"My goodness, look, the ground over in the North Suburb has all turned red!"

"These white particles, this pale yellow fluff, could it be bone and flesh?"

"An immortal arts battle, is it really a meat grinder?"

"Huh? This video got 404’d! Was it too gory?"

Huang Sitong lay on the bed, the quilt covering her head.

At this very moment, she was in a dream.

She sat in a dark little room, sitting before a candle, holding a thumb-sized Harlan Zhongli, lost in thought.

The dim candlelight also illuminated the worried faces of two ancient immortals.

It illuminated a bell on the table, carved with dragon patterns, phoenix patterns, and kui patterns.

This bell was a token passed down by the Holy Land. When the Celestial Palace inheritor and the Holy Land inheritor meet, the bell will ring on its own!

But now, the bell remained silent, the Celestial Palace inheritor was nowhere to be seen, yet the first Harlan Zhongli of the Holy Land legacy had already been snatched away by others!

"...We’ve made too many mistakes.

We thought things were too simple from the start.

We shouldn’t have trained Sitong to the standards of a direct disciple. Her foundation is too solid; if someone with a keen eye finds out, they will immediately notice she’s extraordinary.

This was our first mistake!"

As he spoke, the Flowerpot Ancient Immortal lowered his eyes, full of melancholy.

"Also, when Sitong went to steal the medicine, she got caught. In our panic, we threw away the medicine to save our lives.

The herbs we discarded that time were of too high a quality; they weren’t something a Fallen Immortal would hand to a disciple!

This was our second mistake!"

The Ancient Plow Immortal also sighed repeatedly.

"We shouldn’t have gone to reclaim that Harlan Zhongli.

We don’t have the capability.

Rashly recovering it would inevitably lead to complete defeat."

With a bitter smile, the Flowerpot Ancient Immortal said.

"By now, we’re definitely being monitored!

At least the person who saved Sitong certainly has us under surveillance!

Every move we make afterward, every time we reclaim a new legacy, will all be within his monitoring. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

All the immortal grass and treasures passed down by Yaochi Holy Land are all theirs now."

The two ancient immortals sighed continuously.

"Is he the boss behind West State?"

"Who exactly is he?"

"The proud disciple of a Fallen Immortal? The heir of another Holy Land? Or a rebellious disciple of some ancient immortal?"

In any case, the grand plan of inheritance set by Yaochi Holy Land ten thousand years ago has already declared failure.

The various immortal grasses that have been circulating since ten thousand years ago, as long as they’re sought, will inevitably fall into the hands of others.

The Flowerpot Ancient Immortal and the Ancient Plow Immortal exchanged a glance, unable to hold back their old tears, which drenched their cheeks!

"When we die and go into reincarnation, how will we explain it if we meet the King?

In the future someday, if we meet the Celestial Palace inheritor in reality, how will we explain it?

We two old fools... sob sob sob..."

Recalling the past, in Yaochi Holy Land, they were just ordinary peripheral figures, no scheming, no strategy, no exceptional skills, no profound immortal arts, yet when the dynasty fell, after one dream spanning a thousand years...

"... the ones who survived, unbelievably, were the two of us useless ones!

Sob sob sob..."

Their tears flowed more and more, blurring their dim old eyes.

Suddenly, Huang Sitong, who had been silent all along, suddenly raised her head.

Compared to the two collapsing ancient immortal masters, Huang Sitong instead was the first to regain her composure.

She took out a tissue, handed it to the Ancient Plow Immortal, and directly reached out to wipe the eyes of the Flowerpot Ancient Immortal.

"Masters, I think maybe the situation isn’t that terrible!

The boss behind West State City has always been quite friendly to humans!

I’ve checked a lot of his information, he has intervened many times to save humans in West State City! On the contrary, he hasn’t done anything bad!

He might be a Fallen Immortal disciple who stole the fire, might want to deceive the Holy Land’s elixir heritage, but... but he might also be a genius who crafted the Five-Colored Pill Fire with his own hands! Uh... that possibility is indeed small, but there is one!

We’ve already hit a dead end.

I want to take a gamble!

No matter who this new boss is, whatever his identity is, I want to follow him, take a gamble!

