Chapter 243: The Fall of a Genius

A bone-chilling cold cut straight into Pang Jian's soul!

As soon as Pang Jian closed his eyes on the severely damaged altar, a strange sensation of being in another world emerged.

It felt like he was in a dark, icy, and lifeless void—a world filled with nothing but deathly silence.

Worse still, that terrifying coldness and emptiness did not come from his physical body.

It came from his soul!

A deep chill spread through his soul, and the one hundred and twenty-eight strands of his divine sense within his sea of consciousness slowly froze as soon as he closed his eyes.

Pang Jian even found it difficult to open his eyes. It was like his soul and sea of consciousness were truly on the verge of being frozen solid!

The black turtle and the World Eater Vine sensed his bizarre situation and urgently called out to him, jolting his numbed and stiffened soul back to focus!

Pang Jian used all his strength to force his eyes open!

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Boom!

Gasping for breath, Pang Jian staggered off the altar, feeling like he had returned from another world.

He stared at the broken altar with shock in his eyes.

If not for the black turtle's and the World Eater Vine's calls, he would have died, his sea of consciousness and soul frozen over.

Spirit Offering!

This restricted area may not have been so terrifying in the past, but it was now teeming with danger.

One wrong step could lead to eternal doom!

With that in mind, Pang Jian cautiously ventured deeper into Spirit Offering.

The stars and moon shone brightly in the night sky, giving a pentagram-shaped white stone altar a mesmerizing sheen.

The brilliant light of the white stone gave the cracks in the altar the illusion of being mended by radiant starlight

Several disciples, dressed in the Star River Alliance's robes, sat around the pentagram altar, faces lit up with delight.

They looked as though they had encountered something incredible—as if they had gained insight into the mysteries of the stars or broken through long-standing bottlenecks in their cultivation.

But these expressions were merely what remained on their faces.

They had been dead for quite some time.

There was not only no sign of life, but their spatial pouches and spirit artifacts had also long been looted.

Their stiff corpses remained seated, expressions suspended in a perpetual state of delight, seemingly untouched by the passage of time.

It seemed a thousand or even ten thousand years could pass without their expressions changing.

Not long after, Pang Jian encountered another altar, shaped like a sun and cobbled together from rubble.

Members of the Radiant Sun Sect, some still clutching the pieces of stone in a futile attempt to restore the altar, had long since perished as well.

Unlike the members of the Star River Alliance, they seemed to have seen something unimaginably horrifying in their final moments.

Their expressions were twisted in horror, pupils scorched by flames, and orifices stained with trails of blackened blood.

It was a grotesque sight.

There was even an elder in the Spirit Condensation Realm among them!

Pang Jian dared not approach the sun-shaped altar and hastily distanced himself from the chilling scene.

Similar scenes appeared with increasing frequency.

Many rogue cultivators, dressed in mismatched attire, lay dead—some beside grotesque stone statues, others by shattered altars.

Strange and eerie corpses could be found everywhere.

Pang Jian walked through Spirit Offering with a grim expression on his face.

What a terrifying catastrophe,

he thought, feeling a twinge of regret.

The ominous atmosphere of Spirit Offering gave him the feeling that malevolent beings like the Ice Demon were watching him from the shadows of this cursed place.

These powerful beings would eliminate anyone who was not a follower of their faith or part of the races that once worshiped them.

The chaotic changes sweeping across the Abyss had evidently spread to the once-sacred Spirit Offering as well.

These disturbances seemed to have called the attention of malevolent beings from distant worlds back to the destroyed altars, statues, carvings, and stone pillars in Spirit Offering.

"Help-help me..."

A man struggled desperately in the center of another ruined sun-shaped altar. He was engulfed in flames and a massive cauldron hovered over his head.

Fire ate away at his flesh, hair already long since burned away, and blood flowed from his mouth like molten lava.

The ruined altar pinned him in place, and he could not break free from the few red stones beneath him no matter how much power he exerted.

The man cried out in agony, hoping that someone from the Radiant Sun Sect would hear him, or that an elder from the Blood Moon Sect, the Star River Alliance, or the Red Mountain Sect would come to save him.

That man was none other than Yang Rui.

The genius of the Radiant Sun Sect, unmatched in the Profound Abode Realm, had fallen to such a miserable state.

Hovering above his head was the famous spirit artifact of the Radiant Sun Sect—the Nine Suns Cauldron!

The cauldron had once manifested nine suns on the summit of the Primordial Wilderness's First Peak, but now showed no trace of its former power or brilliance.

The restrictions of Spirit Offering had also affected it, rendering its internal arrays useless.

