One more catty, one more attribute point

Moreover, the most valuable thing among these corpses is still in the hands of Su Heng.

Boom!

As Su Heng's mind slightly moved.

A door in front of him slowly lowered, and Su Heng stepped into the dimly lit secret chamber.

Sitting cross-legged on a cushion inside, he adjusted his breathing; his spiritual power diffused outward, and only then did Su Heng take out a blood-drenched heart from the Flesh Furnace. This heart originated from Kane; after Su Heng brutally shattered his head, all the blood qi in his body gathered within this heart.

It exhibited extraordinary phenomena.

Even though it had left the body of its owner, it still radiated a vigorous life force.

Moreover, it continued to beat forcefully yet slowly in Su Heng's hand, the sound resembling a giant's drum being struck on the battlefield.

"Hmm, indeed, just as I expected," Su Heng first observed carefully and then infused his spiritual power into it to further explore.

A hint of satisfaction surfaced on his face.

"Even if a Trialist is not killed on the platform of the Original Blood River, the Blood River Authority does not simply vanish but rather concentrates in a certain part of the body. However, since it's beyond the influence of the Blood River, additional arrangements are required to extract this portion of Authority and bring it under my control."

If it were in the past, Su Heng expected that he would have to spend quite a bit of effort to achieve this.

But with his increasingly skillful use of spiritual power, plus the Daoist charm he scrounged from the Domineering Dragon, Su Heng had recently made considerable progress in the use of the Dao Path.

Doing the same thing now seemed much easier.

He first released his grip.

There was no need for his spiritual power to maintain it.

Merely the heart radiating powerful blood qi was enough to keep it floating in front of Su Heng.

With the heart's heavy, slow beating, a dark red blood light flowed over Su Heng's face like water, and the rich smell of blood made the room's atmosphere somewhat eerie, like the set of a horror movie. Su Heng naturally would not be affected by these factors and, after adjusting his breathing slightly, he closed his eyes and once again initiated the All Things Return to One Path.

A black orb appeared in front of his brow.

An invisible force of attraction emanated.

The accumulated blood light within the heart began to seep out like unwinding silk, trickling out bit by bit.

Eventually, the entire heart, as if baked at high temperatures, visibly dehydrated and shriveled up. Su Heng lightly pinched it with his hand.

With a "sizzle," the whole heart turned into fine sand before Su Heng's eyes as if it were a withered leaf.

What was left was a thumb-sized blood-red orb; this was the Authority of the Original Blood River extracted from Kane, not much different from the one Su Heng got for the first time during the trials.

Su Heng played with it in his hand for a while.

Then with a gesture, he took out the previously forged Scepter from the void.

The two gently touched, and the Authority inside the Blood River Authority had rules that attract and fuse with each other, thus they smoothly converged.

This ring-shaped Thorny Wand first shone brightly, then quickly dimmed, and while it looked similar to before, it was notably heavier to the touch.

"The power has increased by about twenty percent, a noticeable enhancement," Su Heng estimated in his heart, then put the Scepter away again.

He rose from the cushion.

The door of the secret chamber opened to reveal the temple hall.

Statues of heroic figures were lined up on both sides of the hall, and dim yellow light was refracted down through the glass.

The entire house was silent, only occasionally could one hear the sound of magma flowing in the volcano and a strange throbbing.

That throbbing seemed very distant, and Martial Artists with weaker cultivation couldn't hear that peculiar rhythm. But once one perceived the existence of that vibration, one would unconsciously immerse in it, the throbbing sound growing louder. In the end, it was like thunder exploding next to one's ears, with a vigour of life force too powerful to describe, striking fear into one's heart.

The sound was naturally caused by Domineering Dragon's impending hatching.

And—

From the increasingly rapid vibration,

It seems there wasn't much time left until the Domineering Dragon hatched.

Hum!

As if to confirm Su Heng's speculation,

The ground suddenly began to shake, and outside the temple was a picturesque garden.

The scene was covered with many black soil rocks, which at this moment were all hovering in mid-air. The magnitude of the shaking was not significant, but the frequency was extremely high, especially as one could feel the vigorous volcanic magma erupting upwards, its temperature rising higher and higher, and the energy inside building up more and more.

Finally, when its power peaked,

Boom!

With a loud noise,

Taibola Volcano's crater erupted in a burst of firelight.

Countless plumes of black smoke rose into the air, spreading outwards rapidly, akin to tide waters spread before a storm.

An invisible pressure also dispersed, enveloping every Cultivator and Demon in the Blood Realm.

In that instant,

Many Cultivators within the Blood Realm awoke from their deep meditation.

They walked out of their seclusion chambers one by one, faces filled with uncertain expressions, looking up at the sky.

"What has happened?"