Staying in the sect, controlling beasts and cultivating immortals

"Roar--!"

The silent, piercing screams of the souls were like countless icicles, stabbing fiercely into everyone's consciousness. Chen Xueqing, already exhausted, was the first to be hit. With a muffled groan, the illusory image of the Pure Lotus completely dissipated. She swayed, her face ashen, and she almost fell into the River of Soul Erosion.

Wang Cheng roared, trying to unleash his Overlord Blood Qi, but his depleted bloodline only emitted a faint red light, and his Chaos Bone Arm was also dim and lifeless.

Mo Heng forcibly activated the Myriad Transformations Returning to the Void Furnace, and cracks instantly spread across the furnace body like a spider web. The Returning to the Void energy spewing from the furnace mouth was also chaotic. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose, and his body swayed precariously.

Ling Wuying gripped the Shadow Dagger forged from the Silent Star Cold Iron, attempting to sever the sound waves with the annihilating aura of the cold iron itself, but the effect was minimal, and his movements were sluggish, as if he were stuck in a quagmire.

Gui Yinzi was further corrupted by Yin energy, his body covered in writhing black patterns, and he was on the verge of death.

Only Yu Changsheng!
He stood on the turbulent underground river, starlight spontaneously condensing beneath his feet to form a foothold. His aura, having just broken through to the Integration Realm, was not yet fully stable, yet it was already as deep and unfathomable as an abyss.

The chaotic imperial blood and the Dao of Star Extinction that had once raged and clashed within his body, under the core control of the true meaning of "Silence," formed a slowly rotating dark golden nebula vortex at the foundation of his dantian.

Each rotation exudes a vast and powerful force that encompasses all things, bringing about both the end and the beginning of new life.

The right arm—the Starry Arm—now radiates a restrained light. Dark gold, silver-blue, and nebulous brilliance flow and merge within the flesh and bones, with no longer any conflict, only an absolute sense of power that controls the annihilation of all things.

The soul shriek of the Water Puppet King struck Yu Changsheng, but it was like ice and snow meeting the scorching sun, silently melted and annihilated by the annihilating aura naturally emanating from the Star Silence Arm!
"You monstrous creature!" Yu Changsheng's gaze was like cold lightning as he looked at the colossal water puppet king that blotted out the sky. He made no unnecessary movements, simply raising his Starry Night Arm, spreading his five fingers, and pressing them lightly against the behemoth.

"Silence and Extinction: The Return to Nothingness!"

No longer a violent torrent of energy, this time, it is a pure manifestation of the Dao!

A deep, cold, dark star field, seemingly capable of devouring all light, heat, and life, suddenly unfolded in front of Yu Changsheng's palm.

This star field was not large, but it carried the true meaning of "annihilation" that could freeze one's soul. It instantly crossed space and imprinted itself on the core of the Water Puppet King's chest cavity—there was a soul core condensed from countless resentments and yin energy!

laugh--!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a chilling sound of "disappearance".

The Water Puppet King's black jade-like chest, like an ice cube thrown into hot oil, silently annihilated, decomposed, and turned into nothingness at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The two black hole-like soul flames pulsated violently, emitting silent, mournful howls, while the hundred-foot-tall body struggled and twisted wildly, trying to escape that deathly star field.

It wielded a giant claw formed from the fusion of countless water puppet arms, carrying a torrent of soul-corroding yin energy, and slammed it fiercely towards Yu Changsheng!

Yu Changsheng's eyes remained unmoved, and his Starry Wing trembled slightly. The dark star field imprinted on the chest of the Water Puppet King suddenly expanded, encompassing the incoming giant claw as well.

"submerged!"

A cold word was uttered.

The giant claw, along with the Yin energy on it, disintegrated inch by inch the moment it came into contact with the Dark Starfield, turning into the most primitive dark particles and dissipating above the Dark River.

