Martial Arts Longevity Begins with the Equipment Slot

Chapter 107 Demon Emperor of the Realm, Blood Abyss Lotus Mother

Chen Yu just walked in.

The round stone suddenly lit up!

A golden-red halo shot out towards him.

"What's going on?"

Chen Yu instinctively wanted to run away.

"Don't move!"

Nashida grabbed him by the back of his collar.

"This is the Earth Fire Mother Stone! The Holy Fire Cult's scriptures mention that the Flame God's Relics, with it at its core, absorbed three thousand years' worth of earth fire essence!"

Chen Yu steadied himself, his back already covered in cold sweat.

The bones throughout his body were radiating a bright golden light.

The golden light flowed slowly toward the round stone.

"Is it absorbing my inner energy of flames?"

Chen Yu asked in a low voice.

"As long as you don't move around, you'll be fine. You're too weak; they won't drain you dry."

Nashida loosened the back of his collar.

"The Earth Fire Mother Stone needs to feed once every three thousand years. Each time it feeds, it must devour all the fire-attribute essence within a radius of one hundred miles."

""

"But don't worry, you're lucky you caught it when it was sleeping."

"If it were awake,"

Nashida paused, then turned to look at Chen Yu.

"The meager amount of internal energy in your body isn't even enough to fill its teeth."

Chen Yu's gaze fell on the round stone.

The golden-red light suddenly became slower and clearer.

A certain trajectory can be vaguely discerned as it is moving.

At the same time, the internal energy in the body involuntarily began to rotate!

"Something's not right!"

Chen Yu asked, somewhat puzzled.

"What's wrong?"

Nahida looked up and asked.

"This thing doesn't seem to be absorbing my internal energy."

Chen Yu squinted and looked closely at the huge, dark red round stone.

"It seems to be spitting something out! When that light swept over me just now, I felt something seeping in from inside!"

""

"?"

Nashida was startled and abruptly turned to look at the round stone.

"Let me see what's going on!"

Nashida raised her staff, and the snake-eye gem shone brightly red as she probed the round stone.

A moment later, her expression became extremely strange.

"Is the mother stone giving back to its parent?"

Nashida murmured.

Chen Yu looked down at his hands, then looked up at the huge, dark red round stone.

The frequency of the flowing golden-red light gradually matched his heartbeat.

A burning sense of intimacy rose from the depths of my bones.

It was as if a sleeping blood relative was calling out to them.

"Mmm! It feels so familiar! I want to get closer!"

Influenced by this sense of familiarity, Chen Yu subconsciously walked forward.

"Don't go over there!"

Nahida suddenly blocked his chest with her staff.

"If you go any further, the Mother Stone could burn you to death in the next instant!"

Chen Yu suddenly woke up and stopped in his tracks.

He stared at the round stone, his face covered in sweat, still shaken.

"Mind-stealing... what the hell is this thing?"

"have no idea."

Nashida shook her head.

"According to ancient texts, the core of the mother stone contains the seed of the Fire God," but some say it might contain a remnant of ancient earth fire. These are all speculations, and there is no definitive conclusion.

At this point, Nashida took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the turmoil in her heart.

"It's dangerous anyway, so don't look at it for now."

As she spoke, she raised the tip of her cane and turned it toward the wall on the other side of the stone hall.

"Take a look at this."

Chen Yu took one last look at the dark red round stone.

He then forcibly calmed the restless internal energy in his dantian, turned around, and followed.

The east wall of the stone hall.

There is a huge stone wall that is about five zhang high and more than ten zhang wide.

The walls are made of a translucent obsidian material.

Under the illumination of the mother stone, it faintly revealed a dark red luster.

The two stopped in front of them; the walls were covered with murals.

The screen starts from the left.

A group of strangely shaped people were prostrate on the ground, bowing and worshipping towards the sky.

A ball of flame with the head of a bull and the body of a human floated in the sky.

"This is the Flame God."

Nahida's voice became extremely soft.

"Those below are your ancient ancestors from the Eastern Continent."

"According to the records of the Western Continent, the people of the Eastern Continent are not a pure-blooded human race, but rather originated from a special fire race," born with fire in their internal organs, feeding on fire and bathing in lava.

Chen Yu didn't understand anything and didn't say anything, he just listened to her talk silently.

Nahida moved the tip of her staff upwards, pointing towards the middle section of the mural.

"The Yan Clan built this stone palace as a sacrifice to the Flame God."

Further on, the scene became somewhat eerie.

The Yan tribe no longer knelt in worship, but instead bound their own people to the huge stone platform.

The shape of the stone platform was seven-tenths similar to the stone platform where Chen Yu had just refined his bones!

A bound man had his chest cavity opened, and the tribe's priest was taking a piece of glowing bone out of his body and holding it up to the sky with both hands.

In the sky, the flames of the bull-headed, human-bodied fire descended, engulfing both the bone taker and the bone taken.

Strangely, the Yan Clan members being burned in the painting showed no pain on their faces, only an almost ecstatic devotion.

