Chapter 193: Leveraging the Relic Advantage

The pressure coming from the mid‑Golden Core cultivator of the Ten Thousand Beasts Gate was like an invisible iceberg smashing in from beyond the heavens into the Ten Thousand Beasts Origin, sending ripples that clearly reached every corner of the core area.

Inside the cave dwelling, the air seemed to solidify into substance, pressing Li Hu and Zhang Mei so hard they could barely breathe.

"Ancestor, this…" Li Hu's face turned red from holding back, wanting to say something, but he realized even forming a complete sentence had become extremely difficult.

"Don't panic!" Wang Shan barked low, his voice not loud but like a hammer striking their hearts, instantly scattering a bit of the external pressure, "The sky hasn't fallen yet."

He spoke lightly, but his mind was clear as a mirror. A mid‑Golden Core cultivator carrying a magic treasure that could pierce the spatial misty array—this showed he was determined to uproot him completely.

Head‑on clash? That's something only a fool would do.

"Grandpa…" Wang Zhitao and Wang Zhize, the two little brats, clung tightly to Wang Shan's pant legs, their small faces full of fear.

Wang Shan lowered his head, rubbed the two grandsons' heads, and the anxiety and killing intent in his eyes instantly turned into calm. He could die, but these two children could not.

"Don't be afraid, Grandpa is here."

He rose to his feet, his gaze sweeping over Li Hu and Zhang Mei: "Pack up, within fifteen minutes take everything you can carry, we're leaving right away."

"Leave? Ancestor, where can we go?" Zhang Mei's voice trembled, "Out there that battle—if we step out we'll just become living targets."

"Who said we have to go out?" Wang Shan curled his lip in a cold arc, "Those fools of the Ten Thousand Beasts Gate have guarded this treasure mountain for hundreds of years, yet all they learned was to pick up trash at the gate. They think the Ten Thousand Beasts Origin is their backyard, not knowing the true master of this garden bears the surname Beast Taming Sect."

He turned and walked to the deepest part of the cave dwelling, where a bare stone wall faced him, looking utterly ordinary.

"Follow me!"

Li Hu and Zhang Mei dared not delay, hastily grabbing the two children, shouldering the packs they'd already prepared, and closely followed Wang Shan.

Wang Shan stood before the stone wall and halted. He closed his eyes, quickly reviewing in his mind the portion of the jade slip that recorded the sect's hub seal. Those formation patterns, so complex they made the scalp tingle, were now as clear as his own palm lines.

"Ten Thousand Beasts Gate… heh, you know nothing about power." He muttered to himself, as if speaking to someone.

The next moment, he moved.

His fingers tapped rapidly on the stone wall, without rhythm or method, like a child's scribble. Yet each tap was accompanied by a trace of spiritual power too faint to detect.

Li Hu and Zhang Mei widened their eyes, completely unable to fathom what Wang Shan was doing.

"Grandpa, are you drawing?" Wang Zhize asked curiously.

Although Wang Zhitao didn't understand either, his awakened "Swallowing Origin Tyrant Body" bloodline let him faintly sense that, as Grandpa moved, the surrounding space seemed to undergo an extremely subtle distortion.

Suddenly, Wang Shan stopped. He bit his fingertip, and a drop of crimson blood, flicked from his nail, landed precisely at the center of the stone wall.

"Order!"

A low shout.

Hum—

The entire stone wall—no, the whole cave dwelling—emitted a deep, muffled resonance. Countless golden lines sprang forth from the previously bare wall, intertwining into a profound, intricate pattern, like a gate to an unknown world.

"This… this is a teleportation array?" Li Hu exclaimed in disbelief; though he was fairly well‑traveled, he had never seen such a concealed, ancient teleportation array.

"Rare to see, strange to behold." Wang Shan glanced at him, "This is an emergency escape route left by the Beast Taming Sect back then, spreading throughout the Ten Thousand Beasts Origin and linking various functional zones. The place we're headed now is called the Relic Stratum."

"Relic Stratum?"

"A place ten times more dangerous than here, yet just as dangerous for those lot of the Ten Thousand Beasts Gate." Wang Shan gave no further explanation as the teleportation array's light grew brighter and space began to churn violently.

"Go!"

He took one grandchild in each hand, pulled them up, and stepped first into the light gate. Li Hu and Zhang Mei exchanged a glance and followed without hesitation.

A whirl of spinning heavens and earth.

When solid ground returned beneath their feet, the scene before them had completely changed.

No longer the hazy gray of the core area, but a vast underground space shrouded in dark‑red light. The air reeked of a strange mix of rot and blood; drawing a breath made one's soul feel as if pricked by needles.

