Winter passed and spring came; autumn arrived and summer left. In the far northern lands of the Jingtu Sect, amidst a range of precipitous and towering mountains, it was another year of yellow flowers carpeting the ground, the spring breeze bringing warmth.
Among the undulating mountains, on a cliff halfway up a peak, there was a protruding rock. A White-Headed Vulture was looking strangely at a cave before it.
In its memory, starting from a certain day more than a year ago, whenever it passed by on its hunt, it could no longer enter the cave to rest as it used to.
Although the scene inside the cave was as it had always been—it could see everything within from the outside, and it looked no different from how it had for many years—it just couldn't enter.
Whenever the White-Headed Vulture tried to step inside, the cave, which was so close, seemed in an instant to be separated by the vastness of the heavens and the earth. No matter how it walked forward, the cave remained right there, forever beyond its reach.
This White-Headed Vulture was already a mid-stage first-rank demonic beast. Its intelligence had awakened, and it was considered a top predator within this several-thousand-li radius. But there were still many things it couldn't imagine and couldn't understand at its current level.
Today, the sky was clear for thousands of li, a rare fine day in this area that hadn't been seen for months. After patrolling its territory, the White-Headed Vulture once again thought of this strange place within its domain.
In its good mood, a sense of unwillingness naturally arose. Anyone would feel a lump in their throat if such a strange thing suddenly appeared in the territory they cared about most.
Under the influence of various emotions, the White-Headed Vulture naturally wanted to come and investigate. In its inherited memory, some abnormal phenomena could be caused by some kind of heavenly and earthly exotic treasure. Where there's abnormality, there must be a "demon"—well, it was a demon itself.
The White-Headed Vulture had been standing at the cave entrance for half an hour. This time, it was very patient. It would often think for a long time before solemnly taking a step in a certain direction.
But until now, it felt as if it was still standing in the same spot. This kind of setback had happened to it many times, so this time it didn't bring too much frustration. Instead, it stirred its strong competitive spirit.
However, just as the White-Headed Vulture was about to continue its probing, the originally normal scene of the cave before it suddenly began to distort like a landscape painting. Then, it began to shake and twist.
What followed was an aura that made the White-Headed Vulture feel weak all over. This world-changing aura had appeared without any warning, instantly descending upon this land. The originally clear sky turned a hazy grey.
It was a power that the White-Headed Vulture was helpless to resist, a power that could easily decide its life or death. The White-Headed Vulture felt as if, in that instant, it had returned to that day several decades ago.
That was a day it never wanted to remember. When its parents were out hunting for food, it had barely managed to flap its wings, wanting to walk to the wide platform to learn to fly.
However, just as it left its nest on the mountaintop, it saw a pair of bloodthirsty and cruel eyes. In that instant, its blood froze under that gaze. Its instincts told the ignorant young vulture that death had arrived.
Every time it remembered its helpless state back then, the White-Headed Vulture would feel grateful that its father had arrived in time. But that image had accompanied its growth, impossible to shake off, impossible to erase.
Even now, as a top predator in its region, it would often wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night, trembling all over, huddling and shivering in its large nest. In those moments, it had long lost its usual coldness.
It did not want to remember that event, much less how weak and powerless it had been.
But now, it once again felt a power that could decide its life and death in an instant. The White-Headed Vulture let out a roar of defiance.
But the next moment, it discovered with despair that the sound it made was so hoarse. Its body had long since gone limp, collapsing into a pile of mud. It felt as if a supreme king was looking down on it coldly from on high, indifferent to its life, to its everything.
If this White-Headed Vulture were two ranks higher, perhaps it would understand that this was Bloodline Suppression, and had nothing to do with anything else.
At the same time, this thousand-zhang-high mountain also began to rustle. As the mountain shook, many rocks rolled down. And as the speed of the falling rocks increased, the number of rolling stones also grew, causing a series of rumbling echoes in the mountain range.
In the cave, Li Yan calmly looked at his slowly unclenched fist.
His green robes had long since turned into grey robes, and his hair was covered in dust. With a puff of air, a wave of Qi spread out from his body, instantly shaking off all the dust.
Just now, he had just woken up from cultivation. Feeling a seemingly endless power in his body, he had subconsciously clenched his fist.
But as he began to clench his fist, the entire mountain began to shake. And as he clenched his fist tighter and tighter, the mountain seemed unable to withstand an invisible, immense force squeezing it, on the verge of shattering.
At that moment, Li Yan's mind had cleared. He timely and slowly relaxed his palm, and the mountain outside slowly stopped shaking.
Li Yan looked at his palm in disbelief. Then he closed his eyes again, silently feeling the dormant power within his body, like a slumbering ancient ferocious beast. After a long while, Li Yan slowly opened his eyes again. "It's been almost a year and a half. My body's tolerance for the Essence Blood has reached its limit. I can't continue cultivating."
