Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

It felt like wooden fingers gliding across the box wall.

The man with the hooked nose glanced down at the suitcase.

Then he turned his face, his gray eyes landing on Siron's right arm.

Their eyes met again.

Your arm seems uncomfortable.

He said in a low voice.

Siron remained calm.

"Old wound."

"Yeah?"

The man with the hooked nose gave a cryptic smile.

Some old wounds never heal.

"It's just waiting for the right time to grow back."

After saying that, he didn't linger, picked up his suitcase, and walked out of the iron gate.

The heavy footsteps gradually faded away along the corridor.

Elena looked at Siron.

"What did he discover?"

"uncertain."

Xilun pressed his palm against his right arm.

The chilling aura and the lightning surged simultaneously, finally pushing the abnormally restless black energy back into its depths.

Just before the black aura subsided, a vague consciousness suddenly emerged from the flesh and blood.

It is not language.

It's more like a desire stemming from instinct.

It wanted that piece of wood, like an arm.

Or rather, it wants to reclaim what originally belonged to it.

Xilun looked up at the closed iron gate.

A man with a hooked nose buying a wooden statue arm is not simply relying on his eyesight.

The other party likely knows exactly what it is.

The woman in the silver mask announced the transaction was over.

The people around the round table gradually stood up.

Xiren carefully placed "Life Forms and Flesh Reconstruction" away and left the secret room with Elena.

When I left the herbal medicine shop, it was already very late at night.

Thick, dark clouds gathered over the town, and the moonlight disappeared completely.

The distant sea roared with the sound of waves, and the cold wind carried the dampness of impending rain.

The man with the hooked nose had long since disappeared.

Xilun stood at the street corner, looking north.

That's the direction where Black Reef Shoal is located.

In the darkness, a faint red light suddenly appeared at the edge of the coast.

The light lasted only a breath before it went out completely, like a giant eye sleeping on the seabed, briefly opening and then closing again.

At the same time, the ground trembled slightly.

The wind chimes hanging in the town's tavern began to sway on their own.

jingle.

jingle.

Amidst the sound of the waves, the deep, distant tolling of bells seemed to blend in.

Elena's expression changed slightly.

"Did you hear that?"

Xilun pressed his right hand against the Thunder Spear at his waist.

"I heard you."

The bell tolls from the shallows.

a bit.

Two times.

Before the third note had completely faded, the scriptures of the Life School in the Xilun leather bag suddenly began to turn on their own.

The pages rustled.

Finally, it stopped on the picture depicting a dark red arm.

The once still ink lines now seemed to be soaked in blood, slowly extending outwards.

At the very bottom of the page, a line of faded ancient text gradually became clear.

Xilun did not recognize this script.

But when his gaze fell upon it, he naturally understood its meaning.

"His lost limbs will eventually return through flesh and blood."

……

Xilun stared at the ancient text, his eyes reflecting the gradually fading blood-red ink marks.

The paper was still trembling slightly.

It was as if this ancient book, which had been silent for countless years, suddenly awoke from its long slumber after approaching the Black Reef and shallows.

Elena took a half step closer and looked down.

"What does it say on it?"

"You don't understand?"

"This should be a variant of the ancient Heron script. I only recognize a few symbols that represent flesh and blood and return."

Xilun paused for a moment, then repeated the sentence he had come to understand.

A night breeze swept in from the other end of the street, making the hems of their clothes flutter.

Elena's brows furrowed slowly.

She examined the dark red arm drawing more closely, but her fingertips did not touch the pages directly; they merely brushed across them half an inch away.

"This text wasn't there when you first bought it."

"Um."

"It only revealed itself when the bell tolled on the shallows, suggesting that this book has some connection to the things in the cave."

Xilun looked up towards the north where the Black Reef Shoal was located.

Thick, dark clouds shrouded the coast, with only distant white waves appearing and disappearing in the darkness.

The faint red light had disappeared, and the tremors on the ground had completely subsided.

The town returned to the quiet of the night, except for the hushed conversations of patrons in a few taverns.

It was as if the previous strange phenomena were just an illusion.

But the lingering burning sensation deep in his right arm reminded him that it had all really happened.

"Let's get out of here first."

He closed the book and stuffed it back into his leather bag.

