The fourth layer of the Sevenfold Illusory Seal — a domain where the yin energy of the earth condensed into tangible frost, where time itself seemed warped by ancient formations.
Liu Chen still lay there, his eyes half-closed, his breath thin as spider silk.Within his body, no trace of true qi stirred.His blood flowed so sluggishly it was almost frozen.Yet deep within his tattered flesh, his soul had just endured a nameless upheaval.
Memories of the tribe, of the Shaman Vu Mi, of the bloodstained altar beneath the snowy sky — they pierced into his mind like shattered shards of glass, sharp and unforgettable, impossible to distinguish dream from reality, illusion from memory.
He could not understand what within that vision was deception, and what was truth.
A soft sound echoed in the distance — not the whisper of wind, not the tread of footsteps, but the faint scrape of ritual robes brushing against ancient stone, like the toll of a soul bell deep within the Pool of Lost Spirits.
The woman in blue robes arrived.
Liu Chen's eyes snapped open instantly — the chill of her presence had penetrated his soul long before her figure appeared.
That same silhouette — blue robes silent against the air, black hair like ink, eyes devoid of emotion, carrying only the coldness of one who had long grown numb to watching life crumble into ashes.
She stopped before the stone platform, gazing at Liu Chen as if observing a newly unearthed relic — a mystery never before recorded in the annals of the Heavenly Gate Hall.
For a long moment, neither spoke.Only the occasional flicker of runes beneath Liu Chen's feet pulsed faintly, binding every thread of his breath.
"Why are you still alive?"the woman finally asked.Her voice was soft — each word falling like a droplet of frozen steel upon a blade.
"I don't know..."Liu Chen rasped, his throat raw and dry as sandpaper.
"You don't know?"Her tone did not change, but a rune on Liu Chen's forehead flared — and his soul shuddered, half torn from his body, suspended between the seals.
"Do you know what pure demonic qi is?"she asked again, her gaze narrowing.
"It is a force born from ancient demonic wombs,"she continued,"a substance beyond the five elements, capable of driving Golden Core cultivators into madness within a single breath, capable of annihilating souls tempered over three hundred years the instant they touch it."
She paused, pointing at the dried blood beneath Liu Chen's chest.
Liu Chen said nothing.
The woman's gaze grew colder.
"You do not understand what you have done?"
Liu Chen shook his head faintly.
"You absorbed pure demonic qi without resistance. Do you know what that means?"she whispered, stepping closer to the platform, standing right above him.
Liu Chen gasped for air — not out of fear — but because the cold had burrowed into every vein, squeezing the blood from his heart.
"I am just... a boy from the border tribes,"he said, slowly, as if reminding himself.
The woman fell silent again.
After a moment, she raised her hand, weaving a rune in the air.From it materialized a floating black crystal, within which suspended a single drop of dark red blood — glimmering faintly like ink diluted in water.
"This is your blood. It is merging with pure demonic qi,"she said, voice low, each word slicing into him like a blade.
"Ordinary flesh is repelled by it. Even spirit-rooted bodies would suffer soul dissolution upon contact. But you... you merged with it. No backlash. No rupture. No collapse."
"It means your body is... compatible."Her words faltered for a breath — her gaze unreadable, halfway between awe and cruelty.
Then she whispered, not to Liu Chen, but to the seals, to the formation arrays recording his every heartbeat:
"In our sect's forbidden grounds, there lies an ancestor — whose soul has been sealed within the Cursed Demon Womb for over three centuries."
"To complete the soul-transference, a body is needed — one that can fully withstand pure demonic qi without rejection, without soul deviation."
"We have searched for a lifetime."
She lowered her head, staring down at him — the way a blacksmith might regard a lump of ore finally found to be worthy.
Her words fell softly.
But they froze Liu Chen's blood where he lay.
The thing he had once thought worthless, ordinary — had become the very reason he would now be used as a vessel for soul possession.
One sentence.
And his fate was sealed.
—
Twelve hours later.
The seals of the fourth layer trembled, the dense arrays retracting.A teleportation circle bloomed beneath the soul-binding platform, its blood-colored light twisting like burning insects, flooding the chamber with a chilling miasma.
