"Abyssal Gate! What on earth is that?"
Both the Blood Night King and Star-Zen felt a chill. The gate behind Yan was not merely an array or an artifact—it carried the presence of something alive, like an ancient primeval beast. It exuded a devouring, annihilating will.
The Abyssal Gate consumed anything that showed even the slightest disrespect to the heavenly order. Its aura conveyed endless torment; even two powerful artifact-spirits recoiled. A single thought brushing that presence transmitted unbearable pain into the mind.
"What horror lies within?" Starborn stared at the yawning portal, eyes wide.
Yan answered without hesitation. The Abyssal Gate was an enormous formation nested inside the Yellow-Springs Diagram, a treasure and a method all at once. "A-bi"—in the demonic tongue—means ceaseless suffering. To forge this Gate, the Yellow-Springs Emperor had slain thirty-six elder demons of a demon clan and used their blood in a colossal blood-sacrifice. He sealed nine abysses of demonic qi and folded into the array the true essence of the countless torments endured by mortals. The Gate itself was built from suffering.
Star-Zen and the Blood Night King were not merely curious now; Yan's words stirred dread. As he spoke, a chorus of ghastly faces and howls spilled from the Gate—wraiths, drowning ghosts, famine wails, the silhouettes of those tortured to death. The air grew icy; the Nine Nether winds clawed at bone marrow.
"Let us test it," Yan rumbled. "Star-Zen, show me what you contain. Blood Night King, stand by."
He unleashed the Gate. Waves of black, wailing phantoms streamed outward and a malign domain began to take form: bone-harrowed masks, horned demons, shrieking shades—an entire tiny hell folding into the world.
"Bring it on!" The Blood Night King answered with a roar. It condensed into a vast blood-orb that split into whirling blood blades—furious, spinning cutters that dove toward the Abyssal breath, cleaving the wailing dark as if slicing cloth.
Star-Zen did not shrink either. The bracelet-spirit surged, emitting star-sand that coalesced into thunderous star-light arrays—an advanced form of the "star-sand thunder" technique, but far more potent. When Star-Zen's star-flame struck, the Abyssal atmosphere warped and flamed; star-fire chewed and burned at the agonized essence until it flickered.
Yan merely chuckled—an ugly, duck-like sound—and slapped his massive tail. The Abyssal Gate drank in Star-Zen's star-sand thunder outright, swallowing the bursting light until no trace remained. Then Yan lashed out, tail-strike against the Blood Night King's blood-hand; blood-light shattered and the Blood Night King's true form revealed the brutal blade of Blood Cinnabar Doom.
"With the Abyssal Gate shielding me," Yan declared, voice booming, "attacks below the Longevity Realm are little more than irritation. You two youngsters will taste the Gate's anguish and learn to respect your elders!"
Black flows of suffering surged from the Gate—rivers of faces screaming, gnashing teeth that seemed to chew phantom bone. Those currents, the Abyssal Qi, carried a corrosive pain; any who brushed it would find magic falter.
The Blood Night King wasn't cowed. "I am born from demonic craft. I forged the Heavenly-Demon Array—let's see if this supposed Gate is as fearsome as legend claims!" It transformed into a grinder of blood knives, launching itself to slice through those very currents. The spinning blades hacked and cut; the Abyssal sweep split like silk under the pressure of the blood wheels.
Star-Zen bravely charged, radiance flaring, and met the black anguish. When the star-fire touched Abyssal Qi, the dark mist convulsed as if aflame. The clash of elemental purity and accumulated torment shook the space itself.
Then Yan chanted, raising the volume of the Gate's effect. The black dome expanded until the entire auction hall seemed to be swallowed. A demonic micro-world condensed; day, night, earth and star—all felt muffled and remote under the Gate's law. Fang Han felt it immediately: the flow of the World Tree's intake of celestial qi slowed. The Gate's field severed his usual communion with the heavens—he sensed the Yellow-Springs Diagram's potency for the first time.
Fang Han pushed himself between the struggling spirits. "Enough!" he called. "Save your strength for the three assassins. If you wreck yourselves here, we'll be vulnerable later." He did not want either artifact to suffer damage; tearing through the Gate would cost dearly.
Gradually the lights retreated. The Abyssal Gate loosened its hold and exhaled—space brightened, the wailing dimmed. Both artifact-spirits, exhausted, realized how close they'd come to being harmed if the fight had continued. Against the Gate, even their combined might had been costly.
Yan retracted the Gate, sinking back into the Diagram. He returned to his tattooed form on Fang Han's skin—patient, coiled. From the void the Brahma Luminous Boat itself was spat back out; entirely drained, it lay inert and mute—no Pure Yang, no radiance. In Yan's hands, its soul had been siphoned dry.
"It's extraordinary," Yan said softly into Fang Han's mind. "That boat's Pure Yang allowed me to open the Abyssal Gate. With this Gate, we can arrange ambushes that deny a Golden-Core (Jindan) cultivator the chance to self-detonate. If we trap them inside the Gate-field, their detonation can be suppressed—and their golden core captured intact."
Fang Han's pulse leapt. Killing a Golden-Core opponent was always perilous because of their self-explosive final act: a Jindan's detonation can blast a hundred-mile radius into ruin. Even Longevity-realm masters could be injured. That is why Golden-Core experts are seldom attacked.
But if the Abyssal Gate prevents self-detonation, Fang Han could set a trap—force a Jindan to die without exploding, seize the core, and integrate it. The thought of absorbing three Golden-Cores and multiplying his own power until names like Meng Shaobai trembled made his head whirl.
Still, Fang Han kept his voice calm. "It's a rare chance, but we mustn't be hasty. Starborn is still only at the qi-wrath level—too exposed. We'll remain here for a month. I'll train, strengthen the plans and the traps. When the time's right, lay the ambush: sudden, precise, and decisive. One strike—remove the plague."
His eyes gleamed with measured ambition. The Abyssal Gate had revealed to him an edge he'd never expected—an instrument to change his fate. But he would build the victory, not gamble it. A month of careful preparation, then a thunderous end.