Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

They traveled through the gray fog for nearly an hour.

The pursuers of the bone collectors behind them were cut down in more than ten waves by Yan Fei and Chuan Ying, and finally stopped following.

The gray-white fog grew thicker and thicker until the outlines of each other could not be seen from three steps away.

Dongfang Weiwo used his bone domain perception to determine the direction. The bones he stepped on gradually changed from huge, mountain-like ribs to dense clusters of vertebrae, like intersecting, stacked giant roads leading into the depths of the fog.

Lin Xiaoman fell asleep in his arms.

She is so tired.

The awakening of the Guardian's bloodline had consumed too much of her energy. The knife wound on her palm stopped bleeding, but several fine dark gold lines appeared around the edge of the wound, exactly the same as the lines on Dongfang Weiwo's skeleton.

Her breathing was shallow, and she would occasionally furrow her brow in her sleep, as if she were having some unsettling dream.

"Young master."

Chuan Ying's voice came from behind, filled with suppressed pain, "If we continue like this, Yan Fei and I won't be able to hold on."

Dongfang Weiwo stopped in his tracks.

Chuan Ying leaned against Yan Fei's shoulder; the thick-backed sword was gone, and his empty hand was trembling.

The consequences of forcibly activating his sword intent and repeatedly cutting off his retreat were now manifesting on his body, with at least seven hidden wounds in his meridians bleeding.

Yan Fei's condition was slightly better, but the crack between his eyebrows had widened a bit, and grayish-white powder was seeping out from the edges of the wound, being corroded by the bone powder here.

There's a place to stay up ahead.

I, the only one in the east, looked towards a certain direction in the mist.

His bone domain perception detected an unusual structure: a hundred feet away, there was a huge bone plate that was concave inward, like a natural cave that had been smashed out from above by something.

Beneath that bone plate, the gray-white mist was kept out, and the air inside was much purer than outside.

"Come with me."

They crawled into the bone cave, and Chuanying sat down against the cave wall, finally unable to hold back and coughing up a mouthful of dark red blood.

Yan Fei tore off a piece of his robe and pulled out a small bottle of bone-protecting ointment from his pocket—it was made by Lin Xiaoman at the Bone-Changing Manor, and he had kept a bottle. He pried open Chuanying's mouth, mixed the ointment with water, and fed it to him. Then he used his finger to apply the ointment to several hidden injuries on Chuanying's chest.

Dongfang Weiwo put Lin Xiaoman down, spread his outer robe on the ground for her to use as a pillow, and then walked to the cave entrance.

He needs to think.

The teleportation array on the River of Oblivion brought them here, which was completely different from the original plan.

The Return Token was indeed left behind by the Demon God Lü, but he embedded it in the spinal node of the ancient god and demon remains, making it a switch in itself.

Lin Xiaoman's blood activated the array, and as someone simultaneously rejected and accepted by two worlds, he became the "transition point" recognized by the array. They were forcibly dragged into the Myriad Star Domain.

The Return Token is now shattered. No, it manifested as a teleportation array, then dissipated as light patterns.

But in that final moment, Dongfang Weiwo clearly sensed the "gap" in the token—Lin Xiaoman's blood filled the gap, preventing him from being torn apart by the teleportation array.

This means that Lin Xiaoman really is the "key" to the formation.

This also means that Lu Moshen foresaw this scene thirty years ago.

"Are you thinking about Lu Moshen?"

Yan Fei walked over and sat down beside him, the old sword lying across his lap.

"What kind of scheme is he setting up?" Dongfang Weiwo said in a low voice.

"I have thought about that."

Yan Fei gazed at the thick fog outside the cave. "The Demon God Lü came from Tianxuan to Tianwu, and then entered the Myriad Star Domain. He is looking for something."

The Return Token was a contingency plan he left behind; the divine and demonic skeleton within you is a legacy he left behind; and Lin Xiaoman's guardian bloodline is the contract executor he chose. All three conditions are indispensable.

