The upheaval in the Songjing region had an impact ten times greater than Li Xun had expected. Just three hours after he left, the first wave of cultivators had already arrived upon hearing the news.

And over the course of a single day, no fewer than a dozen groups, nearly five hundred cultivators in all, rushed to the ruined capital. When they arrived and saw only wreckage and ruin, the shock they felt was hardly any less than when facing the dreaded Forty-Nine Heavenly Tribulation.

There, they also found Gu Pin'er unconscious. After reviving her, they quickly learned the grim news. Many disciples of the Heavenly Vigorous Sect had perished.

At the same time, the names of the two devils, Blood Wanderer and Yin Wanderer, were once again etched into the hearts of all the cultivators.

Regardless of the ambiguous stance from the demonic sects, the ten righteous sects, led by the Heavenly Vigorous Sect, issued a joint Heaven’s Wrath Decree. A temporary alliance was formed to hunt down the two Wanderers across the land. The Mingxin Sword Sect even invited Zhong Yin, the number one divine sword of Tongxuan, who pledged to personally strike when the time came to eliminate the two evildoers.

The scale of this campaign was second only to the ancient hunt for the Heavenly Demon Phoenix. And in terms of strength, it wasn’t any weaker. Zhong Yin’s appearance instantly raised the Alliance’s power to a whole new level.

But perhaps Zhong Yin’s reputation was too intimidating. Because in the entire year following the formation of this so-called “Demon-Slaying Alliance,” not a single trace of the two Wanderers was found. It was as if they had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

As time passed, the horror of the hundreds of thousands who died in the Songjing disaster gradually faded from people’s minds. The event became just another grim chapter in the scroll of atrocities committed by the two Wanderers. An abstract symbol, a convenient anecdote for tea-time conversation.

Aside from the Heavenly Vigorous Sect, which had suffered the tragic loss of many outstanding disciples, few still had the will to invest much effort in this matter.

So they also wouldn't know that, in the Songjing Massacre, the most pivotal person who had been intentionally or unintentionally omitted by the "sole survivor" Gu Pin'er, had actually spent forty-nine days in a secluded underground cave, roughly seven hundred li from Songjing. There, right under the noses of countless cultivators, he peacefully completed the first and most crucial stage of refining and stabilizing the Nethermyst Puppet.

When Li Xun finally climbed out of the now spiritually-drained cavern, two sword-riding cultivators happened to be flying high above. Narrowing his eyes, he studied the two streaks of light, calmly analyzing. If he were to use one of the "Nether One and Nether Two" puppets, how could he kill these two fairly powerful cultivators in the shortest time possible?

Of course, it was just a passing thought. In truth, he was simply caught up in the thrill of wielding newfound power. Nothing more.

Beside him, the Bloodkiss, with a cat’s head and serpent’s body, tilted its head as it watched the sword lights fly by. Then it licked its lips before flopping listlessly back onto the ground.

Since that day, whatever the little beast had decided in its sly little heart, it had stuck to Li Xun like a shadow. Wherever he went, it followed; its stealthy tailing ability had reached an absurd level of mastery.

Li Xun had no idea what it was thinking, and he certainly wasn’t naive enough to assume it was staying out of gratitude. Most likely, it had its eyes on some valuable item he carried.

But after traveling together for so long with no sign of trouble, Li Xun stopped trying to shoo it away. In fact, having this odd little monster as company on the road was… oddly comforting.

To its credit, Bloodkiss was surprisingly well-behaved. Even when Li Xun entered deep cultivation, it never tried anything shady. It just prowled nearby or curled up quietly.

And so, in this strange harmony, man and beast had traveled together.

Once the sword lights had passed, Li Xun stood up, brushed the leaves off his clothes, and headed back underground. Relying on some geomantic techniques he'd learned at Lianxia Mountain, combined with his qi mechanism-sensing, he quickly located the next place where yin energy converged, and thereby set a new target.

With a wave to Bloodkiss, man and beast bounded off through the mountain forest, marking the beginning of another chapter in his cultivation journey.

The Nethermyst Puppet

, as one of the supreme techniques of the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect, could truly be considered the pinnacle achievement of the Soul-Driving, Spirit-Refining, Mind-Binding Great Technique, when cultivated to the utmost extreme!

Normally, just mastering this technique step by step would take centuries or even millennia. But Li Xun? He had barely scratched the surface of the technique when fate had thrown him a blessing; the Heaven's Nether Yin Pearl, a supreme treasure that let him skip straight to the summit.

Throughout the Shadow-Devouring Soul Sect’s long history, fewer than thirty Grandmasters had ever successfully forged a true Nethermyst Puppet. And of those, only a handful had managed to create one at the True One level.

But for someone like Li Xun who had refined not one, but two True One-level puppets simultaneously, he might very well be the only one in history to do so.

But that didn’t mean he could rely on these two puppets to run rampant across the world.

While Nether Puppets didn’t drain qi from their master, activating and controlling them using the needed incantation required an exceptionally high level of cultivation.

Given Li Xun's own strength, even if he pushed himself to the limit, he might not be able to move a single finger of his puppets. It was only thanks to the Heaven's Nether Yin Pearl that he could barely manage to command them.

But even the pearl had its limits. In its current state, if he were to face a true expert and tried to use the puppets in a prolonged battle, it wouldn’t take long. Within just thirty breaths, the Heaven's Nether Yin Pearl would be reduced to nothing more than dust!

Worse still, relying on a treasure to control the puppets made the connection between him and them not so solid. One powerful backlash might be enough to sever this delicate bond completely. And that was a huge risk Li Xun had to understand. And prepare for.

