Devouring demons, I attain immortality.

In the morgue of the Yizhuang, the marrow-extraction nails on the foreheads of seven corpses form a Big Dipper formation.

Lin An used the tip of his knife to pick up the congealed blood clot and discovered that it contained crystal sand.

This quenching material, which comes from the mines of the city lord's mansion, was originally intended for forging flying swords.

The roof tiles rattled softly as the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade burst forth from the roof.

The man in black twisted in mid-air, shooting out thirty-six death nails from his sleeve.

Lin An neither dodged nor avoided; the vortex formed by his Hunyuan True Essence shredded all the poison nails.

"What courage!"

When the man in black landed, he pulled up his hood, revealing a hideous burn scar on his left cheek.

"There are no more than five people in the entire Crimson Sky City who can see through the Blood Marrow Formation."

Lin An noticed that the jade pendant on the other person's waist was engraved with the words "Supervision," which was the mark of the secret guards directly under the City Lord's Mansion.

However, the scorpion tail pattern on the edge of the jade pendant indicates that this person is also connected with the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect.

"Extracting the spiritual essence of cultivators to nourish the mineral vein?"

Lin An kicked the corpse at his feet.

"Does the city lord know that you're using living people as expendable resources?"

Sparks from clashing swords illuminated the morgue.

The man in black's swordsmanship was unpredictable, each move carrying a pungent, sweet-smelling poisonous mist.

Lin An deliberately created an opening; as his left shoulder was slashed by sword energy, the Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade had already pierced the opponent's Qihai acupoint.

"you..."

The man in black stared at the blade embedded in his abdomen, then suddenly grinned coldly, "You think the City Lord's Mansion can remain firmly in the Crimson Sky Palace for so long..."

The moment the blade's energy shattered his heart meridian, Lin An suddenly withdrew and retreated.

The black-clad man's corpse exploded with a bang, and his poisonous blood corroded the floor tiles within a five-zhang radius.

After the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade absorbed the splashed essence blood, the Chaos Bell mark lit up faintly.

The next morning, Lin An squatted at the base of the outer wall of the city lord's mansion.

The jade slip found on the man in black last night contained records of transporting "medicinal dregs" to the north of the city on the seventh day of each month.

Today is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

As the eight sealed bronze chariots drove out of the side gate, the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade trembled incessantly in its sheath.

Lin An sneaked into the mansion by mingling with the grain transport convoy and discovered the familiar scent of marrow-extraction nails coming from the ground floor of the west courtyard.

A wave of heat hit us from the underground workshop.

Thirty shackled monks were smelting ore, each with a shortened version of a marrow-extracting nail inserted into the back of their necks.

The foreman's bronze whip had barbs, and each swing of it drew droplets of blood.

Lin An, disguised as a porter, approached the furnace and glimpsed dark red crystals settling at the bottom.

This material, known as "blood marrow crystal," is the main ingredient for refining the marrow-extracting nail.

Just as the photographic stone in his sleeve was about to be activated, the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end.

"New here?" The scarred foreman squinted at him, "I've never seen him before..."

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade slashed diagonally upwards, slicing off half of the head.

The moment Lin An kicked over the furnace, the entire underground workshop rang with alarms.

Molten iron, coated with blood marrow crystals, flowed everywhere, its igniting properties upon contact with blood plunging the pursuers into a sea of ​​fire.

As Lin An broke through the ground, a pale golden barrier rose above the City Lord's Mansion.

The old man in purple robes floated in mid-air, his sleeves embroidered with seven stars in silver thread—the mark of the chief array master of Crimson Cloud City.

"You little thief, prepare to die!"

The old man waved the array flag, and thirty-six bolts of lightning struck down.

Instead of retreating, Lin An advanced, his Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade drawing lightning to strike the weakest point in the barrier.

The moment the Primordial True Essence collided with the Heavenly Thunder, the bottleneck of the late stage of Refining Spirit shattered instantly.

"The Tribulation of Returning to Emptiness?!"

The old man hastily retreated. Lin An seized the opportunity to break through the barrier, and behind him came the old man's furious roar: "Citywide wanted! Alive!"

Lin An changed hiding places three times in the slums, and finally hid in the cellar of the coffin shop.

He sorted through the evidence he had gathered: the live experiments conducted by Baicaotang, the involvement of Wandumen in the distribution of marrow-extracting nails, and the private collection of blood marrow crystals by the City Lord's Mansion.

These forces, which should have been adversaries, showed signs of cooperation in their underground transaction ledgers.

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade suddenly emitted a warning tremor.

The wooden planks of the cellar were lifted, and what came down was not the pursuers, but the manager of Jianbaoge.

The old man took off his hood, revealing a mechanical bronze prosthetic eye in his left eye.

"Fellow Daoist, do you know that the blood marrow crystals burned last night were enough to refine three thousand marrow-extracting nails?" The shopkeeper flicked his finger, setting up a soundproof barrier. "The City Lord's Mansion annually supplies the seven major sects with..."

"Get to the point." Lin An pressed the tip of his knife against the other man's throat.

