The Longevity Family: Starting from the Foundation Establishment Ancestor

After a stick of incense had burned, the Bone Dragon, under the clever cover of Han Li's array, silently hid behind a burning giant star fragment. Its aura merged with the surrounding violent fire-elemental laws, making it extremely difficult to be discovered unless it actively exposed itself.

Han Mu, Zhou Meng, Bai Ling, and Luo Feng left the flying boat and hovered in the scorching void outside. Even with the protective immortal light shielding them, the intense heat, seemingly capable of melting metal, still made them feel uncomfortable. Ahead, the writhing, dark gray "reverse time" black mist seemed alive, radiating a chilling and twisted aura that created an eerie contrast with the surrounding fiery environment.

Han Mu held the "Blood Bone Hourglass" and infused it with a faint trace of "Origin" power, simulated by the aura of "Reversal". The dark red sand in the upper part of the hourglass flowed in reverse again, and a layer of extremely dim, almost transparent gray light spread from the surface of the hourglass, forming a spherical force field with a diameter of about three zhang, enveloping the four people in it.

"Conceal all your aura, stay close to me, and don't go beyond the range of this force field," Han Mu whispered, taking the lead and flying towards the edge of the black mist.

The four of them approached the black mist silently, like four ghosts. The closer they got, the stronger the decaying, chilling aura, originating from the distortion of time and the reversal of all things, became. This caused the "Time" mark on Zhou Meng's forehead to feel a constant burning and stinging sensation—a rejection from his inherited instincts. Bai Ling and Luo Feng also looked serious, fully activating their cultivation techniques to resist the discomfort.

"This godforsaken place, it's unbearably hot outside and eerily cold inside, it's like two extremes of ice and fire." Luo Feng muttered to himself, but his actions were decisive, closely following behind Han Mu.

Upon touching the edge of the black mist, the dim gray light emanating from the hourglass rippled slightly, interacting with the mist like water. The expected repulsion or alarm did not occur; the black mist, as if encountering its own kind, naturally "swallowed" the gray light field. The four found themselves in a strange, hazy space with extremely low visibility and severely suppressed spiritual senses.

The gray light emanating from the hourglass acted like a bubble, pushing back the surrounding surging black mist by about ten feet. Han Mu could feel the hourglass in his hand slowly heating up, and the reverse flow of the sand grains inside was accelerating, clearly indicating that it was continuously consuming power to maintain this "sanctuary." He had to find his target and evacuate before the hourglass's power ran out, or destroy the array's core to weaken the oppressive black mist.

"My lord, look at the ground!" Bai Ling transmitted her voice, pointing downwards.

Through the faint gray light, one could see that what lay below was not emptiness, but a shattered, dark red earth, seemingly solidified lava mixed with countless twisted metallic fragments. On this earth, eerie patterns crisscrossed, radiating a faint, dark purple light, spreading like veins into the depths of the black mist. Within these patterns flowed an unsettling power of reversed time and a vast source of fire energy—the forcibly extracted, corrupted, and transformed primordial energy of the "Heart of Molten Core"!

"These are array patterns! They extract, transform, and transport energy... ultimately converging into the core." Zhou Meng said in a deep voice, his eyes flashing with golden light as he tried to analyze the direction of the array patterns. "My lord, by following the opposite direction of the energy flow of the array patterns, we should be able to find the energy source, which is the location of the array eye. But be careful, the array patterns themselves may have warning and counterattack mechanisms."

Han Mu nodded, manipulating the gray light force field, and carefully moved along the edge of a relatively wide dark purple array pattern towards the "downstream" direction of the energy flow, that is, deeper into the black mist. The surroundings were eerily silent, with only the faint hum of the energy flowing in the array pattern and the disturbing noise of the black mist itself, like countless whispers.

After traveling for about half an hour, they avoided several clearly warning points—twisted runes suspended in mid-air. Thanks to the hourglass's cover, the four escaped unharmed. The area of ​​the gray light field was slowly shrinking, from the initial three zhang to about two and a half zhang, and the hourglass's temperature was also rising.

Suddenly, a cloud of gray mist rolled ahead, followed by a series of neat and heavy footsteps and the clanging sound of armor rubbing together.

"Patrol!" Han Mu's eyes narrowed, and he immediately signaled everyone to stop, pressing close to a raised, dark red rock wall covered with twisted patterns. The gray light force field was compressed to the extreme, almost blending into the color of the rock wall.

A group of ten men, clad in uniform dark gray full-body armor bearing the insignia of the "Reverse Time Alliance," and wielding spears that emitted an ominous gray glow, patrolled past in two rows with stiff steps. These armored guards exuded a chilling aura, most ranging from the peak of the Golden Immortal realm to the early stage of the Taiyi True Immortal realm, while the leading squad leader showed signs of the mid-stage Taiyi True Immortal realm. Their eyes were vacant, and their movements were perfectly synchronized, like puppets controlled by some force.

"They are 'Time Puppets,' puppet guards made from corrupted cultivators or special materials. They lack self-awareness but possess strong perception, being extremely sensitive to non-'Rebellious' auras," Zhou Meng explained telepathically, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Once discovered, the commotion would inevitably alert the entire formation.

The patrol team drew closer, at one point only a dozen feet from the rock face where they were hiding. Han Mu gripped the hourglass tightly, his other hand already subtly gathering a wisp of "time-stop" power, ready to swiftly eliminate the team should they be exposed, ensuring they never sounded the alarm.

Fortunately, the hourglass's camouflage field seemed to have a remarkable effect on the "Time Puppet." The patrol passed by not far from them, their empty gazes sweeping across the rock wall without pausing, and they walked straight into the distance, their footsteps gradually fading away.

"Phew...that was close." Luo Feng breathed a sigh of relief, wiping away imaginary cold sweat. "These iron lumps walk without making a sound, they scared me half to death. Master, your precious little thing really works!"

"Don't let your guard down, keep going." Han Mu didn't relax his vigilance. After another quarter of an hour, the gray fog ahead suddenly thinned, and a relatively open area could be vaguely seen, as well as a huge ridge pillar in the center of the area, hundreds of feet tall, completely black, with its surface engraved with chaotic runes, constantly drawing dark purple energy from the array patterns below! At the top of the ridge pillar, a dark gray energy vortex slowly rotated, emitting a terrifying fluctuation that made one's soul tremble.

"One of the key points of the formation!" Han Mu's gaze sharpened. But then, his eyes were immediately drawn to something even more captivating beside the ridge pillar.

Beside the ridge pillar base, a dark golden pool, about ten feet in diameter, floated suspended in the air! The pool water was not liquid, but a viscous, slowly flowing dark golden "Sand of Time"! In the center of the pool, a strange, translucent, crystal-like lotus flower was slowly blooming, and from the lotus heart, a faint but extremely pure aura, of the same origin as the fragment of the "Key of Time" within Han Mu's body, was faintly revealed!

"That's... the Time Source Sandpit? And... the aura of key fragments?!" Zhou Meng sensed it too, his voice filled with unbelievable excitement.