Dongbo Xueying swept his gaze across the surroundings. His vision was extraordinarily sharp, allowing him to easily discern the boundaries of this vast expanse—a world roughly over two hundred billion miles in diameter, with no exit other than the massive entrance through which he had arrived.
This world was a smooth, flat expanse of gravelly earth, resembling a desert devoid of any other debris.
“Hmm? A gravelly land?” Dongbo Xueying’s heart stirred as he descended, his feet landing on the sandy surface. The ground slightly yielded beneath his weight, leaving two faint footprints.
“The Three-Headed Divine Mountain… All the passages I fled through earlier were indestructible. Yet here, there’s gravel?” Dongbo Xueying observed the ground below. “Let me see what lies beneath this gravelly earth.”
Boom!
A surge of Taihao Force radiated outward, forcefully displacing the gravel below.
Countless grains of sand were pushed aside, revealing an enormous pit with a diameter of over a hundred million miles directly beneath Dongbo Xueying. As the dazzling white light continued to spread, the pit deepened, the gravel shifting outward. Soon, it reached a depth of over ten thousand miles, and the gravel began to coarsen.
“Interesting.” Dongbo Xueying noticed that the deeper layers were no longer composed of fine, rounded grains but rather irregular, coarse fragments that were far from spherical.
“What is this?” He reached out, and one of the larger fragments flew into his hand.
The coarse gravel was a pale gray-white.
Dongbo Xueying exerted force—his strength was immense—yet the gravel remained unscathed, unyielding to his power.
“Let’s go deeper.”
The Taihao Force continued to delve downward, displacing the increasingly coarse and oddly shaped gravel. As he descended, Dongbo Xueying began to form a hypothesis. When he reached a depth of sixty thousand miles, his expression shifted. There, embedded in the earth, was an impossibly massive black bone. Though the pit he had created spanned a hundred million miles in diameter, he could only see a fraction of the bone.
Dongbo Xueying immediately manipulated the Taihao Force to drag the bone upward.
Whoosh!
The black bone, measuring a staggering one hundred and sixty million miles in length—broken and fragmented—was hauled into the air. Its surface was covered in gray-white dust, the same coarse gravel he had seen earlier.
“Could this bone have disintegrated into countless grains of gravel?” Dongbo Xueying gazed at the vast expanse of sandy earth. “Is this entire desert composed of decomposed bones?”
He attempted to store the bone within a spatial treasure—one he had acquired after slaying the Howling Fiend Cult Master’s true form.
“Hmm?” Dongbo Xueying frowned. As he tried to collect the ancient bone, he sensed an invisible force binding it to the world itself, rendering it immovable.
“It can’t be taken? As if it’s part of this world?” He shook his head and released the bone, which immediately sank back into the depths, pulled by the unseen force.
At the bottom of the pit, where all the coarse gravel had been displaced, lay the black bone, resting atop a resilient, dark-red membrane.
“Break.” Dongbo Xueying struck at the membrane.
A wisp of Taihao Force pierced through, penetrating only a finger’s depth before the membrane instantly healed upon withdrawal.
—
Dongbo Xueying swiftly flew to investigate other areas.
“Beneath this gravelly earth, there are indeed remnants being decomposed,” he mused. “The deepest layer is that dark-red membrane. Even with the Crimson Cloud Spear, I could only pierce a hundred meters deep, and the wound closed immediately.”
Time was of the essence. The dark abyss experts hunting him could arrive at any moment. He couldn’t afford to delay.
“First, hide the Bloodfiend Tome.”
With a thought, he retrieved a blood-red book, its aura thick with malevolence and temptation. Even weaker World Gods might succumb to its influence, but Dongbo Xueying’s willpower held firm.
He concealed the original copy of the *Bloodfiend Tome (Upper Volume)* within a spatial treasure, then wrapped it in an artifact that masked detection. With a simple transformation, it took on the appearance of the dark-red membrane.
“Break!” The Crimson Cloud Spear thrust with full force, piercing a hundred meters into the membrane. He then dropped the disguised artifact into the fissure before withdrawing the spear, allowing the membrane to seal shut.
“Let them try to find it now,” Dongbo Xueying smirked.
After so long in the Three-Headed Divine Mountain, he had finally found a suitable hiding place.
Whoosh!
He continued flying.
“Pitter-patter…” Raindrops began to fall from the sky.
“Rain?” Dongbo Xueying looked up in surprise. The drizzle quickly intensified into a downpour.
