Gateway of Immortality

When heaven unleashed killing intent, stars shifted and constellations changed. When earth unleashed killing intent, dragons and serpents rose upon the land. When people unleashed killing intent, heaven and earth overturned.

What was called the killing intent of people was profound beyond measure, mysterious to the highest degree.

The cultivators of Sin Abyss had come to understand that this killing intent of people had to be sought from mortals. To that end, both the righteous and devilish factions cast aside their usual conduct. They sent low-level disciples into the mortal world, seized control of mortal kingdoms, stirred chaos, and deliberately ignited conflict.

From that day onward, war ravaged the lands within Sin Abyss without end. Corpses littered the wilderness. Blood flowed so heavily it floated pestles. Houses became empty. Countless wives were separated from husbands, children were torn from parents, and families were destroyed.

After enduring endless suffering, those mortals still prayed to immortal masters, begging the immortals for protection.

Even in death, they never learned the truth. The immortal masters they worshiped had been the masterminds behind everything, manipulating every event from the shadows. Those immortal masters stood high above, coldly watching mortals slaughter one another, as though observing a herd of livestock they had raised.

And their purpose had only been to harvest the killing intent of people and refine it into pills. Such conduct was little different from the devilish path.

Yet the so-called righteous masters, including Tianzheng and Canghong, turned a blind eye. As for devilish cultivators, there was even less need to mention them. They gleefully harvested souls, enough to refine several evil techniques.

They succeeded in collecting the killing intent. But they soon discovered that gathering it this way was far too slow. Worse still, for some unknown reason, the killing intent gathered was overly mixed and impure. Mortal wars were limited in scale. Even when nations were destroyed, the amount harvested remained pitifully small, nowhere near enough to satisfy an entire group of Spiritual Infants.

When they had hunted the devilish monster in the past, most of Sin Abyss’s Spiritual Infant cultivators had been present and had contributed. Naturally, all of them demanded a share. The Withered Origin Pill had to be distributed to everyone. Otherwise, Sin Abyss would have immediately fractured and collapsed.

The first batch of Withered Origin Pills had been tested on carefully selected peak Golden Core juniors. These people had failed to form their Spiritual Infants, their lifespans were nearly exhausted, and they no longer had any hope of breaking through by conventional means.

To everyone’s shock, after taking the pill, some truly succeeded in advancing to the Spiritual Infant Realm. And after their breakthrough, everything appeared normal. No hidden injury could be seen.

Once the miraculous effects of the Withered Origin Pill had been verified, there was no possibility they would give it up.

Then, they turned their eyes toward cultivators themselves. Perhaps the killing intent could be drawn from their own kind. After all, cultivators were merely mortals who had mastered great power!

They deliberately provoked Tianxing Alliance on the plains, and ultimately confirmed that this method worked.

Cultivators far surpassed mortals in strength. The intensity of their wars was beyond anything mortal battlefields could compare to, and the killing intent gathered from them was vastly purer.

Sin Abyss quickly reached internal consensus. Experts of both the righteous and devilish paths gathered at Xingheng Sect, formed an alliance, and resolved to launch war, invading Tianxing Alliance!

Of course, that was not the reason they gave publicly.

The low-tier cultivators of Sin Abyss transformed overnight from players moving pieces on the board into pieces being moved.

"Perhaps there were ambitious men among them who sought dominion," Qu Huan said. "But for most, conquest was never the true purpose of this war. Even when the war reached a stalemate before, that had actually been deliberate."

Hearing this, everyone finally understood the truth, and fury surged in their hearts.

Only now did they learn the real purpose of Sin Abyss’s upper echelon. They had all been used! Had Sin Abyss truly been fighting for survival because its resources were exhausted, they would not have felt such rage.

"To use the killing intent of people to refine pills, and with a pill formula obtained by soul-searching a devilish monster, they actually dared to consume it?" Devil Lord Tongyou let out a cold snort.

"The origin and refinement method of the Withered Origin Pill clearly came from something vile."

"The fragmented memories obtained through soul-searching were repeatedly verified, whether it was the secrets of Blood Lake or the passage between the two palaces. That invisibly increased the pill’s credibility. Even so, they remained cautious and did not consume it blindly. Over the past hundred years, every sect selected Golden Core disciples to take the Withered Origin Pill. That was why Sin Abyss’s Spiritual Infant cultivator numbers soared, allowing it to resist both domains with ease through its own strength.

