Primordial Era: Starting with the repair of Penglai Immortal Island

The power of a sage is all-pervasive, reaching to the heavens and the earth.

It can protect the true spirit from dissipation and even reunite the true spirit.

Huanglong remembered the Old Ancestor Hongyun.

After Hongyun self-destructed, his true spirit was in the purple-gold gourd bestowed by the Taiqing Sage, which Huanglong held and spent tens of thousands of years to gather Hongyun's true spirit back into the gourd and nurture it.

I wonder if Hongyun's true spirit has been fully restored?

Huang Long didn't have time to think.

Houtu, the ancestral witch, has started moving forward again, instantly traversing thousands of miles of mountains and rivers.

They continued walking.

After passing through the mountains inhabited by demons, I saw two demons who were both practicing the Demon Core Technique fighting to the death. The victor was devouring the demon core, flesh, primordial spirit, and true spirit of the loser...!

After traversing the swamp teeming with giant beasts, they witnessed countless weak creatures being devoured, their true spirits not even having a chance to escape before being transformed into nourishment for the giant beasts along with their flesh and blood.

Walked past...

Over thousands of years, they traversed a significant portion of the southern wilderness.

Huanglong went from initial shock to numbness, and now to deep contemplation.

This was the first time Huanglong had observed the changes in the true spirits of living beings after death in the primordial world.

He had witnessed too much death and too many souls vanish.

Those points of light, some bright, some dim, some large, some small, all resulted in different outcomes.

Creatures with lower cultivation levels and weaker true spirits will have their true spirits directly dissipate into the primordial world after they perish.

When those beings with powerful cultivation and more refined true spirits perish, although their true spirits will still dissipate, some of them will sink into the earth, and even Huanglong's primordial spirit cannot detect where they have gone.

Then Tu, the ancestral witch of the earth, remained silent and observed.

Aside from occasionally answering a few of Huang Long's questions, she didn't say a word and just watched.

But Huanglong could sense that Houtu's aura was gradually changing, from initial indifference to later compassion, and now... an indescribable heaviness.

On this day, they arrived at an area with exceptionally lush vegetation, where countless creatures thrived and multiplied.

This is one of the core areas where the Lich and Demon races confronted and fought each other ten thousand years ago. It is stained with the blood of the creatures of both races, and not a single blade of grass grows within hundreds of millions of miles.

It was Huanglong himself who purified the bloodthirsty energy of this area and sowed seeds of vegetation. Unexpectedly, after ten thousand years of recuperation, the number of living beings gathered here far exceeds that of other areas!

Houtu stood on a plain, closing her eyes to perceive.

Huanglong also extended his divine sense, following Houtu's aura downwards. He then gasped in shock, discovering that deep within the earth lay countless fragments of true spirits!

Most of them are incomplete, some are just tiny specks of light the size of rice grains, and some can barely maintain their original phantom image.

These spirits are bound by a special force, unable to dissipate or leave, and can only languish here, enduring the pain and resentment of their last moments before death.

"Here...!" Huang Long exclaimed in surprise.

"This is a prison for the true spirit."

Houtu opened her eyes, and for the first time, a clear emotional fluctuation appeared in them—anger and sorrow. "The Lich War resulted in the deaths of countless beings. Their true spirits should have returned to heaven and earth, but after so many lives perished, their obsessions merged together, forming a new 'battlefield.' Look...!"

She reached out and grasped, capturing a fist-sized ball of light from that area.

Within the ball of light was the phantom of a witch warrior, who remained in the posture of his last moments before death, roaring to the sky, his hands raised high with a huge beast bone, while a giant claw pierced through his chest.

The phantom kept repeating this action, as if time were frozen at the moment of death.

"He is repeating death," Houtu said softly. "With each repetition, his true spirit will be worn down a little, until he completely loses all his memories, turning into pure energy, which is absorbed by the obsessions here. And the stronger the obsessions, the stronger the ability to bind the true spirits... This cycle continues endlessly."

"When all the true spirits have vanished, this place may give birth to a new ferocious beast of death and slaughter, or it may give birth to a special magical artifact!"

Huang Long felt a chill rise up his spine.

If one dies in battle, one's true spirit will suffer eternal torment after death, eventually becoming nourishment...?

"Is there no way to find liberation?"

Houtu remained silent for a long time, then released her grip, and the true spirit dissipated into the void.

"Yes," she said, "but it's simple."

As she spoke, Houtu lightly stomped her foot, and Huanglong instantly felt the immense power of the earth tremble downwards.

That battlefield, composed of the obsessions of billions of fallen lives, instantly crumbled.

The true spirit trapped within also vanished beneath the earth.

After Houtu finished doing all this, she turned around and continued on her way.

Huang Long quickly followed.

This time, she quickened her pace, walking barefoot on the ground, each step covering thousands of miles, stopping in each special battlefield area where the trapped true spirits were released and returned to heaven and earth.

After all the battlefields that formed this special region on the southern part of the prehistoric land disappeared, Houtu, with the power of the Ancestral Witches, carried the Yellow Dragon and went deep into the earth.

Huanglong vaguely sensed that Houtu Zuwu's journey over the past few thousand years had been solely aimed at bringing those trapped true spirits back to the world.

She was observing, collecting information, and verifying a certain conjecture.

Now, she seems to have found her direction.

That direction filled Huanglong with an ominous premonition.

The further down you go, the thinner the pure spiritual energy becomes, while the more turbid the earth's energy becomes.

The originally clear innate spiritual energy gradually became mixed with gray-black evil energy and blood energy.

After disappearing for an unknown period of time, Huanglong and Houtu suddenly appeared in a space filled with blood-red mist.

The sky was also a dark red, as if shrouded in blood clouds that would never dissipate.

Upon appearing in this space, the name "Sea of ​​Blood" naturally came to mind!

However, having not yet seen the surging sea of ​​blood, Huang Long was somewhat uncertain.

Huanglong felt extremely uncomfortable in this space.

As a true disciple of Yuqing, he cultivated the Yuqing method and preferred pure and spiritual places, instinctively rejecting such filthy and bloody environments.

Huanglong sensed that the spiritual energy here had been replaced by the filthy blood energy, and when the wind blew, it would emit a wailing sound, as if countless living beings were crying out in agony.

However, Tu seemed to be in his element.

She walked barefoot on the reddened earth, each step causing the ground to tremble beneath her feet.

Those malevolent and foul energies would be absorbed and refined by her when they came within three zhang of her body.

The path she walked on would briefly appear blank, but would soon be stained with the surrounding blood.

"Ancestral Witch, where is this place...?" Huanglong had a vague idea, but he still couldn't help but ask.

"The Sea of ​​Blood!" Houtu said without turning her head. "The most yin and filthy place in the primordial wilderness, transformed from the navel of the Father God, gathers all the filth, evil energy, resentment, and all defilement in the world since the creation of heaven and earth."

Huang Long sighed inwardly, "It really is a sea of ​​blood!"

Only a sea of ​​blood could be so filthy.

However, although the sea of ​​blood is terrifying, it has an owner.