Instead of returning directly to the hotel, the two took a walk around the north side of the town.

There is activity on several roads in the direction of Black Reef Shoal.

Mercenaries, black market brokers, hired guards, and some extraordinary individuals disguised as fishermen all appeared and disappeared in the night.

A teahouse facing the street was still lit up, and several second-tier extraordinary individuals were gathered together, discussing in hushed tones the bell that had just rang.

This is the third time.

A bearded man took a swig of wine and whispered, "After the first two bell tolls, the shallows vomited something. The first time it was a bronze cup engraved with a human face, and the second time it was two pieces of Black Soul Ore."

"Wasn't the bronze cup taken away?"

"The guy who took it went crazy the next day and peeled off his own face."

"What kind of treasure is that?"

"Treasures are meant to be traded for lives. Besides, the Black King's Palace has already verified that the residual power in the bronze cup is at least at the fourth level. If that person hadn't been so mentally weak, how could they have been contaminated?"

Someone nearby scoffed.

"That sounds nice, but you've got guts. Go down there yourself tomorrow morning."

The bearded man immediately fell silent.

Xiren and Elena passed by the tea shop and overheard everything they said.

Continuing north, the two arrived near a makeshift wooden shed.

Outside the shed were piles of ropes, underwater lights, and several heavy diving suits.

A dozen mercenaries are checking their equipment in preparation for tomorrow's exploration.

In the corner of the wooden shed, a man who had just returned from the shallows was wrapped in a blanket, shivering, and kept repeating the same words.

"It's not a cave dwelling..."

"It's not a cave dwelling..."

"That's a belly."

"We're all inside its belly..."

His companion tried to hold him down, but he suddenly screamed and bit his own hand, tearing off a piece of flesh.

Fresh blood flowed down the corner of his mouth.

The people around him quickly knocked him unconscious.

Elena didn't stop walking, but her expression darkened.

After the two were away from the wooden shed, she whispered, "The mental pollution is more serious than we expected. Even people who may not have gone deep into the cave have become like this."

Xilun recalled the various intelligence gathered at the trade fair.

The road is constantly changing.

A seventh person appeared out of nowhere.

An unknown entity capable of replicating names, memories, and even hiding secrets.

An ancient formation from a hundred years ago.

There is also that faceless, six-armed deity, missing its second right arm.

These clues are intertwined, like a net that is gradually closing in.

"What do you think it is?" Elena asked.

"If the old woman's judgment on the formation is correct, that place may not have originally been used to store treasures."

"Prison?"

"It could also be a place of worship."

Xiren gazed at the distant, continuous black coastline, his tone calm.

"Someone is worshipping an evil god there, or sealing away a certain being through the ritual."

Over time, the formation gradually weakened, and the power sealed within began to leak out, thus forming the cave dwelling we see today.

Elena glanced at him.

"You seem to prefer the latter."

"If it were simply a ritual to an evil god, there would be no need to build the entire cave into a maze, nor would there be any deliberate attempt to alter the memories and perceptions of those who enter."

"So you believe those strange phenomena are to prevent people from getting close to the sealing center?"

"Or perhaps the sealed entity is choosing a suitable body."

Upon hearing Xilun's words, the sea breeze seemed to suddenly turn a few degrees colder.

Elena fell silent.

Xilun, however, thought of another problem.

He initially obtained the remains of the evil god because his father brought back a dangerous object ten years earlier.

Later, he fled the Southern Continent, crossed the sea, and entered Star Ring Island, where he happened to receive a mission related to the Faceless God on the Shrouded Star Coast.

Now, that wooden arm, which is suspected to belong to the statue, has reappeared at the trade fair.

Is all of this really just a coincidence?

Or perhaps, from the day the remnants of the evil god merged into his body, some unseen force had been secretly drawing him closer and closer to this place?

Siren has never believed in fate.

But the thing in his right arm had just clearly expressed a strong desire.

It longs to return.

Perhaps my approach was inevitable.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when Xilun forcefully suppressed it.

He would not attribute his choices to some vague and uncertain fate simply because of a few coincidences.

Even if there is some kind of attraction, he needs to figure out the other party's purpose first.

"Let's go back."

Xilun turned around and said, "We've gathered enough intelligence tonight."

Elena nodded.