The Water Puppet King's soul core was mostly destroyed, and its massive body began to collapse violently. Countless smaller water puppets that made it up fell like raindrops and re-merged into the surging Soul-Eating Dark River.

However, the Water Puppet King's final counterattack was also extremely terrifying.

Its disintegrating head suddenly turned towards Yu Changsheng, and in its black hole-like eye sockets, two points of soul fire suddenly merged into one, transforming into a ghastly green death light that was condensed to the extreme, ignoring space and shooting over in an instant!
This death ray contained the last essence of the Water Puppet King's resentment and the soul-corroding origin of a part of the entire Dark River. Its power was enough to severely injure or even kill a cultivator who had just entered the Integration stage!
Yu Changsheng's pupils contracted slightly. Having just broken through to a higher realm, he still needed to work on his power, especially since activating the Dao principles to unleash "Silent Extinction: Return to Nothingness" consumed a great deal of energy.

He used his Starry Sky Arm to defend, his palm spinning rapidly as he attempted to reconstruct the Desolate Star Domain to block the attack.

"Young master, be careful!" At the critical moment, a delicate shout rang out.

A weak, cyan-green light barrier, carrying an aura of primal power that spared no effort, suddenly blocked Yu Changsheng's path!
It's Chen Xueqing!

She extracted the last bit of the Pure Lotus's original power from who-knows-where and forcibly activated it! The lotus's light barrier was as fragile as paper, and under the impact of the ghastly green death light, it was instantly covered with cracks and looked like it was about to shatter completely.

"Xueqing!"

Wang Cheng's eyes were bloodshot, and he desperately tried to rush over, but he staggered due to exhaustion.

The instant the light barrier shattered, a shadowy figure, like a phantom that merged into space, silently appeared beside the path of the death ray. Ling Wuying!

The Lonely Star Cold Iron Shadow Dagger in his hand erupted with an unprecedented cold light, an extreme sharpness and a soul-freezing aura of annihilation.

Instead of trying to directly confront the death ray, he concentrated all his power on one point. The shadow dagger transformed into a thin, deep blue line that was almost invisible to the naked eye, and it precisely struck the weakest and most unstable point in the pale green death ray's energy flow—the only chance of survival that Mo Heng had calculated with his last bit of divine sense before the furnace was on the verge of collapse!

"break!"

puff!
A slight piercing sound.

The incredibly condensed, ghastly green death light, upon striking the point where the Lonely Star Cold Iron Shadow Dagger struck, was like a punctured balloon. Its energy structure instantly became disordered and collapsed, transforming into scattered green phosphorescent will-o'-the-wisps. Although it still possessed corrosive power, it could no longer pose a fatal threat.

The remaining embers of the ghostly fire struck the starlight shield that Yu Changsheng had just erected, making a hissing sound before being quickly dissolved by the power of annihilation.

The remains of the Water Puppet King finally collapsed completely, turning into a rain of black dust that fell from the sky.

The underground river has temporarily returned to its turbulent state, but the fragments of the Soul-Devouring Water Puppet floating on the surface and the remaining phosphorescent flames still exude a dangerous aura.

An even greater threat is that the fall of the Water Puppet King seems to have disturbed a deeper, more ancient existence within the Dark River. A more subtle and immense will, carrying the wrath of a slumbering being awakened, has begun to spread from the depths of the riverbed.

"We can't stay here any longer!" Mo Heng said urgently, coughing up blood as he endured the excruciating pain in his internal organs. "The furnace senses... abnormal spatial fluctuations below... it might be... an escape route... or an even more deadly trap!"

Yu Changsheng suppressed the nebula vortex within his body that was fluctuating due to the intense casting of the spell, and his gaze swept over his wounded companions: Chen Xueqing had fallen into a semi-conscious state due to the second overdraft of her source energy, and was being barely supported by Wang Cheng; Mo Heng was bleeding from all seven orifices, and the cracks in his furnace were shocking to behold; Ling Wuying's hand holding the dagger trembled slightly, and his tiger's mouth was split open, obviously the attack just now had also exhausted his remaining strength; Gui Yinzi was even more barely breathing, and only the remains of the Yin Sha puppet were supporting him to keep him from falling.

