novelapdf Chapter 498 The Mad Old Eunuch! The Helpless Ancestor!
Chapter 498 The Mad Old Eunuch! The Helpless Ancestor!
Time passed day by day inside the golden bowl.
Chen Fan completely forgot everything outside, forgot the threat from the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch, and immersed his entire mind in the fusion of the rules of fixation and the sealing formation.
He felt as if he had become a rune, flowing through the patterns of the stone pillar, sensing the Daoist essence left behind by that great being ten thousand years ago.
It was an extremely peculiar experience.
The "fixed" in the original meaning of the "fixed word technique" is not a rigid confinement, but an order that uses the power of rules to make everything return to its proper place.
Water can freeze into ice, fire can warm, metal can sharpen, wood can grow, and earth can bear weight—just as he had previously realized, all things remain true to their essence.
And now, he puts this understanding into practice.
The first stone pillar was repaired, followed by the second, the third...
When he used the Stabilizing Rune to mend the last crack on the eighth stone pillar, a strange change occurred!
The eight stone pillars simultaneously glowed with a dark red light, the runes on their bodies flowing and turning as if they were alive. The dormant ball of earth fire in the center suddenly trembled, its flames intensifying, growing from the size of a fist to the size of a head, radiating billowing heat!
Within the underground palace, a scorching yet gentle power surged forth like a tide, traveling upwards along the invisible veins between the stone pillars and flowing into the sealing formation on the floor of the weapon-refining hall.
At the same time, everyone within the Refining Soul Sect ruins simultaneously sensed the change.
The originally chilly air suddenly gained a faint hint of heat.
The malevolent and sinister aura that permeated the ruins was forced back several feet by this scorching heat.
The Nascent Soul cultivators, including Qinglian Daoist, were taken aback, and then a complex expression appeared on their faces.
They naturally knew what this meant; the old eunuch had repaired another node!
"The fifth place..." Qinglian Daoist murmured to himself, his voice hoarse.
Inside the crimson hall, the patriarch of the Soul Refining Sect suddenly opened his scarlet eyes, which surged with bloodlust as he roared, "It's you again!"
He clearly felt that his control over the outer area had been weakened once again. Those blood-red threads that were once as responsive as his own arms were now blurry and sluggish in their direction of displacement, as if they were blocked by an invisible barrier.
More importantly, the aura of that supremely yang true fire made him extremely uncomfortable. He cultivated the Yin Sha Demonic Art, and was most afraid of this kind of supremely yang power of heaven and earth. Back then, that powerful being used earth fire as the foundation to set up an array, specifically targeting this weakness of his.
"What a damned old eunuch..." The patriarch of the Soul Refining Sect gritted his teeth, his withered fingers digging tightly into the altar's stone surface. "But do you think you can trap me like this?"
He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his surging blood and qi, and further intensified his stimulation of the remaining blood slaves and restricted cultivators.
"Everyone, gather at the Kanwei Water Palace! That's the sixth node; we absolutely cannot let him repair it again!"
The command was transmitted to the consciousness of the remaining Nascent Soul cultivators through the soul restriction.
However, this time, there were very few respondents.
The Qinglian Daoist and the others were all deathly pale, their breaths weak, and their souls were tormented by the restrictions to the point of collapse. The frantic search over the past few days, the struggle against the backlash of the seal, and the witnessing their companions become blood food or blood slaves one by one had completely worn away their remaining fighting spirit.
"Ancestor... our spiritual energy is exhausted, and we are truly powerless to continue..." a Nascent Soul cultivator from one of the eight great families said in a trembling voice.
Before he could finish speaking, the crimson restriction between his brows suddenly exploded!
"Ugh!!" With a scream of agony, his soul was forcibly extracted and transformed into a streak of blood light, flying towards the crimson palace.
The remaining Nascent Soul cultivators turned pale and dared not utter another word of complaint. They could only drag their weary bodies toward the Kan position water palace.
By the time they arrived, it was too late.
Chen Fan, controlling the golden bowl, had already arrived at the Kan position water palace.
This Kanwei Water Hall is located on the west side of the Refining Soul Sect ruins and is a relatively well-preserved side hall.
Inside the hall was a black pool, ten zhang square, its water icy cold and never drying up. The pool was also surrounded by sealing array patterns, though most of them had been eroded by time.
Chen Fan looked at the broken array patterns and then at the black water in the pool, and the records in the dark gold jade slip came to mind.
"The Kan position governs water. This node is based on the Xuanming True Water, which uses its extreme Yin and cold power to form a Yin-Yang balance with the Li position's Earth Fire. Only when water and fire are in harmony can the sealing power be brought to its maximum."
He didn't delay any longer and immediately began repairs.
With the experience gained from the previous five nodes, Chen Fan's understanding of the formation became more profound, and his repair speed also increased significantly.
He used his true intent to guide the flow of the black water in the pool, gathering the scattered Xuanming cold energy back together and injecting it into the surrounding sealing array patterns.
Three days passed inside the bowl, while only a few hours passed in the outside world.
When he repaired the last array pattern around the pool, the entire water palace trembled slightly.
The black water in the pool seemed to come alive, swirling on its own and forming a bottomless whirlpool.
Within the vortex, an extremely yin and cold aura surged forth like a tide, echoing the extremely yang true fire emanating from the direction of the vortex.
Yin and Yang, water and fire.
The two forces converged high above the sealed land, forming a huge illusory Tai Chi diagram that slowly rotated.
As the Tai Chi diagram rotated, the malevolent aura surrounding the entire Soul Refining Sect ruins was further suppressed. The originally dense, almost tangible, blood-red mist had now thinned considerably.
"The sixth location!" The voice of the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch had shifted from initial rage to a somber tone. "There's a seventh location... the Wind Valley in the Xun position!"
He stopped sending blood slaves to stop them, because he knew it was too late.
Just as he expected.
After repairing the Kan position water palace, Chen Fan went straight to the Xun position wind valley without stopping.
The Wind Valley in the Xun position is a naturally formed canyon located behind the Soul Refining Sect. A bone-chilling wind blows through the valley year-round, containing pure wind-based spiritual energy; it is the "Wind Pivot" of the sealing formation.
The nodes here are relatively intact, but some of the array patterns were buried and damaged due to landslides in the valley.
Chen Fan spent two days clearing out the buried array patterns and then used the True Meaning of Stillness to reactivate the wind-flowing meridians in the valley.
When the seventh node was repaired, the bone-corroding yin wind that had been dormant in the Xun position wind valley for ten thousand years suddenly became violent, turning into a tornado that connected the sky and the earth, sweeping away all the evil energy within dozens of miles!
Immediately afterwards, the four repaired nodes—Thunder at the Zhen position, Fire at the Li position, Water at the Kan position, and Yin Wind at the Xun position—simultaneously lit up with brilliant light.
Four beams of light shot into the sky, weaving together to form a massive net of light covering the entire ruins above the sealed land.
The light net slowly pressed down, and wherever it passed, the blood-red threads snapped, and the malevolent aura melted away like ice and snow meeting the sun.
Inside the crimson hall, the Soul Refining Sect's patriarch's face was ashen.
He felt his sphere of influence shrinking rapidly. Originally, he could extend his power throughout the entire ruins, control blood slaves, command forbidden cultivators, and even directly interfere with the outside world.
But now, his power is firmly confined by that net of light to a radius of a thousand feet centered on the blood-red hall.
Outside this range, his consciousness began to blur, the blood-red threads became difficult to maintain, and even his control over the few remaining blood slaves became intermittent.