Transforming into a stunningly beautiful fox spirit, leaving a scar on the heart of a prodigy.

The wind blew in through the gap in the collapsed dome of Guiyuan Hall, carrying a strong smell of rust and burnt flesh.

Su Chang'an's three fox tails slung through Chen Xuan's armpits, waist, and knees, scooping him up. The weight of seventy-five pounds pressed firmly against her tailbone. Her right arm, from shoulder to elbow, was covered in charred, dead skin, completely powerless. Her left hand clutched the shard broken from the iron gate. The shard's edges were covered in irregular metal serrations and stained with dust.

Chen Xuan rested his head on her left shoulder. His breath sprayed against the nape of her neck. Warm. Carrying the thick smell of blood. With each step, his body would spasm slightly from the friction of his broken bones.

"Don't grit your teeth," Su Chang'an said in a low voice.

Chen Xuan's jaw was taut, his teeth grinding together in his mouth with a harsh, grating sound. He didn't loosen his grip.

They emerged from the edge of the ruins. The cobblestone path stretched out to both sides. At the northern end of the street, twelve torches blazed. Their light flickered in the darkness. The sound of leather boots clattering on the cobblestones was synchronized. Twelve cultivators at the Foundation Establishment Realm. The patrol team of the Chen family's main branch.

Su Chang'an lightly touched the ground with her toes, her body sliding along the collapsed half-stone wall into the narrow alley on the left. There was no light in the alley. She pressed her back against the cold brick wall. The three tails tightened, pressing Chen Xuan firmly against their chests.

The glow of the torch swept across the alleyway. Footsteps stopped ten paces away.

"There's been no movement from Guiyuan Hall. The Third Ancestor has given a death order: kill anyone who's breathing." A rough, hoarse voice rang out.

The scabbards clashed. The footsteps continued forward, gradually fading into the distance.

Su Chang'an didn't move. She counted to sixty in her mind, making sure the patrol team was completely gone. Then she started walking south along the narrow alley.

The dungeon is half a mile south of Guiyuan Hall, a distance of 1,500 steps.

They reached the third corner. Su Chang'an stopped.

Outside the alley entrance was an abandoned courtyard. Half of the courtyard wall had collapsed. Behind the artificial hill sat a man. A sentry of the Chen family. The man was dressed in gray, sitting on a stone pier, holding a bronze gong in his hand. He was dressed like a night watchman. But the spiritual energy fluctuations around him indicated that he was at the early stage of the Cave Profound Realm.

We must deal with him. We cannot use the Celestial Fox's essence. The fluctuation of spiritual energy will instantly attract the patrol team from before.

Su Chang'an put Chen Xuan down and let him lean against the wall. Chen Xuan's body slid down the wall. Su Chang'an's left hand pressed against his chest, pinning him against the wall.

Chen Xuan's left eye was half-closed, its surface bloodshot. He stared at the piece of iron in Su Chang'an's hand.

Su Chang'an turned around. Hugging the base of the wall, she walked step by step towards the artificial hill. The wind whistled through the crumbling walls, perfectly masking her footsteps.

Ten steps. Five steps. Three steps.

The sentry switched the gong to his left hand and reached into his robes with his right.

Su Chang'an sprang out from behind the artificial hill. Her left hand covered her mouth, while her right hand gripped a piece of iron across her neck. A blunt weapon cutting the throat lacked the smoothness of a sharp blade. She had to forcefully pull her wrist back three inches before the flesh was completely torn open. The sentry's left hand lost its strength, and the five-pound bronze gong fell straight down.

It was still two feet off the ground. Once it hit the bluestone slab, the sound would carry for three blocks.

Su Chang'an covered the sentry's mouth with his left hand, while his right hand gripped the metal plate, unable to free his hand to catch it.

A blood-stained hand reached out from the side. Its five fingers were spread out, steadily catching the falling gong.

Chen Xuan knelt on one knee. His left hand supported the base of the gong. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and his knuckles were white from excessive force. To catch the gong, he used the last bit of strength, his body leaning forward, his broken spine protruding horribly beneath his skin.

