The Eternal Sin

Jiang Chen remained standing within the barriers of the Divine Concealment Array, his gaze fixed upon the horizon where the crimson streak of Gu Tianhao had finally dissolved into the dark night of Sunken Moon Valley.

The oppressive presence that had threatened to crush his very existence only moments ago had at last dissipated, but he did not allow his muscles to relax.

His gaze remained fixed in the distance for a long time.

’This Gu Tianhao... why does he have my storage pouch?’

A disdainful smirk crept across Jiang Chen’s face.

’He must have been secretly plotting from the start, lurking in the periphery and waiting to swallow a huge fish. For him to snatch the bag from Meng Yu implies that the old fox is either heavily injured or has already entered the cycle of reincarnation.’ Jiang Chen’s eyes gleamed.

’Hmph, should I offer my gratitude to Gu Tianhao for settling my grievance? Perhaps in the future, I can repay this kindness by severing his head and inheriting the legacy of his blood swords.’

The terrifying power Gu Tianhao had displayed earlier still lingered vividly before his eyes. To command a sea of steel and harvest souls as if reaping autumn wheat was a level of power that Jiang Chen desired.

If a window of opportunity ever manifested in the coming months, he would surely try to seize that power for himself. As for the present moment, his objective was a safe return to the Heavenly Tiger Sect.

’Since that wretched sword sniffer has gone looking in the direction of the main pass, I must resign myself to the longer mountain route,’ Jiang Chen thought with a flick of his sleeve.

Just as he prepared to dismantle the array, his gaze drifted toward the scattered remains of the cultivators Gu Tianhao had slaughtered. Their headless torsos and severed limbs lay in the dirt like discarded trash, but more importantly, several storage bags remained untouched.

Gu Tianhao had focused solely on the killing and extraction of souls and the capture of Jiang Chen, leaving behind the secondary spoils.

A flicker of temptation sparked in Jiang Chen’s heart.

In his eyes, these bags were like gold scattered in his own backyard.

However, Jiang Chen’s eyes slowly narrowed, and the spark of greed was swiftly extinguished.

He calmly lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged on the cold earth, closing his eyes to enter a state of deep meditation. The Divine Concealment Array continued to mask his presence from the world.

It appeared that Jiang Chen suddenly had no intention of leaving.

He instead focused on the things he had brought from the Black Market. He had been extremely selective, purchasing only five items despite his immense wealth. First was the formation base plate on which the Divine Concealment Array was arranged. It was the main reason he was still alive.

Second were six top-grade Qi Nourishing Pills, acquired for the sum of seven thousand two hundred spirit stones. These pills could significantly accelerate cultivation speed for Qi Condensation cultivators.

Third were the Blood Soul Contracts. These binding contracts could bind a person into servitude. If any disobedience occurred, he could easily refine the slave into a single droplet of blood essence.

He had also secured the Four Seasons Human Array diagram, an extremely rare formation that could manipulate the flow of time within its boundaries by a factor of thirty. Each purchase was a cog in a larger plan he intended to build for his bright future.

Finally, the last thing he had acquired was the Heaven Obscuring Eye.

Jiang Chen took it out.

Resting in his palm was a strange eyeball the size of a thumb joint. Its surface was smooth and unnaturally pale, yet faint hairline veins of dark silver ran beneath it like frozen lightning. It did not move, but it did not feel dead either. If one stared at it for too long, the surface seemed to ripple faintly, as though something within was shifting and watching back.

He watched it for a moment, then bit his lip and forced out a drop of blood. The crimson bead fell onto the eye.

The reaction was immediate.

The eye twitched, then began to tremble lightly, its pale surface darkening as if it were drinking the blood. The faint veins beneath it lit up one by one, pulsing with a dim, eerie glow.

Without wasting time, Jiang Chen raised it to his forehead and pressed it against his skin.

His forehead split open.

It opened not like torn flesh, but parted cleanly and silently, like lips opening. There was no blood, no pain, no discomfort. The eye slipped inward on its own, embedding itself as though it had always belonged there.

