My CEO Bai Fumei’s wife

The second sword strike failed to deflect the attack. The dragon energy on the sword seemed to have found food, and began to devour the blood-red runes on the door.

Zhuge Chuchu's words caught in her throat; the scene she was seeing was completely beyond her comprehension.

Those runes were drawn using powdered skulls from over nine thousand Golden Core cultivators. The sealing power of the Emperor level was so great that even Nascent Soul stage experts had to avoid them.

But now, these runes are like rats that have encountered their natural enemy in the face of the True Dragon's aura, and they are frantically fleeing towards the edge of the door.

"This is impossible..."

Zhuge Chuchu's voice trembled. Her father was caught in front of this door back then, and even though he was a half-step Nascent Soul cultivator, he couldn't open it.

Qin Yu ignored her surprise. He didn't retract his sword, and the dark red lightning arcs of the Heaven-Defying Calamity spread along the sword towards the door.

The aura of the true dragon is the oppressive power of the king of all demons, and the heaven-defying tribulation lightning is the punitive power of the heavenly way. These two things combined are used to deal with a group of wronged souls trapped on the door.

The wronged souls have only one choice.

run.

The runes on the stone door began to collapse on their own, not because they were shattered, but because they were frightened away; the dark red patterns peeled off the door as if they were alive.

"They are escaping."

Zhuge Chuchu witnessed the most absurd scene of her life: the seal of an Emperor-level being cracked open in front of a Nascent Soul cultivator in the early stages.

With a loud bang.

The stone gate split in two, revealing a deep, dark passage behind it. The stench of blood emanating from the passage was so strong it made one want to vomit.

"Walk."

Qin Yu grabbed Zhuge Chuchu's wrist and rushed inside. The moment their figures disappeared into the passage, Zhao Wuji's voice came from behind.

"Blood Fiend, do you think you'll be safe once you run inside?"

Zhao Wuji stood at the entrance of the passage, his body covered in wounds. The marks left on him by the three demonic beasts were more than all the injuries he had suffered in his five hundred years of life.

But instead of chasing after him, he stood there and started laughing.

"Fool, do you know what's inside the Death Gate? That's the core of the Soul Refining Furnace. Anyone who goes in will be directly refined into blood."

Zhao Wuji's laughter echoed through the mechanical maze; he wasn't in a hurry at all.

Because the Death Gate is his home turf.

When the passage opened at the end, Qin Yu and Zhuge Chuchu stopped in their tracks at the same time.

This is not a treasure trove, but a huge underground cavern, at the bottom of which a red liquid is boiling.

That's not lava.

Zhuge Chuchu's crystal eyes told her what it was.

"Blood...it's all human blood..."

Her voice trembled. That "sea of ​​blood" was at least ten miles in circumference, enough to accommodate the entire population of Yanlong City.

In the center of the sea of ​​blood floated a huge sphere, which contracted and expanded like a beating heart. With each beat, a large number of white light spots poured in from above.

What are those white lights?

"The souls... are the souls of the 500,000 people outside being extracted."

Zhuge Chuchu's crystal-clear eyes saw it more clearly than Qin Yu's. Thousands of mummies were floating around the "heart," their expressions all twisted as if they were enduring immense pain before their death.

“Those corpses…”

Zhuge Chuchu's body began to tremble as she recognized the identities of several of the mummified corpses.

“Those were the elders of the Divine Gate… They didn’t just disappear… They were turned into fuel…”

Qin Yu clenched his fists. The so-called Heavenly Treasure Vault was not a treasure from an ancient ruin at all, but a soul-refining furnace that used the souls of living people as fuel.

The Martial Emperor City claimed to possess a secret method that allowed people to break through to the Nascent Soul stage, attracting countless cultivators to search for treasures, and then refining all of these cultivators into energy.

“Your father knows about this.”

"He discovered the truth and was then wiped out. The destruction of the Shenwang Sect was not due to offending any sect, but because my father wanted to make the matter public."