The gong made no sound at all.

The sentry's struggle ceased. His body went completely limp.

Su Chang'an released her grip. The sentry's body crashed to the muddy ground. She turned to look at Chen Xuan.

Chen Xuan gently placed the gong on the ground. His left hand was covered in the blood dripping from the sentry. He braced himself on his elbows, trying to stand up again. He tried twice, but his knees slid off the flagstones.

Su Chang'an walked over. The three tails curled up around his body again, pressing his weight back onto his tailbone.

"If you move around again, your bones will be completely shattered," Su Chang'an said.

Chen Xuan rested his head on her left shoulder. He did not object.

Continuing south, the surrounding buildings grew increasingly dilapidated. Glazed tiles had turned into black ones. The whitewash on the walls had peeled away, revealing moss-covered blue bricks underneath. The air temperature was at least three degrees lower than on the main street.

Chen Xuan's body temperature continued to drop. Su Chang'an could feel that the skin on his lower back was as cold as ice.

A solitary building appeared ahead. It had no windows, only two heavy, black iron doors. The doors were covered in dark red rust. The door knockers were two enormous animal heads, each holding a thick iron chain in its mouth.

dungeon.

Chen Xuan's breathing suddenly became erratic.

His previously barely audible breathing, weakened by exhaustion, instantly transformed into extremely heavy panting. His chest heaved violently within Su Chang'an's tail. His left hand gripped Su Chang'an's collar tightly, his fingernails digging into the fabric with a harsh, scraping sound.

Su Chang'an stopped in his tracks.

Chen Xuan's body was trembling. Not from the cold. It was a physiological shiver. His left eye was wide open, the pupil shrinking to the size of a pinhead. He stared intently at the two rusty black iron doors.

Fifteen years ago, he was three years old. Here, his closest relatives pressed him onto a stone platform, ripped open his back, and dug out his most precious bone.

His muscles were as hard as stone. Meaningless gasps escaped his throat.

Chen Xuan's breathing stopped. He was forced to turn his head and look at Su Chang'an.

Su Chang'an raised her left hand. The back of her hand was still stained with the half-congealed blood of the sentry. She placed her palm over Chen Xuan's left eye.

My vision was completely taken away. I was plunged into a darkness that reeked of blood.

"Don't look," Su Chang'an said.

Chen Xuan slowly loosened his grip on her collar. The trembling in his body gradually subsided. He buried his face in the crook of Su Chang'an's neck.

Su Chang'an pushed open the black iron door.

The door hinges made a low, grinding sound. Behind the door was a downward stone staircase.

Chen Mu stood inside the door, clutching a burning talisman in his hand. It was a soundproof talisman. The talisman burned to ashes and fell to the ground.

"There's no one down there," Chen Mu said in a low voice. "The guards on the third floor were all transferred away half an hour ago."

Su Chang'an withdrew his hand and walked down the stone steps.

Seventy-two steps. Water droplets seeped from the stone wall. Drip, drip. The water droplets hit the bluestone slabs. The monotonous dripping sound echoed throughout the stairwell. The air was filled with the stench of fermentation and decay.

Reach the bottom level. The dungeon has three levels.

There were no prison cells here. There was only an abandoned underground sewer. The sewer was two zhang wide. The water inside had long since dried up, and the bottom was piled with half a chi of black silt.

On the stone wall to the right of the waterway, there is a huge circular array pattern.

Chen Mu took out a luminous pearl from his sleeve. Its eerie green light illuminated the stone wall.

The array pattern was over ten feet in diameter. At its very center was a single dot, surrounded by three concentric rings. Dense, radiating lines connected the rings. The grooves within the array pattern were filled with dried, black substance.

Auxiliary formation key.

Su Chang'an placed Chen Xuan on a dry stone platform at the edge of the waterway. Chen Xuan leaned against the stone wall, his left eye half-closed.

Su Chang'an walked to the front of the array's core. She used her left index finger to pick out a small amount of black substance from the groove and placed it on the tip of her nose.

The smell of monster blood, cinnabar, and aged human blood.

