Zhou Fengxing’s words struck the silent crowd like a stone shattering a frozen lake, sending ripples of shock through every cultivator present. All eyes instantly locked onto Lei Yingjie, the air thick with sudden tension and heavy anticipation.

Lei Yingjie stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his purple robes snapping gently in the mountain breeze. He scanned their faces, a faint, mocking smile touching his lips. Since the secret was out, there was no point in hiding it.

“Your suspicions are correct,” his voice rang out, clear and sharp in the quiet herb garden. “Hidden behind the Spirit Milk Pool is indeed a Treasure Pavilion.”

The words Treasure Pavilion hit them like a spark dropped into a keg of gunpowder.

Exhaustion vanished from the cultivators’ faces, replaced by a feverish, burning hunger. Even the icy, detached Qiu Ruoli straightened her posture, her eyes narrowing with sudden intensity.

The Ancient Sword Sect’s Treasure Pavilion!

Everyone present understood the weight of those words. Spirit herbs might wither and die over centuries, but Dharma Treasures could endure for ten thousand years without losing their edge. If one could obtain even a single artifact left behind by the ancient sect…

Shen Xian watched from the periphery, noting that even the usually steady Shen Xing was unconsciously rubbing the jade pendant at his waist. It seemed his “elder brother” wasn’t immune to the allure of ancient wealth.

“However…” Lei Yingjie’s tone shifted, a glint of cunning flashing in his eyes. “I cannot guarantee any treasures remain. After all, eons have passed…”

It was a statement half-steeped in truth. He had indeed pieced together the location from fragments found in other ruins within the Ten Thousand Corpses Tomb, but he had no intention of sharing what he truly knew with these outsiders.

Liu Wanduo’s withered fingers trembled with excitement, a greedy light bursting from his cloudy eyes. “In that case, what are we waiting for? Let us investigate together!”

“Exactly!”

“We go together!”

The other cultivators chimed in, their voices rising in a cacophony of urgency.

Lei Yingjie offered a noncommittal shrug. He was more than happy to let these fools act as his pathfinders.

The group surged forward, following the narrow path behind the Spirit Milk Pool. The air grew damp and heavy, carrying the faint, sweet scent of decay. As they ventured deeper, the bluestone path beneath their feet gave way to mottled bronze bricks, each one engraved with intricate, ancient sword patterns.

Turning the final corner, a majestic bronze pavilion loomed before them.

It was a three-story structure of dark cyan metal, its surface crusted with the patina of time, yet it still exuded a terrifying, heart-palpitating Pressure.

The entrance on the ground floor had long since collapsed, leaving a gaping, pitch-black maw. Above it, on the lintel, the three ancient seal characters for Treasure Pavilion were still faintly visible. The calligraphy seemed to contain a sharp, cutting sword intent, stinging the eyes of anyone who looked too closely.

The second floor’s exterior was inlaid with reliefs of nine bronze swords. Their tips pointed downward, blades wrapped in vermilion Talismans that had faded to a dull gray. Most alarming were the cracks spiderwebbing across three of the swords, as if they were on the verge of shattering.

The top floor was shrouded in a hazy cyan light. Under the flying eaves hung seven ancient bronze lamps, but only three still flickered with a weak, ghostly flame. Whenever the mountain wind blew, the flames swayed violently, casting distorted shadows against the walls—shadows that looked suspiciously like something wriggling within the light.

“This…” Zhou Fengxing’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His hand tightened around the Talisman he held, his knuckles turning white.

He could sense it; those lamps weren’t burning oil. They were fueled by a powerful, ancient spirituality.

A flash of fanaticism crossed Lei Yingjie’s eyes, quickly masked by a veneer of calm. He turned to the group. “Since we have arrived… let us each rely on our own abilities.”

Shen Xian hung back, his gaze bypassing the entrance and fixing on the central lamp of the top floor.

With his cultivation suppressed but his Soul Formation-level Divine Sense fully expanded, he saw what others could not. Within the flickering flame, a phantom of a turtle entwined with a snake was staring back at him.

