If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

Zhou Ming found a cave not far away and made do with it for the night.

If it weren't for the fact that he wasn't used to running around in the dark in the wilderness at night, Zhou Ming wouldn't want to rest.

Before dawn the next day, he got up from the cave and continued to explore westward along the mountain range, inch by inch.

Sunrise and sunset, wind and rain, Zhou Ming repeats the same actions every day.

Fly for a while, land, stretch your feet into the gale zone, get blown back, remember the location, and fly for a while again.

The dry rations we brought had long been gone, but fortunately, the wild fruits, wild animals, and stream fish in the mountains and forests were inexhaustible, so we didn't have to worry about food and drink.

In other words, if other cultivators saw him, a Nascent Soul stage expert eating mortal rations every day, they would probably laugh themselves to death.

They explored for more than half a month.

The mountain range continued to stretch silently beneath his feet, its dark blue ridges extending endlessly westward.

The Gale Zone remained as solid as an iron wall, and every attempt yielded the same result.

Zhou Ming stood on a protruding cliff, with a bottomless abyss and a surging sea of ​​clouds below.

Above them hung the indifferent, blazing sun, and in front of them stood an invisible yet indestructible wall of gale-force winds.

For a fleeting moment, Zhou Ming even felt that he might spend his entire life on this mountain range.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Zhou Ming continued his exploration.

At noon that day, as usual, he was suspended above the mountain ridge. He put one foot into the gale zone, and the magic shield was hit by the gale and made to buzz. His foot was bounced back.

Zhou Ming withdrew his foot and was about to move further west when he suddenly sensed movement in his mind.

More than 50 kilometers away, in a deep valley near the dense forest on the edge of the mountain range, a figure appeared.

The figure was carrying a huge, unidentified beast on its shoulder and was running at an extremely fast speed into the depths of the valley.

Upon seeing someone approaching, Zhou Ming disregarded the need to test the gale force any further. He unleashed his magic power, transforming into a streak of light and hurtling westward along the mountain ridge.

While flying, he kept his divine sense firmly locked onto the figure.

The entrance to the valley is extremely well hidden, with the mountain walls on both sides almost closing in, leaving only a narrow gap that allows only two or three people to pass sideways.

The figure carrying the wild beast darted into the crevice and ran along the winding, narrow valley for about fifteen minutes before the view suddenly opened up.

Zhou Ming's divine sense followed the figure and he saw the scene inside the valley.

Upon seeing the scene inside the valley, Zhou Ming suddenly stopped.

The valley is extremely open, surrounded by high mountains on all sides, and looking up you can only see a small patch of gray-white sky cut into an oval shape.

The valley floor is flat, and traces of human excavation can be seen everywhere.

Rows of neat caves were carved into the mountainside, and a small but austere stone hall stood in the center of the valley floor.

Dozens of simple stone houses are scattered around the stone hall.

The most shocking sight in the entire valley was the rows and rows of densely packed iron cages.

Each iron cage was over ten feet square, with iron bars as thick as an adult's arm, covered in rust. The bottom of the cage was lined with dry grass, and people sat on the grass.

More than two thousand people were all bound by thick chains around their ankles, the other end of which was driven deep into the ground, penetrating the soil and converging in the deep underground in the very center of the valley.

More than two thousand chains intertwined underground, all leading to the same place.

A pool of blood.

The blood pool was several meters square, and thick, dark red liquid churned within it.

The liquid was not stagnant water, but rather it was slowly undulating as if it were alive.

Bubbles the size of fists occasionally rise on the surface. When the bubbles burst, a wisp of scarlet mist escapes, only to be absorbed back into the pool water.

The entire blood pool exuded a nauseatingly strong aura of blood and qi. This aura was neither magical nor spiritual, but rather a more primal life essence forcibly extracted from living people.

In the very center of the blood pool, a cultivator sat cross-legged.

The man looked to be about forty or fifty years old, with fair skin, three long wisps of beard, and wearing a brocade robe embroidered with blue cloud patterns.

The robe material gleamed with a cold, eerie light against the dark red backdrop of the blood pool.

His eyes were closed, his hands were in a mudra on his knees, and a faint blue light swirled around him.

The vital energy in the blood pool was continuously absorbed into his body along with the layer of blue light.

Golden Core stage, this is a Golden Core stage cultivator.

Outside the blood pool, five Foundation Establishment stage cultivators also sat cross-legged.

They dared not approach the core of the blood pool, only daring to absorb the thin blood and qi overflowing from the edge of the pool.

Further out lies the valley, where about twenty Qi Refining stage cultivators are scattered.

Some of them carried back from outside the valley carrying huge wild beasts they had just hunted.

Some would light a fire in the stone house to cook, roasting or boiling large chunks of animal meat until tender, then carrying them on wooden platters to the iron cage and passing them through the gaps in the bars.

The more than two thousand people imprisoned in the iron cages stretched out their pale, withered hands, took the food, and numbly stuffed it into their mouths.

The condition of these two thousand-plus people is very poor.

They were all as pale as paper, with sunken eyes, prominent cheekbones, and cracked lips with visible blood vessels.

They were tall and strong, with broad frames and visible muscle lines, clearly indicating that they were all robust men with vigorous blood and energy before being imprisoned.

But they were like a herd of livestock that had been bled dry; after each meal, their complexions would regain a little color, but soon they would become listless again.

Paleness and weakness seeped out of his body again.

Then they continue to eat, continue to have their vital energy and blood drained, and so on, endlessly.

They are clearly the fuel for this pool of blood.

Just then, Zhou Ming's divine sense caught sight of a figure that surprised him.

The person huddled in a corner of an iron cage, chewing on half a piece of animal meat with both hands.

It turned out to be Marquis Yongning, Su Yongning.

He was huddled in the iron cage, with a hideous scar running diagonally from his forehead to his jaw on his face.

His lips were as pale as paper from prolonged blood loss, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken.

But those facial features, that figure, and that indomitable gaze that, even after being tortured like this, still gritted its teeth and swallowed the beast meat bite by bite.

Zhou Ming recognized him immediately; it was Su Yongning, no doubt about it.

Didn't he die at Wild Wolf Slope?

Su Mingyue had told him personally that 200,000 northern border troops were besieged by the Zhong Sheng Sect at Wild Wolf Slope.

Yuwen Shuo and Zhao Chongyuan blocked the supply lines and retreat routes, and the Marquis and 200,000 border troops from Youzhou all died in battle at Wild Wolf Slope.

When Su Mingyue returned to Youzhou, Zhou Ming heard that they had stayed there for a day to collect the bodies of the border soldiers and to offer sacrifices to Su Yongning and 20,000 soldiers.

But the person curled up in the iron cage supplying blood to the blood pool is clearly the Marquis of Yongning himself.

He did not die, or rather, he did not die at Wild Wolf Slope.

How did he get here from Cangzhou? And how did he end up in the hands of these people?

Zhou Mingqiang suppressed his doubts and did not act rashly.