Pang Jian silently watched Yang Rui's pitiful struggle from behind a broken stone pillar a ways away from the altar.

Several grim-faced cultivators stood near the broken altar, coldly observing as Yang Rui burned, waiting for him to die.

An elderly cultivator in the late stage of the Profound Abode Realm with a mostly bald head spat disdainfully and sneered, "Did you really think you were the Sun God's chosen one? The Sun God's favored race has been sealed in the Fifth World for thousands of years. Why would he bother with someone like you?"

"The Radiant Sun Sect, the so-called Sun God's chosen one. What a joke." Another cultivator chimed in with a snort. "The true Sun God's chosen races are the Flame Race of the Third Continent and the Radiant Race of the Second Continent in the Fifth World. The Radiant Sun Sect's techniques are just hand-me-downs from those two races."

"The Flame Race and Radiant Race are on the verge of returning to the upper worlds!" said a third cultivator. "Times are changing. The ancient gods hidden away have finally set their sights back on the Abyss.

The three cultivators were what Lei Kun had labeled as heretical cultivators. The trio stood beside Yang Rui, mocking him as they watched the genius of the Radiant Sun Sect meet his demise.

Pang Jian suppressed his aura and quietly listened to their conversation, eyes flickering with a strange light.

The trio's discussion about the Sun God, the Radiant Race, and the Flame Race had caught Pang Jian's attention.

Their conversation confirmed his suspicion that certain mysterious beings had turned their attention back to the Abyss.

How could the Radiant Sun Sect's techniques originate from a race eternally sealed away?

Pang Jian wondered as he eavesdropped on the three heretical cultivators.

As he listened in on their conversation, he learned that unknown mysterious beings had once again discovered the Abyss and were causing the anomalies in Spirit Offering through the shattered altars, statues, and carvings.

It seemed the Abyss had been hidden from these mysterious beings in the past.

However, something had changed recently, and the Abyss, which had disappeared from their perception, had become accessible once more.

It can't be, can it?

Pang Jian instinctively touched the bronze pendant on his chest.

Back in Cloud Lightning, the bronze pendant had absorbed several void rifts, and the characters "Gate of the Abyss" had become visible on its back.

Shortly after, a void fissure had torn open, and a colossal being, comparable to the Rank Ten Thunder Dragon, attempted to cross into the Abyss through the bizarre mist.

The mysterious being had drifted in the bizarre mist for countless millennia, unable to find its way back or escape.

Then, it suddenly locked onto the Abyss.

"No, it can't be. The recent anomalies can't have anything to do with me or this pendant," Pang Jian muttered, shaking his head in denial.

Whoosh!

The raging flames engulfing Yang Rui abruptly extinguished.

The most gifted genius of the Radiant Sun Sect's younger generation had been reduced to a charred skeleton atop the crumbling altar.

His spatial bracelet, which had not been affected by the flames, still adorned his blackened skeletal hand and continued to glow faintly.

The Nine Suns Cauldron no longer hovered above his head and clattered to the ground.

The once-mighty cauldron was now nothing more than scrap metal without its arrays and Yang Rui's spiritual power.

Even so, the cauldron was an advanced-grade spirit artifact with tremendous power and its arrays would become functional again once it was out of Spirit Offering.

Pang Jian smiled.

His dantian contained a suspended sun, meaning he could likely wield the Nine Suns Cauldron as well!

"I want that cauldron!"

"I want his spatial bracelet!"

"What about me? If you two take the key items, what do I get?"

The three heretical cultivators argued between themselves.

"You're only in the middle stage of the Profound Abode Realm. Just being able to witness this sight is your fortune. The real show is just beginning; what's your hurry?"

"It's precisely because a great calamity is upon us that I need powerful spirit artifacts to survive!"

As the trio argued, a tall figure dashed out from behind a stone pillar under the cover of a thick, green protective shield and headed straight for the charred skeleton at the center of the altar.

"There's no need to argue anymore. I'll save you all the trouble as I'll be taking both," Pang Jian announced from the edge of the altar.

He first stored away the Nine Suns Cauldron, then slashed off Yang Rui's charred arm to retrieve his spatial bracelet.

The three heretical cultivators barely had time to react before the coveted items were in Pang Jian's hands.

Murderous intent instantly surged from the trio. Their eyes burned with fury as they prepared to surround Pang Jian.

"Take my advice—don't follow me," Pang Jian said coolly as he left

"Should we go after him?"

Two of the heretical cultivators looked toward the bald one.

"What do you think?" the bald heretical cultivator sneered. "We might have to be cautious of him outside Spirit Offering, but why should we fear someone like him in this land distorted by divine forces?

"Even Yang Rui is dead. He's nothing in comparison."