Zhuge Chuchu's voice grew colder and colder. She finally understood why her bloodline had become a thorn in the side of Wudi City.

Liuli Tong can control the creations of the Heavenly Mystery Sect; she is the only one who can shut down this Soul Refining Furnace.

As long as she is alive, Wudi City will not be able to use the energy here with peace of mind.

"So they want to capture you alive."

"Kill me or control me, and the Soul Refining Furnace can continue to operate." After saying this, Zhuge Chuchu took a step towards the edge of the void. She needed to find the control hub of the core area.

But her steps stopped abruptly the next moment.

Because Zhao Wuji appeared on the other side of the void.

"Why have you stopped? I thought you were running pretty fast."

Zhao Wuji stood on a floating rock above the sea of ​​blood, emanating an aura stronger than that outside.

The aura of the sea of ​​blood was amplifying his cultivation.

"Blood Fiend, do you know what this place is?"

Zhao Wuji opened his arms and took a deep breath of the blood-scented air.

"This is a battery that the Emperor prepared for the entire Martial Emperor Continent. It has accumulated three hundred years of soul power, enough to allow ten late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators to break through to the Divine Transformation stage."

His gaze swept over Qin Yu, his eyes filled with madness.

“Here, I am God.”

Qin Yu did not answer him because he had noticed a problem.

His Purple Sun Divine Armor was being corroded by the blood energy here.

The dark golden light was fading at a visible speed. The residual power of the Heaven-Defying Tribulation was not suppressed by the blood energy, but it was being consumed at an accelerated rate.

His weakened state after just surviving his tribulation was amplified by the environment here, and his original 70% combat power was now reduced to only 50%.

"You felt it, didn't you?"

Zhao Wuji's voice was smug.

"The blood energy here is specifically designed to counter righteous cultivators. You might be able to fight me to a draw outside, but here you won't even be able to withstand half of my strength."

After he finished speaking, he glanced down at the beating "heart".

"Moreover, the souls of those 500,000 people outside are still being continuously sent here, and my cultivation level increases by one point with every breath."

Zhao Wuji's aura was rising, approaching the pseudo-divine transformation direction from the late Nascent Soul stage.

Qin Yu's situation is deteriorating, turning from a barely resisting situation into an absolute disadvantage.

"Kneel down and beg me now, and I might consider giving you a complete corpse."

Zhao Wuji's voice echoed in the hollow, his confidence stemming from the three hundred years of accumulation of this Soul Refining Furnace.

Qin Yu did not kneel down; his gaze fell on the "heart."

Zhuge Chuchu's voice suddenly rang out in his soul link.

"I sensed Yan Mingyu's presence."

Qin Yu's pupils contracted for a moment.

Where is it?

"Inside that heart, there is a wisp of energy that shares the same origin as the soul in your storage ring, but it has been corrupted."

Yan Mingyu's soul was refined into a part of this Soul Refining Furnace.

Lin Tianhao's statement about using souls as materials was not just empty talk; he was actually carrying it out.

"Can it be removed?"

"No, that wisp of energy has already merged with the heart, but because of the special nature of the reincarnation soul, it has not been completely refined and has instead blocked the heart's operation."

Zhuge Chuchu's words made Qin Yu think of a possibility.

Yan Mingyu's remnant soul became a "stone" in the Soul Refining Furnace.

The reincarnated soul does not belong to the category of ordinary souls, and the Soul Refining Furnace cannot completely digest it.

"You mean that the heart isn't functioning properly right now?"

"Yes, its original efficiency should have been three times that of now, but it was blocked by that wisp of energy."

Qin Yu's mind was racing.

The efficiency of the Soul Refining Furnace has been reduced, and the boost Zhao Wuji receives from it will also be reduced.

If he could enter the heart and retrieve that wisp of remnant soul… (End of Chapter)