vast, boundless land stretched before him. A million miles of rivers and mountains. A desolate, ancient aura rushed toward him.

A journey through the Primordial Age! Xiao Chen's mind shook. He felt as if he had pierced the veil of time, traversing the long river of ages to return to that primeval era.

A terrifying, heart-stopping aura blanketed the heavens and the earth. An immense pressure was unbearable. On that desolate land, figures were locked in mortal combat.

With a sharp cry, one of them stood above the world. Seated in a chariot drawn by a primordial beast, surrounded by countless followers, he was like a divine sovereign ruling over all creation. He wore an imperial crown and dragon robes. In his hand, he held the Three Sovereigns Mirror. It tore through the endless void, illuminating all the heavens with dazzling brilliance.

A thunderous roar of cheers erupted from his countless followers, shaking the myriad worlds!

A great power of the Primordial Age. A sovereign who ruled the world. Could it be one of the Three Sovereigns?

Everything was blurry. He could not see clearly. Xiao Chen had no idea what was happening.

With a shattering crash, the land of the Primordial Age split apart. The scene disintegrated, and all manner of sacred relics emerged.

The Nine Lamps blazed, illuminating the road ahead. The Heaven-Reaching Death Bridge spanned the void. Nine Heavenly Steles stood before the void. The ninety-nine stone steps hung at the end of the sky...

These were all the sacred relics from the Ancestral Dragon skin map!

Xiao Chen's heart jolted. He did not know why he was seeing such a scene.

The cultivators of the Primordial Age charged toward the depths of a mysterious region, guided by the sacred relics, all trying to enter a strange and unknown world.

It was a long, ancient scroll painting, stretching across time and space. Many fell along the way. Few could reach the end.

Then, with a heavy impact, a female corpse fell from the sky. She had been cast out from the destination marked on the Ancestral Dragon skin map!

After that, the great powers of the Primordial Age arrived. They used the Corpse-Suppressing Art, sealing her body with stone weapons driven through its vital points.

Xiao Chen drew in a sharp, cold breath. He had known this female corpse was extraordinary, but he never imagined it had such a grand origin. She had fallen from the world at the end point of the Ancestral Dragon skin map!

A blurry haze—that was the breath of ages. Thousands upon thousands of years flowed by. The explorers continued their advance toward the mysterious world, while the female corpse was abandoned on the ninety-nine stone steps.

Light swirled. The vision shifted and then faded entirely.

The flawless female corpse had a truly shocking origin. She was a being from the world at the end point of the Ancestral Dragon skin map.

Had she fallen because a Stone Man, upon achieving flesh-and-blood rebirth, could not endure for long? Or was her fall due to some other reason? What kind of place was that ultimate, secret realm?

All that remained before his eyes was the flawless corpse. Xiao Chen wondered if the visions he had just seen were caused by the female corpse itself.

Suddenly, light swirled. Xiao Chen heard a cacophony of sounds once more. What he saw filled him with awe.

In the vision, black mist surged from the beautiful female corpse, as if she were being engulfed by ink. Black smoke poured from her seven orifices, coalescing into a shadowy phantom.

"The shadowy phantom within the stone gate... it was condensed from the black smoke that rushed out of this female corpse!" Xiao Chen drew in another sharp breath.

Then, a thunderous crash shook the entire ancient hall, pulling Xiao Chen back to reality.

The shadowy phantom had appeared behind him without a sound. It stared at the female corpse for a long moment, then suddenly picked up the several stone weapons from the floor and drove them back into the woman's body, once more sealing the flawless body with the Corpse-Suppressing Art.

Xiao Chen was puzzled. Why would the shadowy phantom do such a thing?

Then, the phantom grabbed him. He could not resist. It dragged him out of the ancient hall.

Back in the broken stone house, the stone jar was still sitting in the flames. The cracked stone man's arm struggled within the fire. The jar's opening had been resealed.

Xiao Chen's heart tightened. It seemed the shadowy phantom could do nothing about the stone jar either and had chosen to reseal it. If the chains inside the jar were not binding whatever was within, that sealed entity would have likely already broken out.

Without a word, the shadowy phantom picked up the stone jar, took Xiao Chen, and transformed into a streak of dark light, charging into the depths of this mysterious ruin.

Ruined walls and desolate remains flashed past. They flew for an unknown number of thousands of miles. Ahead, there was no more path. A fractured expanse of space—dark and empty—cut off the ruins.

The shadowy phantom stopped here. Strangely, they were not forcibly pulled back to their starting point. They had truly arrived at a new place.