"The newly advanced Spiritual Infant cultivators never knew the pill’s true origin. In truth, they were experimental subjects. Those old monsters had been watching them all this time, observing the changes after they consumed the pill..."

After a pause, Qu Huan said bitterly, "Of course, some could not resist the temptation. They secretly took the pill to force breakthroughs. And there were many such people. Old Freak Feng was one of them, and he paid a terrible price for it."

The war among the three domains had lasted for more than a century.

For such a long time, everyone who had taken the Withered Origin Pill appeared perfectly normal, showing no signs of future disaster. No matter how patient Sin Abyss’s Spiritual Infant cultivators had been, some eventually could not hold back any longer.

Qu Huan himself still felt lingering fear. He had nearly failed to resist that temptation.

"What was the price?" Qin Sang remembered what Qingjun had said earlier. "So many died at the hands of Old Devil Ye. It should be because of the Withered Origin Pill, right?"

"Correct!" Qu Huan nodded slightly. "At dawn today, every Spiritual Infant cultivator in Sin Abyss gathered at Yu City to discuss major matters. Then Old Devil Ye suddenly struck. Every person who had ever taken a Withered Origin Pill suffered the hidden backlash at the same moment.

"In the blink of an eye, Old Freak Feng and the others began losing bodily vitality, their cultivation plummeted, their primordial spirits withered, and their essence, qi, and psyche all declined together!"

Everyone, Qin Sang included, gasped.

Essence, qi, and psyche formed the foundation of a cultivator. If any one of them failed, it was an enormous problem. If all three declined at once, there was essentially no cure!

"The worst off were the newly advanced Spiritual Infant cultivators. Very few had formed their Spiritual Infant through their own ability. The rest had relied on the power of the Withered Origin Pill. Their Spiritual Infants immediately began collapsing on the spot, leaving them utterly helpless before Old Devil Ye.

"The old monsters were in slightly better condition, but those who had consumed too many Withered Origin Pills had little strength left to resist. Old Devil Ye captured their Spiritual Infants alive right before everyone’s eyes..." As Qu Huan recalled that scene, lingering horror still showed on his face.

Old Devil Ye had bared his fangs. Under the gaze of all, he harvested half of Sin Abyss’s Spiritual Infants as easily as chopping melons and vegetables. Everyone had still been frozen in shock. By the time they reacted, Old Devil Ye had already succeeded. There had been no time to stop him.

"Looking back now, the signs had been there all along. Half a year ago, when Old Devil Ye was ambushed and wounded, he must have done it deliberately. From that point onward, Sin Abyss suffered continuous defeat and was forced to retreat to Yu City. Only then did all the Spiritual Infant cultivators have reason to gather there.

"In my opinion, ancient cultivators likely used the Withered Origin Pill on armies in war, allowing them to instantly boost their side’s strength and crush enemies by surprise, but the consequences were catastrophic.

"Old Devil Ye somehow used a secret technique to delay the backlash. And today, he finally revealed this evil intention!

"I suspect it was closely tied to the Nether Crystal Tower. When he fled, he not only destroyed the Nether Crystal Tower, he also took every crystal atop it.

"Hundreds of years ago, when that devilish monster appeared, from beginning to end, it had all been one grand scheme laid by Old Devil Ye!"

Qu Huan’s words completely tore open the cruel truth of the cultivation world.

Low-tier cultivators entered the mortal world, awakening greed in ordinary people and driving mortals to slaughter one another.

Not long afterward, those same cultivators were thrown by Spiritual Infant grandmasters into the battlefield of cultivators, reduced to experimental subjects for the Withered Origin Pill.

Yet even those Spiritual Infant grandmasters had merely been pieces in Old Devil Ye’s hand, harvested in the end by him as well.

Each had thought himself a player moving pieces on the board. In truth, every one of them had been trapped inside the game. How many among them were truly innocent?

After this great upheaval, Sin Abyss had not only lost half their Spiritual Infant cultivators, but those old Spiritual Infant grandmasters who had taken the Withered Origin Pill were now shackled by its hidden backlash. Their strength had fallen drastically. For now, they could only barely suppress the effects, and no one knew what fate awaited them in the end.

Qu Huan had seen that Sin Abyss’s fortune was exhausted. And so, he completely cast his lot with the Two-Domain Alliance.

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