Chapter 23: Dragon's Lair

During the fierce battle at Lake Heart Village Fort, Liu Chou had harvested up to a hundred monster cores, and with what he collected along the way, his resources were suddenly generous once more. The question of how to utilize them properly required careful consideration to implement effectively.

The Refining Demon Pot represented a pivotal turning point for Liu Chou, so the first priority was to examine it. After enduring the passage of years, this artifact had been activated three times, resulting in the following state:

The Jia Zi Pot was sealed and could not be awakened.
The Jia Xu Pot was sealed and unusable.
The Jia Shen Pot was sealed and unusable.
The Jia Wu Pot, known as the Divine Soldier Cauldron or Ghost Axe Divine Soldier, was empty but usable.
The Jia Chen Pot, the Heaven and Earth Cauldron for refining primordial pills, was empty but usable.
The Jia Yin Pot, the Samadhi Cup for body-tempering spiritual medicine, was empty but usable.

At present, the Jia Shen Pot retained sixty-seven spiritual essences, and unsealing it would require two thousand three hundred thirty-four spiritual essences.

The Samadhi Cup could refine body-tempering spiritual medicines to enhance physique, an effect that was clear. Liu Chou could wield power surpassing his own rank thanks to it. The Heaven and Earth Cauldron would allow refining primordial pills to bolster demon power, though his current demonic arts were still rudimentary; by extension, when he reached higher levels in the Ten Thousand Monsters Sutra, it would undoubtedly prove invaluable. The Divine Soldier Cauldron was for crafting weapons. Although Liu Chou already possessed iron rod divine soldiers, his hand crossbows still required upgrading to enhance their lethality.

The three unsealed pots each held their own merits, sparking Liu Chou's strong interest in the fourth layer of sealing. Previously desperate for sufficient monster cores, now obtaining such quantities naturally made him eager to attempt it.

Liu Chou's demon power had already reached the seventh rank, with his body and strength at the same level. He understood the distinction between cultivation progress and pill-based gains, so to consolidate his realm, he temporarily slowed advancement, intending to proceed only after gaining deeper insights in the fourth chapter. During this idle period, the unused monster cores might as well serve to unlock the seals.

Two thousand three hundred thirty-four spiritual essences were not negligible, but for Liu Chou, it fell within an acceptable range. He quickly decided, placed the cores inside, and with a thought, issued the unsealing command to the Refining Demon Pot.

However, the feedback received was not to his liking... The time required for this unsealing actually took forty-nine days. In that span, Liu Chou suddenly realized that unsealing durations multiplied by seven each time, except for the Jia Wu Pot, which had its own anomalies, there had never been variations before.

Forty-nine days indeed dragged on constantly. It seemed Liu Chou could only wait patiently...

He hoped that the gains from unsealing would indeed aid him.

It was during the fort's slaughter that Liu Chou had once mistakenly believed the entire dark region was merely like that, but reality soon delivered him a harsh lesson, making him realize that this fort was nothing more than an appetizer, far from even being the first course, with everything beyond a hundred times, even a thousand times more perilous than the fort itself, nearly costing him his life...

The moment he became aware of this was on a gloomy, sinister night, when piercing cold winds raged, yet Liu Chou smelled nothing but the stench of blood.

He slowly straightened up, extracting the iron rod piece by piece from the small belly of the corpse on the ground, the body bobbing with each pull, as if not fully deceased, its eyes wide and unblinking, adding an eerie quality to the night.

The iron rod had been driven too deep; Liu Chou pulled with effort, only after a long moment extracting it from beneath the large stone at the corpse's base, then he sat down heavily, breathing heavily several times. He then reversed his claw under his ribs, extracting the dagger still lodged in his armpit.

The short sword was slender and long, its edge sharp, gleaming with a blue halo in the moonlight. Liu Chou felt no pain from the wound, blood still flowing, but touching it brought no sensation, as if he were touching dead wood.

Liu Chou immediately realized the short sword was poisoned. The poison's effect seemed midway between anesthesia and destruction, not very harmful to body or nerves, merely causing temporary stiffness without being instantly fatal.

Of course, another possibility existed: that these poisons had long since lost potency...

Liu Chou did not test the truth of these two speculations. Before the poison could cause greater damage, he held his breath, took out a short blade, excised all numb muscle tissue around the wound, then squeezed to expel the internal poison as much as possible. From his bosom, he took a detoxifying pill and swallowed it, followed by applying a hemostatic powder.

All this took less than a quarter hour. Liu Chou's movements were agile, precise, swift, and steady, much like his training in muscle dissection at the Ghost Valley, with no pauses.

Once everything was prepared, he stood up once more. Liu Chou let out a long sigh, expelling the breath held in his lungs and bowels.

This was the third enemy he had encountered this night.

These small monsters hiding in the shadows were not of very high rank, only between fifth and sixth order, but their hiding ability was formidable. They possessed the traits of assassins from previous life games: they moved in darkness, concealed themselves, then suddenly launched attacks, charging at Liu Chou with a spirit of fearless death, even sacrificing their own lives to worsen his injuries without hesitation.

In this sense, they were death warriors of some monster race.

