At Jing Qian's speed, a hundred li was but the blink of an eye. He even set foot on Jiangzhu Island ahead of Su Min'er.
After so long, the child once born here had returned as a powerful cultivator.
Upon landing, he immediately invoked the power of Sumeru, hiding within the dimensional void, watching Su Min'er, wrapped in her silken cloak, quietly step onto the island.
He followed her movements at a distance.
The girl's purpose was so fixed, so clear, that Jing Qian couldn't help but feel a tinge of curiosity: what exactly was she here to do?
Two shadows, one darker, one faint, moved through the island, one ahead, one behind.
Everywhere they passed, corpses lay in heaps, the scene unspeakably tragic.
The slaughter of over a hundred thousand souls at once by Xizhi Island left Jing Qian inwardly shaken.
But Su Min'er seemed blind to the carnage, moving forward with unwavering resolve.
She crossed the island's ruined heart, once its most prosperous quarter, now nothing but broken walls and piles of bones.
Only upon nearing the ancestral mountain, where the Life Furnace lay, did she finally stop.
She slipped into an unremarkable dried-up well and crawled along an underground river channel that led toward the ancestral mountain.
This was a hidden path known only to the direct heirs of the Jing and Su clans.
Jing Qian shadowed her steps from within the void.
After three li of crawling, they arrived at the foot of the ancestral mountain, where a massive copper-red gate blocked the way.
On the gate shimmered a complex seal, flickering with intertwined blue and crimson light.
Su Min'er drew out a jade blade and slit open her wrist, letting blood drip onto the seal.
The crimson light faded away.
She then raised the silken cloak to her chest, channeling her life essence into it.
Now that she had advanced to Ninth Rank Fatebinding, the cloak's powers had grown.
Two strands of spider silk extended from it and touched the glowing seal.
The seal's surface glimmered with countless blue motes, and the strands of silk sought to snuff them out one by one.
But the motes appeared too quickly, their rhythm ever-shifting without deep mastery of the Soulweaver life pattern; it was impossible to extinguish them all.
This barrier could only be undone by the combined efforts of both Jing and Su bloodlines.
Su Min'er strained with all her might, but it was futile; her power drained, yet the seal remained unbroken.
"Let me do it."
A sudden voice startled her, making her jump like a frightened deer.
She turned and, seeing the familiar figure, instantly calmed.
"Brother, so you couldn't let it go after all!"
Her spirits soared. With this elder of the Jing clan beside her, they finally had hope of opening the seal.
Jing Qian stepped forward, sending several silk threads darting toward the flickering motes.
To him, their rhythm mirrored the patterns of his clan's secret Inscription Art.
His threads danced like falling petals on water, gently snuffing each mote of light.
The seal shattered, and the copper-red gate stood bare.
Su Min'er rushed up eagerly and pushed open the ancient gate with all her strength.
At last, the true entrance to the ancestral mountain, leading straight to the Life Furnace.
Jing Qian shed his concealment and followed her inside.
They passed through a narrow cavern and entered a burial chamber.
Eight coffins lay aligned along the walls: four bronze to the right, four copper-red to the left.
Of the bronze coffins, one lay open, the other seven sealed tight.
In the red coffins rested the corpses of four Su ancestors; in the bronze, three Jing ancestors.
Each had once been a cultivator at least of Dragon-Elephant Great Completion.
At the center of the burial chamber burned a pure cyan bonfire, eternal and undying.
This was none other than the Azure-Burning Life Furnace, which had supported Jiangzhu Island for three hundred years and endured over forty Yin Year calamities.
Jing Qian looked upon it with astonishment. This Life Furnace was unbelievably simple!
Beneath that blazing cyan flame were only three stacked logs, as if casually piled together.
What he did not know was that whether a Life Furnace could truly endure depended, aside from the core of vital energy, on whether its vessel could withstand the endless burning of the Fate Fire.
Among all spirit treasures and precious materials, be they stone of the earth, wood of the forest, cauldrons of metal, or unguents of water, only those of Sixth Rank Violet-Eye or above could qualify.
The furnace before his eyes was built from just three logs of Soul-Calming Sandalwood, a Sixth Rank treasure taken from Xiangzhou.
Do not be fooled by the humble appearance; those three logs alone were worth a fortune!
Jing Qian spread open the vision of his Worldly Insight, carefully observing the furnace's structure.
Almost instantly, information surfaced before his eyes:
Soul-Attracting Sandal Flame
Grade: Azure-Burning Life Furnace
Vessel: Soul-Calming Sandalwood
Remaining Lifespan: 97 years
The entire burial chamber shimmered with otherworldly light in his vision.
Beside him, Su Min'er was not idle. She walked past the row of coffins and stopped before the foremost red coffin.
There she knelt, knocking her head three times against the ground, and spoke aloud:
"Honored Ancestors, forgive your unworthy descendant. Our clan and island face utter annihilation. Today I must open your coffins and disturb your rest; may you pardon this sacrilege."
Rising, she heaved open the lids of all four crimson coffins.
Just then, the ground quaked violently!
The chamber shook so fiercely that Su Min'er was thrown to the floor.
"Little Su, a Longevity-stage cultivator, is attacking the mountain. Whatever you must do, do it quickly!" Jing Qian warned.
Outside the mountain wall, a blue lantern flared, casting its light across the world. Within its glow, countless ghostly figures appeared, looming and dreadful.
Each ghostly shade possessed the might of a Great Completion Dharma Form. Together, they fused into a force beyond imagination.
These phantoms clawed at the ancestral mountain itself, gnawing madly at the protective seal.
Beneath the lantern's glow knelt two Dharma Forms, Shuten-dōji and Scorpion-Woman, forced to prostrate before the light.
Behind them, imps wielded burning whips, lashing them again and again.
Two proud Dragon-Elephant cultivators were reduced to utter humiliation, whipped like beasts.
At this pace, within an hour, the seal would be torn apart!
Even within the burial chamber, the oppressive might of a Longevity-stage master pressed down.
Jing Qian, at least, could always flee into the void.
But Su Min'er had no path of escape.
Yet she had already cast aside her fear of death.
She leapt into each coffin in turn, dragging out the remains of her four ancestors and arranging them around the bonfire.
The corpses, in varying stages of decay, released a stench so foul it filled the chamber.
Then, without hesitation, she pushed one of the remains, the body of Su Can, her own father, into the Soul-Attracting Sandal Flame.
The cyan fire roared hungrily, consuming the corpse at once.
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