Chapter 700: Altar

In this blood‑colored secret realm, Yan Buji faced flesh monsters constantly emerging around him, and his complexion turned very grim.

"Damn it!"

After using teleportation twice in succession, Yan Buji discovered that the entire secret realm was swarming with monsters, and crucially their strength was not low—most were at the Nascent Soul level.

If a real fight broke out, even though Yan Buji could endure a siege, he could never break through this place.

Continuously fleeing, Yan Buji tried to find an exit; following the direction Ye Lin had indicated earlier, the Flesh Palace was not their destination, but lay on the other side.

"Just hope Ye Lin is smarter; otherwise he'll die here and all my years of investment will go down the drain," Yan Buji said with a dark face, pressing onward.

Not long after, Yan Buji arrived, weary and dust‑caked, at the prearranged destination. As he stepped into the area, a strong, pungent stench of rot assaulted him, making him gag. Looking around, he saw the place densely piled with all manner of corpses, layer upon layer, stacked like a mountain. Some corpses were already mutilated, limbs shattered; others still bore the twisted, agonized faces of their final moments. Pale bones intermingled with dried, blackened blood, forming a scene as terrifying as hell.

Even though Yan Buji is well‑read and experienced, he instinctively pinched his nose and frowned.

"What kind of place is this?"

However, he did not see those flesh monsters here, indicating that this place might truly have something different about it.

Yan Buji walked in, stepping on broken skeletal remains, and after moving forward he finally stopped before an altar constructed of bones.

"This is..."

Yan Buji examined the skeletal altar closely; it seemed to have been built only recently, unlike an artifact from antiquity.

Just as he was thinking, Yan Buji suddenly heard a familiar call: "Yan Buji?"

Yan Buji was startled, turned his head and said, "Elder Hong? How did you..."

Hong Shu also looked at Yan Buji in surprise, walked over and asked, "How did you get in again?"

"Elder Hong, I was with..."

Crack!

Boom!

Hong Shu suddenly struck; his massive True Essence turned into a rain of blood across the sky, like countless steel knives bearing the razor‑sharp Geng‑metal Qi, slashing toward Yan Buji, whose complexion changed dramatically.

At that moment, a pair of small hands seized Yan Buji's shoulders, pulling him out of Hong Shu's ambush!

"You... Jianfan Fairy? This..."

"I'll explain the details later," Jianfan Fairy said, looking at Hong Shu and smiling, "I've finally found you."

Hong Shu's face darkened, and he closed his eyes: "It seems you all must die here today!"

"Then let's see if you have the skill for it!" Jianfan Fairy said, brandishing a broken longsword—only half remained—but it gave Yan Buji an unparalleled sense of pressure.

It felt as if it were something destined to restrain him!

After confronting each other for a while, Hong Shu and Jianfan Fairy suddenly vanished; by the time Yan Buji recovered, he realized they were already battling in the high sky.

Yan Buji's expression was complicated: on one hand he didn't know why Hong Shu would try to kill him, and on the other he didn't know what had transpired between Jianfan Fairy and Hong Shu that it had escalated to open combat.

"There must be something wrong with this secret realm... Since they didn't choose to strike here directly, it's probably because of this altar," Yan Buji thought.

Yan Buji considered that when Hong Shu ambushed him earlier, he was shocked, but now realizing the opponent's strength, such a low‑level sneak attack was unnecessary; even a casual release of a divine technique would have made it impossible for him to escape.

Jianfan Fairy's appearance was perfectly timed; a single sword stroke deflected Hong Shu's ambush and simultaneously rescued herself, making their purpose obvious.

His own fate was irrelevant, but this place likely concealed a secret that must not be destroyed.

No matter how intense the sky‑borne battle techniques were, at Yan Buji's level he could discern nothing. It was like observing the moon in a mirror—knowing its existence but not its underlying principle.

Yan Buji focused his mind on investigating the surroundings; as he moved around, he found that most areas had already undergone subtle treatment, and the placement of many bones seemed to follow a traceable pattern.

"It seems like... the kind of divine‑sense formation technique Sect Master taught me..."

Yan Buji took out a jade tablet and compared it carefully for a long time, only then realizing that the array laid here closely resembled a formation called the Mystic Heaven Nine‑Month Formation.

"The Mystic Heaven Nine‑Month Formation appears to stabilize spatial patterns and gather the power of stars," Yan Buji said, looking up at the brilliant blood‑red star still shining in the night sky.

"So this place... can channel that star's power?" Yan Buji asked, curious.

If the formation here truly aims to channel that star's power, there must be other clues, and then Yan Buji could understand what they are trying to achieve here.

Yan Buji continued investigating the surroundings and indeed found an ancient script near the altar.

"Dao seal... exactly the same as the characters on that ox‑horn," Yan Buji said, pulling out an ancient text for comparison.

"Stars divide life and death, fearing the Dao will perish;

One day the wind rises, ten thousand ages of the mortal emperor;

Great calamity floods the heavens, the Nine Abyss tears apart the house;

The azure sky falls, black wind blazes;

Divine land sinks, a hundred spirits meet a trivial death;

For the multitude of living beings, the sword slashes ferocious madness!"

Yan Buji furrowed his brow; just from these words, they seemed to match the set of terms previously written on the ox‑horn in Ye Lin's hand.

"So it's still because of the Human‑Cutting Sword?" Yan Buji thought, glancing at the nearby altar.

Three sacrificial beasts and six domestic animals were set on the altar as offerings, all creatures Yan Buji had never seen before, and he didn't know where they came from.

"It looks like they're planning to re‑refine the Human‑Cutting Sword?"

So this is the altar Jianfan Fairy set up, huh?

Yan Buji had indeed heard of this refining method; it seemed to employ an ancient cultivator's sacrificial rite to forge or repair special artifacts for use.

Ordinary cultivators normally don't need such means; Yan Buji heard that setting up an altar for refining requires the item itself to have reached a certain height before it can be used, thereby better resonating with the forces of heaven and earth.

Boom—

Yan Buji looked up; as the mid‑air battle ended, he only saw Hong Shu's body slam heavily onto the ground not far away, lifeless, while Jianfan Fairy also descended calmly, gripping the half of the longsword in hand.

"How did you get here?" Jianfan Fairy laughed.

Yan Buji stared at the fresh blood still steaming on the half‑sword, swallowed hard and said, "Jianfan Fairy, what on earth is happening?"