Chapter 1339: Immortal Art Fragment Secured

Blood Tide True Venerable, soul scattered and spirit dispersed.

Jiang Ding solemnly and meticulously performed the transference rites, sweeping away the remnants of karmic causality and order rules, then concealed his form and returned to the Blood Lake Bone Mountain.

From beginning to end, this demonic sect remained entirely as usual, top to bottom.

Disciples and elders each attended to their duties; those cultivating cultivated, those working worked, just as they had for the past hundred thousand years.

Occasionally, a Soul Transformation cultivator who had gained favor would pay respects to the Void Refining True Venerable; sometimes they were ignored, sometimes reprimanded, sometimes granted an audience and offered a word of guidance.

Everything, absolutely everything, remained exactly as it was before.

Not a single disciple or elder of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain knew that their entire sect's Void Refining Ancestor had now vanished without a trace, leaving the sect internally hollow, with only a illusory exterior remaining.

Now, only another sect remained.

"Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect, you stole my money..."

"When we were in the Northern Original Small Realm, your Thunder Department Dao Soldiers attacked me. Furthermore, over these hundred thousand-plus years, you enslaved countless ascended cultivators from the lower realms, including ascended cultivators from the Northern Original; they were all my subordinates. This is both new and old grudges, not something this Lord would attack you over lightly..."

Jiang Ding murmured to himself.

He moved through the Blood Lake Bone Mountain like a ghost; the elders and disciples coming and going treated him as if he were invisible. Sometimes, someone even walked through his body to the other side without any contact occurring, as if he were a being existing in a different spatial layer.

After walking several dozen steps, he arrived at the forbidden area in the rear mountain of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain.

This place was one of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain's ultimate foundations, burying the corpse of the First Generation Sect-Founding Ancestor, Blood Puppet True Venerable, who had refined himself into a blood corpse to guard the sect.

After ten thousand years of nurturing, the blood corpse's power had become increasingly terrifying, subtly surpassing the peak of Void Refining by a sliver.

If external enemies invaded and the Blood Lake Bone Mountain could not resist, they would fully activate the sect's supreme formation; the ghosts and zombies accumulated over countless years, along with this foundational blood corpse, would fear not even an assault by multiple Void Refining peak cultivators.

"Indeed, people, things, and powers that can exist for vast stretches of time all have their reasons."

Jiang Ding sighed.

He thought of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect.

Even though this sect possessed no Void Refining late-stage cultivators, with the strongest being the Void Refining mid-stage Ten Thousand Thunders True Venerable, when they chose to hold their mountain gates and not emerge, Blood Lake Ancestor, a Void Refining peak cultivator, led the sect's numerous Void Refining cultivators and Dao Soldiers in a siege that lasted thousands of years yet failed to breach them.

Indeed, many times, when the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect revealed their inherited foundations, he was forced to temporarily avoid their sharp edge, using superior mobility to flee the battlefield and gradually exhaust the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect's formations, talismans, Dao Soldiers, spirit stone reserves, and so on.

Fortunately, after thousands of years of attrition,

the many foundations of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect had diminished significantly, allowing him to see an opportunity for battle in recent years.

Now, these foundations of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain had naturally become nothing but empty air.

For Jiang Ding, having mastered all the secrets of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain, destroying a blood corpse that had slept for a long time was naturally a matter of easy accomplishment.

This Void Refining peak blood corpse brought him some surprise; it had shattered the Human Path, damaged nearly half of the distorted Animal Path, and its power was truly delightful.

Finally, after this blood corpse had its cultivation nullified, it was sealed once more.

The reason destruction was not chosen was that the blood corpse was the corpse of the founding ancestor of the Blood Puppet Elder faction of the Immortal Artifact Sect; although they might not believe this, otherwise they would not have refined their own corpse into a blood corpse.

For the sake of caution, Jiang Ding chose not to destroy this blood corpse, to avoid drawing the attention of the Blood Puppet Elder faction of the Immortal Artifact Sect.

At this moment, Jiang Ding's arrival was naturally not for a blood corpse that had already lost its combat capability.

"Immortal Art Fragment..."

"I must say, Blood Tide True Venerable had clever ideas, placing the Immortal Art Fragment at the coffin of the blood corpse; even Immortal Artifact Sect cultivators would not dare to disturb this departed sect elder lightly."

Jiang Ding arrived before a scarlet great tomb in the rear mountain. With a tap of his toe, the tomb's stone tablet crashed open with a boom, revealing a pitch-black dark cave mouth, resembling the bloody maw of a blood demon beast.

He stepped inside.

Here stood a stone platform; upon the platform lay a blood-red coffin, while the ceiling of the tomb chamber was a dim starry sky, where various celestial stars occasionally flickered and shifted, casting down beams of starlight condensed from the essence of heaven, earth, and moon.

"Open,"

Jiang Ding casually pointed.

The blood-red coffin opened, revealing an elderly man within with a gaunt face, skin grown with blood-red scales, and fingernails three inches long that flashed with cold light.

This was the sect-guarding blood corpse of the Blood Lake Bone Mountain.

This blood corpse was subsequently tossed by Jiang Ding into the corner of the tomb chamber like discarded trash; the various vicious prohibitions, curses, and formation traps existing here showed no signs of being triggered.

Inside the coffin where the blood corpse lay, a broken blood crystal flickered with a faint light, within which a seven-colored object was sealed.

Immortal Art Fragment!

Jiang Ding carefully extracted it, placed it in his palm, and gazed at the seven-colored fragment; within his heart, numerous realizations closely linked to the fragment surfaced.

"Immortal Art: Suppressing the Sky Fragment..."

"If the scene I once saw was not an illusion, this might be a lineage intentionally transmitted and spread by an entity suspected to be a True Immortal, which should have undergone certain neutralization treatments; otherwise, it would not be so easily sealed."

"Normal Immortal Arts, even without malice, perhaps even a Jiang Jiang Jinxian-level powerhouse could not approach without bringing life-or-death crisis; merely their residual waves could annihilate upper-realm Immortal Sect-level powers..."

Jiang Ding held his breath and solemnly stored this most important trophy into his storage jade pendant.

With one of the two Immortal Art Fragments retrieved, the most critical objective in the Thunder Flame Domain was half accomplished; should danger be encountered in the future, allowing for instant escape, at least there would be some gain.

"The last one: Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect."

"This sect is somewhat troublesome."

Jiang Ding recalled the intelligence on this True Sect, frowning slightly: "They have been psychologically scarred by Blood Lake Ancestor's thousands of years of attacks, always cowering within the sect; Void Refining existences simply do not go out, lest they be isolated and meet Blood Lake Ancestor, which would surely mean certain death."

"It is not impossible for them to go out; they cannot simply grow old and die within the sect."

"However, given the lifespan of Void Refining cultivators, they could very well cower for another several thousand years; in the face of life and death, such patience is entirely possible and poses no difficulty."

"Therefore, hoping to encounter a Void Refining cultivator of the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect by chance is not realistic."

"Enough."

Jiang Ding pondered for a long while, then sighed lightly: "I can only personally visit the Nine Heavens Divine Thunder True Sect's Ancestor, Ten Thousand Thunders True Venerable. If he can sincerely apologize to me, return the Immortal Art Fragment he picked up, and have every Void Refining cultivator in the sect commit suicide to atone for his crimes, I will not press the matter further."

"After all, I am a magnanimous person."