In the Tongxuan Realm, there is a well-known saying: *"Ten Mountains, Seven Seas, Three Heavenly Grottos, Nine True, Four Oddities, Six Forbidden Lands."* These refer to thirty-three renowned sects across the land and six mysterious domains. The Netherworld Record was the core manual of one of the Nine True sects — the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect.
Given that the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect was ranked among the Nine True sects, it naturally held profound secrets.
According to Daoist Mingyan, this sect's Six Core Techniques rivaled the Four Arts and Three Secrets of the renowned Mingxin Sword Sect. Their power was, without doubt, formidable.
Every time he recounted this, the old Daoist loved to mention the battle three hundred years ago between the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect's foremost expert—Ghost Master—and the Mingxin Sword Sect's legendary cultivator Immortal Zhong Yin, fought atop Zuowang Peak. He would use this duel to illustrate the eerie and dangerous nature of the sect.
He would also emphasize that, had the sect not splintered two thousand years ago, giving rise to the offshoot Ghoul-Devouring Sect, its strength would have been even more terrifying.
Even today, major orthodox sects likeMingxin Sword Sec tread carefully when dealing with it—such is the power of this sect!
As the sect's most prized possession, the Netherworld Record was certainly no ordinary manual.
All the sect's Six Core Techniques were recorded within it.
In other words, this manual contained nearly half of the Shadow-Devouring Soul's secret techniques. Especially the foundational technique—the NetherYin Qi—mastering it was tantamount to uncovering most of the sect's mysteries.
Li Xun stared blankly at the three large characters on the cover. No matter how intelligent and composed he was, he was completely lost at this moment.
How could this be? How could the supreme manual of a demonic sect appear right under the nose of the Mingxin Sword Sect? And how did it just happen to fall into his hands?
Looking around the room, Li Xun finally noticed a line of blood-red writing on one of the stone walls, standing out sharply against the wall of golden script. The blood-red characters read:
"I am Ghost Master, Sect Master of Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect. After a grievous battle with Zhong Yin, I was mortally wounded and near death. I am about to pass on and no longer have the strength to return the treasured Netherworld Record to the sect.
"If a later-generation disciple happens to read these words, it must be because my Nether Ghost Flame has poured into your body, activating the scripture. They must then join my sect, diligently cultivate this manual to refine the Yin-fire, and—within a hundred years, when the 'Ghost Spirit' returns to life—enter my sect's Yin-Transforming Pool for three months of secluded meditation. Only then can future calamities be avoided."
"If any arrogant righteous fool dares to withhold my treasure and fails to return it by the deadline, let them test the Yin-fire upon their flesh—and witness the truth of my words!"
Reading these blood-red characters, Li Xun swallowed hard. "No wonder they're called the demonic path. Even on the brink of death, he speaks with such menace—nothing like someone who's about to die."
Faced with Ghost Master's threats, Li Xun merely smiled. "If my luck runs out, I might be dead in three years anyway," he scoffed. "Who has time to worry about your hundred-year curse? But that so-called yin fire…"
He thought back to the two items that had triggered the fiery pain in his body—the pill bottle and the round bead. Now, only the pill bottle remained; the black bead had vanished.
He understood now—that must have been the so-called yin fire.
He didn't bother tidying the stone bed. Instead, he jumped down and began inspecting the inscriptions of the *Netherworld Record* along the stone walls.
This strange text truly lived up to its reputation as one of the top manuals in the Tongxuan Realm. The language was difficult and obscure, but beyond that, each phrase seemed imbued with unfathomable meaning.
With his shallow cultivation, Li Xun found these intricate techniques a bit premature. After just reading a few lines, he felt dizzy and had to shut his eyes and calm his mind. It took a long while to recover. Only then did he realize—this treasure trove wasn't something he could just casually digest.
Fortunately, the Netherworld Record didn't consist solely of profound mysteries; it began with foundational teachings.
Li Xun skimmed through the simpler parts. His understanding was limited, but he unexpectedly discovered a method to make reading the *Netherworld Record* much easier.
He only needed to recite a short incantation to link his consciousness with the text—then the contents would automatically appear in his mind, sparing him the overwhelming spectacle.
He also found another incantation—one that was specifically tailored in the Netherworld Records for someone like him, a member of an orthodox sect.
With this, he could interchange the form and nature of his innate inner energy, Bright Qi, thereby evading detection by the elders of his sect. Ghost Master's intentions were already quite clear.
And Li Xun couldn't help but admire his cunning.
"Trying to plant a hidden seed within the Mingxin Sword Sect huh…"
After cracking a joke at his own expense, he didn't waste any more time and focused on practicing the two basic techniques. It didn't even take half an hour before he could use them with ease. Once he was done, he hid the glowing stone shard and tucked it away in his clothes.
During that time, he also opened up the pill bottle to check what he'd scored. Inside was a little less than half a bottle of "Bi Yin Pills"—a pretty well-known healing elixir in the Tongxuan Realm. He'd actually found the name in The Netherworld Record, and to be honest, the timing couldn't have been better.
