The next moment, Chen Jinshu swept her gaze across the stone chamber, one soaked through with the remnants of an evil formation and the heavy, lingering scent of death. The air here felt thick and stagnant, clinging to her robes. Her eyes finally settled on the ghost head demonic saber lying abandoned on the cold ground.
"This blade is vicious, but it's still a rare third tier artifact."
The saber was black as ink, its surface appearing to swallow the dim light of the cavern. Even without its master's spiritual energy feeding it, the weapon continued to exude a chilling, baleful aura that made the skin crawl. It was a concentrated essence of malice, left behind like a discarded viper.
At the hilt, the skull's eye sockets flickered with faint ghostly flames of a sickly green hue, as if it refused to sink into silence.
"What a waste, following the wrong master."
She raised a brow slightly and didn't touch it directly, wary of the weapon's corruptive nature.
She brought two fingers together like a sword. A condensed streak of green light shot out from her fingertips, precisely wrapping around the demonic saber and lifting it into a specially prepared, heavy lead case. She then plastered seven or eight suppression talismans across the outside in dense layers, sealing the malevolent energy within the metal box.
After that, she found a storage pouch in the ashes of Lin Xiao's corpse that had somehow survived the fire intact. She drew it over through the air, erased the faint remaining spiritual imprint at the opening with a quick pulse of her will, and probed inside.
The space within was small and messily packed, reflecting the chaotic nature of its previous owner.
There were a few bottles of ordinary pills for stabilizing the foundation, a small pile of low grade spirit stones, and several women's accessories. These were tainted with a faint powdery fragrance, clearly belongings of the victims he had preyed upon. She brushed all of those aside in distaste, her lip curling at the evidence of his cruelty.
What truly caught her attention was an ancient looking jade slip and a scroll drawn on unknown beast hide.
She took out the jade slip and sank her spiritual sense into it.
Right at the beginning were four large characters radiating scorching hostility: Blazing Fire Transformation Art.
Reading further, she discovered the contents were a chaotic mess, recording many heretical methods for forcibly boosting fire attribute power. Some even described refining flames with living souls and lingering resentment. It had long since strayed from the upright path of fire techniques and turned vicious and insidious.
"Walking the wrong road. Dying like this isn't unjust."
She shook her head slightly, a cold sneer in her heart. Her fingers tightened, and with a sharp crack, the jade slip recording that twisted art shattered in her palm, turning to dust that scattered away in the drafty room.
The beast hide scroll contained a complex formation diagram drawn in dark, dried blood.
At its core was not spirit gathering or defense, but a ferocious, roaring ghost head, surrounded by warped runes that seemed to writhe as she looked at them.
It was clearly the evil formation Lin Xiao had used to devour cultivators' vitality.
Her gaze grew even colder. Without hesitation, pale green alchemical fire ignited at her fingertips, and she burned the formation diagram to ashes as well.
…
A short while later.
Near a narrow fissure not far from the cave entrance, she sensed a purer, denser surge of yin cold death qi. The intensity of the cold made the moisture in the air crystallize into fine frost.
This had to be where the Yin Marrow Jade was hidden.
Bone piercing cold wind poured back from deep within the fissure, carrying heavy decay and stagnation. When it brushed against her, even her protective spiritual energy slowed slightly, as if the cold were a physical weight.
The route here matched what the sword spirit had engraved on the stone slab, with only minor deviations in the winding path.
She instantly gathered her focus. Her figure flickered, and she slipped inside at once.
Xiao Yin followed close behind, turning into a dim streak of blue red light that cut through the oppressive gloom.
The fissure wasn't straight, but twisted downward, winding like a serpent into the deep belly of the mountain. The deeper she went, the thinner the light became, until it was swallowed by pure darkness that felt almost tangible.
The air was saturated with death qi so refined it was impossible to gauge.
If her Golden Core hadn't already formed, and if the Verdant Wood Rebirth Formula didn't carry powerful life force to counter it, a Foundation Establishment cultivator wouldn't last even the time it took to burn half a stick of incense before their spiritual sense was tainted by death qi and they degenerated into a murderous ghost beast.
She ran her technique at full power. A faint green glow spread around her, isolating the corrosive death qi outside her immediate space.