The two returned to the hotel along a secluded street.

The dark clouds were pressing down lower and lower.

As they pushed open the hotel's wooden door, the first drop of rain fell, followed by the pattering sound of dense raindrops hitting the eaves.

The restaurant on the first floor had been almost cleaned up, with only the fireplace still burning with a dark red flame.

The night watchman was dozing behind the counter. Hearing the noise, he only glanced up before shrinking back into his thick coat.

Siren and Elena went up to the second floor.

The hotel was fully booked, and the two of them could only get a twin room.

The room wasn't spacious; two wooden beds were against the left and right walls, a low table was placed in the middle, and a copper lamp fueled by whale oil sat by the window.

Xilun closed the doors and windows, and then checked the walls and floors again.

Only after confirming there were no spying devices did he take out "Life Forms and Flesh Reconstruction".

Elena took off her coat and casually draped it over the back of the chair.

"I originally thought you bought this book just to study some flesh-and-blood magic."

"That's true."

Xilun sat down at the table and turned on the brass lamp.

"But now it seems that it may help us understand the power within the cave."

The yellowed paper had a faint musty smell.

The first half of the text mainly discusses the life school's division of flesh, bones, and spirit. According to the theory in the book, the human body is not fixed and unchanging, but a life form constrained by the spirit.

With enough willpower and the right methods, flesh and blood can be reshaped like clay.

Elena sat down opposite her, her brows furrowing more and more as she looked at the woman.

"The life school was popular for a time. They believed that the physical body had no limits and that all abnormalities were stepping stones to a higher form of life."

Later, due to the creation of too many out-of-control monsters, it was jointly eradicated by several major churches and extraordinary organizations.

"Was the Holy Light Monastery also involved?"

"Of course, the monastery's Holy Light spell has a very strong restraining effect on mutated flesh and blood."

However, there are not many people who still master the complete Holy Light spell; most of the inheritance is kept deep within the inner courtyard.

Xilun slowly turned the pages of the book.

The ancient texts record many methods of flesh reconstruction, including transplanting foreign skin onto the human body and dangerous attempts to replace the spine with the skeleton of marine mammals.

Dark brown bloodstains remained on the edges of some pages.

Many procedures also have records of failures written next to them.

"On the seventh day, the patient grew a second heart. The two hearts competed for blood and eventually died at the same time."

"The patient's consciousness was intact, but the body perceived the original head as a foreign object and tore it off on its own in the middle of the night."

"The arm replacement was successful, but the limb refused to obey the recipient's mind and continued to make sacrificial gestures. The recipient disappeared three days later."

When he read the third item, Xilun paused for a moment as he turned the page.

Elena noticed something was wrong.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

Silen continued flipping through the pages.

He didn't rush to reveal the secret of his right arm.

While Elena is trustworthy, the remains of the evil god are connected to her father, the Duke of Storms, and a secret from ten years ago.

Knowing more before you fully understand something is not necessarily a good thing.

About half an hour later, a picture depicting acupoints on the human body came into view.

The man in the picture has thin, thread-like air currents running through his limbs, while his heart and brain are painted bright red, and a name is marked next to him in ancient script.

Life returned.

Xilun reads word for word.

This technique is not a true treatment, but rather a forced removal of the body's protective mechanisms, causing muscles, bones, internal organs, and even the mind to operate under excessive strain for an extremely short period of time.

Human bodily instincts limit strength.

Even if a third-tier extraordinary being possesses a physique far superior to that of an ordinary person, it is impossible for them to exploit every muscle without restraint.

Otherwise, before you can even land a punch on your enemy, your own bones and tendons will break first.

The purpose of life return is to temporarily lift these restrictions.

It drains the recipient's energy, causing their life force to explode like burning oil, significantly enhancing their strength, speed, and recovery ability in a short period of time.

The cost is equally clear.

Fifteen minutes later, the recipient will fall into severe weakness.

In mild cases, it can cause weakness in the limbs and deficiency of qi and blood, requiring several days of bed rest.

In severe cases, it can lead to ruptured tendons, organ failure, or even immediate death.

"This is a technique that overdraws potential."

Elena gave her evaluation after watching it.

"The advantage is that it does not require special bloodlines; it can be used as long as the acupoints and blood and qi are guided."

