The Purgatory Calamity
Chapter 258 - 243 Fallen Genius_1

Chapter 258: Chapter 243 Fallen Genius_1

The chill pierced to the soul!

At the moment Pang Jian closed his eyes above the broken and clearly irreparable altar, he felt anew the strange sensation of being in another world.

With his eyes closed, it was as if he was in a strange land of darkness and cold, a void filled with deathly silence.

The terrifying dark coldness, the sense of lifeless stillness, did not come from his body.

It was the soul.

His soul began to feel the chill, and his Sea of Consciousness, containing one hundred and twenty-eight strands of Divine Sense, seemed to freeze over bit by bit as soon as he closed his eyes.

Moments later, he found it difficult to even open his eyes, as his Divine Sense and Sea of Consciousness seemed truly about to be frozen!

The Mysterious Turtle and Corrosion Boundary Vine, sensing his perilous situation, called out to him repeatedly, sharply focusing his numb and rigid will!

He forced his eyes open with all his might!

"Boom!"

Gasping for air, Pang Jian clambered off the altar as if returning from another world.

Standing outside the altar, he looked back at the shattered platform, his eyes flashing with terror.

If it weren’t for the incessant call of the Mysterious Turtle and Corrosion Boundary Vine, he might have... unknowingly perished, with his Sea of Consciousness and Divine Sense frozen by the cold power.

"Prayer Spirit Forbidden Land!"

He suddenly realized that this once less terrifying Forbidden Land was now filled with immense horror.

One misstep would mean no turning back!

Afterward, Pang Jian continued to delve deeper, encountering more and more strange phenomena and... gruesome deaths.

In the night sky, the stars and Bright Moon shone brightly.

A white stone altar shaped like a pentagram, bathed in the glow of the stars, radiated an intoxicating luster.

The broken edges of the altar, illuminated by the white stones, seemed to be connected by the brilliant starlight.

A few disciples clad in the robes of the Star River Alliance sat in silence on the five points of the pentagram altar, smiles of joy adorning their faces.

They seemed to have encountered incredibly joyful events, as if they had unlocked the secrets of the stars, or suddenly obtained a priceless treasure, seemingly breaking through long-standing barriers in their cultivation.

But these were just the expressions on their faces.

——They had been dead for a long time.

Pang Jian came over to examine them and found no sign of the vitality that living beings should possess. Their storage bags and belongings at their waists had already been plundered and taken away.

Their rigid bodies still sat upright, their faces’ joyful smiles as if frozen in time.

It seemed that even after a thousand or ten thousand years, nothing would change.

Moments later, an altar shaped like the sun, formed by fragments of broken stones carved with flame patterns, appeared.

People from the Raging Sun Sect, some of whom were still embracing the altar’s broken stones, were striving to restore the altar to its whole form but... had also been dead for a long time.

Their faces were not smiling but filled with horror, as if they had witnessed something unspeakably terrifying before death.

Their pupils were scorched by flames, and from their mouths, nostrils, and ears flowed blackened blood, presenting a frightful sight.

Among them was even an Elder of the Spirit Condensation Realm, a Great Cultivator!

This scene made even Pang Jian feel a chill run down his spine, and he didn’t dare get too close to the sun-shaped altar; he simply avoided it and left.

Similar scenes became increasingly common.

Many Individual Cultivators, in unrelated attire, were either dead next to grotesquely shaped statues, or strangled by fragmented altars, with bizarre corpses visible everywhere.

Pang Jian, walking alone through the Prayer Spirit Forbidden Land, grew increasingly somber.

"A terrible cataclysm."

He suddenly felt some regret.

The Prayer Spirit Forbidden Land, filled with mysteries and oddities, made him feel as if he were being watched by entities akin to Ice Demons from foreign lands; he did not know how many such chilling existences were casting their gaze upon this land.

If they discovered that the interloper was not one of their worshipers, not from tribes that had communicated with them in years past, they would swiftly exterminate them.

In the Purgatory World, where many strange phenomena were emerging, it also seemed to have affected the former Land of Prayer Spirit.

This caused the destroyed altars, statues, wooden carvings, and stone pillars to appear within the perception of the foreign land’s evil spirits.

"Save, save me..."

In the center of another shattered sun-shaped altar, a man was struggling with flames engulfing his body and a large tripod above his head.

His hair had burned away, his flesh was on fire, and the blood flowing from his lips sizzled like fiery juice.

He was pinned down by the shattered altar, and regardless of how hard he exerted his strength, he could not break free from the red rocks beneath him.

His piteous cries filled the air, hoping someone from the Raging Sun Sect would hear him, hoping Spirit Condensation Realm Elders from the Blood Moon, Star River Alliance, or Red Mountain would come to his aid and deliver him from his mortal peril.

——He was Yang Rui.

Once the pride of the Raging Sun Sect and the foremost practitioner of the Hollow Profound Realm, he had met such a tragic end.

Hovering above his head was the famous Spiritual Artifact of the Raging Sun Sect — the Nine Suns Tripod!

However, the majestic tripod, which once displayed nine suns on its surface at the peak of Yuanmang’s first mountain, now showed no such images and lacked its former divine wonders.

Clearly, it too was subject to the restrictions of the Forbidden Land, with many of its arrays deactivated.

Pang Jian halted in his steps, silently observing the grievous state of Yang Rui from behind a tall stone column snapped in half.