Still bound by iron chains, his soul sealed, Liu Chen was dragged into the revolving portal.
Light flickered wildly.
His body drifted through a space unlike any he had known — echoes like hollow skulls knocking together rang through the void.
When the light finally faded, he found himself somewhere else.
The Cursed Demon Realm.
One of the three most forbidden lands sealed by the Heavenly Gate Hall.
A world without sun or moon.
Above — endless clouds black as ink.Below — a plain of ash and dead rock.
All around, towering pillars of bloodstone stretched into the heavens, carved with ancient glyphs, each bearing an aura of madness and despair.
The winds howled ceaselessly, carrying the stink of blood and forgotten graves.
At the center — a vast blood pool, silent and bottomless.Its surface was still as a mirror.But it held no water — only blood.
Blood accumulated from countless sacrifices over eight centuries, its stench so foul it twisted even spiritual senses.
The woman in blue stood at the edge of the blood pool.The wind tore at her robes, but her figure stood unmoving — like a spear thrust into the heart of a frozen mountain.
She raised her hand, weaving a binding array that suspended Liu Chen midair above the pool — forcing him to look down, unable to retreat.
"You mean to kill me here?"Liu Chen croaked.
"No,"she replied."You are about to meet the one you shall become."
From the depths of the blood pool, dark lights rose — spiraling into a vortex of deathly mist.And from within it, a figure slowly emerged — not a body, but a translucent shadow, a face weathered like ancient roots sinking into the void.
It was not the face of the living.
It was the face of a soul long dead, yet too stubborn to vanish — a soul fused with the blood of countless victims.
Its eyes opened — hollow, empty — sucking the sanity from the world.
"Disciple of the Heavenly Gate Hall, Su Jinglan, under the orders of the Nine Hall Elders, hereby presents the offering,"the woman intoned.
"This mortal — whose blood harmonizes with pure demonic qi, whose body accepts without rejection, whose soul, though weak, is pure — is hereby offered as the vessel."
She knelt at the blood pool's edge, one knee on the dead earth, head bowed low in reverence, as if before an eternal god.
She did not look at Liu Chen.There was no emotion in her voice.Only unwavering devotion.
"You have waited eight centuries. Today, blood meets vessel, soul meets flesh."
From beneath the pool, the ancient soul lifted its hand.
With that mere gesture, the very air above the pool grew several degrees colder.
Invisible forces enveloped Liu Chen.
The ancestor did not speak.
Yet the countless runes around the blood pool activated — a chilling soul-sensing light drilling into Liu Chen's marrow, inspecting each cell, each heartbeat, each trembling fragment of his existence.
"Your divine consciousness has surveyed three hundred blood vessels, seventeen spirit embryos, fifty-two physique cultivators,"Su Jinglan murmured."None were compatible — until now."
The ancient soul stirred slightly.
A black mist swept across the dead field.
And then — the ancestor spoke.
"This body is imperfect...""But its essence — sufficient to forge perfection."
The voice came not from any mouth, but from the depths of the sealed abyss — carrying the echoes of countless imprisoned souls.
The blood pool churned.
No longer mirror-smooth — black blood steamed upward, swirling into the air.
From the eight bloodstone pillars surrounding the pool, ancient runes awakened.Streams of primordial energies — blue, crimson, violet, gold — burst forth like long-sealed lightning, converging onto Liu Chen.
This was no longer sacrifice.
It was reforging.Recasting.
Forging a new vessel.
Each beam that pierced Liu Chen's body shattered his limits — twisting bones, tearing sinews, reversing blood flow.
His veins glowed, like cracks in jade heated in a crucible.
Su Jinglan remained kneeling, unmoving.
She knew — the ancestor was tempering the flesh.
A perfect vessel could not be found.It had to be made — flooded with foreign blood, stripped of marrow, reforged with ancient energies, purged of soul.
Inside the blood array, Liu Chen screamed — but no sound escaped.His throat was sealed.His limbs were bound.Only his eyes retained the last flicker of life.
This was no mere physical agony.
It was the sensation of being turned into an object.
A raw lump of jade — hammered, burned, and melted — to be remolded into the vessel of a god.