Ren Zu raised his hand slowly, not out of hesitation, but out of pure disinterest. The cold wind dragged a strand of his black hair, making it ripple like liquid ink against the sky's light.
"I'm worrying too much."
The phrase came out almost like a lazy sigh, light, calm, without any moral weight. His black eyes remained fixed on the cabin below, but there was no longer any tension in them. Just certainty.
"Even if this old man is a medical genius... how much can he understand?" Ren Zu tilted his head, his gaze slightly sharpened, yet relaxed: "It's hard to believe that someone with his talent could surpass my own knowledge and talent. I mastered the entire [Miracle of Life] in a short time, while he took decades of study to understand just a part..."
He waved his hand in the air, a gentle, almost artistic gesture, as if brushing away an invisible concern.
"...I don't need to kill him."
It was the final decision.
Still... his eyes narrowed, tinged with a cold gleam.
"But precaution... is never too much. With the plot armor that Scum Che carries, any detail could turn into a disaster. And this old man..." His gaze slid to Yun Gu, who was still treating the child with infinite patience. "He is the only one in this world capable of healing him, should my plans unfold as they should. Better to prevent than to regret later...."
The profound energy within his body responded immediately, flowing with absolute naturalness. It was warm and silent, but it carried an authority that seemed to bend the very space around him. The palm of his hand began to glow with a deep and intense gold, intertwined with crimson sparks.
First came the sound.
A dull, muffled thud....
Then, the light took shape.
The profound energy condensed so quickly that the surrounding air rippled, distorted like a vibrating water mirror. He didn't move a muscle, but thousands, millions of tiny traces began to emerge between his fingers, lines so fine they seemed drawn by a divine brush. These lines connected to each other, forming impossible patterns, a geometry that did not obey the normal laws of the world.
He was creating a profound formation.
Since gaining access to the vast libraries of the Illusory Demon Realm, his knowledge had expanded like an ocean without shores. Among all the fields he had studied, the one in which he had evolved in a truly absurd way was formations. Combining his refined control of profound energy, his natural understanding of the world's laws, and a genius that bordered on the incomprehensible, he advanced in this study as if he were merely breathing.
What for others required decades, for him was no more than a casual exercise.
Now, looking honestly at himself, in terms of formations, he was already at the level of a master, perhaps even above that. There was no formation he couldn't dismantle, improve, or recreate in his own way.
And that's what he did, using everything he knew.
Before his palm, floating like a fragment of a hidden universe, a triangular profound formation appeared.
It was small, the size of a thumbnail.
Each line that composed it carried infinitely delicate traces, micro-inscriptions carved with such absurd precision that only someone as capable as he could have created them. There were millions of symbols, each representing a branch of medicine, from the most primitive to the highest spiritual concept. It was as if Ren Zu had compressed the entire meaning of the word "cure" into that triangle.
But that was just the essential part of the profound formation. It had no consciousness or knowledge of its own; it was merely a mechanism, a mute construct capable of "detecting" any bodily movement that indicated someone's intention to perform a cure.
This essential part remained at the center of the profound formation, while at one of the triangle's points, a golden flame ignited, with the power of the Golden Crow Flames, hot, relentless, destructive. Soon after, a crimson flame, soft and divine, shone at the second point; the Vermilion Bird Flames had appeared, and the third point was made with an indescribable mechanism.
Then, the profound formation was suddenly covered by special laws. A small "circular space" took shape, incomprehensible, undetectable. A spatial fragment carved by Ren Zu that simply could not be perceived by anyone, not even by the supreme beings of the Primordial Chaos.
That was where the formation "hid."
Ren Zu observed his creation for a moment, the golden light reflecting on the white mask and the dark strands of his hair.
A calm, almost lazy expression crossed his face.
"Yes. This is good."
He extended his hand, and the formation sank into space itself, disappearing as if it had never existed, entering Yun Gu's body silently.....
This profound formation, which he called [Yin-Yang Destiny Profound Formation], had only one effect.
If Yun Gu approached Scum Che with the intention of treating him...
If any medicinal energy was detected...
If any attempt at healing was made, even the slightest...
The fused flames would explode instantly, burning both body and soul until only invisible ashes remained, carried away by the wind.
All that was left was, later, to place a "mark" on Yun Che, ensuring that the profound formation would only activate when Yun Gu approached him.
And if someone, by some miracle, removed the formation...
He would know.
Although he doubted anyone was capable of that, there was still the possibility of the "Destiny" that protected Scum Che, the so-called Ancestral Goddess, intervening directly to undo something created by him. And the simple act of undoing would trigger the mark within the circular space, sending a direct warning to his spiritual sense...
Ren Zu sighed softly.
"Better safe than sorry."
He raised his hand in a simple, almost nonchalant gesture.
The space around him vibrated, a silent, elegant, obedient wave.
An object appeared instantly before him, as if the world had been rewritten to place it there.
The [Celestial Medicine Manual].
The same one that Yun Gu carried as his greatest treasure.
Ren Zu didn't even blink.
A small golden spark ignited at the tip of his finger, a fragment of the Golden Crow Flames, insignificant enough to seem casual, but powerful enough to erase mountains from existence.
He touched the manual with lazy lightness.
The book didn't burn.
It ceased to exist.
