Martial Arts: Starting with Upgrading the Dilapidated Temple

Chapter 151 Inscription (4K)

At the foot of Heron Mountain, the morning mist was thick.

Xu Hao stood in the shade of an ancient pine tree that would take three people to encircle, and gathered all his vital energy.

He was like a cold stone, perfectly blending into the dark woodland.

The faint sound of horses' hooves echoed along the mountain path.

Not one horse, but twenty horses.

The horse's hooves were wrapped in thick cloth, making a dull thud as they landed.

Xu Hao looked down at the group, coldly watching them dismount at the foot of the mountain.

They were all dressed in uniform gray outfits, with the Mu family's white logo featuring cinnabar and aconite embroidered on the cuffs.

The leader was a burly middle-aged man who carried a heavy horse-slaying saber and openly displayed his peak Yi Jin Realm cultivation.

The head of the Mu family's law enforcement hall, Mu Chenyuan's younger brother, is secretly called Mu the Second in Yongzhou.

"The head of the Mu family is naturally suspicious, and he did indeed send out a backup plan," Xu Hao concluded in his mind.

No sooner had Mu Yunchuan left than Mu Lao Er and his men followed.

If Xu Hao had lingered in the garden for even a quarter of an hour longer, he would have run into this group of people right now.

Mu Lao Er made a gesture, and twenty elite members of the Enforcement Hall drew their weapons and silently made their way along the mountain path toward the manor halfway up the mountain.

Xu Hao did not leave.

He leaned against the tree trunk, closed his eyes, and felt a slight warmth emanating from the listening talisman on his chest.

Sounds from within a radius of several miles, after being filtered, clearly reached his ears.

The manor gate had already been smashed to pieces by Xu Hao's palm.

The sound of hurried footsteps.

Then came Mu Lao Er's suppressed rage in a low growl: "Yun Chuan! What's going on?!"

In the back room, Mu Yunchuan's voice trembled slightly, but his words were exceptionally clear, as if he had rehearsed them several times beforehand: "Second Uncle—why have you come? The living god—is angry."

"Angry?" Mu Lao Er's voice was filled with surprise and doubt. "The corpse on the ground is—?"

"It was Guest Elder Li and Guest Elder Wang." Mu Yunchuan's voice carried just the right amount of bitterness. "The living god blamed us for losing the crystal. He crushed Guest Elder Li's neck and then smashed Guest Elder Wang's head with a single palm strike—"

The sound coming from the listening talisman was very clear.

Mu Yunchuan, that kid, can make up lies without even stuttering.

Immediately afterwards, the sound of Mu Lao Er lifting the white cloth to examine the corpse came from the listening talisman.

His neck is almost broken in two, and his head is rotten like this. This living god really knows how to kill.

Mu Lao Er gasped.

"Second Uncle, stop watching." Mu Yunchuan's voice was weak. "This living god has a bad temper. Guest Master Wang didn't even have time to draw his knife before his head was crushed. Guest Master Li tried to run away, but his cervical vertebrae were snapped and his flesh was torn open."

Xu Hao silently twitched the corner of his mouth at the foot of the mountain.

It's a waste of talent for this young master from a prominent family not to be a storyteller in a teahouse.

His slash was incredibly fast, leaving only a smooth line of blood on the throat.

Clearly, after he left, Mu Yunchuan, in order to cover up the knife wounds, used a blunt instrument to modify the two corpses.

This pampered young master, who usually lived a life of luxury, was ruthless in turning against his own people in order to survive.

He's a good candidate for dirty work.

"Where is the living immortal?" Mu Lao Er asked.

"They're gone," Mu Yunchuan replied. "He said the Mu family was incompetent. He gave us three days to get rid of that guy in black..."

"Find the thief with the dark gold longsword. If you can't find him, he must offer 100,000 taels of gold as an apology. Otherwise, I will personally descend the mountain and slaughter the entire Mu family."

A gasp came from the listening talisman.

The twenty elite enforcers of the Enforcement Hall were so flustered that even their breathing became disordered.

"This is outrageous!" Mu Lao Er gritted his teeth, but kept his voice low, afraid of alerting someone. "Does he really think the Mu family is made of clay?!"