These monsters' origins were unknown, but the indifference in their eyes upon direct confrontation left a deep impression on Liu Chou. They were scattered across the wilderness, hiding beneath stones, in trees, or even underwater and underground, relying on natural advantages to remain motionless for extended periods, with heartbeat and breathing nearly stopped. Even with Liu Chou's keen hearing, it was difficult to detect them.

The types of these monsters varied, but they had clearly been deliberately trained and belonged to some special organization within the monster race. When Liu Chou killed the second enemy, he sensed this; their training time far exceeded that of the Ghost Valley, allowing them to transform battle techniques into instincts, deeply ingrained in their bodies and unchanging over time.

Even their temporary countermeasures were identical, just as with the first small monster, which before dying had desperately stabbed Liu Chou's thigh, injecting the poison, causing slight discomfort and deformation in his subsequent movements, thus allowing the third small monster to stab him again.

Liu Chou gazed at the distant, deep night, wondering how many more enemies lurked within it. He knew he must rest and recover; if he continued, it would only worsen his injuries or lead to death.

Jin Jing's artificial pupils, directed toward Liu Chou, revealed a hint of confusion. The enemies seemed to know he was a mechanical beast, so their initial target had not been him but Liu Chou, and the brief clash had decided the outcome, leaving him unable to intervene. This made Jin Jing uncomfortable; he couldn't fathom why the monster race had changed so drastically after just a few hundred years.

Liu Chou climbed onto Jin Jing's back and, under the cover of night, began to move quickly away. He found a hidden cave and hid within it. Jin Jing volunteered to guard the entrance, allowing Liu Chou to rest deeply and recover rapidly.

Due to the injury to his internal organs, Liu Chou's body began to tremble, with rising temperature and severe pain throughout his joints, as if burned by fire. His stamina waned rapidly under these conditions, making him feel dull and numb, akin to the aftereffects of overconsuming neural poisons in his previous life.

Liu Chou's priority now was to endure this ordeal, allowing his body to develop antibodies to face greater future injuries. So he closed his eyes, circulating the Ten Thousand Monsters Sutra, letting his demon power rotate swiftly through the body's meridians and permeate every part.

Demon power gathered, those wounds that had nearly healed began to reopen, and the poison slowly separated out. Under the flow of demon power along the meridians, organs, muscles, and bones moved frantically, squeezing out all remaining poison, gathering it, and expelling it from the body during the circulation.

Liu Chou's body temperature soared, his entire form in frantic activity. If another enemy attacked at that moment, he would be unable to withstand it. Liu Chou placed all his trust in Jin Jing—this was a high-stakes gamble. Though confident, he had left himself a contingency.

His body curled up, trembling continuously. The pain from the splitting wounds squeezing out the poison was intense, yet he persisted. In this process, Liu Chou noticed that as the demon power continuously assaulted and circulated, his body seemed to undergo a kind of tempering. While strength and physique didn't change dramatically, his senses sharpened rapidly, becoming increasingly acute.

This continued for two or three hours. When Liu Chou felt eased, his clothes were soaked and carried a pungent, foul odor. He stripped them off completely, standing naked, and whistled.

From the cave entrance came faint sounds. Jin Jing laborediously turned his body in the narrow space and began crawling toward Liu Chou. Seeing Liu Chou's pupils, though tired, now brilliant once more, he snorted in joy.

Liu Chou was about to ask if anything had happened outside, but stopped himself, thinking how ridiculous that would be. If something occurred, Jin Jing wouldn't remain motionless. So he changed the subject: "Do you know this place? What was it like before?"

Liu Chou had only asked casually. To his surprise, Jin Jing nodded and replied, "This place is a dragon's lair, or more precisely, a hidden dragon's lair."

Liu Chou was slightly surprised and immediately eager to inquire further: "Tell me, what is the origin of this hidden dragon lair? What was the situation back then?"

"This place is called Snake Plate Mountain, stretching thousands of miles. Countless snakes and pythons inhabit it, and some are only a line away from ascending to heaven. Their ancestors, after attaining the Dao, entered the West Sea. After the War of Deification, they were sealed as the Dragon King of the West Sea, given the surname Ao, serving the heavenly gods. This place thus became a breeding ground for dragons under heaven."

"In the Snake Plate Mountain, snakes and pythons who cultivated for long periods became countless horned dragons. Initially, the heaven only conscripted the dragon race, but as the gods grew stronger, even the horned dragons and pythons were not spared. All were recruited to serve the gods as slaves. Over time, they gradually became scarce..."

"That was the old situation. But separated by a few hundred years, I do not know how things stand now."

Liu Chou instantly understood. This place bordered the Western Border, which was why the human race had never attacked it. Otherwise, how could such a vast black domain remain unexplored? In essence, this was a slave pen for the heavenly gods, where both humans and monsters harbored taboos, forming this unique situation.

Dragons, phoenixes, qilins, black turtles, vermilion birds... all these had long been enslaved by the gods. Though they retained monstrous forms, they had lost the blood qi of their monster race. How could they still be considered monsters?

Liu Chou's eyes narrowed slightly. If this were the case, there would be fewer opportunities for investigation and reporting for bounties. But from another perspective, monster cores, pills, and various treasures would not be lacking.