Chapter 2004: Evil Aura

The heavenly thunder filling the sky danced like silver serpents, pouring down with the force to destroy the dry and rotten, yet unexpectedly, these seemingly boundless heavenly thunderbolts caused Ye Zhangqing no actual harm at all.

Instead, they struck the ground like heavy hammers, instantly splitting the originally solid land and forming huge collapse pits.

The earth seemed unable to bear the terrifying aftermath of the heavenly thunder; in an instant, the entire ground shook violently, accompanied by rumbling sounds, presenting a horrifying scene of heaven and earth collapsing.

Gazing at the continually collapsing earth below, Ye Zhangqing initially did not notice the hidden danger; he merely stared silently at the wasteland before him ravaged by the heavenly thunder.

However, in the next second, from those bottomless fissures, an extremely cold and yin aura surged out like a bursting flood, quickly spreading throughout the surrounding space.

This aura was bone-chillingly cold, seeming able to pierce the soul, making people shudder without cold.

Ye Zhangqing had never felt such a strange and evil aura; if forced to describe it in words, it would be a deep‑bone evil that makes one's flesh creep.

"Roar……"

As Ye Zhangqing concentrated on trying to locate the source of this aura, a low, earth‑shaking howl suddenly erupted from the deep fissure.

Although the sound seemed to come from a distant depth underground, it still possessed tremendous penetrating power and shock, causing Ye Zhangqing's heart to involuntarily clutch and the hairs on his back to stand on end in an instant.

His gaze grew ever deeper, fixed on the black fissure below, his sight following it down to its depths, as if trying to see through the layers of darkness to discern the true form of the mysterious entity that emitted the howl.

A surge of complex emotions welled up in his heart like a tide, and Ye Zhangqing silently pondered.

"There must be some mysterious thing hidden beneath this place."

Although he could not peer through the surface fissure to see the depths clearly, the evil aura spreading around like rolling thick smoke made him feel suffocated; together with that earlier low, eerie howl, Ye Zhangqing firmly believed that something out of the ordinary lay beneath.

Moreover, his deep‑seated intuition rang like a warning bell, alerting him that this unknown entity was fraught with extreme danger.

At this moment, Ye Zhangqing had no leisure to worry about the heavenly thunder still raging overhead.

Yet the heavenly tribulation in the sky did not cease because of this; it continued to pour down upon him without cease.

However, when these lightning strikes hit Ye Zhangqing's body, they felt like a mild itch, incapable of causing any actual harm.

Ye Zhangqing's entire attention was firmly locked onto that fissure below ground.

As he stared intently at that deep, dark abyss, suddenly countless black lines composed of unknown substance surged out from the ground fissure like a black torrent, rushing straight at Ye Zhangqing at astonishing speed.

Faced with these suddenly appearing black lines, Ye Zhangqing's brows knit tightly together.

He stared and discovered that each black line was as thick as an adult's arm.

They writhed and twisted in the air; at first glance they seemed hardly threatening, but Ye Zhangqing knew he could not afford to be careless, nor dare to try touching these strange black lines.

Thus, when the countless black lines surged toward him like a tide to attack, Ye Zhangqing unhesitatingly raised the kitchen knife in his hand and slashed forward.

In an instant, cold light flashed and the sharp blade sliced through the void like lightning; with a crisp "snip", those originally mighty black lines were instantly cut in two.

However, the matter was far from being so simply resolved.

Just as Ye Zhangqing thought he had successfully neutralized the danger, a shocking scene occurred—the black lines that had just been severed regrew in the blink of an eye, and a single black line split into two in an instant.

Thus, the number of black lines not only did not decrease, but actually doubled.

Seeing this, Ye Zhangqing's face remained expressionless, as if everything happening before him had been expected.

He drew a deep breath, and the vast primordial power within his body continuously flowed into the long blade in his hand.

Accompanied by a low humming sound, a powerful blade intent erupted from the blade, turning into a dazzling light that swept toward the black lines ahead.

This time, Ye Zhangqing exerted his full strength, intending to utterly eradicate these tenacious black lines.

Under the onslaught of that terrifying blade intent, the black lines shattered and dissipated, leaving not a trace behind.

But merely a blink later, those black lines miraculously returned to their original state, and moreover, their numbers had increased to a degree that made one's flesh creep and scalp tingle.

These black lines seemed to possess an indestructible nature; no matter how Ye Zhangqing employed fierce means to destroy them, they always regenerated quickly, and their numbers kept increasing with his attacks.

For a while, the whole scene fell into a stalemate, and Ye Zhangqing faced an unprecedented immense pressure……

Only to see the black lines surge forth like an endless tide, their numbers growing day by day, as if boundless.

Moreover, these black lines did not move chaotically; they appeared to be controlled by some mysterious power, acting in perfect unison with a clear objective—charging straight at Ye Zhangqing.

In the blink of an eye, the dense, sky‑covering black lines had already surged toward Ye Zhangqing from all directions.

Faced with such a terrifying assault, even the heavenly thunder that suddenly struck down from the sky could hardly resist.

Yet astonishingly, these seemingly fragile black lines could easily block the heavenly thunder from outside.

The heavenly thunder, as if feeling provoked and insulted, instantly grew even more violent.

It emitted a deafening roar, and blinding bolts of lightning tore across the sky, smashing fiercely at those black lines with the force to destroy heaven and earth.

Yet no matter how the heavenly thunder raged and roared, it could do nothing against those black lines, not even inflicting any actual harm.

On the contrary, as time passed, the number of black lines did not diminish but increased, spreading rapidly like a frenziedly growing vine.

It was obvious that the heavenly tribulation had already enveloped the black lines, its power far surpassing before, exceeding even the limit of the Ancestral Realm heavenly tribulation.

That heavenly thunder, like a dragon of lightning, fell incessantly like raindrops.