"Second Uncle, watch your words!" Mu Yunchuan cried out urgently. "Before he left, he smashed the door to pieces with a flick of his sleeve. The Mu family cannot afford the wrath of a half-step Divine Transformation Realm expert!"

silence.

Dead silence.

After a long silence, Mu Lao Er sighed dejectedly: "First, collect the bodies of our brothers. Go back and report to our eldest brother, and mobilize the entire clan to search the Ten Thousand Poison Forest for our people."

Xu Hao opened his eyes.

The Mu family has fallen into their trap.

They would not doubt Mu Yunchuan at all; on the contrary, they would devote all their energy to finding him.

Mu Yunchuan will leverage the prestige of the "living immortal" to gain greater influence within the Mu family.

This knife is usable.

Xu Hao turned around, took a step with his surging steps, and disappeared into the vast morning mist like a wisp of smoke.

Liuyao Town, the remote Jishetang Pharmacy in the south of the city.

The medicine grinder in the backyard was creaking and groaning.

Ji Sanjin, dressed in a coarse cloth jacket, was idly rummaging through the angelica root in a basket.

This place was the meeting point he and Xu Hao had agreed upon.

The shopkeeper was an informant for the Dragon Roar Guard; he was tight-lipped and quick on his feet.

A chilly draft swept through the hall.

Ji Sanjin's hand, which was rummaging through the medicinal herbs, suddenly stopped. His intuition, honed from years of licking blood from the edge of a knife, sent chills down his spine.

Without turning around, his right hand had already silently slid to the hilt of the knife at his waist.

"Their alertness is alright."

A calm voice sounded from behind.

Ji Sanjin suddenly turned around, drew his knife half an inch, but after seeing who it was, he forcefully pressed the knife back down.

Xu Hao stood three steps behind him, still carrying the lingering scent of night dew and blood.

He was tossing a black iron plate in his hand, making it fly up and down.

"Don't you walk silently?" Ji Sanjin breathed a sigh of relief, a layer of cold sweat beading on his forehead.

Xu Hao didn't respond, but flicked his wrist.

A metal plaque stained with dark red blood flew through the air in an arc and landed precisely in Ji Sanjin's arms.

Ji Sanjin caught it instinctively.

Looking down, his pupils suddenly contracted.

On the back of the metal plaque, a blurry character "段" (duan) looked like a sharp knife, piercing his eye.

"Where did you find it?" Ji Sanjin's voice cracked, trembling uncontrollably.

"In the cellar of the Mu family's private cellar on Heron Mountain," Xu Hao said calmly. "The person was dead. I had Mu Yunchuan find a place to bury him."

""

Ji Sanjin suddenly stood up, his eyes instantly turning red.

He gripped the metal plate tightly, his fingernails scraping the edge of it with a harsh, soft sound.

"The Mu family—" Ji Sanjin gritted his teeth, enunciating each word clearly, "I'm going to kill Mu Chenyuan!"

He turned to walk out of the post station.

"Stop." Xu Hao's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable sense of pressure.

Ji Sanjin stopped and turned around abruptly: "What? You accepted bribes from the Mu family and you're trying to stop me?"

"If you go now, you won't even get through the Mu family's gates; you'll be chopped into mincemeat." Xu Hao looked at him. "Even if you kill Mu Chenyuan, can Duan Heng come back to life? Once the Mu family falls, the Qin and Gu families will immediately divide up their territory, and the Surveillance Bureau will replace them with new dogs. Are you really going to settle this score so easily?"

Ji Sanjin's chest heaved violently as he stared intently at Xu Hao: "What do you suggest we do?!"

"Stir up the waters." Xu Hao tossed the Xuan Yin Cold Iron in his hand. "The Mu family is now searching the whole city for a swordsman dressed in black."

The third batch of Qin family's Cold Iron will arrive at Sunset Ferry the day after tomorrow.

"I want you to use the Dragon Roar Guard's informants in Yongzhou to leak the Qin family's shipment of goods to the Mu family without leaving a trace."

Ji Sanjin was stunned.