The green lotus mark on her forehead grew slightly warm, protecting her sea of consciousness from being eroded by the boundless dead silence.
Xiao Yin also restrained all its radiance, clinging tightly to her shoulder, its small body conveying steady warmth that acted as a focal point in the dark.
She didn't know how long she traveled through the darkness before the slope beneath her feet eased.
Ahead, the space suddenly opened up. A natural cavern far larger than the previous stone chamber appeared before her, the ceiling lost in the shadows high above. The ground was covered in a thick layer of pale bone powder, accumulated over who knew how many tens of thousands of years. It crunched softly under her boots like fresh snow.
Scattered through the powder were oddly shaped black crystals that glinted like dark stars. If her guess was right, these black crystals were immature Yin Marrow Jade crystal dust.
In the next instant, her eyes were drawn to a single glimmer of dark light at the very front of the chamber. It was only the size of a baby's fist, irregular in shape, and its entire body carried an abyssal, jet black jade sheen.
"This should be the Yin Marrow Jade."
A trace of delight flashed through her eyes. This piece was even better than she had expected. Its age should have reached three thousand years.
As the core marrow jade for refining a substitute body, it couldn't have been more suitable.
Of course, taking it wouldn't be easy.
Though for her, the difficulty wasn't high.
She only needed to avoid being injured by that death qi.
She brought both hands together before her chest and formed seals at lightning speed. Her fingers flew, instantly sketching the outline of a complex and profound hand seal in the freezing air.
Within her dantian, the vivid green Golden Core spun at an unprecedented speed. Vast Verdant Wood spiritual energy surged like a flood, all of it converging toward the ancestral aperture between her brows.
"Genesis Creation, stabilize heaven and earth!"
Her sharp cry carried unquestionable authority, echoing through the vast, silent space.
Buzz.
A point of green light, refined to the extreme and seeming to contain the birth and death of a world, shot out from her forehead.
The moment it left her body, it expanded with the wind.
In an instant, an ancient, imposing grand furnace appeared out of nowhere above the Yin Marrow Jade's location, radiating an aura that suppressed the heavens and refined all things.
The furnace stood three zhang tall, with three legs and two ears. Its walls were covered in indescribably ancient Dao patterns, now glowing with hazy green light like chaos at the dawn of creation.
An unimaginable, terrifying suppressive force poured down from the vessel.
Boom.
The entire cavern shook violently.
Stalactites on the ceiling trembled and shed dust in white showers.
The gray black death qi that had been churning and hissing moments before seemed to have a pause forced upon it by an irresistible power, flattening against the ground.
Whoosh.
Her figure moved like lightning. Without hesitation, she lunged toward that dark jade glimmer.
Midair, her fingertips wrapped in solidified green spiritual force instantly seized the Yin Marrow Jade.
In a flash, a wave of terrifying cold far purer and denser than before surged in through her fingers, as if it could freeze the very source of a soul.
"Ugh."
She let out a muffled groan as her face went deathly pale.
Wherever that cold passed, her meridians felt pierced by needles of ten thousand year dark ice. Her spiritual energy circulation slowed to a crawl, and half her arm was coated in a thin layer of frost, nearly numb to the bone.
Even so, she had three layers of protection active. Hurting her wasn't that easy. Enduring the numbing agony, she quickly stowed the Yin Marrow Jade into the jade box she had prepared in advance.
The instant the treasure was secured, she didn't hesitate. She retreated at once.
At the same time, she fully recalled the Genesis Alchemy Furnace. The phantom furnace rapidly shrank, turning into a streak of green light that sank back into her forehead.
With its suppression gone, the restrained death qi exploded outward, raging even more violently than before.
She didn't dare linger. After several flashes, she had already retreated to the edge of the cavern.
On her shoulder, Xiao Yin cried out anxiously, rubbing its small head against her cheek to convey concern.
"It's fine."
She shook her head lightly. Her voice carried a hint of fatigue, but her eyes were brighter than ever.
"Ahhh. Yin Marrow Jade. It really is thousand year Yin Marrow Jade. It's so pure. It smells so good."
"Human. Good human. Hurry and let me lick it once. Just once."
Chen Jinshu was still shaken from the danger when the sword spirit caught the scent of the Yin Marrow Jade and rushed right in front of her, begging shamelessly without the slightest concern for dignity.