Chapter 184: Zhao Huowang’s Relic

Night fell over the ruins of the North Mang Forbidden Grounds.

Lu Yan had declined Li Hao’s offer to stay at the Li Family estate and instead returned to this desolate wasteland. Within it stood a newly constructed courtyard—elegant and refined—yet completely at odds with the surrounding desolation and silence.

Lu Yan stepped into the courtyard at a steady pace. With a wave of his hand, several talismanic seals from his storage pouch flew out in streaks of light, embedding themselves into the corners of the courtyard. An invisible barrier quickly enveloped the entire space.

Then, he unfurled his Soul Banner. A wash of black ghostly mist swept across every corner of the courtyard, checking for any traces of surveillance. Once confirmed to be secure, a host of ghost soldiers marched out of the banner and formed a defensive formation, sealing off all possible information leaks.

Even after all this, Lu Yan remained uneasy.

The Demon World version housed a vast array of Dao Intents. When faced with abilities that operated on the level of Dao laws themselves, even formations made of ghost soldiers might not suffice to ward off prying eyes.

He slowly raised his right hand, and the Mysterious Female Gate manifested in his palm. The suppressive aura of this gate, which subdued all laws and Daos, enveloped the courtyard. Any attempt to spy using Dao Intents would be immediately suppressed by its power.

Only then did Lu Yan finally feel at ease, and he began organizing the harvest from the day.

The banquet earlier had settled the hidden threat posed by the Demon World’s Heavenly Dao correction. Moreover, through the so-called Everlasting Spring Art, he had successfully bound the interests of the major ancient clans together, effectively removing the largest external threat.

On top of that, Lu Yan had solidified his identity as the Underworld’s emissary, temporarily concealing the crisis surrounding his own True Dharma status.

Entering the cultivation chamber, Lu Yan sat down cross-legged.

Scroll after scroll flew out from his storage pouch, surrounding him. These were the collected tomes from the Li Family.

After settling the affairs with the ancient clans, Lu Yan had casually mentioned his interest in the True Dharma system. Li Hao had immediately packed up the entire Li Family’s archive and delivered it.

These texts included not only foundational knowledge of True Dharma, but also ancient myths passed down through generations—and even complete, original True Dharmas. Among them were three exceptionally rare Dharmas, ranked within the top 5,000 of the Heavenly Dao’s True Dharma List, each with fewer than a hundred known practitioners.

Such high-tier Dharmas were capable of reaching the Demon Fiend Realm. In the outside world, these alone would be enough to make countless Soul Burial cultivators fight to the death.

Of course, the True Dharmas were only supplementary. Lu Yan’s greatest gain this time… was something else entirely.

As that thought crossed his mind, he unfurled the Soul Banner, and two soul wisps floated out from within.

His greatest prize had been the Demon Fiend Realm souls that Li Hao had voluntarily offered.

After all, the ghost gods and soldiers in his Soul Banner were only at early Foundation Establishment. To Lu Yan, Demon Fiend Realm souls—equivalent to the Golden Core stage—were of immense value.

To avoid any accidents, Lu Yan had ordered the Giant Spirit General to erase all memories from the two souls the moment they entered the banner, leaving behind only blank soul shells.

Gazing at the two bluish, ghostly soul wisps, Lu Yan carefully considered how to maximize their utility.

“The best option, of course, would be to refine one into a main soul. If I had a Golden Core-level main soul, the Soul Banner would leap in power and have enough foundation to go toe-to-toe with other Golden Core-level beings. I wouldn’t need to recklessly unleash the Soul Continent like I did today…”

“But… that’s not a safe route.”

His eyes remained fixed on the two soul wisps, but uncertainty clouded his mind.

The first issue was that although the Soul Banner had merged with the Soul Continent, it had yet to evolve into a Thousand-Soul Banner and had reached its limit. Refining a Demon Fiend Realm soul prematurely could be extremely risky.

The second—and more important—issue was that in the Demon World, Demon Fiend souls belonged to the Heavenly Dao!

To refine one into a main soul would be to steal from the Dao itself. If the Heavenly Dao decided to reclaim them, Lu Yan could lose everything in an instant.

“Technically, if I hold out until the next version update, the shift in world rules would keep the Dao from assimilating the soul…”

“But with their bodies destroyed and memories erased, who knows if these two souls can even survive until then?”

After careful deliberation, Lu Yan opted for the safest approach—feeding the souls to his ghost gods.

Moments later, the courtyard echoed with the shrill wails of suffering spirits.

Once things were stable again, four months passed in the blink of an eye.

Throughout these four months, Lu Yan didn’t step outside the courtyard within the North Mang ruins even once.

During that time, representatives from the ancient clans, Li Hao, and even Bi Jie had all come seeking an audience—but Lu Yan had rejected them all.

Research into the Everlasting Spring Art among the clans was now in full swing. Given the high energy level of the Demon World and the abundance of powerful cultivators, deciphering a basic Qi Refining method was relatively easy.

The real challenge was obtaining a pure spiritual energy environment—and developing the stages beyond Qi Refining.

The clans threw all caution to the wind and came up with many creative ideas.

Some designed cultivation techniques based on the Dao of Spiritual Energy, allowing cultivators to comprehend its essence and become living spirit veins for their families.

Others created fully sealed chambers where demon cultivators would absorb all the Demonic Qi, leaving behind only the pure spiritual energy—the Demon Qi filtration method.

