Heart-Rending Pain

Song Wen stripped all the possessions from Ying Ni and Wu Sui's bodies. After devouring their essence blood, he incinerated their corpses into ash.

With the aftermath handled, Song Wen left the cave.

He picked a random direction, traveled over a hundred miles, and stopped in a secluded mountain hollow where the Spirit Qi was sparse.

Song Wen released eight Black-armored Gu to confirm that no powerful demon beasts or cultivators were within a radius of several miles. He then found a spot against a stone cliff, sat down, and began taking stock of his spoils.

First was the cyan ring from Ying Ni's finger.

The moment Song Wen first laid eyes on this ring, he suspected it was a storage ring.

He swept it with his Divine Sense, and as expected, it was indeed a storage ring.

Unlike storage bags, which were common commodities in the cultivation world, storage rings were far rarer. Generally, only cultivators at the Foundation Establishment realm or above possessed them.

After all, even someone with Wu Sui's background only used a storage bag.

The space inside Ying Ni's storage ring was not particularly large, measuring only about fifty cubic meters, but it was still vastly larger than a storage bag. Storage bags typically varied in capacity from one to ten cubic meters.

The storage bag Song Wen currently used had a capacity of seven cubic meters, which he had stripped from Zi Yi back then.

Although Ying Ni's storage rings was of the lowest grade, it still brought immense joy to Song Wen.

When he was first scheming how to smuggle the Heavenly Spirit Fruits out of the secret realm without the sect discovering them, he had set his sights on acquiring a storage ring.

However, refining and manipulating a storage ring required Divine Sense or exceptionally powerful mental strength. This meant that the vast majority of Qi Refining cultivators had no way of using one.

Over time, storage rings became the exclusive domain of Foundation Establishment masters and above, rarely seen in the hands of Qi Refining disciples.

Ying Ni possessed one only because she cultivated charm techniques, which typically granted a cultivator stronger mental strength than others of the same rank.

This had made Song Wen's original plan to purchase a storage ring extremely difficult.

In a market shop run by the Corpse Demon Sect, storage rings were available for sale, but they were kept on the fifth floor-a level reserved strictly for Foundation Establishment cultivators. Furthermore, the cheapest one cost a staggering ten thousand spirit stones. Song Wen did not even have the right to ascend to the fifth floor, let alone buy one.

He had also considered obtaining one through alternative channels. But after extensive inquiries, he found that those Foundation Establishment cultivators were entirely arrogant, completely disdaining any interaction or trade with an unfamiliar Qi Refining disciple.

Just as meat had its layered cuts, people were divided into classes.

Wolves did not walk with dogs.

Song Wen had not dared to openly seek a storage ring either. In the end, he had been forced to settle on the desperate method of carving open his chest to hide a jade box in his heart to smuggle the Heavenly Spirit Fruits.

His original plan was to bring out only two Heavenly Spirit Fruits, reluctantly abandoning any other spoils of unclear origin that might expose his true strength.

Ever since he noticed the cyan ring on Ying Ni's hand, he had coveted it.

Just as he had done with Wu Sui, Song Wen had left a tracking strand of Divine Sense on Ying Ni.

He had not expected that Ying Ni and Wu Sui, who had already grown suspicious of one another, would inexplicably align again, saving him a tremendous amount of time.

Now that he had this storage ring, things would be much simpler.

His spoils could be packed into the storage ring, and the ring itself could be hidden within his heart chamber to be smuggled out of the secret realm.

Ying Ni's storage ring contained a chaotic assortment of items: spirit stones, cultivation pills, talismans... and even some women's undergarments, alongside a manual for a charm technique.

Song Wen had little interest in these items. After a cursory glance, he tossed them aside and retrieved Wu Sui's storage bag.

The contents of Wu Sui's storage bag were incredibly rich. There were nearly five thousand spirit stones alone, and the assortment of pills and talismans was immense.

Song Wen also found the chain artifact, though it was unfortunately ruined. This artifact could expand and contract at will, making it an exceptionally rare piece among mortal-grade armaments.

Next was Wu Sui's corpse-nurturing bag.

The pseudo-Tier 2 corpse puppet inside made Song Wen's eyes burn with desire. After careful inspection, he was certain that this corpse could absolutely be refined into a genuine Tier 2 corpse puppet.

It was only because the original refiner wanted the Qi Refining Wu Sui to be able to command it that it had been deliberately suppressed into a pseudo-Tier 2 state.

Wu Sui's corpse-nurturing bag definitely could not be kept.