Why doesn't he do it himself?

"Because he can't do it."

Yan Fei said, "The guardian of the token must be a descendant recognized by the remains of gods and demons, but Lu Moshen is not. He has no choice but to find someone else."

"Did he find Lin Xiaoman's ancestor?"

"It's more likely that his ancestor was chosen by the demon god Lü."

Yan Fei paused for a moment, "Thirty years ago, the Demon God Lü appeared in the Qingzhu Town area, leaving traces in Shattered Bone Ridge, the Forbidden Land of Su Luo, and the Bridge of Oblivion. The conditions for the Lin family's bloodline to awaken are the divine and demonic skeleton and the Return Token, and he had already prepared all of these in advance."

Dongfang Weiwo remained silent.

From the gray-white mist outside the cave, muffled sounds occasionally came from a great distance, like something enormous colliding.

The battle between Wu Wudi and the phantom of the ancient god and demon continued, and the shockwaves could be felt even from dozens of miles away.

"Yan Fei," he suddenly said, "you will protect me."

Yan Fei was taken aback for a moment, then nodded.

Dongfang Weiwo sat cross-legged in the deepest part of the cave, letting the aura of the divine and demonic skeleton sink into his body.

The environment of the Myriad Star Domain was like a fish returning to the sea for his skeleton; from the moment he fell into this place, the fusion rate had been passively increasing.

At this moment, he took the initiative to guide it, and the ancient divine and demonic auras that had seeped into his bones from all directions suddenly seemed to have found an outlet, surging wildly into his body.

A dark golden light shone around him.

The skeletons of gods and demons resonated.

It wasn't the external tremor like before, but a resonance bursting from within the bones. Every inch of the periosteum was violently vibrating, shattering the Heavenly Martial Yuan Qi refining membrane attached to it inch by inch, and then re-condensing it with the divine and demonic aura of the Myriad Star Domain.

pain.

A pain that goes deep into the bone marrow.

He clenched his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead. The surging divine and demonic aura was too complex, carrying fragmented memories of the ancient gods and demons from their previous lives—slaughter, conquest, tearing apart the starry sky, feeding on the stars. These fragments assaulted his consciousness, attempting to assimilate him into a part of their remains.

"roll."

Dongfang Weiwo squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth.

The resonance frequency of the divine and demonic skeleton suddenly changed.

From passively receiving to actively filtering, he began to selectively absorb those auras, discarding useless impurities and leaving only the purest marrow. This skeleton was his, not that of an ancient god or demon.

Time loses its meaning in the midst of intense suffering.

After an unknown amount of time, his fusion rate exceeded 68%.

The dark gold skeleton began to transform.

The tiny bone holes on the bone surface are healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the bone density at the old wound on the left rib, which had already healed on its own, is rapidly increasing.

Immediately afterwards, a tearing pain shot through his right arm—the old scar at the joint of the broken bone, which had been repaired after his battle with Yin Jiuyou, was being cleansed anew.

"what!"

He couldn't help but let out a low growl, and his right arm slammed into the ground.

From the severed arm, a new power surged from the depths of the bone marrow, as if some substance sealed within the bone had been activated.

A dark golden light shone through the skin of his right arm, forming a clear line that stretched from his shoulder to his fingertips.

That's the right arm of the god/demon returning to its place.

It's not about the fragments returning to their original positions, but rather the complete activation of the "right arm of the gods and demons" within the basic framework.

Previously, with his cultivation at the Yin-Yang Realm and the early stages of the Life and Death Realm, he was not strong enough to activate the origin of the divine and demonic skeleton. However, under the environment of the Myriad Star Domain and the fusion rate of 68%, the divine and demonic origin of his right arm awakened for the first time.

A layer of dark golden flames ignited on his right fist.

It's not light.

It was fire. A real, warm, dark golden flame that distorted the air around their fingertips. The temperature in the cave instantly soared, the bone dust on the ground gleaming from the heat, and Yan Fei and Chuan Ying retreated simultaneously.

