Start from Panlong and kill through the heavens

Douqi Continent, Zhongzhou.

The name of Chen Mu, the deputy head of the Ten Thousand Swords Pavilion, has quietly spread throughout the entire Central Continent world.

From slaying a three-star Dou Zong of the Tianming Sect, to becoming an eighth-grade alchemist who can refine eighth-grade pills, and then to creating his own Heaven-rank Dou Technique.

All these deeds make the name Chen Mu as earth-shattering as thunder.

The news naturally reached the Pill Tower and the Soul Palace immediately. These two institutions, possessing the most powerful forces, were able to grasp the information quickly.

As the largest force in Zhongzhou besides the Soul Palace, the headquarters of the Dan Tower is naturally exceptionally magnificent and vast.

The headquarters of Danta stands atop a solitary peak thousands of feet high, its bronze-cast tower body gleaming with green rust spots amidst the clouds and mist.

The bronze medicine cauldron-patterned bell hanging on the nine-tiered eaves swayed gently in the wind. When the sound waves rippled through the clouds, they revealed the dense array of runes on the tower. Each indented mark contained dark red medicinal residue, like congealed blood in an ancient vein.

The eight smaller towers surrounding the main tower are arranged in a lotus shape, and their glazed tiles refract a rainbow of colors under the midday sun.

Each tile is embedded with a miniature alchemical furnace, and the eerie blue flames that spew from the furnace mouths scorch the air with fine ripples. The bitter aroma of herbs and the sulfurous smell of the flames create a visible vortex among the towers.

Every seven steps, the black jade bricks paving the ground are recessed to form a Bagua (Eight Trigrams) alchemy pool. Boiling purple-gold medicinal liquid surges in the pool, and the juice splashed out when the bubbles burst condenses into ice crystals shaped like pills in mid-air.

The eighteen bronze doors at the bottom of the main tower are engraved with images of mythical beasts holding cinnabar in their mouths. The door knockers are dragons with their heads and tails linked together, and the dragon eyes are inlaid with the seventh-grade elixir "Heavenly Eye Pill," which shimmer with a terrifying blood-red light even in the daytime.

The circular stargazing corridor in the middle of the tower is adorned with 3,600 meteorite iron pills. The power of the stars has etched natural patterns on the surface of the iron pills, which resonate with the real stars every nightfall, projecting a flowing star map light screen around the tower.

The highest dome is completely transparent, with nine dragon-shaped fire veins running upwards from the ground and converging at the dome to form a vortex of crimson-gold clouds.

Occasionally, flashes of lightning, like the formation of pills, would appear deep within the clouds. The booming sound was amplified by the countless empty pill furnaces inside the tower, turning into a continuous, low hum.

The entire complex exudes a sense of oppression, tempered by time; even the falling snowflakes vaporize into indigo medicinal mist the moment they touch the spire.

At this moment, at the top of the tallest tower, an elderly man with white hair and beard sat cross-legged, while a man in white stood quietly below, seemingly waiting for the old man to wake up.

"Is what you said true?" The old man's hoarse voice broke the silence in the tower.

"What this disciple has said is all true and has been thoroughly verified," the white-robed man below replied, bowing.

"An eighth-grade alchemist who has also created his own Heaven-rank combat technique—truly a genius." The old man above muttered to himself.

"That disciple named Han Yao had a conflict with him?" the old man asked again.

"There was a conflict." The white-robed disciple answered truthfully, recounting in detail the conflict between Li En and Han Yao at the Wanjian Pavilion headquarters that day, which was exactly as described.

After listening, the white-haired old man frowned slightly and said in a deep voice:
"This is not a minor conflict."

To steal another man's wife and then try to expel him from his sect—this is no small conflict; it's an enormous feud.

"Then... may I ask, Grandmaster, how should this matter be handled?" the white-robed disciple below asked hesitantly.

