noffsinger Chapter 496 You found our home? Here's some extra spice for you!
Chapter 496 You found our home? Here's some extra spice for you!
Chen Fan remained silent, and with a flick of his wrist, a powerful suction force enveloped Wang Xuan.
Wang Xuan's physical body rapidly withered and died, and a dim but resentful and fearful nascent soul was forcibly pulled out and screamed as it was sucked into the boundless darkness of the Black Soul Banner.
The black mist on the banner surface churned violently, and a new, struggling and twisting soul shadow appeared faintly. It was quickly submerged in the depths of the million-soul sea, with only continuous, barely perceptible wails proving its existence.
After doing all this, Chen Fan expressionlessly put away the Black Soul Banner.
Wang Xuan's storage bag and personal belongings were naturally collected by him. After a brief inspection, in addition to a large number of spirit stones, pills, and talismans, he indeed found the jade slip rubbing that recorded the complete array diagram of the Eight Extremes Breaking Array Diagram, as well as some jade slips of cultivation techniques and tokens unique to the Wang family.
These things might be useful in the future.
Silence returned to the golden bowl, as if the screams and the oppressive aura of a Nascent Soul cultivator had never occurred.
But Chen Fan knew that the blood feud with the Wang family was now completely settled, and it would be a fight to the death.
However, having many debts is not a problem. The most important thing right now is how to survive the pursuit of the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch and find a way to repair the seal.
He once again extended his divine sense from the golden bowl.
Outside, the blood-red storm within the Soul Refining Sect ruins seemed to have subsided somewhat, but the oppressive, omnipresent sense of searching had not disappeared.
Two more of the remaining cultivators' auras disappeared, indicating that another unfortunate Nascent Soul cultivator had been used as food or completely refined into a blood slave by the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch.
Chen Fan manipulated the golden bowl, which had turned into dust, and like a ghost, avoided the wandering blood-red threads and the blood slaves who searched like walking corpses, drifting towards the fourth relatively key secondary seal node in his memory.
This node is located deep within a forest of collapsed giant stone tablets.
The stone tablet was originally inscribed with suppression runes, but now most of them are broken and blurred, and the remaining array light is as weak as a candle in the wind.
Following the same method, Chen Fan, relying on his profound understanding of the original runes of the Fixed Word Technique and the array diagrams he obtained from the dark golden jade slip, mixed his divine sense with pure spiritual power and, through the golden bowl, transformed it into countless fixed rune threads finer than a hair, which quietly merged into the broken inscription patterns.
His movements were extremely slow and cautious, and he strived to ensure that every rune imprint was perfectly aligned with the original array's structure, without causing any additional fluctuations in spiritual energy.
With ample time, he has the patience to refine it.
Just as he was about to complete one-third of the repair on this node, the mutation recurred!
Deep within the ruins, towards the crimson palace, the roar of the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch once again shook the heavens and earth:
"Found you! Old eunuch!"
It wasn't that Chen Fan was exposed, but rather that his act of repairing the nodes, though weak, still had an extremely subtle impact on the overall seal, and the ancestor, who was constantly sensing the state of the seal, detected its approximate location!
"Everyone, gather at the Kun position stele forest! Dig three feet into the ground, find him no matter what!"
The divine command of the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch was brutally poured into the minds of the remaining Nascent Soul cultivators, including Qinglian Daoist, through the soul restriction.
The Kunwei Stele Forest is where Chen Fan is right now!
Chen Fan's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately stopped repairing. The golden bowl dust completely concealed all its aura, becoming like real dust, embedded in the crack at the bottom of a broken stone tablet, merging with the rubble and dust.
A moment later, the sound of something cutting through the air rang out one after another.
Qinglian Daoist and three other Nascent Soul cultivators in slightly better condition who had not yet completely become blood slaves landed in the Stele Forest, their faces pale and their eyes filled with terror, driven by the blood-red threads.
Faint blood lines were wrapped around their bodies, and their souls were clearly under severe control, making their movements somewhat stiff.
"Search! Don't miss a single stone, not an inch of soil!" Qinglian Daoist's voice was dry, filled with deep weariness and fear.
He waved his whisk, and cyan sword energy swept across the area like a fine rain.
The others also used their own methods, randomly bombarding the forest of steles with sword energy, palm winds, and magical treasure light, trying to force out the hidden Chen Fan.
Chen Fan held his breath and focused his mind, maximizing the concealment ability of the golden bowl!
The attacks occasionally swept across the stone tablet where he was hiding, sending shards of stone flying, but they failed to touch the golden bowl in the slightest.
He watched as these once high and mighty Nascent Soul ancestors were now being driven around like stray dogs, like a calm bystander.
"Ancestor... there's nothing unusual here!" a Nascent Soul cultivator from the Qian family cried out in a trembling voice, unable to bear the pressure and futile search any longer.
"Shut up! Keep searching!" The rebuke from the Soul Refining Sect patriarch resounded directly in his mind, causing him to groan and bleed from the corner of his mouth. He dared not say another word and could only search even more diligently.
Chen Fan waited for about half an hour in the bowl. Seeing that the search was fruitless and the attention of the Soul Refining Sect patriarch seemed to have shifted slightly, he then manipulated the golden bowl dust to move along the shadow of the stone tablet at an extremely slow speed toward a crack in the earth's veins that he had already observed at the edge of the stele forest.
That place is one of the hubs for the flow of spiritual energy at this node. Although it is hidden, the repair effect is better.
However, just as the dust in the golden bowl was about to sink into the crack, a sudden change occurred!
Deep within the crack, the originally dim and lifeless earth vein patterns suddenly lit up with an extremely faint crimson hue without warning!
This crimson color is not the power of the Soul Refining Sect's ancestor, but rather a result of the node being slowly eroded by the malevolent energy permeating the ruins due to long-term damage, causing a slight demonic mutation!
Although the golden bowl was highly concealed, it still caused a barely perceptible ripple when it penetrated the mutated earth vein's malevolent energy.
"There!" In the blood-red hall, the Soul Refining Sect patriarch suddenly opened his scarlet eyes and pointed a withered finger into the air!
Above the Forest of Steles, a gigantic hand, entirely composed of blood-red threads and vengeful spirits, appeared out of thin air, blotting out the sky and exuding a terrifying suction force and a destructive aura, as it fiercely clawed down towards the crack where Chen Fan was hiding!
This attack far surpassed the previous ones; clearly, the ancestor spared no expense and used even more of the sealed and restricted power!
Even before the giant hand arrived, its terrifying pressure had already caused the stone tablets around the rift to crack, and space itself seemed to freeze. The Nascent Soul cultivators, including Qinglian Daoist, retreated in horror, fearing they would be affected.
Inside the golden bowl, Chen Fan's pupils suddenly contracted.
There's no escaping it!
This attack covered too wide an area, was too fast, and subtly locked onto this small space!
In a flash, Chen Fan made a decision.
Instead of continuing to hide or escape, he devoted all his attention to comprehending the Fixed Word Technique and the description of the formation in this place on the dark gold jade slip in his hand.
At the same time, he activated the golden bowl, not for defense, nor for escape!
Instead, he mixed the pure spiritual energy accumulated in the bowl with his understanding of the rules of destiny, transforming it into a fine but extremely refined gray-white beam of light, which flowed back into the node core along the path of the earth vein's evil energy!
You want to arrest us? Well, we'll give you a little something extra!