"The Mu family desperately needs resources to quell the anger of the 'Living God.'" Xu Hao's lips curled into a cold smile. "The Qin family's cold iron is the best piece of meat. As long as the Mu family seizes this batch of goods, the balance that the three families of Yongzhou have maintained for more than ten years will be completely broken. They will fight like dogs, and the plans of the Surveillance Bureau will be thrown into chaos. This is the best way to avenge Duan Heng."

Ji Sanjin looked down at the iron plate in his hand, his heavy breathing gradually calming down.

"Alright." Ji Sanjin carefully put the iron plate away from his body, gave Xu Hao a deep look, and said, "I'll do this job. The Dragon Roar Guard doesn't owe you any favors. This is for Lao Duan."

"Each gets what they want." Xu Hao turned around. "Don't give yourself away. Mu Chenyuan isn't stupid."

Ji Sanjin did not speak again.

Xu Hao's figure blended into the night, speeding towards the heart of the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest.

Abandoned campsite in the Thousand Poisons Forest.

Although the dark golden pillar of light had dissipated, the violent aura of the earth's veins still lingered in the air.

At the edge of the deep pit, a few scattered fragments of the black cauldron lay scattered.

Xu Hao leaped into the deep pit and stood at the center of the array that was originally used to suppress the secondary nails.

Within his sea of ​​consciousness, the scroll depicting the blessed land of the Myriad Poisons Forest slowly unfolded.

With a wave of his hand, 0 jin of Xuan Yin Cold Iron poured out of the Sumeru Warehouse, piling up on the ground into a small black mountain.

[Mysterious Yin Cold Iron detected. Repair conditions met.]

[Should we begin reinforcing the secondary nails in the Zezhou area?]

Xu Hao did not hesitate.

"start."

As Xu Hao finished speaking, the scroll depicting the blessed land in his sea of ​​consciousness burst forth with dazzling golden light.

The malevolent energy deep within the earth's veins was forcibly extracted by the power of the blessed land, transforming into dark red flames that surged forth from the bottom of the pit.

The flame had no temperature, but it carried an extremely terrifying aura of corrosion and destruction, instantly enveloping the mountain of Xuan Yin Cold Iron.

The 120-pound Xuan Yin Cold Iron emitted a piercing hiss as it was scorched by the evil fire.

Extreme cold and extreme evil clashed and eventually the cold iron softened, turning into a pool of pitch-black liquid metal that exuded a bone-chilling cold.

Xu Hao pressed down lightly with his left hand.

Under the influence of the Blessed Land's authority, molten cold iron was precisely poured into the broken array base grooves along the cracks at the bottom of the pit.

In the instant it cooled, a brand new, pitch-black array base took shape, with the projection at the center of the array center precisely where the secondary nail of Zezhou was located.

"Blood Crystal".

With a flick of his wrist, Bai'e's dark purple core blood crystal fell into the groove in the center of the array plate.

hum!

The moment the blood crystal touched the array base, a dark purple light path lit up on the array plate and spread out into the molten iron.

This energy core, belonging to the Tongqiao Realm, became the perfect hub connecting the cold iron and the formation.

"Condition 3: Activate the earth's evil energy and use martial arts will as a pen to re-engrave the dark gold inscription."

Xu Hao stared at the array plate.

He lacked the martial will of a Divine Transformation Realm cultivator.

But he has something else.

He pulled out the Abyss.

The dark gold blade pointed towards the bottom of the pit.

"My rules are the rules of this forest. Does that count as willpower?"

boom!

The dark gold heart pumped blood violently, releasing the domineering true meaning of the "Myriad Transformations Heavenly Vault Scripture" without reservation.

The aura of Heaven's Dao controlling the universe flowed down his arm and into the Devouring Abyss.

The blade emitted a high-pitched dragon's roar, and the tip of the blade spewed out a three-foot-long stream of dark golden energy, the edges of which were wrapped with dense earth vein evil energy.

Xu Hao stepped forward, the tip of his blade piercing the array plate forged from Xuan Yin Cold Iron.

laugh-

Sparks flew everywhere.

He dragged his wrist as if wielding a giant pen weighing over a thousand pounds, forcibly carving the first dark gold inscription onto the indestructible cold iron.

heavy.

