Chapter 262: The Devouring Demon Classic and the Path to the Netherworld

“The Netherworld Demon Abyss?” Qin Haoxuan asked with a blank expression. “What is the Netherworld Demon Abyss? And where is it?”

Lan Yan looked at him as if he were an idiot. “You don’t even know about the Netherworld Demon Abyss? How have you been cultivating? Didn’t your Taichu Sect even teach you such a basic thing?”

Qin Haoxuan raised a hand and scratched his head in extreme embarrassment. Xing, at his side, immediately exposed his old habits. “When Old Qin was in class before, he was either dozing off or skipping. He never properly attended a single lecture. It’s not strange that he doesn’t know about it.”

A look of “so that’s how it is” appeared on Lan Yan’s face, and she muttered under her breath, “No wonder. I was just saying, what kind of sect wouldn’t tell its disciples about the Netherworld Demon Abyss? It turns out he just wasn’t paying attention in class.”

Qin Haoxuan gave a wry smile. Of course, he wouldn’t tell her that he had been possessing the little snake at night to go treasure-hunting in the Immortal-Slaying Poison Valley, which left him extremely exhausted the next day, or that he had eaten a One-Leaf Golden Lotus and had to sit in meditation to soothe the violent spiritual energy in his body.

Seeing the look of sincere inquiry on his face, Lan Yan finally cleared her throat and, putting on the air of a patient teacher, said, “Since the beginning of time, the heavens and the earth have not been complete. From time to time, spatial rifts will appear, and the Netherworld is another strange heaven and earth. Sometimes, the heavens and the earth will rub against each other and collide, creating rifts, and the demons of the Netherworld will come to our world through these rifts. The moment they arrive, they eat people and fight with cultivators. After fighting for a period of time, some cultivators grew to envy the formidable bodies of the demons, so they began to study and research, developing some methods of demonic cultivation.”

As he listened to her explanation, he felt a bit like an idiot. It turned out there were such things in this world. It seemed that just reading Xu Yu’s notes could not make up for the classes he had missed. Thankfully, with Xing at his side, he had managed to make up for a lot of it. Otherwise, he would probably look even more foolish now.

Lan Yan looked at his dazed expression and shook her head repeatedly, thinking to herself, The Taichu Sect is really good-tempered. If it were my family… daring to sleep in class? First, they’d give him a hundred lashes, and then they’d just kick him out!

“Among these demon cultivators, there was a great expert who researched a formidable cultivation art called the Demon Devouring Manual. In order to take his power to the next level, he used a mysterious method to open a rift between heaven and earth, letting the demons of the Netherworld come over, and then he would eat them to strengthen himself.” As she spoke, a hint of fear appeared in her eyes. “The naturally formed rifts would often be discovered by cultivators after a period of time and sealed up. But this great expert’s spatial rift was not only never discovered, but as his strength grew, he was no longer satisfied with low- and mid-level demons and needed even more powerful ones to continue to improve his strength. So, he opened the rift even wider.”

“By the time a cultivator discovered this place, he had already become extremely powerful. Although his realm was only at the Spirit Tree Realm, his formidable strength was enough for him to slay cultivators at the great completion of the Spirit Tree Realm and even the Dao Fruit Realm. Some even suspected that his combat power was so great that he could even slay an immortal.”

Qin Haoxuan clicked his tongue repeatedly. He himself was at the Ninth-Leaf of the Spirit Sprout Realm, and to kill a Twentieth-Leaf cultivator had already earned him the respect of many disciples. Yet this fellow, who was probably around the same realm as Master Chi Lian, could kill an immortal. Had such a formidable being truly existed?

Hearing her words, Xing also propped his chin on his hand with a look of doubt. He considered himself a well-read genius demon, but he seemed to have never seen such a strange existence.

“And then what?” Qin Haoxuan asked, forcing himself to calm down. “Did he become a demon god?”

Lan Yan shot him a sidelong glance. “Idiot. Didn’t I just say? His strength might have been able to slay an immortal, but his realm was only at the Spirit Tree Realm. No matter how formidable his strength was, it could not grant him eternal life. In the end, he still exhausted his lifespan and died in the Five Celestial Decays.”

Qin Haoxuan nodded repeatedly. If such a person could live forever, it would be too terrifying. It was a good thing that the heavens were fair.

