"Judging by what those two White Bat Demons said, it seems quite a few Grand Witches from Loulan Golden Palace have come to Nethergloom Ravine lately. We'd best stay alert."
Quinn Shepherd's face grew grave. He opened a small slit in the Glutton Dragon Pouch strapped to his back, ready to summon his swords at a moment's notice.
"Cult Master, those two guys just now were really strong."
The Dragon-Qilin walked ahead, carefully dodging the floating boulders in the air. "Those two aren't any weaker than me, and they're incredibly ancient," he said.
Quinn scanned the surroundings, his voice low. "They must be divine-blooded, god-demon descendants. Saying they're not stronger than you is just boasting. Either one of those White Bat Demons could take on ten of you at once and still win. Their aura is far too powerful."
The Dragon-Qilin bristled, grumbling, "That's only because I'm still young. If I were grown up, ten of them wouldn't be able to beat me! I'm actually really useful!"
Quinn ignored his companion, who was already round as a ball yet still bragging. He pondered aloud, "Strange... Why are there White Bat Demons in the Great Ruins? Could they be remnants of the Bat Gods from before the cataclysm? Did any god-demons from before the disaster leave descendants behind?"
Some temples in the Great Ruins still enshrine statues of Bat Gods. The Bat God is considered a Fu God—a deity of blessing who bestows good fortune on people.
He'd once seen a Bat God statue in Dragoncrest City: bat-headed, human-bodied, with fleshy wings and membranes sprouting under its arms. Its appearance was somewhat similar to those two White Bat Demons, though the bats looked far more primitive. The Bat God, apart from its head and wings, resembled a human in every other way.
If those two White Bat Demons really are descendants of the pre-cataclysm Fu Gods, then does that mean there are other god-demon descendants elsewhere in the Great Ruins?
Still, Quinn had lived in the Great Ruins for so many years—why hadn’t he seen more descendants of gods and demons?
“Dragon-Qilin, where did you live before you met the Patriarch?” Quinn suddenly recalled something and asked.
“The Great Ruins.”
Dragon-Qilin reminisced, nostalgia in his voice: “I was born in the Great Ruins. Not long after, my mother disappeared. I was so hungry I nearly starved to death—then the Patriarch showed up. He looked so handsome and extraordinary that I let him trick me away with a spirit pill. One slip, and it became a lifetime of regret.”
Quinn couldn’t help laughing: “Come on, the Patriarch saw you starving and pitiful, gave you a spirit pill, and you just clung to him like glue—refused to leave, shamelessly tagging along so he couldn’t shake you off! But seriously, Dragon-Qilin, aren’t you a divine beast? Could it be that before the Great Ruins Cataclysm, the god clans turned into today’s monster beasts?”
His expression grew odd. The era before the Great Ruins must have been unimaginably prosperous—a time when gods and humans mingled, living side by side. The descendants of gods lived here too. Then the Cataclysm struck, wiping out the gods, and even their descendants gradually devolved into monster beasts.
It was a wild, even heretical guess—but not impossible.
Ahead, the canyon walls were thick with forest—trees clinging to sheer cliffs, an absurd sight. Floating boulders overhead marked the geomagnetic force twisting through this place.
Suddenly, Quinn sensed movement from the Glutton Dragon Pouch. His heart stirred; he opened the pouch to find the Worryless Sword softly vibrating, ringing with a crisp sword-song.
Quinn threaded his yuanqi into the Glutton Dragon Pouch and drew out the sword.
He had originally planned to use the Worryless Sword as the mother sword at the core of his Sword Pill, so he hadn’t made a scabbard for it. Now, holding the sword in his hand felt awkward, so he pointed with a finger—Worryless Sword flew up and sliced off a branch from an ancient tree.
“What incredibly tough wood!”
Quinn cut off a section of the branch and tried slicing it with yuanqi threads, but they barely made a mark. He couldn’t help but marvel—the wood was as hard as fine iron.
He wielded the Worryless Sword to shave it down, quickly crafting a wooden scabbard and sliding the sword inside. The blade still vibrated slightly, but its glow was now much less conspicuous.
Looks like what fell from the sky sixteen years ago wasn’t just the broken Worryless Sword and god-metal—there’s something else here, and it’s resonating with the sword! Quinn thought to himself.
Loulan Golden Palace’s people have already entered Nethergloom Ravine. Will they find it before I do?
At last they reached the end of the gorge, and the view suddenly opened up. Quinn didn’t rush into the valley; instead, he scanned the area warily. On either side of the gorge’s end rose two massive statues, carved from the mountains themselves and towering as tall as the peaks.
The two statues had solemn, sacred expressions and stood with deep, steady gazes, each resting their hands on a sword.
The roar of water echoed—their shoulders bore waterfalls, torrents plunging a thousand zhang down into their cupped hands, then rushing along the sword blades to form rivers.
Twin rivers flowed from the statues’ feet, winding through the forest like two dragons before vanishing in the valley’s center.
Both statues had bat heads and human bodies—Bat Gods.
Are these two Bat Gods guarding Nethergloom Ravine? What’s their connection to those two White Bat Demons from earlier?
Quinn gazed into the distance, startled. Are the twin rivers flowing underground? Bixiao Heaven Eye—activate!
Another celestial ring appeared in his pupils. Quinn looked toward where the rivers disappeared, frowning—something blocked his vision; he couldn’t see clearly.
Danxiao Heaven Eye—activate!
Quinn surged his yuanqi, forming the Danxiao Heaven Eye rune array in both eyes. Red patterns appeared in his irises, with green Bixiao Heaven Eye beneath, then blue Azure Firmament Heaven Eye deeper in, then white Divine Firmament Heaven Eye, and finally his pupil at the center.