"I am a remnant of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion," the shopkeeper said, his prosthetic eye flashing with runes. "We are searching for fragments of the Chaos Bell."

Lin An's pupils contracted slightly. The shopkeeper took out half a bronze fragment, which resonated with the mark on the hilt of the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade.

When the two pieces were put together, the cellar suddenly collapsed.

Six silver-armored cultivators at the Refining Spirit Realm emerged from the ground, forming a sword formation that sealed off all escape routes.

"I knew there were rats in the Treasure Pavilion!" The lead silver-armored cultivator pointed his sword at the shopkeeper, "Take him down!"

Lin An grabbed the shopkeeper by the back of the collar and retreated rapidly, his Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade splitting open the stone wall of the cellar.

He channeled his primordial energy into his legs, smashed through seven layers of courtyard walls, and ran headlong into the purple-robed array master who had been waiting for him.

The blood marrow crystal array beneath the old man's feet had already taken shape, and blood-red chains were binding the Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade.

"The aura of the Chaos Bell..." the old man laughed wildly as he activated the formation, "obtained without any effort..."

The chaotic energy that suddenly erupted from the blade shattered the chains.

Taking advantage of the momentum, Lin An rushed forward and, to the astonishment of the formation master, plunged the Nine Revolutions Demon-Slaying Blade into his right hand, which was maintaining the formation.

The price of destroying the array's core was a hole piercing his left shoulder, but the healing speed of the Hunyuan Golden Pill far exceeded what ordinary people expected.

When Lin An dragged the shopkeeper to the mass grave on the outskirts of the city, most of the pursuers had already been lured away.

The shopkeeper coughed up blood as he took out a map: "The core of the Crimson Cloud City's earth veins hides the third fragment, but it requires the Twenty-Eight Constellation Sword Souls as a key..."

Suddenly, the signal flame of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect lit up in the distance.

Lin An shoved the shopkeeper into the grave and then chopped down three poisoned arrows with his backhand.

A gray-robed figure with scorpion tail patterns emerged from the shadows of the trees, the one-eyed cultivator at the head wielding a hook crafted from blood marrow crystal.

"Hand over the remnants of the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion." The hook sliced ​​through the tombstone. "Or you'll taste what it's like to have your marrow extracted and nailed into your brain."

Lin An noticed that the opposing team included silver-armored guards.

The Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade trembled excitedly, and for the first time, chaotic energy spontaneously overflowed from its blade.

When the first head flew up, he realized that the waters of Crimson Cloud City were deeper than he had imagined.

At 3:45 PM, Lin An squatted under the Qinglongfang archway, munching on a wheat cake.

A drunkard emerged from the gambling den across the street, a bronze plaque at his waist engraved with a three-legged toad—the mark of a black market broker.

He followed the drunkard through three dark alleys.

At the fourth alleyway, four poisoned daggers were pressed against his lower back.

"A new face?" The lame old beggar stepped out of the shadows, his one eye gleaming with a bluish light.

Lin An displayed the bronze toad talisman he had obtained from the manager of Jianbaoge: "Goods from warehouse number seven, section C. Please lead the way."

The old beggar tapped the ground with his pipe, causing the bluestone slab to flip over and reveal a downward staircase.

A damp, musty smell mixed with the stench of blood rose up. Lin An took out two low-grade spirit stones and stuffed them into the guard's hand, finally entering the real Crimson Sky Black Market.

The auction was held inside the abandoned belly cavity of a water-suppressing beast.

The bronze beast head, standing three zhang tall, has a gaping maw with thirty-six ghost lamps hanging from its fangs.

When Lin An sat down in the Bing section, he noticed a cultivator wearing a black iron mask sitting in the front row—the man had dark red calluses on the knuckles of his left hand, marks left by years of using marrow-extraction nails.

"The first item is a thousand-year-old Yin-evil wood!"

The auctioneer lifted the red silk, and a stench immediately filled the entire room.

Lin An stared at the blood lines wriggling in the wood grain; this was clearly an evil wood cultivated by the Blood Marrow Sect using the essence blood of living people.

When the bidding reached eighty spirit stones, the masked man in the front row suddenly raised his hand: "Friend Bingqi, aren't you going to raise the bid?"

Lin An pressed down on the restless Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade.

The manager of Jianbaoge had said that the black market rules strictly forbade investigating the buyer's identity, so this person was clearly deliberately causing trouble.

He deliberately spoke in a hoarse voice: "Saving the spirit stones to buy the grand finale."

When the eighth item was presented, the Nine-Turn Demon-Slaying Blade trembled like a dragon's roar from its sheath.

Inside the ice box held by the maid, the crimson sword spirit moved like a living thing; it was the "Winged Fire Serpent" from the Twenty-Eight Mansions.

"Taken from an ancient battlefield in the southern borderlands, starting bid 300 spirit stones!"

Just as Lin An was about to raise his placard, the masked man suddenly tossed out a black iron token: "This is an item pre-selected by the Blood Marrow Sect. Please give me some face."

The room was deathly silent.

The auctioneer's forehead was beaded with sweat; this broke a century-old rule of the black market. Lin An sneered, "Five hundred!"