"Hmm!!!"
In the core of the darkness, the True Immortal stared fixedly at the pill. For him, this was a great supplement even now. But unfortunately, he could only watch. Su Min was fishing here, no doubt about it.
She was doing it on purpose.
She wanted to provoke him into making a move. As long as she survived, that guy would undoubtedly die. But charging in to fight a True Immortal to the death was unnecessary.
To become a True Immortal, one had to transcend the Transcendence Stage and step into the Immortal Ascension Realm.
Her Chaos Body was not yet complete, and her cultivation was only at the early Mahayana Stage. These were absolute shortcomings, so she couldn't afford to rush now. There was simply no way for her to confront him head-on.
Of course, if the opponent were a crippled immortal, that would be a different story. She'd charge in without hesitation. But for now, she could only wait. After all, she had already killed all his vital sources of nourishment, leaving him with no way to recover quickly.
The clear qi rose, while the turbid qi sank.
The clear qi formed the myriad realms of heaven, and the turbid qi became the Burial Earth and Nether Lands.
"It seems he's still holding back. But this pill alone isn't enough to reach the mid Mahayana Stage."
After a moment of contemplation, Su Min decisively vanished from above the Dark Continent. With her perception, she could naturally evade his gaze. So she needed to find a secluded place to slowly refine the pill.
Soon, she disappeared completely, only to reappear in a hidden location.
Then, looking at the pill in her hand, she swallowed it without hesitation. Almost immediately, a violent surge of energy erupted within her body, accompanied by waves of turbid qi.
"If Yao Xian'er or the others had taken this pill, they'd probably be instantly corrupted by this turbid qi and go mad."
Feeling the changes in her body, Su Min murmured. Then, she began converting everything into her own power. A ninth-grade pill was entirely different from an eighth-grade one, they weren't even in the same category. Even now, Su Min would need a long time to fully refine it.
On the other side, the True Immortal's expression darkened.
He realized he was trapped in a dead end. There was absolutely no way for him to kill Su Min now. If she reached perfection, her existence would spell absolute despair for the entire Burial Earth and Nether Lands.
If she sat at the end of the passageway, they would never be able to set foot in this world again. What was even more terrifying about the Chaos Body was that it wasn't bound by the limits of the world, it could grow infinitely.
Of course, if it were just an ordinary Chaos Body, they could simply retreat.
In ancient times, a Chaos Body had once appeared in one of the universes. That person had single-handedly charged into the Burial Earth and Nether Lands, causing the collapse of the Nine Heavens and the deaths of countless experts.
But in the end, they had sacrificed dozens of their own to cast the Decay Curse—a forbidden technique that could rapidly age even an immortal, though the cost of using it was immense.
The result was that the Burial Earth and Nether Lands had lost nearly all their top experts and still hadn't fully recovered. Meanwhile, that Chaos Body had slaughtered as many as possible before finally succumbing to age and death.
So once they had somewhat recovered, they immediately placed a heavenly curse on the myriad realms. From then on, no more Chaos Bodies appeared. They thought they could rest easy.
True Immortals, with their infinite lifespans, were ultimately beings that defied the heavens. After the myriad realms dispersed, they could no longer gather the tribulation necessary to ascend.
But the Burial Earth and Nether Lands had not completely scattered. They could still ascend to immortality when necessary. Normally, even if another Chaos Body appeared by accident, they could use the same method to kill it before it had a chance to wreak havoc like the last one.
But then they received a message from a supreme expert in the future—apparently, that method had failed. That was what terrified them the most.
The clear and turbid qi had originally coexisted without conflict, maintaining the balance of all things. But they wanted to go further, and that meant disrupting the natural order.
"I must take action. If that person reaches perfection, it will mean absolute despair. I have no choice."
Feeling Su Min's complete disappearance and the shrinking dark region, he knew he had to act. If he was going to die either way, he might as well gamble. With that thought, he gripped his Black Sun and slowly walked toward the deepest part.
Soon, he arrived before the hollow space where he resided. From his perspective, he could see the chaotic and violent energy inside. Back then, seven of them had entered together. Now, he was the only one left. The others had died to ensure he could reach this place. As immortals, they had exhausted all their energy before perishing, leaving behind this space filled with terrifyingly violent power.
"I will open the passage to the Nether Prison and release the beings inside to invade this world."
Looking at the swirling void, the True Immortal made his decision. They had invaded countless worlds and captured countless experts. So they had built a special space to imprison those experts, a space closer to the myriad universes.
In times of need, they could open it and release the trapped experts. Of course, those experts had long been completely corrupted by the turbid qi. Once released, they would slaughter indiscriminately, friend or foe. He planned to unleash them upon this world for a massacre. But connecting the two worlds came at a cost, one he could barely afford now. There was another reason: doing this would alert the others.
Once the passage here was restored, they would spare no effort to devour this world. No matter how powerful that woman was, how many of the countless Mahayana Stage madmen could she stop?
"Haah..."
With that, he slowly closed his eyes and merged with the Black Sun.