Extremely heavy.

Every stroke he made was frantically draining his energy and strength.

However, the self-circulation of the five internal organs of the Dark Gold immediately followed, continuously drawing upon the power of the earth veins to replenish itself.

The second stroke, the third stroke.

The ancient and complex guiding array gradually took shape on the array plate.

The dark golden light grew stronger and stronger, penetrating the strata and reaching deep underground.

The fourth stroke.

The tip of the Devourer's blade was embedded in the Cold Iron Array, emitting a sharp metallic hiss.

Xu Hao's wrist sank, and a faint grinding sound came from the bone gaps.

The clash between the Dark Gold Blade and the Mysterious Yin Cold Iron was far more ferocious than expected—after being tempered and reforged by the earth's ley line energy, the cold iron's hardness had surpassed the normal range.

With each stroke, the weight of the Devouring Abyss Blade increases exponentially.

The feedback force from the hilt of the knife almost cracked his hand.

The fifth stroke, the sixth stroke.

The inscriptions on the array plate gradually connected from a scattered pattern into a net, with each dark gold line perfectly nested within the texture of the Xuan Yin Cold Iron.

The scroll trembled violently within his consciousness, projecting every remaining detail of the original inscription onto his mind.

He is not creating.

He is replicating.

The scroll of blessed land remembered the appearance of the secondary nail seal. Those dark gold patterns that were corroded by the dragon's saliva, eroded by the years, and broken by external forces were all archived in the scroll, including the direction, thickness, and depth of each stroke.

What Xu Hao did was simple: to carve back the memories of the painting through the blade of the Maw.

Simple, but extremely energy-consuming.

When he made the twelfth stroke, a gash appeared on the back of his left hand.

Dark golden blood beads seeped out, and before they could congeal, they were evaporated into blood mist by the baleful energy surging up from the ground.

At this moment, the physique of the beginner level of the Forging Realm displayed terrifying resilience—the crack healed itself within three breaths, and the newly grown flesh was even denser than before.

The pumping frequency of the Dark Gold Heart has been pushed to its limit.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The heavy thumping of a heart echoed in the deep pit, intertwining with the hissing sound of the blade slicing through the cold iron, creating an eerie symphony.

The fifteenth stroke.

The inscriptions on the array plate have covered one-third of the area.

The dark golden light shone through the bottom of the array plate, extending downwards along the cracks in the ground, and began to resonate with the original inscriptions that remained deep inside.

The twentieth stroke of the character "嗡".

The thirty-second stroke.

The final inscription.

Xu Hao's vision had begun to blur.

The self-circulation of the five internal organs of the Dark Gold was pushed to its limit. After two cycles of depletion of Qi and blood, it was forcibly replenished by the power of the earth veins, and then drained dry again.

As the final stroke of the blade fell, the Devourer emitted a long, drawn-out dragon's roar.

The knife tip is lifted.

Finished.

The entire array plate radiates dense dark gold patterns on the pitch-black background of cold iron, forming a complete loop with the dark purple blood crystal in the central groove.

The array disk starts up.

The light path within the dark gold patterns was instantly connected, and the purified earth vein power flowed into the blood crystal along the array base.

The blood crystal absorbed energy, contracted rapidly, and finally shattered with a crisp sound. What shattered was not the blood crystal itself, but its outer shell.

A purer, two-thirds smaller, dark gold core emerged from the shattered shell.

The core trembled twice as if it were alive, and then landed precisely on the tip of the secondary nail under the projection.

boom.

The earthquake trembled.

The secondary nail has been given a brand-new driving core and array base support. The array that powers the secondary nail is not a repaired and incomplete form, but a more complete and solid pattern than before.

A visible dark golden shockwave spread out from the secondary nail, penetrating the rock strata and sweeping across every corner of the Myriad Poison Forest.

Xu Hao stood at the edge of the pit, leaning on the Devourer's Abyss, feeling the steady rhythm emanating from the ground.

Within the sea of ​​consciousness, the golden characters on the scroll depicting the blessed land shimmered.

The restoration of the secondary nail seal in Zezhou is complete.