Dual Cultivation System: My Cultivation Was Crippled, So I Rely on Intimacy to Level Up

Chapter 249: Harem on Fire? One Sentence Ignites the Asura Field!

Zhou Kai’s eyelids lowered a fraction. Du Chuyao’s apocalyptic revelation didn’t stir a single ripple of panic across his face.

“If that thing were an active, living creature, the entire Eastern Region would have already been reduced to a graveyard,” he stated coldly. “It has to be biologically dead.”

Without waiting for a response, he stepped past her, marching straight into the oppressive, boundless darkness of the tunnel.

Du Chuyao’s jaw tightened. She harbored intense reservations about marching blindly toward a supposedly ‘dead’ planetary-class threat, but she swallowed her doubts and fell into step behind him.

The deeper they plunged into the crust, the wider the passage became.

The subterranean silence was broken by the guttural, wet hissing of predators. A freezing Yin wind ripped down the corridor, carrying the heavy, coppery stench of fresh slaughter.

In the gloom ahead, shadowy figures began to detach themselves from the cavern walls. A massive tide of fierce demons and wailing vengeful ghosts surged toward them, their collective bloodlust suffocating. The sheer density of the horde far eclipsed anything they had faced near the surface.

Leading the charge was a Demon-Armored Yaksha. It was a hulking, bipedal horror encased in fused, calcified bone armor, wielding a massive trident carved from a giant femur. The demonic energy radiating from its frame was so dense it looked like liquid tar. It projected the lethal Aura Pressure of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Yet, for all its terrifying power, its movements were sluggish and unnaturally stiff. Its blood-red eyes were totally vacant, driven by nothing but a crude, automated subroutine to slaughter intruders.

“Perfect timing!”

Wu Hongxiao let out a feral, delighted laugh. There was no fear in her eyes, only the burning thrill of combat. She snapped her spear forward, the crimson flames on the blade roaring to life as she launched herself at the Yaksha like a furious dragon breaching its cave.

Shen Hanyi remained a portrait of absolute, icy calm. With a microscopic twitch of her thoughts, three silver sword rays vanished into the dark. They bypassed the hulking demons entirely, slipping flawlessly through the chaotic melee to perfectly pierce the chests of three high-priority vengeful spirits. The blades didn’t detonate; they simply pinned the ghosts in place—a masterclass in extreme, surgical Aura control.

Immediately, Li Youci swept her Ten Thousand Soul Banner through the air, hoovering up the paralyzed ghosts like dust.

They pushed forward, a relentless, highly coordinated meat grinder.

Sword rays flashed, spear flames roared, and black ghost-fire detonated in the dark. Working in seamless tandem, the team hacked a bloody, localized highway through the endless sea of demonic cannon fodder, driving relentlessly toward the source of the heartbeat.

Thump.

A heavy, muffled throb echoed from the bedrock. It was faint, but the acoustic resonance was absolute.

Everyone froze in their tracks.

Thump.

It hit again. Louder this time. It didn’t sound like an organ; it sounded like a titan beating a subterranean war drum. With the sound came a physical, suffocating wave of Aura Pressure that turned the air in the tunnel thick and syrupy.

“Is that… a heartbeat?” Wu Hongxiao tilted her head, the battle-lust draining from her face, replaced by creeping unease.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The rhythm accelerated, the acoustic shockwaves growing exponentially heavier as they closed the distance. Every single beat ratcheted the localized gravity higher, pressing down on their shoulders until drawing breath became a conscious effort.

Li Youci’s elegant brows pulled into a tight frown. “This makes no sense,” she muttered, irritation coloring her tone. “We’ve pushed into the deepest sector of the valley. We’ve slaughtered multiple demons with physical specs rivaling Golden Core Grand Perfection. So why haven’t we encountered a single Golden Core Ghost King?”

Zhou Kai stared down the tunnel, his eyes locked on a sickly, pulsing glow illuminating the corridor’s end. “Because of the suppression engine,” he said slowly, bracing himself against the crushing gravity of the heartbeat. “Perhaps the Heaven-reaching Spiritual Treasure—the ‘Pure World Lamp’—isn’t just a physical lock. It’s radiating a psychic dampening field that actively erases the higher consciousness of everything born down here. That’s why every demon we’ve fought has been a mindless drone.”

Du Chuyao withdrew her analytical gaze from the tunnel’s end and nodded in agreement. “Your hypothesis aligns with my observations. However, my Spirit Pupils did detect several massively anomalous auras deeper in the complex. I deliberately routed us through this specific corridor to bypass the apex predators.”

Li Youci scoffed, clearly disappointed. “So I came down into this hellhole for nothing? You expect me to just sit back and slowly hand-rear that pathetic little Foundation Establishment Ghost King I caught earlier?”

…

The claustrophobic tunnel abruptly terminated. The group stepped out onto the precipice of a subterranean stone hall so impossibly massive it defied geological logic.

The domed ceiling of the hall was lost in the gloom high above. The only illumination came from millions of massive, glowing runes etched directly into the rock face, pulsing in a complex, synchronized sequence—a planetary-scale suppression Formation.

Occupying the dead center of the hall was a massive, perfectly square blood pool.

The fluid inside wasn’t blood. It was a hyper-dense, terrifyingly viscous sludge the color of rusted iron. Huge, black-red bubbles occasionally swelled to the surface, bursting with thick, silent wet pops.

Carved into the four walls enclosing the pool were hundreds of aqueducts. The demonic sludge was being slowly, methodically pumped through these channels, acting as an arterial network that fed the corruption throughout the entirety of Tongming Valley.