This was a dead end. They stood on a cliff, looking down into the fractured, dark void.

Could the front of this dark, severed chasm be the ultimate destination marked on the Ancestral Dragon skin map?

Xiao Chen was startled to realize his guess was very likely correct. No matter how he looked at it, this place was exactly like the deepest fault zone of the Death World.

It severed all connection to that ultimate land!

The world within the stone gate was closely linked to the world guided by the sacred relics on the Ancestral Dragon skin map. This place was like an outpost.

What did the shadowy phantom want? Why had it brought him here?

Just then, the shadowy phantom suddenly let out a roar. Black mist churned around it. It split into several streams of black smoke, then instantly enveloped Xiao Chen.

Black clouds surged violently. Xiao Chen was submerged. The black energy poured into his body through his seven orifices and every pore.

The shadow had taken possession of his body!

Xiao Chen tried to resist, but he could not. Then, he found his body moving on its own, holding the stone jar. It took one step and crossed ten thousand miles of empty space, plunging into the endless, dark great rift valley!

He was shocked. After the shadow possessed his body, could it really be trying to reach that ultimate land?

Clatter... The sound of iron chains shaking came from ahead. A primordial, savage beast seemed to be awakening from its slumber. There was a colossal beast, so vast its length was immeasurable. It inhaled and exhaled the sun and moon and stars. Every one of its pores was a wormhole.

So this was the chasm guarding the entrance to the mysterious land. The guardian beast matched the old skull's description perfectly.

Using Xiao Chen's body, the shadow tore open the seal on the stone jar. Then, beams of dark light struck the jar, causing all the marks on its surface to flare up brightly. It was incomparably more powerful than when Xiao Chen had used it.

The stone jar swelled. Its mouth inverted, trying to suck the colossal beast blocking the way inside.

The massive beast was too vast to see its head or tail. All that came was a muffled roar. A beam of light shot from the darkness, striking the stone jar.

Light swirled on the jar's surface, growing more brilliant and crystalline.

Xiao Chen was astonished to realize the shadow was collecting the beast's divine power, storing it in the stone jar!

Was it not trying to cross to the ultimate land? Was it only here to gather power?

Rumble...

The colossal beast's power was vast as the ocean, seemingly endless. Legend said that just rolling over could annihilate an entire world. Now, all the divine power it sent forth was being absorbed by the stone jar without end.

An enraged roar tore through the air. Two blood-red orbs appeared in the darkness, like two bloody suns hanging in the distant sky.

They were the beast's eyes. Their terrifying light chilled the soul!

By now, the stone jar was crystalline and translucent, surrounded by a blur of radiance. It had gathered an unimaginable amount of divine power.

Using Xiao Chen's body, the shadow lightly waved its hand. The stone jar flew back swiftly.

Grabbing the jar, which had shrunk back to its original size, the shadow controlling Xiao Chen's body flew back with all speed.

But just then, a tremendous roar came from the distant, boundless depths behind them.

Raar...

The impact hit Xiao Chen like a thunderbolt. He was not hurt—the shadow inside him had been struck instead.

As it reached the cliff on this side, the impact forced the shadow out of Xiao Chen's body. It let out a pained groan. Its black, spectral form, already faint against the pervasive darkness of the chasm, grew even more tenuous.

It drifted outward. A great deal of its energy dissolved into the chasm. This fractured void of darkness seemed to be fatal to it, devouring this kind of demonic power.

In the end, it still made it back to the cliff. It grabbed Xiao Chen and fled far away before vanishing into the endless ruins.

Soon, they were back in the ancient hall. This time, the shadowy phantom reached out, grabbed the flawless female corpse, and sat down before the five stone skulls burning with fire. It pulled out every single stone weapon from the woman's body.

As soon as the stone weapons vanished, the corpse began to radiate a dreamlike, brilliant light! A sacred aura filled the entire ancient hall. Light flowed like water, and strange phenomena unfolded everywhere.

The shadowy phantom opened the seal on the stone jar once more, then grabbed the female corpse and threw her in. The corpse swiftly shrank, falling into the jar like a luminous pearl.

Finally, the shadowy phantom turned to Xiao Chen. It grabbed him and tossed him toward the stone jar as well. Xiao Chen's body rapidly shrank, becoming no bigger than a single grain of rice.

"What are you trying to do?" he cried out.

"Nurture the strongest vessel. Let the victor emerge, and a body that is supreme will be born, answering to none but itself."

Xiao Chen fell into the darkness of the stone jar. As he passed the opening, he heard the rumbling of thunder and the clanking of iron chains. He had no idea what changes were taking place within.