"Mo Heng, point out the direction! Wu Ying, you're in charge of guarding the weak points in the space and preventing sneak attacks! Wang Cheng, protect Xue Qing and Gui Yin Zi! Gui Yin Zi, conceal all your aura, use the puppet remains as a final barrier!"

Yu Changsheng spoke very quickly, with an unquestionable decisiveness.

Starlight flickered at the tip of his left finger, and several strands of pure stellar annihilation power flew out, entering the bodies of Mo Heng, Ling Wuying, and Gui Yinzi respectively, temporarily suppressing the Soul-Eating Yin Sha erosion within them and stimulating a trace of their potential. Mo Heng's spirits lifted, and ignoring the deepening cracks in the furnace, he forcefully urged it on. A faint wisp of Returning Void Qi spewed from the furnace mouth, pointing towards a seemingly ordinary but turbulent whirlpool downstream of the dark river. "There... space... is disordered... below... there... is a void!"

"Go!" Yu Changsheng shouted in a low voice.

With a wave of his arm, Xingji unleashed a condensed dark golden starlight, like a heaven-cleaving blade, slashing through the water puppets and surging Yin Sha currents in the river ahead, which were attempting to reform. He forcefully carved out a brief passage.

Ling Wuying transformed into a shadow and was the first to sneak into the vicinity of the vortex. With a light slash of his shadow dagger, he searched for the spatial node that Mo Heng had mentioned.

Wang Cheng carried Chen Xueqing on his back, grabbed Gui Yinzi with his other hand, and followed closely behind. Although the blood of the Overlord had dried up, the hardness of the Chaos Bone Arm was still there, providing him with the last bit of strength.

Behind Yu Changsheng Hall, Xingji Arm continuously unleashed streaks of annihilating starlight, annihilating and repelling the water puppets that had regrouped behind and the pursuing waves of Yin Sha.

He stood like a rock in a destructive torrent, buying precious time for his companions to escape.

Ling Wuying's movements were incredibly fast; the shadow dagger slashed fiercely at a certain point in the center of the vortex.

"Found it!" He forcibly tore open a spatial rift that was only wide enough for one person to pass through. The rift was pitch black inside, emitting chaotic spatial fluctuations and a... peculiar, stale smell with a faint starlight aura.

"Fast forward!" Yu Changsheng shouted.

Without hesitation, Ling Wuying flashed inside.

Wang Cheng gritted his teeth and followed closely behind with his two unconscious/severely injured companions. The moment Gui Yinzi entered the rift, he detonated the last few puppet remains around him, which were covered with fragments of Star Origin Marrow, creating a chaotic cloud of Yin Sha energy that slightly hindered the pursuers behind him.

Yu Changsheng took one last look at the surging black wave formed by countless water puppets and dense Yin energy, and at the increasingly clear, terrifying will deep in the riverbed, carrying an ancient rage.

Without further hesitation, he pressed his Starry Wing against the entrance of the rift, creating a stable spatial seal, and at the same time, he retreated rapidly, instantly disappearing into the rift.

Just as the rift was about to close, a huge black hand, formed from pure soul-corroding Yin energy and covered with ancient star patterns, suddenly emerged from the depths of the riverbed, carrying a pressure that froze space, and fiercely grabbed at the rift!
However, the faint seal left by Yu Changsheng, mixed with his unique aura of the Star Extinction Dao Law, caused the giant hand to experience a very brief moment of hesitation!

It was that brief moment of delay that caused the spatial rift to completely close and vanish without a trace.

Boom!

