After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The next seven days were a rare period of peace in the Sixth Heaven.

With twenty days remaining until the Imperial Court's acceptance deadline, the third deputy body of the Imperial Son was hacked to pieces by Zhou Ran, and all thirty-six Imperial Soldiers were wiped out.

The Soul Abyss Stone vein still had 30% left to be mined. Qin San led Gu Ji to move the ore day and night, so tired that he didn't even have the energy to curse.

Under the pretext of "inspecting the defense lines of the four regions," Zhou Ran led the three women from Blue Star on a tour of various parts of the Demon Realm.

It was nominally an inspection, but in reality, the three women were the ones doing all the work.

Xiao Hongli took over the Blood Sea's logistics system. She used a pen she brought from Earth—

This thing was studied by Mingcang as a magic weapon for a long time. He crossed out four unnecessary approvals, compressed three checkpoints, and canceled duplicate registrations on the three-zhang-long transportation route map.

On the third day, the delivery time of supplies to the Blood Sea front was reduced from seven days to one and a half days.

The loss rate dropped from 30% to less than 10%.

Bloodlust stood at the entrance of the tent, tore off a piece of dried meat, stuffed it into his mouth, and chewed it vigorously.

Back in the Boundless Domain, Chen Ya spent two days arranging the intelligence from the past six months in a cross-referenced manner according to timeline, source, and content, creating a preliminary information hierarchy system.

During the sorting process, she also uncovered three deeply hidden abnormal data streams.

Disguised as material allocation records, the transmission frequency closely matched the signal format of the Imperial Court Cleaning Group.

This discovery was immediately sent to Zhou Ran.

Zhou Ran was currently standing on the fourth level of the Nine Nether Abyss.

The underground rift valley left behind after the collapse of the Nine Nether Well is filled with thick death energy and mineral debris.

Ordinary people would have difficulty even breathing once they entered, but in the deepest part of the rift valley grows an extremely rare plant—the 100,000-year-old Soul-Nourishing Wood.

Its effect of repairing damaged vital energy is irreplaceable.

Jiuyou pointed him in the right direction. She spoke without expression, but the aura of death betrayed her true feelings.

The fourth level of the Nine Nether Abyss is her private forbidden area, which is never open to anyone.

She let Zhou Ran in, not to give him face.

It's for Lin Qingxue.

The Blue Star woman who could find the fatal blind spot of the Nine Netherworld Formation while in a semi-conscious state made the Nine Netherworld feel a respect that transcended cultivation level.

Zhou Ran took a fist-sized Soul-Nourishing Tree from the cliff face. The tree trunk was grayish-white, and a faint silver light flowed at the end of its roots, which was the essence of heaven and earth accumulated over 100,000 years.

He carefully put away the Soul-Nourishing Wood and turned to return.

"stop."

Lin Qingxue's voice came from behind him, weak but clear.

Zhou Ran turned around.

Lin Qingxue leaned against a piece of ore. Chen Ya had draped a thick robe over her, covering her completely. Her face was so pale it was almost transparent.

But something was being ignited in those eyes that had become dim due to the depletion of the source of the Dharma Eye.

She came along.

"Your understanding of the Dharma hasn't been restored yet; you shouldn't have come down."

"The deathly aura of the Nine Nether Abyss has an affinity for the Dharma Eye, making it more comfortable here than above."

Lin Qingxue leaned against the ore wall to stand up and walked in front of him.

"Moreover, although ninety percent of my Dharma eyes are ruined, one-tenth is still functioning."

She raised her hand and pointed to a dark wall deeper in the rift valley.

"There is a frequency band in that direction."

Zhou Ran's expression changed.

"What frequency band?"

"Not belonging to the Sixth Heaven."

Lin Qingxue frowned slightly, and the remaining essence of her Dharma Eyes flickered with a faint, almost invisible silver light deep within her eyes.

"The frequency is very low and it is very discreet."

"If the signal hadn't been amplified in this environment with an extremely high concentration of death energy, I wouldn't have been able to detect it at all."

Zhou Ran drew the Taihuang Black Blade.

The two followed the direction pointed out by Lin Qingxue and ventured deeper into the rift valley.

As it passed through layer after layer of broken ore walls, the Taihuang Black Blade began to emit an extremely faint hum.

This is not a combat warning.

It is a resonance at the level of rules.

Deep within the rift valley, behind a rock wall completely obscured by ore, lies an altar.

The altar was not large, and it was made entirely of a dark purple metal that Zhou Ran had never seen before.

The surface of the jar is covered with dense array patterns, and the center of the patterns converges into a fist-sized vortex-shaped depression.

A faint ray of light was emanating from the depression, piercing through the rock walls and mineral layers, pointing directly to the void beyond the Sixth Heaven.

It is sending coordinates.

Zhou Ran gripped the knife handle tightly with his five fingers.

"This altar was not built by the Imperial Court."

Lin Qingxue knelt beside the altar, her remaining magical eyes scanning the array patterns, her breathing becoming increasingly rapid.

"The underlying logic of the patterns is completely different. The Imperial Court's formations tend to suppress rules, but this one... tends to summon."

"Summon what?"

"Summoning the power of another dimension to descend."

Before the words were even finished, the void above the altar distorted.

Three illusory figures emerged from the distortion. Each one was blurry, but their outlines were enough to identify them.

Zhou Ran recognized the first illusory figure—the Emperor's son.

It wasn't a secondary body, but a projection of the original. Even as a mere phantom, the black-gold aura was suffocating.

But the other two illusory figures made his eyelids twitch.

He had seen descriptions of these two auras in the appendix of the secret edict left by Ye Futian.

The phantom on the left radiated an eerie purple-gold light, its outline resembling a giant standing beast with two horns on its head and a nauseating corrosive power swirling around it.

The Great Emperor of the Heavenly Demon Realm.

The phantom on the right was covered in blood, with six arms wielding blades, and each arm was covered with a dense array of phantom heads.

The stench of blood, even across dimensional barriers, made one's stomach churn.

Emperor of the Asura Realm.

Three illusory figures are engaged in some kind of clandestine negotiation around the altar.

The frequency of light emission is increasing.

Zhou Ran pulled Lin Qingxue back silently behind the dark wall.

He glanced down at his Taihuang Black Blade.

The six background patterns trembled slightly in the dark golden light.

He understood the meaning of the knife.

This is not something you can touch right now.

The two retreated back to the entrance of the rift valley along the same route. The moment they stepped out of the deathly aura, the military manual trembled.

It was a message from Chen Ya.

The three abnormal data streams she cross-referenced in the Phaseless Domain intelligence archive, after being traced in reverse, pointed to the exact location of this transgressive altar.

Zhou Ran closed the military register and looked at Lin Qingxue.

Lin Qingxue leaned against the ore wall, her pale face expressionless, and the silver light deep within her remaining divine eyes shone even brighter than before.

"The Emperor's son doesn't just want to destroy the Six Heavens."

Her voice was very soft.

"He's building a bridge. The Heavenly Demon Realm and the Asura Realm—he's opening the gates to let the soldiers from the other two worlds in."

Zhou Ran glanced back at the darkness deep within the rift valley.

The dark purple altar was still operating, and the three phantom figures were still negotiating in the void, sending coordinate signals out continuously.

The Three Realms besieged.

The Taihuang Black Blade in his hand only had six patterns.