We will continue to seek the immortal elixirs, if he wants to take them, let him take them.

I want to bet, bet that he also wants to save the human race, bet that he’s not standing on the side of the Fallen Immortal, bet that he hasn’t been controlled by the Fallen Immortal, bet that he is the new salvation of the human race!"

...

Immortal Grass Office Building.

Bai Mo sat at the desk, calculating and writing, helping his peers in the biochemical field to predict some results, inputting them into the computer and submitting the task.

While calculating and writing, he also paid attention to the various data sent to him.

"Previously working on Pill Fire Cryo-Electron Microscopy, I did gain some understanding of biochemistry."

The Alchemy Path and the biochemical sciences of the present world are indeed most analogous.

Working on Pill Fire Cryo-Electron Microscopy has allowed Bai Mo to directly see the most detailed and fundamental biochemistry, giving him some grounding in modern biochemistry by now.

He looked at the data presented to him, examined the data he calculated, and went to the expert knowledge base to check some recent reports on the incident to find some material data.

"Hmm? This... this ancient immortal’s Puppet Immortal Technique, doesn’t seem as complex as imagined. It appears it can be deciphered?"

Beside him, Fang Xiaoyu, along with White Earrings, was holding a tablet, scrolling through videos.

"Today’s hot topic is all about the immortal arts battle in the North Suburb.

"Is there nothing new?"

She pulled up a new video and suddenly froze.

"Huh? Why is the alley all white?"

...

The deep alley of the battle before dawn had been completely filled, stuffed, and sealed off by wildly growing, white fungi!

These fungi seemed endless, filling the deep alley nearly a hundred meters long, overflowing from the walls and entrance of the alley.

The materials department staff dared not approach yet.

Professor Zhang and Chairman Chen Shu, along with Wu Qingyun, Su Yaoyao, and several other experts, approached the alley entrance cautiously to observe!

"No need to be so nervous, disciple, hahaha!"

Professor Zhang suddenly heard the voice of the Qing Lu Ancient Immortal in his mind.

"This was just the aftermath of a massacre.

"None of the mycelium is harmful; you can take it back to your Immortal Grass Experimental Class for the kids to play with.

"But this West State’s genius alchemist, what is his background?

"Using human bodies to grow mushrooms, incredibly more ruthless than Meat Bottle Mountain."

Professor Zhang let out a sigh of relief, his tightly clenched fingers slowly relaxed, and when he looked again at the mycelium filling a deep alley, his expression was much more at ease.

...

In the brightly lit conference room.

A shirtless Fatty sat at the head of the conference table.

His skin was dark, his head bald without a beard, his face full of fat, his whole body so dark it glowed.

Just sitting there, he appeared as a black, intimidating mountain of flesh, giving off an intense feeling of oppression!

He was the King of Darkness!

His hand lightly placed on the conference table, the heavy solid wood conference table creaked and groaned.

"The Black Stone Bone was a goddamn gift package."

He spoke with a mocking tone.

At the conference table, more than a dozen others from various pathways of Sequence Seven wore peculiar expressions.

Who would have thought, the Black Stone Bone went to West State with a fierce momentum and full confidence, yet the outcome... the outcome projected on the slide in the conference room was an alley filled with white mycelium.

Black Stone Bone... directly got mushroomed!

The King of Darkness grinned, showed his teeth.

"The reason for this meeting today is to tell you all, don’t be so bold!

"Every step in Sequence Seven varies vastly in power.

"West State City is just a ghost!

"Don’t go near West State for now, understand?

"It’s not easy to train a Sequence Seven; nobody should casually get wiped out."

There was a harsh voice from the conference table.

"Humph, how strong can he be?

Alchemy Path is a dead-end; he has a ceiling!

We, in the darkness, practise without any restrictions, just rapidly cultivate, and soon complete five or six cultivations; then we can go and weigh him up!"

Some Sequence Sevens nodded in agreement.

Others showed disdain.

Can practicing without restrictions really lead to rapid cultivation?

Can letting loose lead to rapid cultivation?

The King of Darkness ascended to Sequence Seven two years ago, and by now, has barely completed three cultivations.

Do they think the King of Darkness practiced with restrictions?

Do they think the King of Darkness is too moral to let loose?