“Hmm?” His expression darkened as he noticed the raindrops effortlessly penetrating the Taihao Force shielding his body. Even in such a perilous environment, his defenses were being breached. The drops landed on his black armor, sizzling as they eroded its surface. “The armor is being damaged?”
He recalled the skeletal remains he had seen earlier—indestructible yet covered in powdery fragments. “Could these bones have decomposed because of this rain?”
“Boom, boom—” The rain grew heavier, transforming into a deluge within moments. The gravelly earth began to flood, the water level rising rapidly.
“Tch, tch, tch.” His armor continued to deteriorate, though its resilience bought him time. He channeled energy to repair it.
“I need shelter.”
Abandoning flight, Dongbo Xueying plunged downward.
He passed through the already ankle-deep water, burrowing into the dense gravel layer. Six thousand miles down, he reached the dark-red membrane.
Here, the floodwaters had yet to penetrate.
“Break through!”
His spear struck with full force, piercing a hundred meters deep. He squeezed into the fissure, enduring the membrane’s crushing pressure. Pushing further, he managed another twenty meters before the resistance became unbearable.
“This will do.” He retrieved the spatial treasure left by the Howling Fiend Cult Master, transforming it into a fragment of the dark-red membrane.
Whoosh!
Dongbo Xueying vanished, leaving behind the disguised artifact. The membrane sealed around it.
“Spatial treasures excel at concealment. This one masks a region spanning ten million miles. To find me, they’d have to search every inch of this membrane—no easy task.” He was confident. Even he had struggled to pierce this deep. Creating a ten-meter-wide crater would be thousands of times harder, likely requiring a Venerable-level expert.
And even then, combing through ten million miles would take ages.
Moreover, Dongbo Xueying hadn’t foolishly placed his treasure at the center of the obscured region. He was three hundred thousand miles from the core—information his pursuers lacked.
—
Inside the spatial treasure, a world teeming with life thrived, all devoted to the Howling Fiend Cult Master.
“Spirit, from today onward, eradicate all worship of the Howling Fiend in this world,” Dongbo Xueying commanded, displeased by the cult’s presence.
“As you wish, Master,” the artifact spirit complied.
Dongbo Xueying isolated a million-mile stretch of grassland for his cultivation.
“Venerables may not easily locate me, yet their methods remain unfathomable.” He sat in meditation upon the boundless plains. “Let us witness who shall triumph—whether I shall ascend to the Four-Heaven World Godhood first, or they uncover my presence.”
If caught, he would accept his fate.
—
Meanwhile, in the Red Rock Mountain World of the Xia Clan.
His wife, Yu Jingqiu, chatted with him over a meal at a tavern.
“Xueying, more and more Abyssal Monarchs are gathering at the Three-Headed Divine Mountain,” she murmured, her voice laced with unease as she monitored the unfolding crisis through her father, the Snowfiend Monarch. The air there crackled with escalating tension, a storm of Dark Abyss experts swirling into the fray like a tide of shadows. Whispers slithered through the realms—how long could Dongbo Xueying possibly endure before the abyss claimed him, in chains or in death?
“Let them be.” Dongbo Xueying drained his cup and stood. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” Yu Jingqiu blinked. Both were in the material world—where could they go?
“I’m going into seclusion. I won’t emerge until I reach Four-Heaven World God,” he declared. “As for my avatar in the Three-Headed Divine Mountain… if it’s caught, so be it.”
He had done all he could.
Now, it was a matter of luck.
This trial had shown him just how draining it was to traverse the realms in a weakened state. Even a mere Four-Heaven World God could overwhelm him with sheer cosmic pressure—his cultivation was simply insufficient. His time on Heartlake Isle had already sapped his strength, every moment laced with mortal danger. Yet he couldn’t afford the luxury of secluded cultivation to reach Four-Heaven before saving Changfeng—his sworn brother might not endure that long. And so, he had plunged into the abyssal darkness.
*(Note: “Heartlake Island” is retained as “Heartlake Isle” for fantasy naming conventions, and “Dark Abyss” is rendered as “abyssal darkness” for atmospheric weight. The phrasing emphasizes the protagonist’s desperation and the gothic undertones of the setting.)*
“I’ve done my part.”
“No more of this grueling struggle. It’s time to focus on cultivation.” Dongbo Xueying was resolute. He would lie low, emerging only when he was no longer so easily trampled upon.
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