Rising from the exact center of the blood pool was a three-foot-wide pedestal carved from black stone. Resting on the pedestal was a pristine white jade tray.

And resting on the tray was a heart.

It was beating.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Every single contraction was violently, grotesquely powerful. The sheer kinetic force of the organ caused the entire stone hall to vibrate. Visible shockwaves of black energy rippled outward from the tissue, crashing into the blood pool. With every violent pump, thick drops of ink-black demon blood sprayed from the ventricles, splashing into the reservoir below.

Directly above the pedestal, suspended from the unseen dome, a spear of blinding, seven-colored auspicious light lanced downward. It struck the heart dead center, acting as a divine stake that physically pinned the organ to the jade tray.

With every beat of the heart, the seven-colored light flared brighter, forcing the organ down. Simultaneously, the apocalyptic demonic energy bleeding from the heart furiously clawed its way up the shaft of light, desperately trying to corrode the divine cage.

Down in the sludge of the blood pool, twisted black shadows constantly coalesced, violently mutating into new fierce demons and vengeful ghosts. They shrieked as they dragged themselves onto the stone banks, only to be instantly vaporized by the searing light of the suppression runes carved into the walls. Their shredded essence fell back into the pool as pure demonic energy, fueling the cycle. Only a tiny fraction of the spawns managed to slip through the gaps in the grid and escape into the tunnels.

“Using the planet’s own ley lines as a life-support system, and a supreme spiritual treasure as a suppression lock…” Du Chuyao murmured, her eyes wide as she finally deciphered the sheer, god-like scale of the architecture.

She turned to look at Li Youci. “Your Calamity Abyss Valley has terrifying ambitions.”

Li Youci didn’t bother to deny it. She just gave the Jade Flower Palace Master a flat, unimpressed look.

Du Chuyao met the stare with perfect, aristocratic indifference. “Relax. Whatever apocalyptic secrets Calamity Abyss Valley is burying down here are completely irrelevant to me. My only concern is my own profit margin. The second I walk back through that door, I will wipe this entire room from my memory.”

She deliberately broke eye contact, shifting her gaze from the beating heart to the outer banks of the blood pool. Embedded wildly across the stone floor and walls were thousands of black crystals. They were pitch-black, but their interiors seemed to writhe with the screaming faces of trapped souls. They radiated a terrifyingly pure, highly concentrated cocktail of Evil, Ghost, and Demonic energy.

Golden light flared in Du Chuyao’s eyes as she scanned the deposits. “These Evil Soul Crystals have been relentlessly pressure-washed by pure demonic energy and marinated in the blood of that heart for centuries. They’ve undergone a total metamorphic evolution. The purity rating of these stones eclipses anything you could pull from a standard tectonic vein.”

She let out a soft, genuine sigh of professional appreciation. “If you used these as base materials for forging demonic artifacts, you could name your price on the black market.”

Hearing the appraisal, Zhou Kai’s eyes locked onto the crystal deposits with intense, predatory interest.

“You said these Evil Soul Crystals are already Top Grade,” Zhou Kai noted, looking back at her. “If you were to use your Spirit Ying Sacred Body to passively nurture and refine them… wouldn’t that push their material specs to an even more absurd tier?”

Du Chuyao tilted her head, a highly cynical, half-smile playing on her lips. “And why, exactly, would I perform high-end, extremely draining refinement labor for you?”

“Because my survival directly correlates with yours,” Zhou Kai replied smoothly. “You want to survive the next thirty years. More importantly, you intend to seize the seat of Holy Maiden. To pull that off, you need an exceptionally lethal, completely reliable asset. My continued, rapid growth in power is non-negotiable for your success.”

Li Youci scoffed loudly, stepping forward to violently dismantle the negotiation. “Zhou Kai, do not be an idiot. Stay far away from this viper. She is actively plotting the assassination of her own fiancé. She is utterly devoid of loyalty or basic human decency. You sign a contract with her, and she will sell your organs on the black market while making you thank her for the privilege.”

Shen Hanyi’s eyes turned to glacial ice as she locked onto Du Chuyao.

The Sword Immortal took a single, deliberate step forward, planting herself firmly at Zhou Kai’s side. Her hand rested on the pommel of her blade. “I am more than capable of drawing my sword for my husband.”

Wu Hongxiao, swept up in the fiercely protective energy, instinctively took a half-step toward Zhou Kai as well. But a sharp, terrifying glare from her Senior Sister made her freeze, and she awkwardly shuffled her foot back.

Faced with the unified, highly lethal hostility of Zhou Kai’s harem, Du Chuyao didn’t flinch. She actually smiled.

She locked eyes with Li Youci, her voice completely devoid of inflection, yet echoing with absolute, terrifying conviction. “For those who actively obstruct my ascension to immortality… there is no one on this earth I will not kill.”

Du Chuyao dismissed Li Youci entirely, shifting her gaze back to Zhou Kai. “We have a deal. I will refine the Evil Soul Crystals for you.”

Her eyes slowly swept over the three incredibly dangerous, highly territorial women flanking him. A wicked, highly calculated smile spread across her face.

“However, Fellow Daoist Zhou… I haven’t forgotten the terms of our original arrangement.”

She took a slow step forward, ensuring every woman in the room heard her perfectly.

“If you successfully assassinate Dong Cheng for me, you and I become Dao Companions. So…”

Du Chuyao slowly turned her head, locking eyes directly with Li Youci.

“…between the Holy Maiden of the Jade Flower Palace, and the Holy Maiden of Calamity Abyss Valley… which one of us is going to be your primary wife?”