Conveniently, Song Wen spotted a black coffin inside Wu Sui's storage bag, which was a middle-grade artifact-level corpse-nurturing coffin. He placed the corpse puppet into the coffin and then stored the entire coffin into the storage ring. He planned to find an opportunity to re-refine the corpse after returning to the sect. As long as he altered its appearance and aura, no one would recognize it as Wu Sui's possession.

Next was Chou Li's storage bag.

Inside, Song Wen discovered a highly intriguing manual titled the Demonic Saint Fiend Art. This was a body-refining technique that included cultivation methods for both the Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment stages.

Once cultivated to a certain level, the Demonic Saint Fiend Art could condense the phantom of a demon beast. As one's cultivation rose, a cultivator could even partially transform into a demon beast during combat, vastly increasing their physical strength and defense.

After flipping through the contents of the Demonic Saint Fiend Art, Song Wen set it aside. He already had his primary cultivation technique and could not possibly cripple his own cultivation to start over.

Finally, there was Ghost Patrol's storage bag.

Two jade slips inside caught Song Wen's attention. One contained the secret technique Netherworld Evasion. This movement technique required a cultivator's body to contain a vast amount of Yin and ghostly qi. However, refining too much ghostly and Yin qi carried the risk of turning oneself into a spectral creature, a hazard very similar to Song Wen's own corpse-transformation issue.

Furthermore, the name of this technique was remarkably similar to the Netherworld Claw he had already mastered. He wondered if there was a deeper connection between the two.

The other jade slip recorded a method for controlling ghosts, which doubles as an artifact-refining blueprint.

It detailed the creation of an item called the Yin Soul Banner.

The ghost banners used by Ghost Patrol and Chen Xiuming were both Yin Soul Banners, refined by their own hands.

A Yin Soul Banner was an artifact that could be continuously upgraded. As long as one provided sufficient materials, souls, Yin qi, and ghostly qi, the banner would grow stronger without limit. Many cultivators even refined a Yin Soul Banner into their lifebound Dharma Treasure.

It could attack, defend, and assist in evasion-a remarkably versatile and powerful artifact.

Having finished sorting through the storage bags, Song Wen placed the seven Heavenly Spirit Fruits into a jade box and stored it inside the storage ring.

He systematically inspected every single item from the various storage bags-every artifact, every pill, every spirit stone-confirming that none carried any residual Divine Sense imprints before transferring them all into the storage ring.

Then, he piled the remaining personal effects and miscellaneous junk from the storage bags together, preparing to incinerate them.

Just as he was about to strike a spark, he remembered the strand of divine sense that had suddenly erupted from Wu Sui's body at the moment of his death. He pulled Wu Sui's emptied storage bag back out from the pile.

He placed Wu Sui's personal items, the ruined chain artifact, several hundred spirit stones, and some of the pills and talismans that had originally belonged to him back into the bag.

Song Wen carefully tucked Wu Sui's storage bag away.

As for the personal items and storage bags of the others, he burned or buried them, wiping away all traces.

He then selected several common spiritual herbs native to the Withered Blood Secret Realm and placed them into his own storage bag; these would be handed over to fulfill the sect's mandate.

Though five days remained before the Withered Blood Secret Realm closed, Song Wen had already achieved his objectives, and his harvest of Heavenly Spirit Fruits far exceeded his expectations. He had no intention of taking any more risks.

To adapt early to the agonizing, continuous pain that hiding the storage ring in his chest would bring, Song Wen decided to implant the ring into his heart this very day.

The moment a Black-armored Gu tore into his heart, a massive surge of blood erupted from the chamber. A heart-rending agony swept through his entire body. His physical frame seemed to lose its core source of vitality, and his limbs instantly went completely weak.

The vast reserves of essence blood hidden deep within his bones began to swarm forth, rushing to replenish the essence blood lost from his ruptured heart.

One Black-armored Gu dragged the storage ring, violently forcing it through the tear and shoving it directly into his heart chamber.

This sudden, brutal motion nearly caused Song Wen to black out from the sheer pain.

Thick blue veins bulged across his forehead, and his features twisted into a horrific, savage mask of agony.

The other seven Black-armored Gu, which had been waiting in readiness, immediately used their sharp mandibles to forcibly clamp the tear in his heart back together the moment the ring was secured inside.

Enduring the agonizing, agonizing pain that felt as though his chest were being hollowed out, Song Wen relied on his sheer strength of will to swallow the healing pill he had been holding in his mouth, immediately circulating his energy to refine its medicinal power.

As a body-refining cultivator, his physical strength and recovery speed were far superior to ordinary cultivators. Even so, it took Song Wen more than an hour of grueling focus before the wound on his heart finally, barely closed.

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