He took one pill, letting it nourish his wounds, and another half-hour went by. Feeling way better, he let out a hearty laugh.
"Maybe today is my lucky day."
The stone chamber around him was dim and quiet. Sitting cross-legged in the center, Li Xun was in the middle of practicing the basics of a technique called "NetherYin Qi."
Ever since he got his hands on this secret manual, his heart had been pounding with anticipation. Not because he thought reading a single book would turn him into some top-tier grandmaster who could chopp Qingxu with his palm and pick up Blood Wanderer with his sword.
It was because, naturally, he wondered—could this notorious demonic-arts manual hold a way to neutralize the Blood Nightmare inside him?
He remembered it clearly—right when the Yin Fire first invaded his body, the Blood Nightmare had actually shown itself and fought against it. Before that, it had just tormented him daily, never flaring up so vividly.
Now that the Yin fire had settled in his heart aperture (heart dantian), it seemed to be coexisting peacefully with the blood nightmare. But when he paid closer attention, he could sense... something had changed.
These two deadly forces living side-by-side—any shift could mean sudden, unavoidable death.
That's why he was in such a rush to practice the techniques in The Netherworld Record.
Right now, he was training in the most basic method listed in the book: the "Soul Shift Rebirth" technique.
At first, it just slowly altered his inner energy—nothing that boosted his cultivation. In fact, it even messed with the purity of his qi. But if he could push through that bottleneck and master it completely, it would transform the nature of his energy altogether. This kind of cuckoo laying eggs in another's nest technique... yeah, it was basically an elite-level strategy for stealing someone's foundation.
With tricks like this, no wonder the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect had such a terrifying reputation in the Tongxuan world.
But Li Xun didn't care about right or wrong—as long as it helped him, that was enough.
He threw himself into training day and night, and it took him three full days to complete the first stage—transforming his original energy into NetherYin Qi. Sure, it took ages and the resulting power wasn't anything impressive yet, but he was still thrilled.
Because during this process, his heart aperture had already begun to respond—each day, while cultivating with the techniques from the Netherworld Record, a thread of Yin Fire would spontaneously arise from the heart aperture and merge into his inner energy, significantly aiding his progress.
Even more importantly, that other deadly presence in his heart aperture —the Blood Nightmare—seemed less stable than before. Every time the Yin fire rose up and merged outward, the blood nightmare would ripple slightly. He wasn't sure why, but even the daily pain of Blood Nightmare Devouring Heart seemed to ease up a bit. The change was small—too small to confirm—but it gave him hope.
For three days straight, aside from the set time when the blood nightmare acted up, Li Xun trained nonstop. Even when he was exhausted, he'd flip through The Netherworld Record to find other applications of the techniques—half for practice, half just to take his mind off things.
He was going all out for one reason—time was running out.
Realistically, he figured he had maybe two or three years left to live. If he wanted to survive, he'd need to do a whole lot in that short window: climb halfway up Zuowang Peak, join a sect, master the Lingxi Art, and bring it back to the Blood Wanderer.
Only then would there be a chance the bastard might spare his life—maybe.
Every step of that plan required an insane amount of luck, and even then, the chances were paper-thin.
Li Xun knew this better than anyone.
With the ten-year deadline creeping up, every day just piled more despair onto his shoulders. The only reason he hadn't broken down yet was because he kept pushing himself to the brink, exhausting his body until he was too numb to feel fear.
But there was a limit to that kind of training. Now that he'd completed the first stage of Soul Shift Rebirth, there was no real excuse to keep hiding in that dark stone chamber.
So, feeling a mix of anxiety and relief, he finally stepped out.
Climbing through the crevice and back onto the cliffside, he checked his bearings and headed for the platform above. Lucky him—the bundle with the stone slab was still there, not tossed off the edge by that giant bird.
Not wasting a second, he snatched it up and bolted. It wasn't that he was scared of the bird; it was just that his body needed serious attention, and fast.
To be safe, he sprinted for a full hour, putting miles between himself and that place before finally stopping to catch his breath.
After that wild sprint, Li Xun was drenched in sweat. The stench mixed with the black dust clinging to him from the cave—it was downright disgusting.
Over the past three days of studying, he'd more or less figured out what that black dust actually was.
According to The Netherworld Record, once you cultivate their NetherYin Qi to a certain level, the Yin Fire inside you would condense into something called a Spirit Pearl. It was kind of like the Dao Embryo or Nascent Soul formed through righteous cultivation methods.
That spirit pearl was the core of Yin Fire control, directly tied to the cultivator's life. If it broke or got cut off from the cultivator's soul, the Yin Fire would backfire instantly and burn them to ashes on the spot.
Thinking back, that must've been how Ghost Master died. He'd probably forced the spirit pearl out of his body to pass down his legacy—and boom. Instant cremation. That bed full of black dust? Yeah, that was his remains.