It turned into dust that dissolved in the wind, like stardust being carried away, without leaving even ashes.
Ren Zu didn't spare a second glance at what remained.
"This eliminates another irritating variable."
With another wave, another object was brought from Yun Gu's body straight to his hand without the old man noticing.
The half of the [Sky Poison Pearl].
It appeared with a deep green glow, a perfect sphere, the exact size to rest in a human palm. The surface was so smooth it seemed made of living jade, exuding a faint invisible poison...
or rather: it would exude, if he hadn't sealed its lethal power in the same instant he took it from the old man.
Now, it was just a silent object, perfectly harmless.
But it was the other half of one of the Seven Heavenly Profound Treasures.
The [Sky Poison Pearl] that fused with Scum Che had strong purification and refinement abilities, but it lacked poisonous powers.
However, the poisonous powers were the main powers of the [Sky Poison Pearl], and they were precisely the powers of the one he had just taken from Yun Gu; it possessed pure poison powers!
According to what he knew about this extraordinary and very forced event. In another timeline, on the Azure Cloud Continent, when Yun Gu gave the [Sky Poison Pearl] to Yun Che, he warned him never to release the vicious poison inside the Sky Poison Pearl. After Yun Gu died, Yun Che lost his mind and furiously released the [Sky Poison] that Yun Gu had tirelessly sealed, exterminating countless people and clans with the poison. The last time he released the poison, he completely consumed all the poison powers inside the Sky Poison Pearl, and even the poison origin had been released at the same time after the release of the last piece of [Sky Poison]....
Originally, when the poison origin recovered, it would return to the Sky Poison Pearl on its own. However, due to the interference of the [Mirror of Samsara], not only did the Sky Poison Pearl, which lost its poisonous origin, strangely fuse with Yun Che's body, it also went through reincarnation and arrived in a different world. There was even a time incompatibility. Although the poisonous origin that remained on the Azure Cloud Continent did not disappear due to the powers of the [Mirror of Samsara], after recovering, it could not return to the [Sky Poison Pearl] and formed its own body, producing the second [Sky Poison Pearl]....
Which was precisely the one in his hands at that moment.
Ren Zu twirled it between his fingers, as if it were just a pretty stone he had found by chance.
He wasn't even paying much attention.
Until—
The [Sky Poison Pearl] trembled.
Very subtly, as if it had awakened.
The green glow on its surface expanded, shining... and then the entire sphere melted like liquid light, escaping from his fingers, transforming into an emerald trail that ran up his hand like a serpent of energy.
Ren Zu widened his eyes slightly.
"...hm?"
Without any warning, that half of the [Sky Poison Pearl] fused into his right palm calmly.
The green light circled his hand like a ring of liquid green fire...
And then etched itself into his skin.
When the light ceased, what remained was a sharp, delicate green circular mark, like a divine seal imprinted directly on his flesh.
It pulsed once.
Then, it silenced.
Ren Zu remained still.
The wind blew his hair to the side.
He looked at his hand with a strange expression, a mix of genuine curiosity and slight pondering.
"...How is this possible? If I'm not mistaken, the [Mirror of Samsara] forced the [Sky Poison Pearl] to recognize Scum Che as its master...."
For someone like him, who was rarely surprised, the feeling was... unusual.
The green mark glowed softly again, almost as if responding to him, as if it had found its rightful owner.
Ren Zu furrowed a brow.
It was then that he realized a certain familiar pattern of profound energy circulation had attracted and subdued the [Sky Poison Pearl], something he hadn't even noticed until that moment, precisely because it was the same circulation that flowed continuously through his entire body due to the [Ten Extreme Daos] technique.
So... this happened thanks to his own cultivation method?
An innate ability to attract and subdue any Treasure?
It made sense....
That technique was founded on the Dao, the supreme driving force of the universe. All "paths," all laws and understandings, inevitably converged to that primordial force. And if the Dao was the basis of everything, then everything within the heavens and earth existed within its domain. Therefore, it was natural that he could subdue, refine, and assimilate anything... right?
This conclusion gained even more strength when remembering that he had been able to absorb profound cores, the Evil God's seeds, and even the [Ancestral Spatial Symbol].
Ren Zu observed the green mark on his right palm for a few more moments, then slowly curved his lips into a lazy, almost satisfied smile.
"...Interesting."
The voice came out low, laced with genuine amusement.
The wind blew stronger, making his white robes ripple like water, and his black hair dance like a curtain of living night.
"[Ten Extreme Daos]... it really has no limits, does it?"
He closed his hand.
The green mark glowed one last time, as if responding to its new owner's call, and then quieted completely, fusing into the skin as if it had always belonged there.
He had absolute control over that half of the [Sky Poison Pearl].
And with that, his journey on the Azure Cloud Continent ended.
With an almost lazy gesture, he tore the space in front of him with two fingers.
A black and perfect rift opened, silent, without any fluctuation of profound energy. On the other side, one could glimpse a sky similar to the current one; it was the Profound Sky Continent!
It was time to continue his adventure.
Then, without further ceremony, he stepped through the spatial rift.
The tear closed behind him with a soft sound, like a page being turned.
The Azure Cloud Continent was left behind, now a poorer place that would be swallowed by countless difficulties in the near future.
But no one knew that at that moment....
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