Li Yan looked at the small, bloody river floating in mid-air before him and shook his head gently. But then, a brilliant light flashed in his eyes, and he nodded in satisfaction.
He shook his head in resignation for the hardships he had endured over the past year and a half, and at the same time, he felt it was a pity that he could no longer continue to absorb the "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood.
Thinking that from today on, for a long time at least, he wouldn't have to live in the hellish torment of an Asura's purgatory every day, even someone as resolute as Li Yan felt a sense of relief and joy.
Now, whenever he thought of the pain he experienced every day while refining the "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood, Li Yan still felt a wave of trepidation. A person living through the experience of having their bones stripped and tendons pulled out every day would sometimes even think of giving up, or even the terrible thought of finding release in death.
But Li Yan had persevered. From the beginning, when his body trembled like a sieve every moment, to the end, when his body just shook continuously, it might seem that Li Yan had gotten used to it. In reality, it was just that his concentration and willpower had grown stronger. No one could get used to pain from the depths of their soul.
"My cultivation is still too low. This 'Undead Nether Phoenix' is definitely not as simple as a Nascent Soul or Spirit Transformation stage being. If not for the existence of the mysterious Blood River, forget about refining it; just taking it out of the Blood River, the pressure from the Essence Blood alone would have instantly reduced me to ashes."
Li Yan was filled with emotion. Without the Blood River, even if he could have turned the Silver Page into Essence Blood through other means, the moment the Essence Blood formed would have been the moment he completely disappeared from this world.
Now, Li Yan could also vaguely guess that even with the help of the Earth Fire from Lord Lao Peak, or even Nascent Fire, it would likely have no effect on the Silver Page.
Looking at the silver drop of water, of which more than ninety percent still remained, bobbing in the Blood River, Li Yan could only sigh at his own shallow cultivation.
He had endured the pain of a bloody Asura sea, suffering through such days and nights for a year and a half. Yet, he had only managed to refine about ten percent of this one drop of "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood, just a preliminary taste. Not to mention the other two Silver Pages, which could only lie obediently in the "Earth-Spot."
And today, Li Yan finally could not devour any more, not even a single trace of Essence Blood. His body had reached its limit of tolerance.
If he continued to try to devour it, his physical body, which he was so proud of, might explode into a cloud of blood mist in the next moment with a "boom."
Li Yan thought for a moment, then made a beckoning gesture with his hand, storing the Blood River before him into the Earth-Spot. The Earth-Spot was his own spatial world. The things he stored there, if he didn't want others to get them, even demonic beasts like the Snow Mosquito King that lived there long-term, might never discover them in their entire lives. Even if they could discover them, under the rules, they couldn't take them out.
Immediately, Li Yan slowly closed his eyes again. He now had many insights that needed meditation. Although Li Yan had ultimately only devoured ten percent of one drop of "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood, the benefits it brought him were enormous.
First, Li Yan's cultivation was still at the Pseudo-Core stage, and the Spirit Power in his body was even less than half of what it was before. However, this propelled Spirit Power had been compressed into a more solidified liquid state.
Now, every drop of spiritual liquid contained the sum of several previous streams of Spirit Power. With this cultivation, if he were to cast the same magical art as before, the power it would erupt with would be at least thirty to forty percent greater.
Second, what Li Yan felt even more was the powerful strength brought to his physical body after devouring the "Undead Nether Phoenix" Essence Blood. Just now, just by clenching his fist, it felt as if he were fully unleashing a high-powered immortal art.
With these improvements, Li Yan now had to seize the opportunity to comprehend these insights. If he waited too long, that feeling would slowly fade, and meditation would be fruitless. This is what Daoists call "Entering Samadhi and Inaction," seeking that elusive moment of enlightenment.
...
Outside the cave, the White-Headed Vulture had fled without a trace the moment Li Yan unclenched his fist and the terrifying pressure disappeared. From then on, within its original territory of several thousand li, no other demonic beast ever saw that White-Headed Vulture soaring through the sky again.
Three days later, from that cliff halfway up the mountain that had scared the White-Headed Vulture out of its wits, a green figure quietly flew out. After briefly getting his bearings, he sped off towards the south.
As he flew, Li Yan felt the strong wind rushing towards him. With a light laugh, his body just swayed once and appeared several hundred zhang away.
An incense stick's worth of time later, when Li Yan's figure appeared like a phantom in another part of the sky, he slowly came to a stop. Looking down at his feet, Li Yan let out a hearty laugh.
He was already more than a thousand li away from the previous cave. And at this moment, the space beneath Li Yan's feet was empty. The "Cloud-Piercing Willow" that had always accompanied him on his travels was gone.
This was Li Yan's greatest gain from his recent insights, or rather, an unexpected surprise from the heavens: the inherited movement skill from the "Undead Nether Phoenix" bloodline, "Phoenix Soars to the Heavens."