However, he clearly realized that she had still not gotten to the main point. So, he couldn’t help but ask again, “But how was the Netherworld Demon Abyss formed?”

“Can’t you let me finish before you interrupt?” she protested, sticking out her little tongue at him. “That demon cultivator may have died, but that giant spatial rift to the Netherworld was still there. Before, when he was alive, the demons of the Netherworld did not dare to come over; any who did would be eaten by him. Sometimes, when he didn’t have enough food, he would even go to the Netherworld to catch demons to eat! A pity that after he died, there was no one left who could suppress them. A large number of demons came running over. The cultivators also tried to seal the rift, but for every bit they sealed, the demons would tear open another bit. Over time, this place became the famous Netherworld Demon Abyss, and the rift became so large that it was very difficult for cultivators to seal it.”

Her mind conjured up the scene of cultivators fighting a bloody battle against the demons from the Netherworld, and a look of fear appeared in her eyes. “If we were to just let the demons come over, then all of us cultivators and mortals would be eaten by them, and this place would become a second Netherworld. In order to maintain the balance, we have to send cultivators to fight them in the abyss. Although we cannot repair the spatial rift, we must at least hold them back there.”

After she finished speaking, Qin Haoxuan turned his incredulous gaze to Xing and muttered to himself, “There’s such a terrifying place. How many cultivators must die there every year? If they were to break through, then all prosperity, all peace would be shattered. Both the cultivation world and the secular world would be littered with corpses, and blood would flow like rivers.”

“So, the number of cultivators who die every year is a terrifying figure,” she answered without hesitation. “The cultivation world has paid a huge price to keep the demons contained in the Netherworld Demon Abyss.”

“If I have the chance, I really want to see this battlefield,” he sighed. Although he was a bit selfish at times, he still had great admiration for the cultivators who fought in the abyss.

Hearing his lament, she stretched out her fair right hand. “Isn’t that simple? Give me five hundred low third-grade spirit stones, and I’ll simulate it for you.”

Hearing that she could actually simulate the scene, he readily took out the five hundred stones. His previous stinginess in front of Xing was completely gone; he was as generous as a spendthrift who throws money around like dirt.

After taking the stones, she took out a small silver knife and began to carve. It took half an hour to finish carving the five hundred stones, but he and Xing did not show the slightest impatience. Instead, they watched her skilled movements with silent admiration. This little girl was practically an expert in arrays.

The five hundred carved stones were arranged in a strange pattern. She stood at the center, her ten fingers moving, and the spiritual energy from the stones was drawn out by her movements, converging in front of them like a great mirror, in which a silent image slowly appeared.

It was a desolate canyon. From the angle she had simulated, the end of the vast canyon seemed to meet the sky. The sky itself seemed to have been split open by a sword, leaving a neat, giant rift from which a sinister demonic energy seeped. One by one, demons walked out of the rift in the sky and poured into the canyon. At both ends of the canyon were the demons from the Netherworld and the cultivators. The two sides were engaged in a silent slaughter. The eyes of every cultivator shone with a life-or-death hatred.

The silent slaughter was the most brutal. The ground was littered with severed limbs and ghastly white bones. Corpses were strewn everywhere, and blood flowed like rivers.

She pointed to the entrance where a continuous stream of cultivators was arriving. Her expression was indignant, her body trembling with excitement. “This is the entrance to the Netherworld Demon Abyss. Many cultivators enter here. In order to protect the cultivation world, they go without a second thought. Many of my elders have also gone in, but of those who go, not even one in ten returns.”

Qin Haoxuan sucked in a cold breath. Not one in ten returns? Doesn’t that mean entering is a nine-in-ten chance of death?

In his eyes, the light of determination in the faces of those cultivators was an abbreviation of the indomitable will of the entire cultivation world.

“Those who enter to fight a bloody battle have only one common belief: to resist the invading demons and protect their homes!” Lan Yan’s voice grew more and more agitated, her body trembling with anger. “Yet here, there are still people opening a passage to the Netherworld. These people… are worse than beasts!”

Qin Haoxuan was silent. His gaze continued to fall on the illusion, watching the cultivators fighting to the death, watching the numerous demons from the Netherworld, a sharp glint in his eyes.

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