Chapter 333: Earth‑Shattering Achievement

A thunderous roar reverberated deep beneath Jiuyou County, as if an ancient god that had slumbered for billions of years were turning over.

The entire county's ground shook violently, and the black mud peeling from the city walls fell in clumps.

Inside Black Mountain Manor, County Assistant Zhang De and the few surviving clan heads were already terrified to the point of their livers and gallbladders bursting, collapsing on the blood‑stained Western Region Fire Fox carpet.

They watched helplessly as the arrogant Black Mountain ancient demon, which had occupied Jiuyou County for a thousand years, turned to ash in the instant Gu Yuan raised his hand.

And now, even the underground Yin vein that sustains Jiuyou County is being wildly extracted!

Gu Yuan stood in the center of the hall, eyes half‑closed, feeling the changes in the inner world.

The Extreme Yin vein is a malignant tumor formed over countless years of dead and resentful Qi in this world of the Great Yin Divine Court.

For ordinary cultivators, it is a lethal toxin that kills on contact; even the emperor and all civil and military officials of the Great Yin Divine Court are helpless, able only to suppress it by continuously feeding it lives and fortune.

But for Gu Yuan, whose perfect inner world has already evolved a complete three‑thousand Dao and possesses a chaotic singularity, this is a rare premium nourishment.

The World Tree's roots, like greedy leviathans, gulped down the massive Extreme Yin Qi in huge bites.

As the Extreme Yin Qi surged in, the boundless edges of the inner world's continent began a wondrous evolution.

The previously chaotic void gradually opened into a dim, profound space.

The Extreme Yin Qi here settled and liquefied, eventually coalescing into a ceaseless amber river— the first Huangquan birthed by the inner world!

Along both banks of the Huangquan, clusters of bewitching spider lilies burst from the soil, exuding a chilling, soul‑capturing beauty.

"One Yin, one Yang is the Dao; the dark side of the inner world has finally begun to be completed."

Gu Yuan nodded silently in his heart. A perfect great world cannot consist solely of vibrant life; it must also have a home that bears death and reincarnation.

In just half an hour, the hundreds‑of‑miles‑long Extreme Yin vein that had terrified generations of emperors and aristocrats of the Great Yin Divine Court was completely drained by Gu Yuan.

Without the support of the Extreme Yin vein, the lingering dark clouds and poisonous miasma that had long enveloped Jiuyou County began to vanish swiftly.

A long‑missed beam of bright moonlight streamed through the ruined windows, bathing the hall of Black Mountain Manor.

Gu Yuan slowly opened his eyes, the inner world's radiance hidden in his pupils.

He turned his head, looking at Zhang De and the others cowering and trembling in the corner.

"M‑Master, spare us! I admit my mistake! I was forced, the Black Mountain ancient demon compelled us!"

Zhang De, seeing Gu Yuan look his way, immediately began pounding his head like a pestle, his forehead smashing against the bluestone slab, blood gushing.

"Forced?"

Gu Yuan glanced at the blood wine on the table, brewed from the blood of boys and girls, a mocking sneer curling his lips,

"When your mouths are filled with blood, I see no hint of any forced grievance on your part."

He didn't even bother to strike, merely flicking his sleeve casually.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

After a few muffled thuds, Zhang De and the clan heads didn't even have time to scream before they turned into clumps of blood mist, completely erased from this world.

Their souls, too, were swiftly eradicated by the World Tree.

After clearing the debris, Gu Yuan walked to the main seat and picked up the Seventh‑rank County Magistrate bronze seal he had casually set aside.

The bronze seal felt slightly cool, its surface engraved with auspicious beasts symbolizing the Divine Court's law, while a faint crimson official Qi still swirled within.

"The official road system of the Great Yin Divine Court is indeed intriguing."

Gu Yuan caressed the seal, his eyes flashing with a profound light that seemed to comprehend everything.

In the recent killing of the Wang family head and the suppression of the Black Mountain ancient demon, he hadn't employed that official seal.

"Indeed, the faith, labor, longevity, and vital essence of the common folk are continuously siphoned to sustain the royal clan and aristocratic families, while officials are merely tools in the royal hands. Should the royals grow displeased, they can strip you of everything, turning a deity perched above into an ordinary mortal in an instant."

Gu Yuan recalled the tragic sight at the Qingzhou County Yamen when Wang Bo'an's official seal shattered, the instant rendering him gaunt and his cultivation exhausted, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

"Concentrating all the realm's power in the hands of a few, and calling it 'governing the people on behalf of Heaven.'"

"However, since this thing is essentially a receiver, it can be subject to reverse intrusion."

Gu Yuan extended his right hand, pressing a droplet of World Tree sap that radiated seven‑colored sunrise light from his index fingertip, simultaneously blending a strand of chaotic origin belonging to the inner world's Dao will.

He lightly dabbed that droplet, infused with higher‑dimensional laws, onto the surface of the bronze seal.

"Sss—"

There was no earth‑shaking explosion, only an extremely faint sizzle of dissolution.

The World Tree's sap, like the deadliest computer virus, instantly seeped into the intricate fortune array patterns inside the seal.

The Great Yin Divine Court's crippled and malformed Dao laws, when confronted with Gu Yuan's perfect world's creative origin, lacked even the right to resist and were assimilated as if crushed.

In just a few breaths, a faint, obscure dark‑gold glow flickered across the seal's surface before it reverted to its original rustic crimson appearance.

But Gu Yuan knew that this seal had been fundamentally altered.

It was no longer a one‑way blood‑sucking tool of the Great Yin Divine Court, but a 'Trojan node' for the inner world's reverse invasion of the court's fortune network.

"From now on, each time the Great Yin Divine Court grants me a portion of fortune through this seal, my inner world's laws will follow that fortune, silently infiltrating the court's Fortune Golden Dragon, quietly assimilating and supplanting it."

Gu Yuan toyed with the modified seal, his eyes flashing with deep calculative light.

"However, the authority of a Seventh‑rank County Magistrate is still too low; the connecting channel is too narrow, the assimilation speed too slow, and if it's too fast… it would break the rule."

Gu Yuan rapidly ran the calculations in his mind.

"According to the structure of this bureaucratic system, Seventh rank is merely a peripheral node, Fourth rank a regional hub, and only court officials of proper Third rank or above can have seals that directly connect to the core origin of the Fortune Golden Dragon."

"When that time comes, I can directly perform a body‑snatching without disturbing this world's Dao or alerting the royal clan."

"No bloodshed, a change of dynasty."

The path to Third rank has two methods.

First.

Directly kill and ascend.

Second.

Ascend.

The drawback of the first kind is that, just as soon as we finish killing, the court will notice and the plan will fail; by then we'll be outright purged.

So he already had an answer in mind.

Gu Yuan rehung the newly finished copper seal at his waist.

He stood up, pushed open the gate of Black Mountain Manor, and gazed at the fish‑belly white gradually appearing in the east.

The first ray of morning sunlight finally fell unhindered upon the land of Nine Abyss County.

"Well then, next I'll let the entire court and populace of the Great Yin Divine Dynasty get a good look at this Nine Abyss County magistrate's 'astonishing political achievements'."