This array's core is connected to a tributary of a spiritual vein beneath the Chen family's ancestral land. Now, because Chen Daolin forcibly activated the clan's protective array, all the spiritual energy has been drawn to the central main array core. This tributary has completely dried up.

But the physical structure remains. The spiritual vein passage behind the stone wall is open.

Su Chang'an pressed his finger on the dot in the center of the array pattern.

A faint tremor came from deep within the stone wall.

The aftershocks of Li Changgeng's impact with the seal at the bottom of the abyss traveled here along the dried-up spiritual vein. Each impact caused the stone wall to resonate extremely slightly.

"Did you bring the detonating talisman?" Su Chang'an turned to ask Chen Mu.

Chen Mu shook his head. "We can't get it. The armory has been personally locked up by the Grand Elder."

Su Chang'an looked at the stone wall.

Without explosives, the only option was the most rudimentary method: reversing the energy flow of the array. The outer three rings were severed, trapping all the energy within the central point. Then, using his own blood as a catalyst, he reconnected the main root of the underground spiritual vein.

When Li Changgeng strikes the seal again, he will draw back that enormous energy, causing it to burst open the stone wall.

Su Chang'an raised the shard of iron gate in his left hand. The serrated edge was aligned with a key node on the outermost ring.

Hold the metal sheet with both hands and scrape it downwards with force.

The harsh sound of metal scraping echoed through the waterway. Stone chips flew everywhere. A white streak was scraped from dried blood from years past.

The iron sheet was too blunt. The stone wall was extremely hard.

Su Chang'an gritted his teeth and forced out a trace of the remaining half-finished Heavenly Fox essence, which adhered to the edge of the iron plate.

Click.

The first node was severed. Three serrated edges flew off, hitting her cheek and leaving a bloody gash.

The second node. The metal sheet vibrated so hard it made her hands numb. Halfway through scraping, the metal edge curled. She changed angle and used the edge of the metal sheet to smash it down. Stone chips flew out, and the node broke.

The third one—the sheet of iron broke. It shattered into two pieces and fell into the mud. Su Chang'an glanced at his left hand and immediately dug his index fingernail into the groove.

The celestial fox's claws are harder than steel, but even they cannot withstand this level of physical damage.

The nail broke. Fresh blood flowed from the fingertip and dripped into the grooves of the nail.

Just then, the frequency of the underground vibrations suddenly changed.

The steady resonance that was originally once every thirty-five breaths instantly turned into a continuous, violent tremor.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Cracks appeared on the surface of the stone wall. Dust fell from above and settled into the mud.

The direction of the spiritual energy flow in the grand formation has changed.

Chen Daolin sensed the anomaly at the bottom of the abyss and was mobilizing the city's spiritual energy to forcibly suppress it. A massive torrent of spiritual energy surged along the main spiritual vein. When this torrent passed the tributary where the abandoned array eye was located, it generated a terrifying suction force.

Su Chang'an's left hand, which was pressed against the stone wall, was firmly sucked in.

The blood of Su Chang'an stained the grooves of the array pattern became an excellent medium for connecting the great array.

The array patterns lit up with a dazzling red light.

Su Chang'an felt the blood in her body uncontrollably rushing to her fingertips. The stone wall, like a ravenous beast, frantically devoured her life force. She tried to sever the connection using her Heavenly Fox essence. The moment her essence left her body, it was instantly drained by the great formation.

"Retreat!" Su Chang'an roared.

Chen Mu was startled and rushed over in three steps, grabbing Su Chang'an's left arm with both hands and pulling him back with all his might.

A red light burst forth, creating ripples on the stone wall.

An invisible repulsive force shot out from the center of the array. Chen Mu was the first to be hit; his hands were knocked away, and he was sent flying two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) away, crashing heavily into the stone wall on the other side of the waterway. He spat out a mouthful of blood into the silt.

Su Chang'an's left hand remained stuck to the stone wall. Her face turned deathly pale at a visible speed.

Chen Xuan made a move.

He fell from the stone platform. Losing his balance, he crashed heavily into the black mud.

The broken bones in his spine dislocated again from the violent impact. He didn't utter a single scream.

