Chapter 664: Chapter 263: Who Could See a Dao Crystal and Not Be Tempted?

Though the scent was as faint as a strand of silk, after growing accustomed to the rich odor of rot all around, it stood out starkly.

’Something seems to be wrong outside!’

’Dig!’

Xiao Chen immediately snatched up his Flying Sword and hacked at the gray-brown ancient vine before him.

"CLANG!"

The sound of metal striking stone rang out.

It was as if he hadn’t struck a dead vine, but a wall of solid steel forged from Refined Iron.

"CLINK!"

He shifted his position and stabbed again, but the result was the same.

It wasn’t just the area around the opening that was tough; all the ancient vines were as if cast from bronze and forged from iron.

They were nearly as tough as an ordinary Defensive Spiritual Artifact.

Seeing this, Xiao Chen simply put away his Flying Sword, grabbed a dead vine with his bare hands, and snapped it with all his might.

"SNAP!"

With a crisp crack, the vine finally gave way, unable to withstand his monstrous strength that far surpassed that of a Golden Core Cultivator. It immediately snapped in two.

"CREAK!"

He pushed hard to either side. Accompanied by a grating, teeth-cringing sound, the gray-brown ancient vines were forcibly twisted out of shape, creating a hole large enough for a person to squeeze through.

"SNAP! CREAK!"

"SNAP! CREAK!"

...

Amidst a continuous series of snaps and creaks, Xiao Chen used his bare hands to wrench the vines apart, one by one.

Covering a mere ten feet took him a full hour.

Fortunately, as a top-tier Body Cultivator, he had strength to spare.

This sort of purely physical labor wasn’t much of a burden for him.

After squeezing through the hole he had just managed to create, the world before Xiao Chen suddenly opened up.

A pure white radiance spilled down from overhead, clearly illuminating the lush green basin below.

Looking up, he saw that the soft, white light was coming from some kind of pumpkin-sized fruit.

There were several thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands of them, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Down below, the ring-shaped basin was filled with all sorts of flowers, plants, and trees.

The variety was immense and countless. Their only common trait was their lush growth, so vigorous it felt like they were about to spill out of the basin.

Xiao Chen was positioned in the upper-middle part of the basin.

And below him, in the very center of the basin, lay a strange Demon Beast. It was shaped like a deer, but covered in scales, with a fleshy fin running down its back.

Its cow-sized eyes were shut tight, and its chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. It appeared to be sound asleep.

Since he’d never been one for books, Xiao Chen couldn’t identify this species of Demon Beast.

But he could hardly be blamed. The world of cultivation was vast, and no one would dare claim to be able to identify every Demon Beast in existence.

He tried to sense the aura below.

However, he found nothing.

He slowly extended his Divine Sense, only to see a strange void in the middle of a patch of Spirit Grass.

’This is bad!’

Xiao Chen instantly realized that this Demon Beast’s Cultivation was higher than his own.

In a situation like this, the best course of action was to leave as quickly as possible, before it woke up.

However, as his Divine Sense had spread out, he had also spotted a shattered Spirit Shield scattered across the basin floor.

A Storage Ring lay amongst the debris.

Fine, white filaments were wrapped around a leg bone of a somewhat familiar shape.

The filaments closest to it were tinged with red, and they were the source of the faint, bloody scent.

Nearby, several broken lengths of deep-red vine lay scattered about, also enveloped and being absorbed by the filaments.

’In other words, this is the final destination for all flesh and blood in the Secret Realm!’

A glance around revealed that everything, from the Demon Beasts that died in the Secret Realm to the Cultivators who perished while exploring it, was ultimately brought here, along with their Spiritual Artifacts or Artifact Fragments, to be turned into nutrients.

Of course, none of that was the most important part.

The most important thing was that, right next to the Storage Ring, lay a Dao Crystal that hadn’t been put away in time.

It appeared to be the very thing that had led to that unknown Cultivator’s demise.

’Men die for wealth as birds die for food,’ as the saying goes. This was a perfect example.

But then again, who could see a Dao Crystal and not be tempted?

In any case, Xiao Chen was tempted.

However, one glance at the strange Demon Beast in the distance was enough for him to suppress the idea.

’This must be fate,’ he mused. ’To encounter such a tempting crystal at a time when I’m most powerless.’

’If only I had a Nascent Soul Cultivation... then I wouldn’t have been able to enter this Secret Realm in the first place.’

’Oh, well. Never mind then.’

Xiao Chen turned around decisively, forcing himself not to look at the Dao Crystal below as he prepared to leave.

However, before he could make it back into the tunnel, a wisp of an intensely aggressive and vibrant aura drifted up from below, slipping between his legs and boring into his body.

Drawing on his vast experience, Xiao Chen recognized it instantly.

’This is Evil Qi!’

He immediately spun around and activated a Secret Technique to investigate.

The world before him abruptly changed. Within the basin, massive, towering trees seemed to spring up from the ground.

In a daze, Xiao Chen thought he saw a colossal, world-spanning tree, its canopy holding up the heavens and its roots delving deep into the Nine Netherworld.

’Qingqiong Fiend!’

It was one of the classic types of Evil Qi specifically recorded in the *Mystic Sky Eating Secret Technique*.

It was yang-aligned, governing traits like vitality, growth, proliferation, and regeneration.

The phantom image vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by the sight of a massive vortex.

The immense Evil Qi, accumulated over countless years, seemed to be drawn in by some unseen force.

Nearly all of it was slowly revolving around the Demon Beast at the center of the basin.

Occasionally, a few wisps of Evil Qi would be squeezed out, only to be quickly guided back to the basin floor.

From this perspective, Xiao Chen could see with perfect clarity.

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