After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The other nine hidden array points are buried more than 60 meters below the silt at the bottom of the river.

The core of each hidden array eye is neither a magic weapon nor a rune array.

But it is a living person.

Zhou Ran's demonic eyes pierced through layers of mud and sand, revealing the bodies that had been pierced through the collarbones by iron hooks and were hanging upside down in the underwater caves.

His cultivation was completely drained, his eye sockets were empty, and he was only hanging on by a thread.

They are not sacrifices, they are batteries.

The life force is continuously drained away, flowing along the underground water veins and into the deepest point in the heart of the river.

The lair of the old dragon.

Zhou Ran withdrew his Demon Eye.

"Walk."

Su Qingwu grabbed his arm, her throat a little dry.

"Eighteen key points of the formation... the intelligence was off by half."

"It's normal that Xiaorou's information is wrong."

The leader of the anti-religious sect is not a fool.

"Fools won't live to reach the Golden Core stage."

Zhou Ran lowered his head and took out the cracked bronze bowl from his thumb ring.

Tianshui Bowl.

This ancient magical artifact, personally handed over by the Celestial Master Xuyun of Longhu Mountain, can create a waterless domain hundreds of feet deep underwater.

In layman's terms, it's like creating a barren wasteland on someone else's home turf.

He infused the alms bowl with his spiritual power, and a bluish-white light emanated from the cracks. Then, he pressed the alms bowl into the river with one hand.

With a loud bang, the river water was pushed to both sides by a tremendous force.

A transparent tunnel, three zhang in diameter, plunges straight down from the bank into the riverbed.

The inner wall of the passageway is a thin film of magical power condensed in the Heavenly Water Bowl, which forcefully splits open tens of thousands of tons of river water.

From the outside, the tunnel looks like a glass tube inserted into the dark bottom of the water.

Outside the pipe wall, the dark green river water surged endlessly.

Occasionally, the white bellies of dead fish would slide along the pipe wall.

Zhou Ran didn't even turn his head before uttering the order.

"Su Qingwu, Su Qingling, let the tidal spiritual light cover the inner wall and isolate the Yin energy."

"Miao Yingying, lead the way."

"Fatty."

"I know!"

Fatty Wang grunted and tightened the straps of his vest even more.

"I'll cover the rear, and the Second Brother of the Grasslands won't be able to sneak in from behind!"

Five people stepped into the passageway leading to the bottom of the river.

With feet on the silt at the bottom of the river and heads hanging over the river, tens of meters thick enough to crush mountains.

This strange sense of incongruity made Su Qingling's stomach churn.

Miao Yingying walked in the middle of the group, holding up a silver bell.

The bell tongue swayed on its own in the windless passage, emitting a shrill, thread-like hum.

It didn't sound like metal clashing; instead, it resembled the dying gasps of some creature.

Outside the passageway, at every twenty feet along the riverbed, there is a black iron stake engraved with incantations driven into the silt.

The incantation emitted a faint red glow, transforming into countless blinking eyes in the darkness.

The humming of the silver bells penetrated the pipe walls, and as it passed over each iron stake, the runes on the stake would flash wildly before the light suddenly dimmed.

Zhou Ran's gaze fell on Miao Yingying's profile.

"Your bell."

Miao Yingying's palms were sweaty as she gripped the silver bell. Her lips moved, but she could only say one thing.

"It was passed down from our ancestors... Grandpa didn't go into details."

She is lying.

Zhou Ran was too lazy to even use the Magic Eye.

When she lies, her left index finger unconsciously twists the red knot of the silver bell.

She has repeated this action three times.

Zhou Ran did not expose it.

The image of Old Man Miao in Longhu Mountain flashed through his mind.

Would the patriarch of a family of corpse-drivers send his granddaughter to her death for no reason?

Unless, he knew that this dragon had a past connection with his Miao family.

In fact, Old Man Miao knew even more.

I know Li Chengfeng.

They know the secrets of the dragon-suppressing incident four thousand years ago.

They even knew about the ancient tombs in Mangshan.

Sending Miao Yingying wasn't just about repaying a favor.

