The Rat Cultivator

Chapter 174: The Dharma Treasure Embryo Reveals Itself

“He demanded Spirit Stones!” the Snake King scoffed, scratching his bloated belly. “Where would I ever see something like that? I don’t even know what they look like!”

He snorted derisively. “And besides, that so-called ‘True Dragon’ wasn’t even as long as my fangs. If he’s truly a divine, omnipotent being, why doesn’t he just ascend by himself instead of begging me? It’s an obvious scam! Honestly, Great King, trusting him is a fool’s errand compared to serving you!”

Wu Yuan remained silent, a flicker of dark amusement crossing his eyes.

The Dharma Treasure Embryo drastically miscalculated, Wu Yuan realized. It assumed it was speaking to a standard demon beast with a basic understanding of Cultivation economics. It had no idea the Snake King is an uneducated, backwater junkie who has never seen a Spirit Stone in his life.

Truthfully, outside of the localized Spirit Copper veins in the underground caverns, Wu Yuan hadn’t encountered natural Spirit Stones either. Snake Valley certainly didn’t produce them; if it did, the dormant artifact would have consumed them millennia ago.

But was the Snake King actually stupid?

No. He possessed the crude, street-smart cunning of an addict. He instantly recognized the Dharma Treasure Embryo’s offer as an empty promise—a mere drawing of a cake to satisfy hunger. When Wu Yuan issued commands, he paid upfront with highly addictive, tangible Snake Spirit Blood. The ancient artifact’s majestic words held zero chemical value.

Furthermore, Wu Yuan had intentionally nurtured the Snake King’s lazy, hedonistic, and thoroughly corrupted personality from the moment he Awakened. The Snake King was perfectly content with his degraded existence; he had no lofty ambitions of draconic ascension. That psychological conditioning was exactly why Wu Yuan had kept him alive.

Reaching into his pouch, Wu Yuan tossed a generous handful of glowing red Snake Spirit Blood Crystals to his vassal. “You performed admirably today. Return to the valley and continue stalling him.”

The Snake King snatched the crystals from the air, swallowing them greedily. A dopey, euphoric grin spread across his face as he turned and slithered away, utterly pleased with himself.

Wu Yuan watched him go. He had never bothered to brand the Snake King with an Awakening mark, fearing the ancient artifact might detect the magical tether. But he wasn’t worried about betrayal.

Even if the Snake King defected, the starvation protocol was already absolute. The rat horde had entirely blockaded Snake Valley. Once the ambient Spiritual Qi was fully drained, the valley’s ecosystem would collapse entirely, unable to sustain the massive serpent population. The Snake King’s genocidal culling simply accelerated the inevitable.

I hope you suffer beautifully, Wu Yuan thought, turning his gaze toward the valley.

High on a fresh dose of Snake Spirit Blood Crystals, the Snake King returned to his domain with manic energy. Feeling utterly invincible, he ramped up the output of his Poison Drawing Technique, unleashing a localized holocaust upon his own kin.

By now, the ambient Spiritual Qi density in Snake Valley had plummeted past the threshold of even a Low Grade spiritual land. It was rapidly degrading into a total dead zone. Soon, the vacuum would be so severe it would begin forcefully siphoning the latent Spiritual Qi directly from the bodies of the surviving wildlife.

The Snake King lounged lazily, demanding a massage from a terrified concubine. He hadn’t slept in days, driven by chemical energy and his mission to simply drag out the clock.

Suddenly, an infuriated, majestic voice exploded in his mind.

“Do you have the Spirit Stones or not?! Cease this senseless slaughter at once! You are butchering the bloodlines!”

The Snake King didn’t even open his eyes. “What’s the rush?” he drawled nonchalantly. “I have a solid lead on the Spirit Stones. I’ll secure them any day now.”

The voice of the Dharma Treasure Embryo fell into a chilling silence. “What exactly are you plotting? You are intentionally stalling.”

The Snake King’s eyes darted back and forth. Just as he opened his mouth to formulate another lazy excuse, the ancient voice cut him off, vibrating with cold realization.

“You are a puppet. Who is pulling your strings? Tell them to step forward so we may negotiate.”

It figured it out, Wu Yuan noted through his surveillance. The Dharma Treasure Embryo possessed the fused intellect of Daoist Dragon Snake. After being repeatedly stonewalled by an obvious idiot, it realized it had walked into a trap.

The Snake King didn’t answer. He simply nodded, grabbed his favorite concubine, and bolted for the valley exit.

Just as he reached the perimeter, he paused. He turned back toward the deepest part of the abyss, opened his jaws as if to speak… and then violently expelled his entire reserve of highly corrosive venom directly onto the largest cluster of surviving snake demons.

The victims dissolved into shrieking puddles of sludge. The final remnants of the horde were wiped out in a single, petty act of spite.

“YOU DESERVE DEATH!” the Dharma Treasure Embryo roared.

The entire Snake Valley convulsed. A blinding, apocalyptic pillar of yellow light erupted from the deepest abyss, blazing like a subterranean sun and radiating an aura of pure, unadulterated terror.