Which was why he’d sought out a secluded place to quietly cultivate, stabilizing the link between himself and his puppet.

After forty-nine days of cultivation, this step was now mostly done. Next, he needed to tackle his most important challenge yet: the Nethermyst Shadow Body.

It was one of those profound secret techniques that had only existed in theory within the sect’s ancient records. Never successfully cultivated.

The concept was to establish a qi mechanism connection with the Nethermyst Puppet through the NethermystSeal control and sensing method, and then combine it with the technique of forging an external body (avatar).

Using the indestructible Nethermyst Puppet as an avatar, the qi mechanisms merge and become one, combining the strength of both sides to propel one’s cultivation to new heights.

However, while the idea sounded great, it’s not very practical in reality.

It wasn’t that the concept was unrealistic. No, the theory was sound. The real issue was that anyone capable of creating a Nethermyst Puppet was already a Grandmaster whose cultivation had touched the profound mysteries of heaven and earth. For them, crafting such a puppet wasn’t just about making a weapon. The long and grueling process, sometimes spanning hundreds or even thousands of years, was a way to deepen their perception of the heaven and earth's qi mechanisms, and to enhance their insight, and cultivation.

As for the result involving the Nethermyst Puppets, that actually wasn’t the most important part. With their level of strength, they didn’t need to rely on external tools to gild the lily.

So for the Grandmaster who originally developed this technique, it was more of a leisurely research project than anything. He certainly never imagined that, many generations later, some reckless, ignorant brat, relying solely on a magical artifact and dumb luck, would actually manage to subdue a puppet and seriously attempt to cultivate a technique that was born entirely from wild imagination.

But Li Xun had his own considerations.

He was no starry-eyed dreamer hoping to ascend to the heavens in a single bound. Nor did he ever believe that just having two Nethermyst Puppets was enough to let him dominate the world.

From a young age, he’d been raised to value the fundamentals. The traditions of the Mingxin Sword Sect had subtly but deeply shaped his approach; steady progress, solid foundations, step by step.

Still, due to the limitations of the Nethermyst Puppets, he now had an urgent priority: to rapidly boost his cultivation and break free from his reliance on the Heaven's Nether Yin Pearl.

Li Xun was cautious about the consequences of a sudden surge in cultivation. But when it came to the dangers posed by the Nethermyst Puppets at their current stage, he was almost pessimistic.

Faced with two dangers, he could only choose the lesser of the two.

Right now, what he needed was a place where natural yin qi converged in abundance. Using that environment as a foundation, he could establish the appropriate techniques and complete the initial work of building the foundation.

The problem? Finding such a place in the mortal realm was incredibly difficult. Unless, of course, he went the same route as those two Wanderers and forcefully altered the directions of the earth's veins to create one….

Ah...let's not.

The days of searching and cultivating blurred together. Time flew by so fast that Li Xun lost track of the days; he could only guess the general date by the changing seasons.

That kind of life, living by the sky, one day at a time, came to an end just half a month ago, when he'd mastered a minor skill: the Nine Hells Stone-Piercing Escape Art!

The name sounded grand, but in reality, it was just an ordinary earth-escape technique.

Even so, it drastically accelerated his ability to explore the earth's veins. He would often tunnel nonstop for three to five days, only surfacing when he was utterly drained. Bloodkiss, who could only fly, lost track of him several times and was clearly not amused.

In the end, Li Xun solved the problem the simplest way he could. He made a pouch, stuffed Bloodkiss inside with just its head sticking out, and carried it underground with him.

From then on, it was nonstop tunneling, directionless and disorienting; he couldn't tell east from west, but Li Xun loved every minute of it. He could feel his cultivation significantly improving from the prolonged using of this technique.

On this particular day, he’d been tunneling for seven days straight.

He was in high spirits. The yin qi around him was growing rapidly denser. Even the surrounding plants, rocks, and soil gave off a chill.

He tested a few hand seals, and the response was excellent. Even if this place wasn’t a true Hundred-Yin Convergence Site, the concentration of yin qi far exceeded anything he’d encountered so far.

“What a great place,” Li Xun muttered, stopping to scan the surroundings with his spiritual sense.

In places where heaven and earth energy gathered, whether yin or yang, there were usually strange beings lurking, many of them aggressive.

Over the past two months, he’d explored seven or eight such locations. Four of them had been occupied by spirit beasts. Though those creatures eventually ended up as meals for him and Bloodkiss, Li Xun never let his guard down.

Bloodkiss retracted its head back into the pouch. After spending so much time together, it and Li Xun had developed a kind of mental bond. It knew exactly what Li Xun was thinking.

The clever little monster knew its strengths and weaknesses well. In the sky, it could fly and dart about recklessly and wildly. In this thick soil, however, it could barely move a step. If trouble showed up down here, it was all on Li Xun.

But as it turned out, Li Xun may have been a little too cautious this time. After creeping forward for over half an hour, he hadn’t encountered so much as a worm let alone a demonic beast. And the yin qi ahead was so thick, it had practically taken on a liquid form, slowly flowing through the soil layers.

“There’s actually a place like this in the mortal realm?” Li Xun was stunned. The yin energy density here was several times stronger than all the earth qi and yin caves he’d previously explored—combined.

And what’s more, the way the energy flowed showed clear structure and order. It had a central nexus where the yin was born, with countless streams radiating outward, forming a complete system, a fully-formed extreme yin zone

Li Xun was about seventy to eighty percent certain that what lay ahead was a true Hundred-Yin Convergence Site. 

Moments later, he surfaced and confirmed his suspicion.