It's a gamble.

They bet Zhou Ran could take his granddaughter and retrieve something belonging to the Miao family from the dragon.

"Hurry up."

Zhou Ran cut off his thoughts; right now, all he had was the dragon core.

The sound of the silver bells grew more and more rapid, the frequency changing from one breath to one heartbeat.

Miao Yingying's face drained of color, her forehead was covered in fine sweat, and every muscle in her body was resisting some invisible pull.

How much further?

"It'll be soon..."

It's very close...

The tunnel meandered along the riverbed for about two kilometers before Miao Yingying suddenly stopped.

She crouched down and placed her palms on the thin layer of silt at the bottom of the tunnel.

The silver bells fell silent.

But the temperature of the bell rose sharply, burning her palms red.

"Right here."

Her voice was dry.

"The water eye... is right beneath our feet."

Zhou Ran squatted down and placed his left palm on the ground.

The primordial energy, mixed with demonic energy, penetrated the earth's strata like a probe.

Ten meters, twenty meters, forty meters.

His vital energy touched a live volcano submerged deep underwater.

Scorching, enormous, ancient.

a bit.

Another one.

That was a heartbeat, coming from the deepest part of my feet, its rhythm as slow as the pendulum of an ancient temple bell.

Each thud caused the river water within a radius of several miles to rise and fall in unison.

A heart that has been beating for four thousand years.

Zhou Ran stood up.

"Prepare to chisel."

Before the words were even finished, a face was silently pressed against the outer wall of the passageway.

Pale and swollen, her eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.

Su Qingling's scream was stuck in her throat.

Then came the second, the third, and the tenth.

Hundreds of faces with disfigured features surged in from all directions, densely covering the entire transparent pipe.

This is the Water Ghost of the Paijiao Sect.

It is an undead army built using drowned people!

They wore gray-black sharkskin armor, held water-splitting spikes, and their pupils shrank to a vertical line.

Everyone's movements were surprisingly uniform, devoid of any vitality, resembling a group of manipulated corpses.

A sound, distorted by the flowing water, came from directly above the passageway, chilling and carrying an arrogant air of absolute control.

"Zhou Ran".

"You think the opening I left was to invite you in?"

"No."

"That's the grave I dug for you."

Before the words had even faded, the killing move had already arrived!

Hundreds of water ghosts attacked simultaneously.

The deep blue spiritual energy gathered at the tip of the Water-Dividing Spike condensed into a high-pressure water blade, which, with a sharp whistle, cut straight towards the pipe wall of the Heavenly Water Bowl!

It wasn't cut randomly.

Three water blades converge on a single point, creating a focused strike!

More than a dozen cracks immediately appeared on the pipe wall, and the magical membrane rapidly thinned under the scouring of the water blades.

Hang in there!

Su Qingwu shouted sharply.

The sisters' tidal energy surged forth, and the azure light membrane combined with the magic power of the Heavenly Water Bowl, barely managing to seal the crack.

But the water ghosts' attacks grew more ferocious with each wave.

The second wave of water blades has arrived.

The target is not the pipe wall, but the joint between the channel and the silt at the bottom of the river!

"Sizzle!"

Two water blades cut in from the bottom, causing the tunnel to shake violently. Su Qingling lost her footing and her knees slammed heavily onto the ground, causing the tidal aura to tremble violently.

Wang Pangzi roared as he stood at the end of the tunnel, blocking the two water blades that pierced the pipe wall. He took the hits with his own flesh and blood.

The copper-colored light membrane created by the Golden Body Technique blocked the first wave.

The second water blade sliced ​​through the light membrane, leaving a five-inch-long, gruesome gash under his ribs.

Blood spurted out and immediately mingled with the murky river water.

"Oh shit."

The fat man gritted his teeth and pressed his hand against the wound.

"Those bastards, they're fucking accurate!"

The Tianshui bowl made a crisp sound.

Zhou Ran looked down at the longest crack on the surface of the bowl.

It was climbing toward the core of the artifact at a speed visible to the naked eye.

It won't last much longer.