The giant hand slammed into empty air, creating a massive vacuum depression in the area of ​​the underground river. A violent energy shockwave swept in all directions, instantly reducing countless water golems to dust. From the depths of the riverbed came a deep, furious roar that reverberated throughout the entire Soul-Eating Dark River.

……

The dizziness from the spatial shift was incredibly intense, far exceeding any previous experience.

The chaotic currents tore at the wrecked bodies and protective aura of the group.

Yu Changsheng's Starry Arm shimmered with light, creating a relatively stable starlight domain that barely protected everyone within it, but the journey was still like rolling through mountains of knives and seas of fire.

I don't know how much time has passed; it may have been just a moment, or it may have been a long century.

Pfft!Pfft!
Everyone fell heavily onto the hard ground.

There was no surging, soul-corroding Yin water; instead, the air was filled with a dry, cold scent, carrying a strong stellar energy and... the smell of metal corrosion.

Yu Changsheng was the first to turn over and stand up, the light from his Starry Arm illuminating the surroundings.

They were in an extremely large underground cavern, but it was by no means a natural formation.

The dome is so high that its top is invisible, and it is inlaid with countless huge metal plates that have long lost their luster and are full of cracks, somewhat like the wrecked deck of a starship.

All around were jagged, strange rocks that shimmered with a faint metallic luster, covered with traces of human carving and ancient runes that had long since faded.

Scattered on the ground were various huge and twisted metal components, rusty and bizarre in shape, resembling the remains of some kind of colossal machinery or building.

A murky, viscous "river" with a dark red metallic sheen flowed slowly deep into the cave, exuding an aura of both heat and decay—it seemed to be some kind of molten metal that had cooled, solidified, and then partially melted.

The place was eerily quiet, with only the occasional gurgling sound of molten metal in the distance, and the heavy breathing and groans of the group.

"Cough cough...Where...where is this?"

Wang Cheng struggled to sit up, carefully laid Chen Xueqing on his back, and checked her condition. He found that she had only fainted from exhaustion and her vital energy was severely damaged, but her life was not in danger for the time being, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

He himself was almost exhausted, and his chaotic bone arm was covered with tiny cracks.

Mo Heng lay on the ground, struggling to take out the pill and put it in his mouth. The Myriad Transformations Returning to the Void Furnace floated above his head, its body covered with cracks and its fire dim, slowly absorbing the sparse and mixed stellar energy of the place to repair itself.

"Spatial coordinates...completely chaotic...this place...mixed energy...stars, metal, deathly silence...and...unanalyzable inert radiation...it seems to be...an ancient starship graveyard...or...the remains of a lost civilization's...forging furnace?"

Ling Wuying leaned against a cold piece of metal debris, her Shadow Dagger stuck beside her, and warily scanned the shadows around her.

"Safe... temporarily... no signs of life... but... it feels very bad... a great terror lurks in the deathly silence."

He keenly sensed that the spatial structure here was unusually solid, yet also unusually distorted, as if it had been forcibly kneaded by some enormous force.

Gui Yinzi lay on the ground, coughing violently. The black markings on his body stopped spreading under the wisp of annihilation power that Yu Changsheng had transferred in, but the erosion had penetrated deep into his bone marrow, causing him unbearable pain.

"The Yin energy... has been suppressed... but the decaying metallic aura here... is also eroding... the life force..."

Yu Changsheng walked to Chen Xueqing's side, and with his Starry Sky Arm, he condensed a drop of silver-blue liquid containing the pure life force of stars and the power of annihilation and purification, gently placing it between her eyebrows. Chen Xueqing's pale face quickly regained a touch of color, and her breathing became much more steady.

He then did the same thing, administering a drop to each of Mo Heng, Ling Wuying, and Gui Yinzi.

"Although the energy here is mixed, the concentration of stellar power is not low, which is beneficial to our recovery, especially for Mo Heng and Xue Qing," Yu Changsheng said in a deep voice, his voice echoing in the vast, silent cave. (End of Chapter)