If I stay in the Hehuan Sect, I'll live off the pampered daughters of the Heavenly Pride Sect.

Mo Chengyue walked along the canyon towards the golden-red pillar of light.

The storage pouch at his waist jingled.

The closer you get to the beam of light.

The higher the concentration of spiritual energy in the air.

The denser the ground battle marks.

The road surface gradually transformed from scattered bloodstains into large areas of scorched earth and deep pits.

The mangled remains of cultivators from various races began to appear on the rock walls on both sides.

Some of them had been rotting for many days and had developed grayish-green fungal spots.

Some of the blood on his chest had not yet completely clotted.

His pace slowed by half a beat.

The Yin-Yang Qi Observation Technique quickly swept across the waists of the corpses.

The buttons on the storage bag were all torn off.

Even the seams of the fabric were rummaged through.

Clean and tidy.

Not a single fragment of a spirit stone was left.

"Even picking up trash resulted in him getting all rolled up like this."

He pushed the Azure Spirit Sword, which he had already drawn three inches from its sheath, back into its scabbard.

"It seems the closer we get to the core area..."

"The higher the quality of your peers."

They don't even spare the oil and juices from between the bones.

He did not waste time on the looted corpses.

They crouched low, pressed themselves against the shadow of the rock wall, and advanced rapidly.

They traveled about seven or eight miles.

The canyon ahead suddenly opened up into a bright and open space.

The terrain suddenly rises, forming a natural high platform.

He stopped behind the remains of a giant, collapsed stone pillar in front of the platform.

Embed your entire body into the gap formed by the stone pillar and rubble.

Only half of its head, which was wearing a bronze mask, was visible.

The beam of light was about ten miles ahead.

A thick, golden-red beam of light, as thick as a city gate, shot straight up from the ground into the sky.

The surrounding air was steamed by spiritual energy, creating visible heat waves.

Mo Chengyue sat cross-legged in the shadow of the stone pillar ruins.

Close your eyes and practice the Yin-Yang Qi Observation Technique.

Spread your divine sense forward in the mode of lowest power and maximum range.

When I opened my eyes again.

The scenery more than ten miles away was peeled away layer by layer in his special vision.

At the base of the pillar of light stands a colossal palace built against the mountain.

Its size far exceeded what he had estimated from the tattered map.

The entire palace is constructed of a warm, white stone.

Even through the lingering spiritual energy and pervasive dust.

That lustrous, jade-like sheen remains vivid and dazzling.

The entire building is backed by a sheer cliff thousands of feet high.

The surface of the cliff was covered with dark golden moss.

It looked as if someone had splashed gold powder on it.

The palace's facade faces a square that has been completely leveled by battle.

It's not "destruction", it's "flattening".

The original ground floor was blasted away by the thickness of three or four floors.

The darker rock layers underneath are exposed.

The rock strata were covered with new pits and scorch marks.

His first reaction wasn't "How spectacular!"

Instead, he squinted.

An idea popped into my head reflexively.

"This is a huge undertaking."

"If calculated by working hours"

"How many people will have to work overtime for how many days?"

The Yin-Yang Qi Observation Technique breaks down the remaining aura in the square into different color layers.

The scene was ten times more disgusting than he had imagined.

The cyan demonic blood congealed into thin, cracked shells.

Red human blood seeped into the cracks in the rock strata and spread like a spider web.

A viscous, white, vaporized liquid.

That was the product of the true essence of a Core Formation cultivator being forcibly dispersed and then condensed.

The three colors are intertwined and intertwined.

There are at least seven or eight layers of new and old superimposed.

The bloodstains at the very bottom had dried, turned black, and oxidized to a dark brown.

The outermost layer still retains a slight warmth.

The infiltration is still proceeding slowly.

He deduced a chilling conclusion from the gradient of breath decay.

The intense fighting in this area lasted for at least five or six days.

Moreover, the cultivation level of the participants was far superior to those he encountered at the pass.

The edges of each deep pit bore the marks of burning from fragments of the laws.

This is a characteristic that only appears when a cultivator at the late Core Formation stage or above goes all out.

More importantly—the square is suspended in mid-air.

The fighting is still ongoing.