A few somber-looking Individual Cultivators stood beside the ruined altar, also watching coldly as Yang Rui was consumed by the flames, waiting for him to hasten his own death.

"Really think you’re the Son of the Sun God?"

An individual cultivator over a hundred years old, with his cultivation at the late stage of the Hollow Profound Realm, had lost most of his hair, which left the top shiny and bald with only a few sparse and thin strands around the edges.

He spat disdainfully and said coldly, "The race favored by the Sun God has been suppressed in the Fifth Realm for ten thousand years, how could they take a fancy to such a thing?"

"What Raging Sun Sect, what Son of the Sun God, really makes one laugh out loud."

Another person interjected with a snort, "The Fifth Realm, the Flame Clan living on the Third Continent, and the Yao Clan from the Second Continent, are the races truly cherished by the Sun God. The so-called Raging Sun Sect and their Son of the Sun God, aren’t their Spirit Spells derived from what was passed down from the Yao and Flame Clans?"

"The Flame Clan and Yao Clan, with the invasion of the Filth Alien Power, are about to return to the Upper Realm!"

"The times are changing, the God Spirits hidden in mysterious places have finally sensed Purgatory once again."

"..."

The three elders from the Lei Kun Sect next to Yang Rui made mocking comments, watching as this God Son of the Raging Sun Sect headed toward his destruction.

Pang Jian concealed his aura and kept silent, listening to their conversation with a flicker of strange light in his eyes.

The three Different Kinds who practiced sorcery talked about the Sun God, the Yao Clan, and the Flame Clan, arousing his interest and confirming his suspicion that some mysterious God Spirits had indeed noticed Purgatory once more.

"How could the Spirit Spells of the Raging Sun Sect come from an Alien Tribe that is eternally sealed?"

A question arose in his mind, and he silently waited, continuing to listen to the conversation of the three Different Kinds.

He quickly found out that the abnormality in the Prayer Spirit Forbidden Land was due to God Spirits, who resided in unknown places, perceiving the long-hidden Purgatory World through those broken altars, statues, and wood carvings.

For those mysterious beings, Purgatory had seemed to be in a state of sealed concealment until recently.

Just before, some bizarre event occurred, and Purgatory, which had vanished from the perception of those God Spirits, seemed to have suddenly lifted its sealed state.

All of a sudden, it appeared within the perception of the God Spirits.

"Could it be..."

Pang Jian subconsciously touched the copper badge at his chest.

Named "Purgatory Gate," the copper badge had recently absorbed several void rifts in the Cloud Thunder Forbidden Zone, causing the words "Purgatory Gate" to emerge clearly.

Soon after, a void rift began to tear apart, and a beast as formidable as a level ten Thunder Dragon attempted to cross the "Mysterious Fog."

The beast had drifted within the "Mysterious Fog" for millions of years, never finding a way back, nor how to leave.

Yet, all of a sudden, it sensed the Purgatory World and had a clear coordinate to aim for.

"Impossible, it can’t be such a coincidence. The recent abnormalities in the world should have nothing to do with me, nor with this badge."

Pang Jian shook his head.

"Phew!"

The overwhelming flames that enveloped Yang Rui suddenly extinguished.

The most talented new generation of the Raging Sun Sect turned into a charred skeleton, lying on that broken altar.

His dark and charred hand bore a storage ring, which hadn’t been incinerated by the flames and still emitted a faint glow.

Above his head, the previously floating Nine Suns Tripod, crashed down with a clang.

Without his support of spiritual power and the array inside unable to operate, the Nine Suns Tripod became nothing more than a pile of scrap copper and iron.

However, Pang Jian knew well that once he left the Prayer Spirit Forbidden Land, this tripod with nine rounds of sun on its walls would still be a high-level Spiritual Artifact with immense power.

Most importantly, there was a round of great sun hanging in his Spiritual Sea, so he should also be able to use the Nine Suns Tripod!

"I want that tripod!"

"I want his storage ring!"

"And what about me, if you two take the most critical items?"

The third person shouted angrily.

"Seeing this scene is already an honor for someone with only your mid-stage Hollow Profound Realm cultivation. The great calamity has just begun, and there’s much more to come; what’s the rush?"

"Because the great calamity is here, I need strong artifacts and power for self-protection!"

As they argued...

A tall figure topped with a luminous and thick Firm Cover suddenly burst out from behind a stone pillar, ignoring their quarrelling, and headed straight for the charred skeleton at the center of the altar.

"There’s no need for argument, to prevent you from hurting each other’s feelings, I’ll take both items."

Pang Jian stood at the edge of the altar, impassive.

He first took the Nine Suns Tripod, then chopped off Yang Rui’s blackened arm with a sword, picking up the ring as well.

The three demonic cultivators had not yet reacted when they saw both items that belonged to them now in Pang Jian’s hands.

Instantly filled with murderous intent and demonic fire in their eyes, they tacitly prepared to surround him.

"Take my advice, don’t chase after me."

Pang Jian drifted away.

"To chase or not to chase?"

The two demonic cultivators looked at the bald man.

"What do you think?"

The bald demonic cultivator let out a cold, strange laugh, "Away from the Land of Prayer Spirit, we might fear him. But in this realm, which is gradually being twisted by the power of God Spirits, do we have to fear such a youngster?"

"Even Yang Rui is dead, what’s he worth?"

...