"This is the Flame God Festival."

Nashida, being knowledgeable and experienced, continued to tell Chen Yu her story.

"The Yan Clan believes that the Yan God needs a vessel to descend to earth." They take the bones of the strongest members of their clan, burn them with earth fire, and offer them to the Yan God as the vessel for his descent to the human world.

95

Chen Yu stared at the Yan Clan member whose bones had been removed in the mural.

The person's bones appear in a familiar pale gold color in the painting.

"Damn, this doesn't seem right, does it?"

Chen Yu suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck.

The luster emanating from the bones was almost identical to that of his own body!

Nashida saw right through his thoughts.

"When you reach the pinnacle of your bone refinement, your bones will radiate golden light and roar like a tiger; to the Yan Clan, this is a divine miracle!"

Nashida tilted her head to look at him, her eyes slightly smiling.

"In the eyes of the Flame Clan, you are the vessel chosen by the Flame God. If they discover you, they will surely offer you to the Flame God!"

Chen Yu's mood grew heavier, and he didn't want to respond to her.

The style of the mural changes abruptly in the latter half.

The scene suddenly became both grand and tragic.

That ball of flame with the head of a bull and the body of a human truly descended upon the world.

He stood in the center of the earth, with a group of distorted monsters at his feet.

"Grandma Na, what are these monsters?"

Chen Yu inquired.

"Demons, also known as evil spirits by people from the Eastern Continent."

As Nashida spoke, her gaze was firmly drawn to the mural.

In the scene, the Flame God faces the surging demon army alone.

The various demons take on different forms.

Some of them have three heads and six arms, and their bodies are covered with jet-black scales.

Some of them have bat wings and scorpion tails, and spew poisonous mist from their mouths that corrodes everything.

Others have no fixed shape at all, resembling distorted shadows.

These guys are not only ugly, but they also do terrible things.

They are wreaking havoc on the human world, slaughtering the fleeing humans, and countless mortals are suffering their cruelty.

The next mural depicts the scene of the Fire God slaying demons.

A giant flaming blade materialized from the void.

The Flame God wielded his blade, and the world changed color.

In the blink of an eye, all the demons turned to ashes.

"The Flame God suppresses the Demon Realm!"

Upon seeing this, Nashida could not contain her excitement.

"I have only read a few words about it in the oldest fragments of secret scriptures."

"Thirty million years ago, a rift opened in the Demon Realm, and demon generals ravaged the mortal world. It was the Flame God who awoke from the depths of the earth's fire, and with unparalleled divine power, slew countless demon generals and sealed the rift!"

Chen Yu stared at the fire giant in the middle of the mural.

On the palm of the Flame God, there was a dark red spot.

Nashida noticed Chen Yu's gaze, and both of them focused on the spot.

"This is the essence of a demon general. Before a high-level demon dies, it will unleash its essence, causing pollution to the surrounding area."

"Look, the Flame God sealed the Demon General's essence along with his own divine fire into a section of 'divine bone.'"

In the latter half of the mural, the fire god is kneeling on the ground.

Before Xiu stood a young human, holding a section of golden bone in his hands, raising it high above his head.

The Flame God gently lowered his head, his palm lightly pressing on the bone fragment, and infused it with something.

Behind the Flame God, countless mortals crawled out of the ruins and knelt in worship toward the Flame God and the young man.

Chen Yu felt that the scene was very inspiring.

But there's still one question he doesn't understand.

"Grandma, you just said that the Flame God slew the demon generals and sealed the rift. Were those demon generals an organization, a plan, and had a leader?"

"Yes."

"Among the demon army that the Flame God faced back then, there was a Demon Emperor. The demon generals in the murals were merely her vanguard."

Nashida paused, then slowly lowered the tip of her staff, drawing a twisted symbol on the stone ground.

The symbol resembled a blooming lotus flower, but it was pinned to the ground by a blood-red spear that pierced through it.

"This Emperor is none other than the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother."

Chen Yu looked at the symbol on the ground.

A strange sense of familiarity welled up in my heart again.

"I feel like I've seen her somewhere before—"

Chen Yu muttered to himself.

"You've seen her? How could that be!"

Nashida suddenly looked up, staring at Chen Yu with suspicion.

"You may have seen it, or you may not."

Chen Yu scratched his head; he really couldn't remember.

"You couldn't have seen her. No one who has seen the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother has survived."

"Even if you are a holy son of special status, protected by the gods, you cannot escape death!"

Nashida shook her head and continued walking forward.

Soon, the two arrived at the last mural.

This mural is distinctly different in style from the previous ones.

The screen starts from the bottom.

At the very bottom was a churning sea of ​​blood.

In the sea of ​​blood, there were countless arms reaching upwards and faces looking up.

The human face was worshipping towards the sky above the sea of ​​blood, its expression one of utter fanaticism.

Above the sea of ​​blood, the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother stood barefoot, with twelve blood-red lotus flowers floating beneath her feet.