"Marrow Fire." Lin Xiaoman woke up at some point, leaning against the cave wall, her eyes fixed on the flames on Dongfang Weiwo's right fist. "Divine Demon Marrow Fire, a symbol of the burning bones and blood of ancient gods and demons."

Dongfang Weiwo turned to look at her.

How did you know?

"It just suddenly popped into my head," Lin Xiaoman said, rubbing her temples, her voice tinged with weariness. "It's like I've always known this, I just couldn't remember it before. It might be the inherited memories that came with the awakening of my bloodline."

She raised her left arm, the blood-red markings gleaming faintly with a bluish light in the dim light.

"Your skeleton is growing," she said. "The Myriad Star Domain is where ancient gods and demons were born, and also where they fell. Only here can the skeletons of gods and demons truly 'come alive.' The fusion rate is just a superficial indicator; what truly matters is 'bone fire.'"

Dongfang Weiwo retracted his right fist, and the marrow fire retreated back into his bones the moment he clenched his fist, making his entire right arm as dark as cast iron.

"There are three types of bone fire," Lin Xiaoman said. "Marrow fire, heart and blood fire, and divine fire. What you have awakened now is the lowest type, marrow fire, but for someone in the Life and Death Realm, it is already a means to burn away the cycle of reincarnation."

As she spoke, her gaze turned with a complex expression to the direction of the tremors faintly visible in the gray-white mist outside the cave.

"Wu Wudi is fighting it. If it fully awakens, your marrow fire won't be enough."

Dongfang Wei didn't speak. He walked up to Lin Xiaoman and took out the iron plaque of the Lin family's guardian from his pocket. The iron plaque, which was already half thin, was now unusually hot, and several new lines of words appeared on the surface where the runes were mostly broken.

It was carved with ancient scripts of ancient gods and demons.

Lin Xiaoman glanced at it.

"It's a mark of inheritance." Her voice was soft. "It was carved by the Demon God Lü. He said... 'The successor, the ninth fragment you seek is in the core of the Myriad Star Domain, my burial place. But before you go there, you must first obtain the eighth fragment; otherwise, the Demon God's left arm will be incomplete, and you won't even be able to enter the gate.'"

Dongfang Weiwo frowned.

"The eighth piece is in the hands of the bone collectors' leader," he said.

"No." Lin Xiaoman shook her head. "The one in his hand is fake. I saw it when I was hanging above the rift; it was just a counterfeit made of divine and demonic bone powder. The real eighth piece is inside the illusory image of an ancient god and demon."

Outside the cave, the gray-white fog suddenly surged violently.

A dull thud grew louder as it approached, followed by the trembling of the entire cave. A figure bathed in dark golden light was sent flying from the mist, crashing heavily onto the bone surface ten feet outside the cave.

He is invincible in martial arts.

The thick-backed sword in his hand was broken in two, his left arm was twisted at an abnormal angle, and half of his body was covered with grayish-white bone armor, which had been corroded and solidified by the bone powder of ancient gods and demons. He knelt on one knee, the broken sword on the ground, blood constantly gushing from his mouth.

"Go." Wu Wudi raised his head, looking at Dongfang Weiwo in the cave with his only remaining right eye. "It's coming. It only wants to kill you now, because your skeleton has begun to awaken. Wherever you go, it will find you."

I, the only one from the East, emerged from the cave.

An invisible force tore the gray-white mist apart, revealing a colossal shadow rising from the crack. It had no fixed form, resembling a moving mountain of bones, countless gray-white skeletons pieced together, their surfaces covered with dense cracks. Its face was hidden within a vortex of bone fragments, with only a single, enormous, eerie blue vertical pupil hovering in the center of its skeletal structure, staring directly at him.

"The latecomers."

Its sound shook the entire bone plain.

"I told you, your skeleton is mine."

The marrow fire in Dongfang Weiwo's right fist reignited.

"You give it a try."