"Boundless Burial Earth, infinite Nether Lands. Ten thousand souls return to one, calamity bars the way home." Then, his figure vanished completely, and the Black Sun turned blood-red.
Meanwhile, Su Min slowly opened her eyes and looked at her body. She raised her hand slightly and saw something in her palm, a murky aura. She could now wield dark energy.
"Still not enough… far from it."
Feeling her condition, Su Min shook her head.
The Chaos Body was divided into Innate Chaos and Acquired Chaos.
The two had similar limits but many differences.
The Innate Chaos Body was complete from birth, with balanced clear and turbid qi. It could grow steadily with normal cultivation.
But the Acquired Chaos Body was different. Before reaching this state, she couldn't harmonize with the turbid qi.
Now, her clear qi was complete, but the missing turbid qi wasn't so easily replenished.
"The effect of this pill..."
Su Min frowned.
This pill wasn't meant to boost cultivation, it was meant to flood her with turbid qi. Ninth-grade pills had no fixed effects. Their properties depended on the energy tides and the conditions during refinement. When Su Min refined this pill, she had gathered an overwhelming amount of dark energy, so its primary effect was to supply her with vast amounts of it.
As for cultivation progress, it was even less than she'd expected.
"This is a big problem..."
She massaged her temples. The amount of dark energy she needed was terrifying.
But then, she froze.
"Huh?"
A communication device had just buzzed, it was a message from Tian Hao.
"What's he up to?"
Under normal circumstances, Su Min would have found him a bit exasperating. He was the standard protagonist template, but fortunately, they had no conflicts. Now that she had the Chaos Body, she wouldn't clash with anyone. The so-called quota for the Transcendence Stage had nothing to do with her.
"I didn't see him in the last wave of battles. Where did he run off to? If I had to guess, he might have been unreachable."
Muttering to herself, Su Min vanished again, leaving the dark region in an instant. Even if she wasn't here, nothing major would happen. That guy wouldn't recover for thousands of years.
A thousand years was nothing to her—she wasn't in a hurry.
But soon, her eyebrow twitched.
When she saw Tian Hao, his body was shrouded in dark energy.
His cultivation had also reached the early Mahayana Stage, same as hers. She wasn't surprised, Xie Yingying had stayed behind to guard her home, so she hadn't gone out seeking opportunities.
"What's going on with you?"
Su Min narrowed her eyes at him.
But she didn't attack. Like her, his soul was unharmed despite the dark energy around him.
He hadn't gone mad like Jiang Xi.
"I fused with the dark energy. It took me a hundred years to fully harmonize with the turbid qi. And you're the same, aren't you? Your dark energy is even denser than mine."
"Mhm."
Su Min didn't elaborate, but she had to admit, this guy was impressive. She had only achieved this after attaining the Chaos Body, but he had forcibly fused with the turbid qi, making it his own.
"Over the past few centuries, I entered a special zone. It was filled with countless insane experts, including Unity Stage and even Mahayana Stage cultivators. I merged with the turbid qi and freed many of them."
"Huh?"
Su Min was taken aback. Had he absorbed the turbid qi from those people?
"Exactly. All the turbid qi in me came from them. That space was filled with it, we call it the Nether Prison. And inside, there's a terrifying Warden."
"What, like World of Warcraft?"
Su Min couldn't help but mutter. The Nether Prison was clearly related to those guys.
"Why are you looking for me? If it can imprison Unity Stage and Mahayana Stage experts, that Warden must be at least Transcendence Stage—or possibly..."
Her eyes narrowed. Tian Hao understood.
"An immortal."
"Right. At our level, fighting an immortal is practically suicide."
This was Su Min's main concern. She was still wary of the True Immortal deep in the darkness.
"We don't have to fight him. Right now, they seem to be in trouble. The Warden has entered the core depths, and last year..."
Tian Hao's eyes flickered, as if recalling something unpleasant.
"What happened?"
"Someone tried to open a passage to the Nether Prison from the outside, to release those madmen."
"!!!"
Su Min stiffened.
She realized something, the only reason someone would act so desperately was probably because of her. She was likely the cause.
"What do you want me to do?"
She still didn't dare enter. There was another problem: she didn't know if this was a trap.
"Come with me to the Nether Prison. I've saved many people there."
"Where did they come from?"
Su Min was surprised and looked at him.
"They're from other worlds. Those tainted by the turbid qi age slowly in the Nether Prison. Some Unity Stage experts can live up to twenty thousand years, and some Mahayana Stage experts gain an extra ten or twenty thousand. But more importantly, this world is vast—it's not just our universe."
"Oh?"
Su Min blinked but wasn't too shocked. Still, she followed Tian Hao inside, though she kept her guard up. Soon, she arrived in a place filled with black-red flames, where the dark energy was even denser than in the Dark Starry Sky.
"You didn't go mad in a place like this? And it feels... comfortable?"
Taking a deep breath, Su Min began devouring the dark energy. In an instant, she purified an entire area.
Tian Hao's eyes widened in shock.