In the distance, faint outlines of massive ruined buildings could be seen, like a dead city buried for ten thousand years. Every now and then a few inhuman, non‑bestial howls drifted from the ruins' depths, just hearing them made one's blood run cold.

"Gulp." Li Hu swallowed, "Ancestor… are you sure this place is safer than before?"

Before his words finished, a black shadow shot down like lightning from the broken wall above them—a three‑eyed monster wolf covered in bone armor, its aura as strong as a late‑Foundation Establishment cultivator!

Li Hu and Zhang Mei's faces paled; just as they were about to strike, Wang Shan didn't look back and backhanded a swipe.

A talisman appeared out of thin air, instantly turning into a golden great net that ensnared the monster wolf completely. The wolf thrashed wildly in the net but could not break free.

"This is a 'Beast Spirit Talisman,' a little trinket from the jade slip, specially designed to counter these contaminated demon beasts." Wang Shan said lightly, as if he'd merely done a trivial thing.

He turned around, looking at the teleportation array they'd come through; its light still flickered, steadily maintaining the passage.

"We can't just leave like that." A flash of cunning crossed Wang Shan's eyes, "Since we're here, we ought to leave the pursuers a little 'gift.'"

He pulled out several mutant demon beast crystal cores he'd gathered earlier, plus a few low‑grade magic artifacts scavenged from the Wan Family cultivators, and quickly etched something onto them with both hands.

Li Hu leaned over to look; all he saw was Wang Shan carving a kind of reverse‑seal rune he could not comprehend at all.

"Ancestor, what is this…"

"Just a simple interference array." Wang Shan explained without looking up, "When they use the 'Star‑Fixing Disk' to locate this teleportation array and step inside, the array will activate, not harming anyone but causing the teleportation destination to shift randomly."

"Random shift?" Zhang Mei blinked.

"Right." Wang Shan laughed like an old fox, "In this Relic Stratum there are plenty of places where the Beast Taming Sect's ancient seals failed. I hope that Golden Core Elder's luck holds, and he isn't teleported to the maw of some slumbering old monster. Otherwise we'll have to thank him for cleaning house."

Li Hu and Zhang Mei heard this and their eyelids twitched—this ancestor's heart was too dark. This wasn't an interference array; it was clearly a death‑summoning charm!

Having finished the preparations, Wang Shan severed the spiritual link to the teleportation array; the light gate faded slowly, turning back into an ordinary rock wall.

"All right, now we're safe—at least for the time being." Wang Shan brushed dust from his hands.

"Grandpa, I feel… something is watching us here." The hitherto silent Wang Zhitao whispered softly, clutching the corner of Wang Shan's robe, his little face turning pale.

Wang Shan's heart stirred.

He felt it too.

At the moment they entered this "Relic Stratum," the ancient will that lurked over the whole Ten Thousand Beasts Origin seemed to cast a flicker of attention their way—no hostility, no malice, more like… curiosity.

Like a giant that had slept for ten thousand years, roused by a few ants barging into its dream, it watched with interest.

"It's fine; it won't do anything to us for now." Wang Shan soothed the grandson, while his mind raced with calculations.

The will of the "Ten Thousand Beasts Ancestor" seemed particularly interested in him, a "heretic" who cultivated the Ten Thousand Beasts Reversal; as long as he didn't trespass on its core interests, it appeared content to watch the show.

This is also his opportunity.

«The Ten Thousand Beasts Gate has a Golden Core Elder and an array‑breaking treasure, but they have no map. » Wang Shan looked around, his gaze piercing the dark red mist toward the dead silent ruin city, «And I, I have a map of the entire Beast Taming Sect ruins. »

His voice was full of confidence.

«They are hunters, but here, this is my hunting ground. »

Wang Shan took a deep breath; the energy of this area was violent and chaotic, yet to him it was intimately familiar.

He looked at Li Hu and Zhang Mei: «From now on, forget everything you have learned before. Here, only the Beast Taming Sect's rules can keep you alive. »

He pointed to an inconspicuous path in the ruins: «Follow me, do not misstep a single step. If you misstep, even a Great Luo Golden Immortal could not save you. »

Li Hu and Zhang Mei's expressions tightened, and they nodded heavily.

Wang Shan said no more, took a child's hand with one hand, and led the way onto that path.

The pursuers were temporarily lured away; although they had entered a more dangerous unknown territory, the initiative, for the first time, truly returned to Wang Shan's hands.

He wanted to see whether the Ten Thousand Beasts Gate's Golden Core Elder was more formidable, or whether this Beast Taming Sect ruin, sleeping for ten thousand years and riddled with traps and lethal mechanisms, held the advantage.