Grandpa Blind had taught him the Ninefold Heaven Eye Art, and Quinn had mastered it. But with his current cultivation, he could only open up to Danxiao Heaven Eye—and it consumed a lot of energy, so he rarely used it.
Usually, Azure Firmament Heaven Eye was enough; there was no need to activate Bixiao or Danxiao Heaven Eyes.
Even with Danxiao Heaven Eye, he still couldn’t see what lay where the rivers vanished.
“Huh...”
Quinn’s heart skipped—he saw several corpses in the forest ahead: Loulan Golden Palace’s Grand Witches, lying not far apart. Strangely, some looked freshly dead, lifelike, while others had decayed to bare bones, their clothes still intact.
As he looked deeper into the woods, he spotted more bodies. Clearly, these people had met misfortune the moment they entered the forest—dead by unnatural means!
He used Danxiao Heaven Eye and suddenly saw something darting rapidly beside a corpse, vanishing in a flash. Then his Heaven Eyes felt a violent shock—one by one, the layers snapped shut!
Quinn’s mind reeled; it was as if countless shrill voices screamed in his head, nearly tearing his soul apart!
Luckily, he’d already cultivated his Primordial Spirit and endured the attack.
But he hadn’t seen what attacked him.
“Immeasurable, immeasurable, Mahā‑immeasurable!”
The shrieks in Quinn’s mind grew louder. He instantly activated the Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture; Buddha-light burst forth, six stacked heavens of gods and Buddhas appeared behind his head, chanting in unison. The resonant Buddha sound refined and dispelled the soul-rending screams.
The soil beneath his feet suddenly sizzled and smoked, foul stench rising from the earth. Quinn thrust his hands forward, gathered his qi, and unleashed the Bodhi Bhasha Divine Ability—a colossal green Bodhi tree descended from the sky, its trunk and countless branches crashing down, roots drilling into the ground.
A terrible scream rose from underground, and the earth ahead rolled—something sped away beneath the soil, shaking a big tree as it passed.
Even my Bodhi Bhasha Divine Ability can’t kill this thing?
Quinn growled, and his body suddenly turned jade-clear, his skin crystalline as if made of flawless jade. Behind him faintly appeared a Bodhi tree—he looked like a bull-headed Buddha meditating beneath its branches.
At Great Thunderclap Temple, he’d only acquired the Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture’s method, not its divine abilities. But with the method, he could deduce the abilities himself.
The scripture’s divine abilities were all contained within its twenty heavens; Thunder Sound Eight Styles was one, belonging to the Indra Heaven level—already top-tier, just below Brahma Heaven Divine Ability.
Bodhi Bhasha Divine Ability belonged to Bodhi Tree Heaven—the fourteenth heaven from the top, or the seventh from the bottom.
Though the scripture wasn’t his main cultivation method, Quinn’s insights into it were deep.
Now he displayed Bodhi Jade Buddha True Body, using Buddha-nature to suppress the underground horror and keep it at bay. At the same time, he activated Fire Luminary True Fire, maintaining his bull-headed fire god form—jade-clear skin wreathed in blazing flames, looking rather absurd.
The underground thing darted about, incredibly fast; sometimes it dispersed, sometimes condensed, sometimes burrowing into trees or even the corpses.
What in the world is it?
Just then, two powerful auras rushed in from behind. Worryless Sword sprang from its scabbard, circling Quinn in a cloud-sword ring to defend him.
But the two auras swept past him, flying to either side—it was the two giant White Bat Demons.
They split up, each flying to perch upside-down in the nostrils of the colossal Bat God statues. One giggled, “That dumb bull still doesn’t know a big group’s coming—hundreds of experts just entered...”
“Quiet!”
The other bat, in the opposite nostril, grumbled, “Why’d you warn him?”
A big group? Hundreds of experts?
Quinn’s heart chilled. These couldn’t be Everpeace troops—Qingmen Pass’s garrison couldn’t spare so many. It had to be Wild Di Kingdom’s army!
No more hesitation—Quinn plunged into the forest, heading toward the ravine’s core.
Clashing with Wild Di’s army would be suicide. Their soldiers were wild and domineering, their formations tight. When he’d followed Libationer Barrett to Loulan Golden Palace, he’d seen steppe armies strong enough that eight hundred could match a Cult-Master-level expert.
From the bats’ words, Wild Di had sent hundreds of experts—Quinn could only avoid them for now.
“Dumb bull’s gonna die!”
The bats laughed together from inside the statues, shouting, “Fall, fall!”
Quinn’s Buddha-light shielded himself and the Dragon-Qilin—he hadn’t fallen yet.
He dashed through the forest, dodging the underground horror, leaping over corpses and trees, heading for the valley’s center.
Suddenly, a chill swept over him—the horror had caught up!
Quinn spun, unleashing Fire Luminary True Fire, incinerating the ground behind him. The horror shrieked, but didn’t dare approach.
He pressed on, finally arriving at the valley’s core, where the twin rivers merged and vanished underground.
He scanned the area—no sign of Loulan Golden Palace’s people, nor Wild Di’s army.
But the underground horror was still lurking nearby, circling him.
Quinn hesitated. Should he enter the underground river?
He glanced back—Wild Di’s army was coming, and Loulan Golden Palace’s experts weren’t far behind.
If he stayed, he’d be caught between two forces. If he entered the underground river, he’d face the horror.
Quinn gritted his teeth, made up his mind, and leapt into the underground river.
He plunged into pitch darkness, swept along by the swift current.
The horror followed, darting through the water, its shrieks echoing in the darkness.
Quinn summoned Buddha-light to protect himself, struggling to stay afloat as the current swept him deeper underground.
He gripped Worryless Sword, ready to fight for his life at any moment.
Just as the horror closed in, a blinding light burst ahead—he was swept out into open air, hurtling down a waterfall!