He braced himself against the mud with his elbows, kneeling on the ground. He crawled forward. With each inch he crawled, a dark red trail of blood trailed from the wound on his lower back in the mud. Five steps. He crawled for a full ten breaths.

He crawled to Su Chang'an's feet. He propped himself up on his elbows. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed Su Chang'an's left wrist, which was stuck to the stone wall.

Chen Xuan's hands were cold. Su Chang'an's wrists were burning hot. Their skin was pressed tightly together.

"Let go." Su Chang'an's voice was extremely weak.

Chen Xuan didn't let go. He used Su Chang'an's wrist for support to barely straighten his body. He brought his face close to Su Chang'an's ear.

"Cut it off."

"The source is exhausted, it can't be cut off." Su Chang'an gritted his teeth.

Chen Xuan released Su Chang'an's wrist. He leaned forward, grabbing Su Chang'an's collar with his left hand, using her body for support, and pushed off the mud with his feet to straighten up. His face was almost touching Su Chang'an's shoulder. Then he turned his head to face the stone wall. He opened his mouth, biting his tongue hard.

Extremely forceful.

His tongue was bitten raw. A stream of blood mixed with an extremely faint aura of the Supreme Bone spurted from his mouth.

puff.

The blood was sprayed precisely at the very center of the array of patterns on the stone wall, right on that one dot.

Although the remaining essence of the Emperor's blood in the Emperor's palace was extremely weak, its essential level far surpassed that of the Chen family's protective formation.

The moment the blood entered the array's core, the red light of the array patterns flickered violently.

The suction paused for a moment.

Just this half-breath.

Su Chang'an slammed his left leg against the stone wall, using the force to fall backward.

stab.

Her left hand was finally freed from the stone wall. A large chunk of skin and flesh had been torn off her palm, leaving it embedded in the grooves of the array. It was covered in blood.

Su Chang'an and Chen Xuan fell backward at the same time, crashing heavily into the black mud.

Chen Xuan was pressing down on Su Chang'an. His mouth was full of blood, and his breathing was extremely weak.

The array patterns on the stone wall began to change color wildly, gradually transforming from a blinding red light to a violent white light. The three outer nodes were severed, preventing energy circulation. The central point, receiving the reverse energy from Li Changgeng's impact, was rapidly expanding.

The abandoned array core has been fully activated. An explosion is only a matter of time.

"Walk."

Su Chang'an sat up from the mud. His three tails quickly coiled around Chen Xuan.

Chen Mu clutched his chest, got up from the ground, and stumbled towards the stairwell.

"We can't leave."

A woman's voice came from above the stone steps at the entrance to the waterway.

Footsteps sounded.

The goddess of the Wang family stood on the third step. Her clothes were torn in many places, and her hair was disheveled, but the spiritual energy fluctuations around her remained stable. Behind her followed three Wang family assassins at the peak of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

In the right hand of the goddess of the Wang family, she held a severed arm.

Chen Tianyou's severed arm.

The blood at the severed arm had congealed into black, but the entire arm radiated a faint golden light. The aura of the imperial blood essence permeated the underground waterway.

She looked down at Su Chang'an and Chen Xuan in the mud.

"I've found the loophole in the grand formation." The goddess of the Wang family held up her severed arm. "The Chen family patriarch is drawing upon the spiritual energy of the entire city to suppress the abyss. Now, apart from this abandoned waterway, everywhere else is a dead end."

Her gaze fell on Chen Xuan.

Chen Xuan was wrapped in the fox's tail, his body covered in mud and blood, looking like a mangled corpse.

"Chen Xuan," the goddess of the Wang family spoke. "When you rejected me above the sinkhole, did you ever imagine you'd die in such a filthy place?"

Su Chang'an stood up.

She placed Chen Xuan behind her. Her left hand hung at her side, drops of blood from her palm falling into the mud.

The white light on the stone wall grew brighter and brighter. The array's core could detonate at any moment.

Su Chang'an looked at the four people on the steps. She didn't look at the severed arm.

"You've come at the perfect time," Su Chang'an said.