The Xuanwu…

Before the bronze gate, the group hesitated. The darkness inside was absolute, like the throat of a beast waiting to swallow them whole. The air that drifted out smelled of rust, rot, and stale metal.

“I’ll go first!” Liu Wanduo stepped out from the crowd, unwilling to let anyone beat him to the prize. His withered palm struck out, sending a murky gray stream of spiritual power into the void.

The aura of decay spread instantly, a probe to test for traps or restrictions. The gray mist surged into the darkness but vanished like a clay ox entering the sea, stirring not a single ripple.

Liu Wanduo frowned, raising his hand to try again, but Lei Yingjie waved his sleeve impatiently. “Stop wasting time!”

Crack!

A bolt of purple lightning tore into the gate, illuminating the interior for a split second.

The floor was a graveyard of wreckage.

Broken Magical Artifacts, shattered jade slips, decayed Talisman paper… The first floor was a massive ruin. Yet, even in their destruction, the debris glowed with a faint, persistent spiritual light. The materials alone were priceless.

Whoosh!

Greed overcame caution. Several figures rushed into the darkness simultaneously.

Shen Xing, however, remained rooted in place, his eyes thoughtful as he gazed toward the upper floors.

Exclamations of shock soon echoed from within.

“Is this… a fragment of the Profound Heaven Sword?!” Zhou Fengxing held up a rust-stained sword tip, his hands trembling. Though broken, the Dao patterns flowing along the metal were terrifying to behold.

Nearby, Qiu Ruoli carefully lifted half a jade slip from the dust. As her Divine Sense probed it, her beautiful eyes widened. “A fragment of the White Lotus World-Purifying Art!”

It was a legendary cultivation technique, one only whispered about in ancient texts.

Lei Yingjie ignored the scraps. He strode purposefully toward a corner, kneeling before a bronze cauldron. The vessel was cracked, but the ancient characters carved into its lining made his breath hitch.

An ancient thunder technique.

Shen Xian strolled leisurely through the chaos, seemingly kicking at rubble. In reality, he was communicating with the Mysterious Turtle in his dantian.

Not here, the turtle signaled. The thing you want isn’t on the first floor.

“Nothing but defective goods,” Liu Wanduo spat, tossing a piece of scrap metal aside in disappointment. “The real treasures must be upstairs!”

All eyes turned to the center of the room. A headless statue of a swordsman stood there, its broken sword pointing accusingly toward the entrance of the second floor. At the very tip of the stone blade lay a drop of dark red blood.

Despite ten thousand years of passage, the blood had not dried.

It pulsed with a sinister energy—the essence blood of a powerful demon.

One of the Rogue Cultivators, eyes red with greed, tried to sneak past the statue and dash for the stairs.

But the moment his foot touched the first step, the ground beneath them cracked open, fissures spreading like a spiderweb in an instant.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The discarded weapons and shattered swords on the floor began to vibrate, emitting a mournful, piercing wail. The sword marks etched into the walls flared with blood-red light, opening like countless demonic eyes in the darkness.

“Damn it! What did you trigger?!” Liu Wanduo roared, his hand slapping against his Storage Bag.

The Rogue Cultivator’s face turned deathly pale. “I—I just…”

Before he could finish, the entire Treasure Pavilion convulsed.

The dome above them began to peel away like dead skin, revealing a dark, infinite void beyond. More terrifyingly, the thousands of broken weapons on the floor levitated, their rusted tips turning in unison to aim at the intruders.

“Careful!” someone screamed.

In the next heartbeat, twenty-two cultivators felt an irresistible force crush down upon them.

The floor beneath their feet turned transparent, dissolving into nothingness. Gravity reversed, or perhaps disappeared, and twenty-two figures plummeted downward as if falling into a bottomless abyss.

In the chaos of the fall, Shen Xian caught one final detail.

The drop of undried demon blood on the statue’s sword tip… had vanished.