"The person whom the mummified corpse is holding should be the owner of this treasure." Feeling the terrifying fluctuations coming from the desolate land, Ding Yan's scalp tingled. If he had reacted any slower, his fate might have been even worse than that of the owner of the golden bell treasure.
Masking his presence, Ding Yan walked for about two hours before finally leaving that eerie desert.
After leaving the desert, the influence of the haze lessened, and things became vaguely visible.
Not long after walking, Ding Yan saw a forest.
More accurately, it was a forest of dead trees, with not a single living tree within. Every tree was entwined with a thick aura of deathly silence, which gathered together above the forest, giving the impression that a giant demon was lurking in the midst of the forest.
Once inside the forest, Ding Yan distinctly felt a corrosive aura emanating from the trees.
This aura was extremely toxic, enough to kill an ordinary person upon contact. While Ding Yan, as a dispersed immortal, wouldn't die upon contact, he nevertheless felt a burning sensation.
"Go away!" Ding Yan flicked his sleeve, and the Dispersing Art was activated.
The gathered corrosive aura was instantly dispersed, and the fallen dried leaves scattered.
"Help me..." At that moment, a faint voice reached Ding Yan's ears.
As his divine consciousness spread out, an image was fed back into Ding Yan's mind.
A severely injured Qi Cultivator was lying under a dead tree, crying out continuously. The tree roots had pierced his body, like parasites, crazily sapping the vitality from within him.
Facing this sight, Ding Yan's gaze turned wary as he looked around at the dead tree beside him.
There was no place in this dead city that was normal. One could die at any moment if they let their guard down. The nameless stone forest before, the frigid desert after, and now this eerie dead forest -- all of them were the same.
Following his divine consciousness' guidance, Ding Yan found the location of the cultivator.
When Ding Yan arrived at the scene, the cultivator had already been dead for a long time, his body completely withered, leaving only a pile of bones. Countless root tendrils were wriggling madly, sucking out bits of the cultivator's vitality every time they moved, then transferring it to the nearby dead tree, where they condensed into leaves.
Different from ordinary trees, once the dead trees formed leaves, they'd quickly lose color, mere moments later turning into withered leaves and falling down...
"How many lives have been claimed by this dead forest…" Ding Yan couldn't help but feel shocked as he looked at the fallen leaves.
Crackle, crackle…
A vine, as thick as an arm, suddenly materialized and attacked Ding Yan.
But almost at the same time, the roots on the cultivator's body also shot out, straight at Ding Yan.
"Seeking death!" A cold light flashed in Ding Yan's eyes.
His strength was not something that the dead cultivator under the tree could compare with.
Under Ding Yan's controlled thought, an invisible Yuan force turned into flying curved blades, cutting the vine in no time.
Sizzle, sizzle…
After the vine fell to the ground, a green liquid flowed out, corroding the dead leaves on the ground, emitting a very unpleasant smell.
After dispersing the poisonous fog caused by the broken vine, Ding Yan walked up to the deceased cultivator and, with his right hand, took possession of the cultivator's spatial storage bag, then flipped through it. He found nothing of value inside.
The storage bag was a completed refined spatial treasure, commonly used by cultivators. Only a small number of cultivators who had practiced similar spatial techniques would give up using storage bags. Ding Yan, due to his cultivation of the Qiankun Sleeve, did not use a storage bag.
"He actually had a fragment of this fake map which described a way out in this dead forest." Inside the storage bag, Ding Yan found something.
Taking it out and looking at it, it was the same fake map circulating outside.
The route to survival as described on this map was inside this eerie dead forest. Obviously, this cultivator had followed the path as described on the map and was ultimately ambushed by the demonic trees, turning into dry bones.
A burst of flame rose from Ding Yan's hand, consuming the fake map.
"Oops?" Just as Ding Yan was about to get up, his gaze casually swept over the right hand of the cultivator's corpse.
Although this cultivator had already died, his right hand was still tightly grasping as if holding onto something.
"It's actually a dark crystal!"
The thing tightly grasped in the dead cultivator's hand was a black crystal, about the size of a baby's fist. When held, it felt slightly cold. With Ding Yan's level of cultivation, he could clearly feel the power contained within the dark crystal.
Looking at the deceased cultivator, it was obvious that whoever killed him wanted to keep this dark crystal.
"People die for riches, birds die for food." With a sigh, he put the dark crystal in his sleeve.
With a wave of his sleeve, he opened a small pit nearby and buried the dead cultivator in it. Then Ding Yan continued walking deeper into the forest.
To leave this place, he must find the Dark King Lake.
Although he didn't know where the Dark King Lake was, according to Ding Yan's estimation, places with water definitely had denser Yin energy than other places. In the places he had passed through, the distribution of Yin energy was extremely even. Only within this dry forest, the Yin energy seemed to flow and be elusive.
The air grew increasingly cold.
Looking back, he had already lost track of his route.
Along the way, Ding Yan had already forgotten how many withered vines he had slain. Everywhere he went, there was a foul and corrosive atmosphere.
Suddenly, Ding Yan felt a bright light in front of him. When he looked again, he found himself in an open area. As far as the eye could see, there were no withered trees within hundreds of meters. All around, bare and devoid of a single fallen leaf. What was even more bizarre was at the center of the bare ground, a green grass was quietly growing there, full of vitality, forming a stark contrast with the dead and silent withered trees around it.
Seeing this, Ding Yan's heart trembled suddenly. "When things are abnormal, there must be demons!"
Just as Ding Yan was preparing to cautiously leave the place, the small grass suddenly trembled.
Immediately, before Ding Yan could react, the surrounding space twisted, as if turning into a deep vortex that engulfed him...
---
From above, the City of Lost Souls appeared to be a massive circular world.
It was divided into the core, the inner city, and the outer domain.
The outer domain was extremely vast and housed endless demons, as well as countless opportunities left behind by predecessors. Obtaining any of these opportunities would lead to a boundless future, and perhaps even the pinnacle of this world.
"Haha, there really are such things! Supreme treasures..." Xiao Juezi laughed wildly while holding a rusty sword.
"And there's the Sky Thunder Technique, an ancient martial art. It is said to directly elevate one to the level of a Fifth Stage Immortal. With this technique, my chance of breaking through as an Immortal will increase by at least three levels!" Behind him, Feng Ling, an old daoist, was trembling as he held an ancient book in his hands.
The two were none other than Xiao Juezi and Feng Ling.