Chapter 183 - 182: Golden Immortal Beast (2)
"If Chu Kuang is committing a capital crime," Lin Yuan pressed, his gaze piercing Jin Rou, "how does he plan to deal with the fallout? When this thirty-day battlefield ends, you and your brothers will simply report his atrocities to the Emperors seated in the Grand Court."
Jin Rou let out a hollow, broken laugh. A single tear tracked down his face.
"We can’t," Jin Rou whispered, the despair returning to his eyes. "We can never report him. Once a Golden Diting cultivator is captured by the Chu cultivators, they are subjected to an interrogation that breaks the soul."
Jin Rou shuddered violently, instinctively wrapping his arms around himself as though the temperature in the canyon had suddenly plummeted. "They possess a strange and terrifying torture artifact. It does not inflict pain upon the physical body. Instead, it is driven directly into the victim’s Spiritual Sea, where it creates an endless cycle of agony. To the victim, it feels as though the flow of time has completely stopped, forcing them to endure centuries of unbearable torture within the span of a single minute. Under such extreme torment, even the strongest human spirit can eventually break."
Lin Yuan’s eyes narrowed. A time-dilating torture artifact. It was a vile, cowardly tool, perfect for the arrogant elites of the Central Continent who preferred not to get their hands physically dirty.
"Once the spirit breaks," Jin Rou continued, his voice hollow, "the Chu cultivators demand one thing to make the endless torture stop: the victim’s soul blood. With the soul blood in their hands, Chu Kuang holds absolute dominion over my brothers’ lives. He can crush the blood drop and instantly kill them from across the continent."
The tragedy of the situation was absolute. Chu Kuang was not just harvesting beasts; he was creating an army of hostages.
"With their soul blood in his hands, he blackmails us into silence," Jin Rou wept openly now. "In the Golden Diting Province, our bond is highly cherished. We are not just a province; we are an unbroken family. Barely any of us would dare trade the lives of our captive brothers just to ruin Chu Kuang’s life. It is not worth the blood of our kin! Furthermore, to admit we allowed our sacred beasts to be harvested would be an unimaginable loss of face for our province."
Jin Rou looked up at the silver sky, "Such absolute brotherhood, such unyielding righteousness... that is what convinced the Great Golden Immortal of the ancient era to bestow the first ever Golden Immortal Beast pair to the very first true cultivator of our province, eons ago. That is how the ancestors told the story. We cannot betray that love now. Chu Kuang knows this. He is using our own righteousness as a shield for his crimes!"
"And how many cores has Chu Kuang harvested so far?" Lin Yuan asked, his voice cutting through the despair.
"He has already taken the cores of two Immortal Beasts," Jin Rou said, gritting his teeth in fury. "We estimate that eight were brought into the pocket realm in total. He is already hunting down the rest."
Lin Yuan looked at the young cultivator. The board was set. The pieces were moving exactly as he required.
"Jin Rou," Lin Yuan asked smoothly. "Are you one of the few Golden Diting cultivators who successfully brought a Golden Immortal Beast into this pocket realm?"
Jin Rou froze.
For a long, terrifying moment, absolute silence reigned in the canyon. Jin Rou looked at Lin Yuan. The power this man had just displayed, the ability to casually swat down an Initiate Stage cultivator, was intoxicating. But power was a corrupting force. What if Lin Yuan, too, desired the Immortal Energy to push his own Early-Stage Spirit Severing cultivation? What if Jin Rou had just traded one monster for another?
Jin Rou hesitated, the fear warring with his gratitude.
But as he looked into Lin Yuan’s deep purple eyes, he saw no greed. He saw no manic, desperate hunger for cultivation like he had seen in the Chu cultivators. He saw only a cold, vast, and completely immovable will. Lin Yuan had just saved him from a fate worse than death. He literally owed his safety, his very existence, to the man standing before him. The absolute least he could do was trust him.
"Yes," Jin Rou breathed, his shoulders slumping in surrender. "I have one hidden."
"Take me to it," Lin Yuan requested.
It was a journey of nearly fifty miles through the desolate, shifting landscape of the Void Ascension Battlefield. Jin Rou led the way, his restored Qi allowing him to move swiftly over the jagged terrain. Lin Yuan drifted silently behind him.
Eventually, they arrived at the base of a towering, sheer mountain composed entirely of smooth, featureless gray stone. It looked completely unremarkable, entirely identical to a hundred other mountains in the pocket realm.
Jin Rou stopped at the base, looking up at the solid rock face.
"The Great Golden Immortal did not merely bestow the Golden Immortal Beasts upon our ancestors," Jin Rou explained softly, his voice carrying a trace of reverence. "He also bestowed upon us the Golden Immortal Illusion Formation Seal. It is said to be one of the most profound and flawless illusion formations in the entire Nine Provinces. It is because of this formation that we are able to conceal our beasts within this realm."
He paused briefly before continuing, "We seal the beasts within a cavern, then use the formation to completely overwrite the surrounding reality. Once activated, the entrance becomes indistinguishable from the mountain itself. Unless one possesses an extraordinary cultivation to see through the illusion, even a cultivator standing directly before the entrance would never realize that an entire cavern is hidden behind it."
It was a formidable defense. According to the Golden Diting Province, unless a cultivator had formally reached the Soul Transformation realm, they could not possibly manage to see through the illusion with sheer might alone.
"It is right here," Jin Rou said, reaching out to touch the seemingly solid gray rock. "I will need a few moments to weave the unsealing sequence—"
"There is no need," Lin Yuan interrupted.
Jin Rou blinked in confusion, stepping back as Lin Yuan walked forward.
He then looked at the mountain and activated his divine skills, [Shatter Illusion, See Truth].
Wooooom!
Lin Yuan’s deep purple eyes flashed with a terrifying light. To an ordinary cultivator, the Golden Immortal Illusion Formation Seal might have been an incomparably profound and flawless illusion formation.
But in Lin Yuan’s eyes, it was nothing more than a poorly woven tapestry, its hidden threads and countless flaws laid bare before him.
He reached out his flawless hand and simply pushed.
His hand passed straight through the solid gray rock as if it were nothing more than mist.
Jin Rou’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened in sheer horror and awe.
He began to tremble violently. It was said that only a Soul Transformation expert could break the illusion! And even then, the cultivator needed to possess an extraordinarily understanding of illusions, Yet this man, an Early-Stage Spirit Severing cultivator, had casually shattered the most profound defense of his lineage with a single glance!
At that exact moment, watching Lin Yuan effortlessly shatter the illusion, Jin Rou’s heart swelled with an overwhelming desire to bind himself to this man. He wanted to follow Lin Yuan, to learn from him, to be close to a being of such unfathomable, and strange divine prowess.
He is only at the Early Stage! Jin Rou’s mind screamed. How can his divine skills be so broken?!