What does my ancestor's pregnancy have to do with me, a mere servant?

Sun Yan, being in the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, sensed the fatal danger the moment the blade touched his body.

But he couldn't understand why his junior brother from the same peak would try to kill him.

He instinctively tried to raise a protective aura, but most of his magic power was in the flying sword, and his body could no longer keep up with the speed of the blade.

"Pfft!"

A huge human head shot into the sky, blood gushing from the neck like a fountain, several feet high. Sun Yan's headless corpse swayed before crashing to the ground.

The head, suspended in mid-air, stared wide-eyed, its death unfulfilled.

These days, fighting to the death is exhausting; stabbing someone in the back is much more efficient.

The swarm of demonic bats, having lost their target, paused for a moment, then, smelling the strong stench of blood, charged at Lin Yuan with even greater frenzy.

Jiang Huaiyue's powerful spiritual pressure, unmatched even in the late Foundation Establishment stage, suddenly erupted, instantly pressing down the demonic bats that were lunging at Lin Yuan.

Jiang Huaiyue made a hand seal with one hand, and several blood-red blades shot out from her fingertips.

"go!"

The Blood-Piercing Blades wove together in mid-air to form an impenetrable red net. A series of dense, tearing sounds filled the air as thirty or forty Blood-Weeping Demon Bats were shredded into pieces by the blade net before they could even scream, falling to the ground like dumplings.

Clear the area easily.

Lin Yuan tossed the storage bag in his hand and forcibly erased the mark on it with his divine sense.

Jiang Huaiyue stared at the headless corpse on the ground, her Adam's apple bobbing slightly as she suppressed the nausea. Her voice was dry and trembling: "Master... you kill your fellow disciples without even blinking an eye?"

"He was about to die, and I helped him find peace. That's called great compassion." Lin Yuan said without looking up.

Lin Yuan probed the storage bag with his divine sense and quickly searched through it.

The Blood-Weeping Demon Bats are rarely seen roaming the wasteland; they usually inhabit caves in extremely yin places. If a swarm of demon bats appears, there is a 99% chance that the accompanying spiritual herb, "Blood Jade Ginseng," will grow nearby.

This is also one of the core ingredients for refining the highest-grade Foundation Building Pill.

With his divine sense sweeping over the area, Lin Yuan discovered a jade box with a spirit-sealing talisman affixed to it in a corner.

Take it out and tear open the talisman.

Inside the jade box lay a ginseng root, entirely blood-red and shaped like an infant's arm. A faint mist of blood swirled around its surface, emitting a fragrant aroma. It was at least four hundred years old, and two seeds had formed on it.

As expected, it was Sun Yan who picked it.

"Let's go, don't waste time." Lin Yuan turned around and continued heading northwest.

A massive mountain rises abruptly from the ground, resembling a rusty, heavy sword piercing the sky. At the mountainside, a wide white jade platform is cut out horizontally, upon which stands a colossal stone tablet over ten zhang tall.

The stone tablet was entirely black, its texture resembling jade but not quite, and its surface was as smooth as a mirror, yet it bore no inscription whatsoever.

At this moment, a dozen or so figures stood scattered beneath the stone tablet. These people were in twos and threes, the nine-peak emblems on their robes fluttering in the wind, and all of them were at the Foundation Establishment stage. When their eyes met, there was undisguised vigilance and killing intent in their gazes.

Lin Yuan lagged half a step behind, following behind Jiang Huaiyue.

A burly man wielding a giant axe, exuding a fierce aura, sneered, his gaze sweeping over Jiang Huaiyue without any attempt at concealment, filled with scrutiny and contempt: "Senior Sister Jiang? I heard you suffered a crushing defeat in the competition the other day. How come you've recovered so quickly? And with a Qi Refining stage cultivator as a burden?"

Jiang Huaiyue unleashed a powerful spiritual pressure from the late Foundation Establishment stage, surging towards the man like a tidal wave.

"Lei Zhen, do you want to test the sharpness of my Bloodthirsty Blade?" Jiang Huaiyue's voice was icy.

Lei Zhen's expression changed drastically. He took three steps back, his pupils contracting sharply: "Late Foundation Establishment stage?! You actually broke through?"

The surrounding disciples from the Nine Peaks all turned to look, and the already tense atmosphere became even more solemn.