Her figure was depicted as being half a size taller than the Flame God, occupying the right side of the entire mural.

The posture is also downward, giving a feeling of ruling the world.

Its face lacked specific features, except for two blood-red eyes within its eye sockets.

On the left side of the mural is the God of Fire.

Unlike the previous depictions of the radiant giant, the figure in this painting is much more disheveled.

His left shoulder was pierced by a dark red spear.

Its body was mottled, and the flames were dim and colorless.

The middle section of the scene shows the two sides fighting back and forth.

Blood Abyss Lotus Mother's blood net descended upon Flame God, who slashed upwards with his broken blade.

After the blade clashed with the blood web, a tear was slashed in the blood web.

But more blood vessels instantly sprouted from the crack, wrapping around the blade and climbing up the broken blade toward the Flame God's arm.

Flame God clenched his left fist, and the white flames at the knuckles condensed into a bull's head, burning the bloodline into black ash.

Before the black ash could fall, the twelve blood lotuses beneath Blood Abyss Lotus Mother's feet spun gently, transforming into twelve phantom images of demon generals who charged madly toward the Flame God.

The scene abruptly ends here.

Nashida suddenly noticed that there were some tiny scratches on the edge of the mural.

The word "scratches" is an ancient script that, when translated, has only one meaning: "He has not been defeated."

"He was defeated."

"He"

Before the last character was finished being carved, the scratches had already disappeared.

The mural ends here, with no further developments.

There was no triumphant song of the Flame God suppressing the Demon Realm, nor the tragic fall of the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother.

"What's going on? The Flame God isn't going to lose, is he?"

Chen Yu frowned as he read to the end.

Throughout the scene, Blood Abyss Lotus Mother clearly has the upper hand, inevitably leading to unpleasant associations.

"How is that possible!"

Nashida immediately rejected him.

"The Flame God is one of the four most revered gods in the Eastern Continent. Apart from the supreme god of our Holy Fire Cult, there is no other being who can defeat Him."

"So what does this painting mean?"

Chen Yu asked, puzzled.

"Haven't you noticed? This painting is very different in style from the previous murals."

Nahida said.

"Perhaps it has been altered, or perhaps it was drawn by another group of people."

"So, it's very likely that two groups of people entered this stone hall?"

Chen Yu nodded.

"Why do the second group want the Flame God to lose? Who on earth would stand on the side of the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother? She's a demon who slaughters humans!"

Nashida gave the answer without hesitation.

"It's obvious they're followers of the Blood Lotus Cult."

"The Blood Lotus Cult?"

Chen Yu was a little dazed.

He never expected to hear that name again after so many days.

He had previously practiced the Blood Lotus Cult's Blood Lotus Technique and had been searching for information about the Blood Lotus Cult.

However, the Blood Lotus Sect's movements are quite secretive, far more mysterious than the Holy Fire Sect.

Therefore, Chen Yu was unable to find anyone who knew anything about the Blood Lotus Sect.

The old woman in front of us, Granny Na, seemed to be quite familiar with the Blood Lotus Cult.

Before Chen Yu could ask any questions, Nashida took the initiative to tell him about the Blood Lotus Sect.

"The Holy Fire Sect has been established for three thousand years, while the Blood Lotus Sect's history is no shorter. Some secret texts even say that before the Flame God descended and before the first opening of the Demon Realm Rift, they had already knelt in that sea of ​​blood."

Nahida, leaning on her cane, walked slowly around the mural.

Walking to the lower right corner of the mural, he touched the twelve blood lotuses at the feet of the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother with the tip of his staff.

"Look at the arrangement of these lotus petals, twelve in total, which corresponds to the twelve major blood orifices in the human body."

"But the Blood Lotus Cult has more than twelve followers."

"How many of them are there?" Chen Yu asked.

"have no idea."

Nashida admitted.

"I've lived for eighty years and only ever met about twenty Blood Lotus Cult members. I reckon they're all dead by now."

At this point, she turned around and leaned against the dark red stone wall.

"However, one thing is certain: their numbers are not very large."

"Moreover, it is said that they don't even have a leader, or at least no living person to be a leader."

"According to secret texts, the highest-ranking figure in the Blood Lotus Cult is a statue of the Blood Mother," depicting her as the mortal incarnation of the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother, enshrined deep within a blood-soaked cave.

"Further down, there are the Twelve Blood Servants," then the Hundred-Meridian Blood Eye, and so on.

"This number doesn't seem too small, does it?"

Chen Yu asked.

"What exactly does the Blood Lotus Cult want to do?"

"As for what they actually want to do, there are currently two versions circulating, but I really can't be sure which one is right."

As Nashida spoke, she held up a withered finger.

"The first theory is that after the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother was defeated by the Flame God, she did not completely perish. She hid a wisp of the Blood Source Demon Seed in the human world."

"For thousands of years, the Blood Lotus Sect has been searching for this demonic seed in order to revive the Blood Abyss Lotus Mother and bring her back to the mortal world."

""