The downside is that each use may damage the foundation of life.

"Very valuable in extreme situations."

Xilun gazed at the energy circulation in the diagram.

If forced into a desperate situation by a powerful enemy, it is certainly worthwhile to exchange days or even months of weakness for a brief burst of power.

Moreover, his Thunder Dragon Heart inherently possesses the ability to nourish blood and qi and repair injuries.

If the side effects of life restoration mainly come from the overexertion of qi, blood, and muscles, his ability to bear the cost should be stronger than that of an ordinary third-tier extraordinary being.

Elena seemed to sense his thoughts and pressed her finger on the page.

"You'd better not rush into cultivation."

Why?

"The techniques of the Life School never explicitly state all the risks. How much damage the foundation will be caused by the so-called extraction of life force can only be known after actually using it."

She paused for a moment, then continued, "If the monastery can master the complete Holy Light spell, perhaps it can use its purification and regeneration abilities to become immune to some of the side effects. At the very least, it can prevent uncontrollable mutations in the flesh and blood after being overdrawn."

Xilun seemed to be deep in thought.

The complete Holy Light spell is a high-level inheritance within the inner academy, and ordinary disciples rarely have access to it.

Swain had promised that once he had mastered the third level of the Overturning Sea Technique, he would take him into the Library Tower to find the method to awaken the Ancestral Blood.

Perhaps we can look up relevant information at that time.

"Write down the technique first, but don't try it directly."

Xilun took out paper and pen from his leather bag and copied the route of life return again.

The rain outside the window was getting heavier and heavier.

Raindrops meandered down the glass, appearing as twisted shadows in the lamplight.

Elena looked at the drawing of the dark red arm again.

The ancient characters that had previously appeared had faded away again, and no matter how much effort the two put into them, they did not reappear.

"The hook-nosed man knows the origin of the wooden statue's arm," she suddenly said.

"Um."

"He specifically looked at your right arm when he left, which means he not only recognized the thing, but also knew what it would react with."

Xilun put down his pen.

The hook-nosed man bought the wooden statue's arm and then stole the formula for the bone-forging potion for 1,500 pounds, clearly well-prepared.

Such a person would never appear at a trade fair for no reason.

"Check his identity tomorrow."

"Most participants in underground transactions conceal their backgrounds, making them difficult to trace."

"There will always be traces left."

Xilun put the book into his leather bag and blew out the extra candles beside him.

"What he bought were not ordinary items; as long as they were still in the town, they would inevitably be near the Black Reef Shoal."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a figure suddenly flashed past in the depths of the rain outside the window.

Extremely fast.

Xilun suddenly raised his eyes, and his mental energy instantly spread outwards.

The streets were deserted, with only puddles breaking apart from the raindrops.

But under the eaves across from the hotel, a small patch of shadow seemed even darker than before.

The feeling of being spied on is fleeting.

Xilun's hand slowly landed on the Thunder Spear.

They want to investigate the hook-nosed man.

It seems that the other side has also set its sights on them.

On the east side of the town, inside an abandoned smoked fish workshop.

A foul odor lingered under the low beams, and even though the workshop had been out of use for many years, dark oil stains that could not be washed off still seeped into the gaps in the wooden planks.

The man with the hooked nose pushed open the heavy wooden door.

The two men in black guarding the door immediately bowed their heads in respect.

"Chief of the Imperial Guard."

The man with the hooked nose did not respond and walked straight into the inner room.

A long table was placed in the center of the room, with a nautical chart of the Black Reef and Shore spread out on it.

Six men with imposing presence sat around him. Three of them had standard-issue curved knives hanging from their waists, while the other three wore tight-fitting leather suits suitable for underwater movement.

The black leather suitcase sat in the corner.

The leather case was wrapped with three silver chains engraved with runes.

Even so, faint scraping sounds could still be heard from inside the box from time to time.

rustle.

It looked like something was slowly crawling inside.

A dark-skinned man looked at the suitcase with a wary expression.

"It moved again?"

"I made three moves after leaving the trade fair."

The man with the hooked nose unbuttoned his damp coat and sat down at the head of the long table.

"The first time was when they were with those two monks, and the other two times were when the bells rang at the shallows."

The group looked at each other.

"People from the Holy Light Monastery?"

"A woman, a man."