Several afterimages collided and intersected at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Each clash of techniques exploded in mid-air, creating a mushroom cloud mixed with various colors of spiritual light.

The shockwave spread in all directions.

The shockwave even created visible ripples in the air more than ten miles away.

The aura of those phantoms fluctuated.

Each one is firmly above the late stage of Core Formation.

"Goodness."

Mo Chengyue took a deep breath.

"This isn't some kind of ancient ruins treasure hunt."

"This is the scene at the semi-finals of the world championship."

"I'm a newly certified early-stage Golden Core cultivator."

"It's the kind of place even security guards won't let you in."

He continued his reconnaissance deeper into the palace.

When the divine sense of the Yin-Yang Qi Observation Technique passed through the white marble outer wall.

A noticeable viscous resistance could be felt.

The thickness and density of this wall far exceed what is common sense.

The efficiency of divine sense penetration has been reduced by at least 30%.

But he still managed to capture the vague internal structure.

The main palace consists of a magnificent central hall and a cluster of side halls on both sides.

The main hall is at least ten times the size of the side hall.

The dome is soaring high, and the interior space is large enough to accommodate a small market.

The palace was originally filled with array formations, restrictions, and traps.

Now most of it has been reduced to ruins.

He used the Yin-Yang Qi Observation Technique in those broken and restricted areas.

At least thirty remains of different species were identified.

The skeletons of the human cultivators remained in their final charging posture.

The half-human, half-beast corpse of a demon was curled up next to the array node.

The massive remains of the demon were embedded in the wall.

There were even a few with bizarre structures.

The remains of an ancient puppet with its joints bent in the opposite direction.

They were all lying haphazardly in the abandoned restricted passageway.

He used his own body to clear what was originally a deadly trap zone.

It filled in a safe passage paved with blood and flesh.

"Using human lives to pave the way for landmines."

Mo Chengyue smacked his lips silently.

"Thank you to all the predecessors who paved the way for those who followed with their lives."

"You guys are the infrastructure maniacs of the ruins exploration world."

"If only your leaders could distribute a couple more pills..."

"It wouldn't have fallen here to serve as a landmark for future generations."

however.

What truly made his pupils shrink was not the number of corpses.

Instead, it was the scene in the center of the main hall.

At the very center of that enormous space.

A ball of intensely hot, almost blinding golden light floated out of thin air.

The golden light concealed a mysterious treasure with indistinct outlines.

Even through several walls and a distance of more than ten miles, the spiritual energy fluctuations emitted by that thing were still present.

It still caused the mutated golden core with the Tai Chi pattern in his dantian to tremble slightly.

This is not an ordinary spiritual sensation.

Rather, it is a resonance of laws at the Golden Core level.

A treasure that can trigger this reaction.

Its quality is at least above that of a high-grade spiritual weapon.

It might even reach the threshold of the legendary immortal artifact.

Surrounding this golden light.

More than ten peak Core Formation stage experts are engaged in a multi-party melee.

There were three or four human cultivators.

Each of them was protected by the spiritual light of their respective magical treasures.

The distance between them is even greater than the distance between them and the demons.

Clearly, there is no trust between them.

The demon race has four or five powerful individuals who have progressed from the late stage to the peak of the demon general realm.

His body was filled with demonic energy surging like a black tide.

One of the largest and most imposing demons appeared to be the leader.

But the others did not follow his orders.

There are also two or three powerful demons who maintain a half-human, half-demon form.

Agile.

They specialize in launching surprise attacks when the human and demon races are locked in combat.

Mo Chengyue spent about thirty breaths observing the rules governing this chaotic battle.

Whenever one side makes the first contact with the protective shield surrounding the golden light.

All other factions immediately put aside their grudges.

Without hesitation, they joined forces to defeat them.

Those who were repelled suffered worse injuries and retreated to their original positions to lick their wounds.

The remaining people immediately dispersed.

They have returned to a state of mutual vigilance and confrontation.

This cycle repeats itself endlessly.

No one can escape unscathed from a combined attack by everyone.

No one wanted to be the first to leave.

What if I leave right after?

What if someone else succeeds right after?

"A classic multi-party game deadlock."

Mo Chengyue calmly made a judgment in his heart.

"Until only two or three people remain."

"I can't tell the result."

"And even if only three remain after death."