"Congratulations on your advanced cultivation, Senior Sister." A gaunt young man chuckled dryly, his eyes gloomy. "This wordless stele can only be accessed by five people at a time. Now that you've arrived, there's naturally one less spot. As for the remaining four, let's see who's the best among us brothers."

Jiang Huaiyue remained expressionless, not even glancing back at Lin Yuan, but her tone was clear: "No, I want two spots."

Upon hearing this, the white jade platform fell into a deathly silence for a moment.

"Senior Sister Jiang, isn't this going too far?" The gaunt young man's face was so gloomy it was almost dripping with water.

Jiang Huaiyue raised her right hand, and the Blood-Breaking Blade transformed into a dark red stream of light, hovering in mid-air, emitting a two-zhang-long blood-red blade of light.

"I said, I want two." She looked at everyone, her eyes like she was looking at dead people. "Who agrees? Who disagrees?"

No one spoke. Jiang Huaiyue, at the late Foundation Establishment stage, along with his infamous Blood Blade and the yet-to-be-summoned Copper Armor Corpse, was more than capable of sweeping aside any two people present working together.

"Since Senior Sister wants two, then two it is." Lei Zhen gritted his teeth and stepped aside to make way for her.

Lin Yuan lowered his head and followed Jiang Huaiyue step by step to the bottom of the stone tablet.

The gazes from those around him were filled with envy, jealousy, and even more bewilderment—when did the arrogant Jiang Huaiyue start to support a junior brother like this?

The two sat down side by side, cross-legged.

"Connect your energy to the stone tablet," Jiang Huaiyue transmitted telepathically. "It will exert pressure based on your cultivation level. The longer you can hold on, the more runes you will see. ... Be careful in everything you do. If you can't hold on, disconnect immediately."

Lin Yuan nodded slightly, closed his eyes, and sent a wisp of his divine sense toward the dark stone tablet.

"Buzz—!"

The instant he touched it, Lin Yuan felt a muffled thunderclap explode in his mind. An extremely heavy pressure of divine soul flowed back into his consciousness, as if a ten-thousand-foot mountain was pressing down from the void.

In the past, he would have suffered damage to his soul after lasting for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

but now……

In the center of Lin Yuan's sea of ​​consciousness, the divine soul body tempered by the "Thousand Evolutions Corpse Control Technique" trembled slightly. The perfected Divine Forging Technique instantly activated itself, dissipating the mountain-like pressure layer by layer.

My divine sense pierced through layers of mist and entered a pure white space.

In the deepest part of space, lines of indistinct golden characters floated in the void. They twisted and changed, like a group of indescribable fish.

Lin Yuan activated his divine sense, rushing towards the small characters like an arrow released from a bow.

Meanwhile, the other three vacancies had been filled, and the five of them sat down to meditate.

From the outside, the five people who were trying to comprehend the Wordless Stele were all covered in sweat. The three Foundation Establishment stage geniuses were pale-faced.

Even Jiang Huaiyue, who had the highest cultivation level, began to have her breathing become disordered. Only Lin Yuan, who had the lowest cultivation level, had a long and steady breathing, seemingly without any pressure.

"This Wang Teng... his soul is so strong?" A male cultivator in the early stage of Foundation Establishment looked puzzled. Those of them who did not manage to grab a spot could only watch from the sidelines, hoping that someone would soon be unable to hold on and have to withdraw, so that the extra vacancy would be their turn.

At this moment, Lin Yuan had already arrived in front of the small golden characters.

He found the writing extremely strange. When you stared at it, it was like looking through a thick layer of frosted glass. Only by focusing intently on a particular spot, and after a dozen or so breaths, would the blurry image crack open, revealing a glimpse of its true form.

That wasn't writing, but an extremely complex set of runes.

Lin Yuan could vaguely sense that these runes seemed to carry some special meaning.

However, it is clear that his comprehension is average and his aptitude is even worse. He can only barely remember the appearance of the rune, but cannot understand its meaning.

What's even stranger is that these runes that he forcibly memorized would slowly fade from his mind.

"No wonder... the techniques obtained from here cannot be passed on to others. It really is... something that can only be understood intuitively and cannot be explained in words!" Lin Yuan thought to himself.

"Given my level of comprehension, even if I see countless runes here... I still won't be able to grasp the method I'm looking for!"