It also explained why he'd left behind that ominous warning: Cultivate this manual diligently to refine the Yin-fire, and—within a hundred years, when the 'Ghost Spirit' returns to life—enter my sect's Yin-Transforming Pool for three months of secluded meditation. Only then can future calamities be avoided.
Now it made sense.
Consider how, within Li Xun's body, the Yin Fire was entirely external, incompatible with his true self. Initially, this external Yin fire still had some refining benefits, but when his true self's Spirit Pearl formed, there would be a large amount of Yin fire that he could no longer control. With such internal and external pressure pressing in, how could he possibly survive?
That's why he had to make it to the Yin Transforming Pool—to refine the body, allowing the internal and external Yin Fire to merge into one. By then, not only will his life be out of danger, but he will also be able to benefit from the marvelous essence of Ghost Master's thousand-year accumulation of Yin Fire—his cultivation will advance greatly, that goes without saying.
Of course, all that was still a long way off. What mattered to Li Xun right now was this nasty black dust.
Even though he'd lived in rough conditions for years on the mountain, he always tried to keep himself presentable. But now? Knowing he'd been rolling around in a dead guy's ashes for the past few days... that was just too much.
So: priority number one—find water.
The place he stopped in felt damp and full of moisture in the air. Even though it was close to noon, a fine mist hung low over the ground. That meant water had to be nearby.
He got his bearings and slipped into the forest. A few leaps up through the treetops, and the view ahead opened up.
A wide lake stretched out before him, steam rising from its surface. The mist was so thick he couldn't even see more than a few dozen meters ahead.
Standing at the forest's edge, a wave of warm air washed over him—turns out, it wasn't just a lake. It was a hot spring.
By now, Li Xun wasn't too surprised. After seven years on Zuowang Peak, he'd seen all sorts of natural marvels. Compared to a sky-piercing mountain tens of thousands of miles tall, what was one oversized hot spring?
With a cheer, he tossed aside his bundle and dove straight in—clothes and all. As the hot water surged around him, he nearly let out a moan from how good it felt.
Today had been one win after another. He was in a rare good mood. Feeling playful, he dove deeper into the spring.
Activating his inner breath to keep the flow steady, he didn't surface. Instead, he lit up a round glowing stone underwater and swam forward, wanting to see what secrets this hot spring might be hiding.
His skill in water techniques was already quite good, and combined with his deep internal energy, he swam extremely fast—within moments, he had covered several dozen zhang.
This hot spring really was massive. Even with the glow from his illumination stone, Li Xun still couldn't see the edges. Not that he minded—he just kept swimming around casually. Within a few meters, everything was clear as day. He even spotted a few little fish darting through the warm water.
That was all it took to completely ignite his playful side. He actually started racing the fish, zigzagging through the water, chasing after them like a kid having the time of his life.
Eventually, he wore himself out. When he finally surfaced, ready to take a break, he realized something... he had no idea where he was.
Thick mist surrounded him on all sides. The glowing stone couldn't pierce it at all. He couldn't even tell how far he'd drifted from shore.
He let out a helpless laugh—what else could he do?
Just as he was about to pick a random direction and swim for it, something caught his attention. He... heard water?
It wasn't the usual ripple or splash of currents. It was rhythmic—like someone bathing. The sound of water being scooped and splashed. And it wasn't far.
At first, he didn't think much of it. But the moment he focused on the sound, he noticed something else. There—faintly visible through the mist—a silhouette. Human-shaped, blurry but definitely there.
His breath caught in his throat. He instinctively drifted closer. The figure grew clearer. He could make out the shape now.
It was a woman.
A woman... bathing.
His mind went completely blank.
Seven years. He'd been fighting to survive on Mount Zuo Wang for seven long years. He'd faced death again and again. None of that mattered. The hardest thing wasn't the danger. It was the loneliness. That suffocating, soul-crushing isolation. He hadn't spoken to another human in years—so long he'd almost forgotten what it felt like.
Sure, he'd seen people from a distance. Sword-riding cultivators flying overhead. Fellow disciples, probably. But every time, he'd hidden like a thief, too scared to reveal himself, too afraid of the consequences. He never even dared to wave.
Where the hell have I ended up? That was the only thing he could think.
From the excitement and hope he had when he first climbed the mountain, to the numbness halfway through, and now the growing fear of what he might never become—his journey had been long and bitter. He'd fought so many impulses, swallowed down so much pain, kept marching forward through unbearable loneliness.
And now, with zero warning, he came face-to-face—well, almost—with the first person he'd seen in seven years.
Just four or five meters away.
If he just called out, she'd definitely hear him. But that distance? That was already more than he could handle.
His brain hadn't caught up, but his body reacted on instinct.
Retreat! Get out of here!
Like a startled animal, he turned and swam away as fast as he could. But in his panic, he forgot something critical—on this peak, who else besides him would be... just a mortal?
A voice rang out—clear, precise, and devoid of emotion.
"If I were you, I'd stay right there and think carefully about how to apologize for this little blunder."
Every word landed sharp and crisp.
And yet, behind that emotionless tone, Li Xun felt it—an undeniable strength, a pressure that left no room for resistance.