A third eye formed on his forehead, this one vertical. There was no iris or pupil. Instead, a boundless black expanse filled it, like a fragment of the night sky. Within that darkness floated a handful of dim stars, scattered and blinking weakly. The longer one stared, the deeper it seemed, as though that blackness had no end.

The eye blinked once.

Then the lid closed, and the slit vanished completely, leaving behind flawless skin, as if nothing had ever existed there.

Nevertheless, Jiang Chen could feel it. A shy presence beneath his forehead, like a hidden abyss that answered only to him.

Jiang Chen nodded to himself.

This was the Heaven Obscuring Eye, a Yellow Rank peak-grade treasure capable of interfering with most forms of divination. Karma tracing, fate reading, luck probing and plenty more methods would all be distorted, misled, or rendered meaningless. He had paid eight thousand spirit stones for it alone, and Jiang Chen felt no sting about it.

Without delay, he took out nearly a hundred spirit stones. With a thought, they shattered into streams of pure energy and flowed toward his forehead.

The hidden eye opened once more.

As the energies were absorbed, the black sea within deepened, and the handful of stars multiplied rapidly. One became many, spreading outward into intricate constellations that shifted and reformed in an endless cycle. The patterns grew denser, more complex, fluctuating with a mysterious rhythm, echoing a divine order far beyond his comprehension.

The eye devoured all the energy without leaving a trace.

With its belly full, the eye closed again, returning to stillness, its presence once more concealed beneath his skin.

Jiang Chen exhaled slowly, a weight lifting from his mind. With this, another of his weaknesses had been addressed.

But calculating all the costs, Jiang Chen had spent nearly twenty-two thousand spirit stones. This was no small amount.

But it had to be done.

Time passed.

The silver moon had bade its farewell, and pitch darkness had fully swallowed the valley. Inside the array, Jiang Chen circulated his spiritual essence in slow, steady cycles. His breathing remained calm, like the rise and fall of ocean tides.

An hour trickled by in absolute silence.

Suddenly, his divine sense trembled.

Jiang Chen peered upward to see a bolt of blood-red light manifest once more. Gu Tianhao had returned, hovering like a vengeful ghost above the riverbed, his eyes scanning the carnage with a gaze that could peel bark from a tree.

’Just as I suspected.’ Jiang Chen’s eyes remained calm, but a cold chill ran through his heart.

"Hmph, so the little rat actually managed to slip away," Gu Tianhao snorted, his voice carrying a distasteful edge that reached Jiang Chen’s ears.

With a sweeping motion of his arm, he commanded his flying swords to zip through the air, surgically severing the storage bags from the corpses and collecting them into a single pile.

He then used the pooled blood of the corpses to refine a new blood token, performing the ritual openly.

’Gu Tianhao, oh Gu Tianhao, you are severely mistaken if you think such tactics to lure me out could work. Even if you pretend to lose control during the ritual and leave your back exposed, I will not make a move. To fight someone who can simply fly away while I cannot, how much of an idiot would I have to be? Hehe. Act all you want. You are not getting a single spirit stone,’ Jiang Chen sneered from within the array.

By the time Gu Tianhao finished his refinement process, the first pale rays of the morning sun were beginning to bleed over the eastern peaks.

Gu Tianhao cast one final searching glance across the terrain, spreading his divine sense like a net over every rock and crevice before letting out a tired sigh.

"He truly is not here, huh... such a pity." Gu Tianhao sighed once again and streaked away like an arrow made of blood.

Jiang Chen calmly watched from behind the veil of the array.

Only when the terrifying aura completely vanished did his back slouch slightly.

A sigh of relief escaped him.

But even so, he did not step out of the array.

’There is no benefit in haste,’ Jiang Chen reflected, his mind as steady as an ancient well. ’I cannot be certain that he has truly given up or if he has merely hidden his intentions and is waiting for the grass to stir. The Heavenly Star Auction is still a few weeks away. I can afford a delay in my return to the sect, but I cannot afford to lose my head.’

Jiang Chen checked his supplies within the black ring. There was enough water and dried rations to sustain him for a week. With no immediate threat of starvation, he decided to turn this forced isolation into an opportunity for growth.