Thanks to their tireless efforts, some cultivators had already reached late-stage Qi Refining in just four months—an astonishing pace.

At this rate, they’d hit the Foundation Establishment bottleneck before the next version update.

But Lu Yan had no intention of teaching them Foundation Establishment. The Everlasting Spring Art was always meant to mislead. As long as they stayed distracted until the version change, that would be enough.

As for the Li Family, despite losing three Demon Fiend Realm elders, they had managed to maintain stability thanks to Lu Yan’s backing.

Lu Yan had instructed Li Hao not to expand the Li Family’s influence too hastily before reaching a breakthrough in cultivation—this would help stabilize things in the next version.

Bi Jie, who had come with Lu Yan to Luocheng, joined the Li Family and was taught a True Dharma by Li Hao.

This Dharma had the potential to reach the Demon Fiend Realm—whether Bi Jie could make it that far would depend on his own talent.

Of course, to Lu Yan, all of this was peripheral.

The biggest gains during those four months were his own.

Due to the mixture of spiritual and demonic energies in the Demon World, Lu Yan had abandoned regular cultivation and focused entirely on his Soul Banner and the True Dharmas.

The two Demon Fiend souls weren’t enough to raise a ghost god from early Foundation Establishment all the way to Golden Core.

So, Lu Yan split them between the Giant Spirit General and the Blood God.

The reason for this was simple: the Giant Spirit General’s All-Knowing Dao and the Blood God’s innate Soul Fusion Art could best enhance the Soul Banner’s potential.

The Guardian God’s abilities leaned toward defense—not something Lu Yan urgently needed right now.

With the addition of powerful soul nourishment and infused Dao Intent, the two ghost gods had been pushed to the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage.

Still, breaking into Golden Core remained a formidable barrier. Even another Demon Fiend soul wouldn’t be enough. To cross that threshold, Lu Yan would need to elevate the Soul Banner into a Thousand-Soul Banner, on par with a true magic artifact.

Beyond improving the Soul Banner, Lu Yan’s biggest breakthrough lay in the Seventeen True Dharmas.

Thanks to the concealment of the North Mang ruins—and the many protective measures he’d taken—Lu Yan had spent most of the four months comprehending the Dao and extracting their associated Dao Intents.

With the Li Family’s archive as support, he had now mastered the use of Profound Unity Dao Intent to perfectly conceal the other Daos on him.

Mystic Female, Ultimate Malice, Return to Ruin, Nameless, and Threefold Slaughter—Lu Yan monopolized seventeen of the highest-tier Dao Intents, extracting them freely using the power of the Heavenly Dao.

As law-level powers, the effects of the Seventeen Dao Intents far exceeded even Lu Yan’s initial expectations.

Especially Mystic Female—the origin of all worldly laws. Once the Gate of Mystic Female opened, all methods were sealed. This transcended mere Dao Intent and functioned more like a superior form of administrator privilege.

Dao Intents were, by nature, permissions granted by the rules—but the Gate of Mystic Female forcibly revoked those permissions, rendering one unable to act.

Of course, even Dao Intents varied in strength. Despite the Gate’s high ranking, with Lu Yan’s current strength, it couldn’t seal the Dao Intents of an Abyss Profound ancestor.

Those cultivators had already fused with portions of the Heavenly Dao, becoming near-divine manifestations of it.

Against such overwhelming power, Lu Yan stood no chance.

But against Demon Fiend cultivators, especially with his ghost army and Soul Banner, he finally had the strength to stand his ground.

This cultivation phase lasted into the fifth month—until someone arrived to break his peaceful seclusion.

The newly restructured patriarch Li Hao stood just outside the courtyard, which was still shrouded in endless ghost mist, and called out loudly:

“Honored emissary, the man you instructed us to find—He Dongsheng—has been located.”

Over the past few months, Li Hao had visited several times, but Lu Yan had never shown himself, only replying through the barrier.

This time, Li Hao thought it would be the same.

But to his astonishment, mere seconds after he spoke, the ghost mist that had cloaked the courtyard for months suddenly dispersed with a roar.

Lu Yan emerged, Soul Banner in hand, his expression solemn as he asked,

“He Dongsheng has been found? Where?”

The intensity in his voice made Li Hao’s heart shudder. He could feel the brief flash of terrifying Dao Intent emanating from Lu Yan. Even as a peak-stage Demon Fiend, he felt a trace of fear.

“Reporting to the emissary: our search revealed that He Dongsheng appeared in Luocheng ten months ago. He rented a small courtyard there, but soon after, he mysteriously vanished.”

“We searched his home thoroughly—and found only this.”

With that, Li Hao handed over a letter.

Lu Yan took it, and his pupils immediately contracted.

On the envelope were four bold words:

“To Brother Lu, personally.”

He quickly tore it open.

Inside was a message from He Dongsheng:

“Brother Lu, I’ve finally found the relic you asked me to locate—the one left behind by Zhao Huowang. I’ve fulfilled your request at last.”

“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to contact you lately. Just as my master became busy with an urgent matter, I had to leave early and couldn’t deliver it to you myself…”

The message ended there.

Lu Yan hurriedly checked the envelope again.

At the bottom, he found the so-called relic—a broken bamboo slip.

The writing on it was crooked and messy, like the crazed scrawl of a madman, full of eerie and chaotic energy.

“The immortals took them all… HE is coming!”

(End of Chapter)