Han Yao holds a respectable position within the Pill Tower, being an eighth-grade alchemist. Although the success rate of alchemy is low, there are only a handful of people in the entire Pill Tower who can be considered eighth-grade alchemists. The higher-ups of the Pill Tower certainly won't easily deal with Han Yao, but taking action against the Vice Pavilion Master of the Myriad Swords Pavilion would be quite difficult, unless several of the Pill Tower's leaders or the Grand Elder intervene.

"Let Han Yao personally go to apologize. If he doesn't go, let him go to the Alchemy Cliff for ten years of seclusion until he can refine two Rank 8 pills before he comes out."

In the end, the white-haired old man made a decision. He knew that Han Yao would not go to the Ten Thousand Swords Pavilion to apologize, so sending him to the Alchemy Cliff for ten years of seclusion would be a kind of punishment for him.

It is believed that after Chen Mu of the Ten Thousand Swords Pavilion learns of this news, his anger will subside somewhat, and he will not hold a grudge against the Pill Tower as well.

……

Meanwhile, another behemoth in Zhongzhou, the Soul Palace.
Dark clouds, like leaden blocks, pressed down on the mountains, while nine purplish-black spires pierced the clouds.

Each tower is topped with a vortex hundreds of feet in diameter, which makes a sound like bones cracking as it rotates. Dark red energy flows condense into barbed crystals at the edge of the vortex.

Thirty-six runic chains extend from the base of the spire, deeply embedded in the mountain's texture. The chains' surfaces are covered in viscous, liquid black flames that have corroded the entire rock face into honeycomb-like holes.

The dome of the central hall is made up of 100,000 human skulls, with phosphorescent flames dancing in the hollow eye sockets.

When the vortex energy reaches its peak, the phosphorescent flames coalesce into a phantom image of a nine-headed serpent, which swims back and forth between the dome and the ground, its tail sweeping across the obsidian pillars and leaving charred marks.

The ground was covered with some kind of translucent biological keratin, and under each board was sealed a twisted and deformed monster embryo, with dark purple blood vessels appearing and disappearing with the fluctuations of external energy.

The altar in the northwest corner is surrounded by nine hundred spiral bone pillars, and the bronze chimes hanging at the top are covered with patina.

Even without wind, the chime bells vibrate on their own, and the sound waves refract between the bone pillars into materialized sonic blades, slicing the intruder's still-unconsolidated blood into thin, rhomboid fragments.

The pool of water in the center of the altar gleamed with a metallic sheen, and solidified crystals of resentment floated on its surface. Whenever the energy vortex accelerated, hundreds of faces screaming in agony would emerge from the bottom of the pool.

To the due east stands a triangular pyramid-shaped library, its outer walls made of living soul jade, the pale gray jade surface occasionally revealing palm-shaped outlines.

As the books suspended inside the pavilion turn their pages automatically, the sound of the pages rubbing together is visualized as a flock of black crows, crashing against the spiked lattice windows and scattering into ink mist.

The forbidden book at the highest level was bound in mid-air by chains, and the animal skin on its cover grew scales due to energy erosion. Each time the scales opened and closed, dark green poisonous mist seeped out.

The moat surrounding the complex surges with liquid soul energy, and the shadows of giant creatures occasionally flash beneath the frozen surface.

Seven skeletal bridges span the river, each pillar topped with a fist-sized soul core, their eerie blue light illuminating the bridge surface as if it were a walkway leading to the underworld.

The inscriptions on the bridge surface flicker with the energy tides, and where some inscriptions have peeled off, they reveal stark white finger bones, whose knuckles are still making grasping motions.

The Ten Thousand Souls Tower, deep within the Soul Palace, resembles a seated skull. Above the skull's head stands a palace crafted from black jade, within which burns eerie, raging flames.

At this moment, a faint, ethereal voice resounded in the empty hall, as if it came from the deepest hell.

"Ten Thousand Swords Pavilion, Chen Mu, interesting." (End of Chapter)