Miles away, Wu Yuan felt the psychic shockwave. A crushing, suffocating pressure slammed into him, as if a mountain had been dropped onto his shoulders. His Barbarian Beast physique trembled involuntarily.

That’s it, Wu Yuan realized, gritting his teeth. That is the exact same overwhelming aura that locked onto me during my first expedition.

Caught at the epicenter, the fleeing Snake King fared far worse. The apocalyptic pressure instantly scrambled his internal energy. His Demon Power turned into a chaotic meat grinder, violently rupturing his internal organs. He shrieked as his scales burst open, spraying fountains of blood as he dragged his mangled body out of the valley.

But the terrifying yellow light lasted for only a single breath.

It was abruptly smothered by an overwhelming, ethereal glow of azure and crimson—the residual power of the ancient demon king’s seal clamping back down on the escaping artifact.

Standing at a safe distance, Wu Yuan wiped a bead of cold sweat from his snout. “I knew it,” he breathed. “I am absolutely not stepping foot in there.”

Until that moment, Wu Yuan had harbored a microscopic fantasy that he might be able to outmaneuver the Dharma Treasure Embryo in a direct confrontation. That fantasy was now dead. He let out a self-deprecating chuckle.

Its fundamental existence transcends the Foundation Establishment realm. I am a mere Qi Condensation ant trying to swallow a dragon. I was entirely too arrogant.

Staring at the ruined, smoking crater of Snake Valley, Wu Yuan’s eyes hardened with predatory resolve. If I cannot fight you, I will starve you to death.

“Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven!” Wu Yuan barked. “Engage maximum extraction! Drain Snake Valley down to the bedrock! Force that artifact to vomit up every drop of energy it ever absorbed!”

“With pleasure!” the Grotto-Heaven replied eagerly, finding the sadistic exercise highly entertaining.

The Grotto-Heaven didn’t just drain the energy; it weaponized the process. It funneled the extracted Spiritual Qi directly into a massive perimeter of hollowed-out Spirit Stone casings Wu Yuan had meticulously buried around the valley. The result was a heavily fortified containment ring of dense Spiritual Qi, with Snake Valley trapped in the center as an absolute, suffocating vacuum.

The total sensory deprivation finally pushed the Dharma Treasure Embryo over the edge.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” the ancient voice shrieked into the void. “WE HAVE NO GRIEVANCE! WHY DO YOU SCHEME AGAINST ME?!”

Wu Yuan offered absolute silence.

“NO!” the artifact roared in despair. But an arm cannot twist a thigh. Surrounded by an absolute energy vacuum, the Dharma Treasure Embryo was utterly starved. Its voice faded into silence.

However, Wu Yuan now faced a logistical nightmare.

He was terrified to get close, knowing a dying beast strikes the hardest. But he was the only one who knew the artifact’s exact coordinates. If he sent a minion to retrieve it, the sentient artifact could easily hijack the minion’s mind and escape.

Pacing back and forth, Wu Yuan finally gritted his teeth. He had to face it himself.

He took several deep breaths, forcing his heart rate to slow and his expression to freeze into a mask of absolute calm. He began walking toward the edge of Snake Valley.

Internally, however, he was panicking. Karma Pearl! he screamed in his mind with every single step. Is this distance safe?! How about now?! Now?! He spammed the inquiry so relentlessly that the Karma Pearl finally manifested a physical projection, turned its back to him, and aggressively shoved its rear end toward his face in sheer annoyance.

The absurd visual actually helped calm Wu Yuan’s nerves.

He halted precisely at the edge of the calculated safe zone. He stood tall, stroking his whiskers with the haughty arrogance of a supreme mastermind.

“I am the architect of your demise,” Wu Yuan declared, his voice echoing into the silent abyss.

Snake Valley remained dead and still.

Wu Yuan chuckled darkly. “Are you really so pathetic? So starved of energy you cannot even manifest a voice?”

“You must realize that without ambient Spiritual Qi, you will inevitably fall into a deep, eternal dormancy. Furthermore, as a newly condensed sentience, your structural integrity is fragile. You cannot survive this attrition.”

He paused, letting the silence stretch. “Why suffer? Submit to me. Acknowledge me as your master, and we shall conquer this realm together. Is that not a magnificent proposition?”

From the depths of the abyss, a single, weak sound drifted up.

“Hah.” A derisive, mocking sneer.

Wu Yuan’s smile widened into a sharp, cruel grin. “You mock me? You should know, I am the chosen champion of the Azure Radiance Grotto-Heaven. Have you heard of it?”

He leaned forward slightly. “It’s the very same mountain range that dropped from the sky and crushed you flat…”

Before the final word left his mouth, Wu Yuan’s demonic instincts screamed. His expression warped into pure terror, and he spun on his heel, sprinting away with explosive speed.

The bedrock beneath his previous position violently buckled. With a deafening, catastrophic roar, the entire perimeter of Snake Valley collapsed inward. The earth shattered, instantly transforming the landscape into a gaping, bottomless maw. A terrifying, gravitational singularity erupted from the depths, generating a localized black hole that attempted to suck Wu Yuan into the abyss.

But Wu Yuan was already miles away, riding the shockwave to safety. The Dharma Treasure Embryo’s final, desperate suicide trap collapsed on empty air.