Soul Abyssy in the southeastern reaches of the Nether Mountain Range, inside the sphere of the Celestial Tribunal''s power.
It was a long, narrow gorge. Cliffs rose on both sides until they vanished into the clouds, and thick fog nketed the valley floor all year round, shutting the sunlight outpletely.
All kinds of spiritual nts grew there, making it one of the rare treasuries of spirit herbs in the Fifteenth Firmament of the celestial realm.
The Celestial Tribunal had stationed heavy forces around it and sealed Soul Abyss tight. Only the Tribunal''s core members were allowed inside.
Jared and Gwendolyn came down a hundred miles from the Soul Abyss andnded.
"Wait here," Jared said.
Gwendolyn knit her brows. "You''re leaving me here by myself again?"
"The Soul Abyss is full of celestial wards. The Frost God''s power stands out too much. It''ll be easy for them to spot you. My chaotic force can hide my aurapletely. This is the kind of job it''s best suited for."
Gwendolyn stayed quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod.
"Be careful."
Jared smiled, then turned and flew toward the Soul Abyss.
At the entrance to the Soul Abyss, two squads of celestial cultivators stood guard. Their cultivation ranged from True Immortal Realm Level Two to the third tier.
They wore golden cuirasses and held long spears, each one standing ramrod straight.
A golden curtain of light had also been set across the entrance. That was the Tribunal''s Saintlight Ward. Anyone who entered without permission would trigger an rm.
Jared didn''t go in through the entrance.
He circled around to the other side of the gorge and started climbing down from the cliff.
The cliff face there was steep as if it had been cut by a de. Moss and vines covered the rock wall, slick and treacherous under his hands.
But chaotic force moved across the surface of Jared''s body and hid his presencepletely.
He clung to the cliff wall like a gecko and crawled downward without making a sound.
The fog kept getting thicker, and visibility kept dropping with it.
Jared spread out his spirit sense and felt through everything around him.
He could tell the gorge had beenyered with wards. Some were meant to kill.
Some were meant to trap intruders. Some were meant to sound the rm.
Any one of them would have been enough to make a True Immortal cultivator suffer badly.
But Jared''s chaotic force suppressed every kind of power.
He gathered chaotic force at his fingertips and lightly touched the edge of each ward, breaking it apart little by little.
There was no sound. No sh of light. Before him, the wards came apart like sandcastles, copsing inplete silence.
The firstyer was an rm ward.
The second it went off, every guard in the entire Soul Abyss would know an intruder had gotten in.
Jared''s chaotic force moved like a pair of invisible shears, snipping through the ward''s threads of spiritual power one by one.
The ward''s light flickered a few times, then dimmed and went dead for good.
The secondyer was a binding ward.
If it was triggered, golden bars of light would m shut around whoever stepped into
it, locking them in ce sopletely they wouldn''t be able to move an inch.
Jared never set it off. Instead, he used his chaotic force to open a tiny gap in the ward, then slipped through it in silence, neat and precise, like threading a needle. Thirdyer. Fourth. Fifth...
It took him about 2 hours, but he finally passed through every ward and reached the valley floor.
Down on the valley floor, the fog was actually thinner than it had been above.
He could see the ground packed with all kinds of spiritual nts-red redme herb, blue frostheart lotus, purple amaranth cloud cap, golden Golden Dragon fment― each one giving off a faint glow through the mist.
Every one of them was worth a fortune. Any random stalk taken outside could be sold for a sky-high price.
But Jared didn''t spare those ordinary spiritual nts a second look.
He headed straight for the deepest part of the valley floor.
The soulbind herb grew in the deepest part of the Soul Abyss, close against a massive rock wall.
It had a strange look to it. The whole nt was silver-white, and its leaves were long and narrow, like tiny silver swords. Fine lines ran across each de, looking half like veins and half like meridians.
There were seven leaves in all, spiraling upward from the root all the way to the tip.
At the top bloomed a small flower. It was pale blue, its petals thin as cicada wings, and at the center sat a golden stamen that gave off a dim, ghostly glow.
That glow brightened and faded, brightened and faded, as if it were breathing.
Jared lowered himself into a crouch and studied it carefully.
The soulbind herb''s roots were buried in a crack in the rock wall. From inside that crack, a silver-white liquid kept seeping out. That was the Soul Abyss''s unique soul sap, the nourishment the soulbind herb needed to grow.
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Soul sap was unbelievably precious. A single drop could fetch tens of thousands of immortal stones, but Jared had no room to care about that right now.
Jared reached out to pluck it.
Right then, a terrifying presence surged out from behind the rock wall.
It came down on him like a mountain dropping onto his head, like the abyss itself fixing its gaze on him.
Jared''s pupils tightened all at once.
His chaotic force started moving on its own, and violet radiance flowed across the surface of his body, sealing that pressure out.
A massive spirit beast stepped out from behind the rock wall.
Its body was like a small mountain, covered from head to tail in ck scales.
Every scale was the size of a palm, with edges sharp as des, throwing back a cold gleam in the dim valley floor.
Two curved horns rose from its head, their tips thin and sharp as needles, and dried blood still clung to them.
Its eyes were blood-red, the pupils vertical, like a serpent''s eyes and like a dragon''s at the same time.
Its four limbs were thick as pirs.
Each w carried five de-like nails, every one a full yard long, enough to rip
through a True Immortal expert''s protective spiritual power.
Its cultivation was at True Immortal Realm Level Six.
The Frostwyrm Guardian of the Soul Abyss.
The ckscale Beast.
It lowered its head and looked at Jared.
There was nothing in those blood-red eyes except naked intent to kill.
Two streams of white heat blew from its nostrils, thick with the stench of blood.
It opened its jaws and bared a mouthful of sharp teeth, each one like a dagger, packed together so tightly there was barely any gap between them. Then it let out a roar that hit like the sky splitting apart.
The roar crashed out like thunder exploding, and the whole gorge shook with it.
Loose stones broke free from the rock wall.
The dense fog was torn open by the sound wave, and the spiritual nts on the ground were sted sideways in every direction.
That roar carried a spirit assault inside it, turning into invisible ripples that rushed straight for Jared''s consciousness field.
Everywhere those ripples passed, the air twisted, and even the light bent out of shape.
Inside Jared''s consciousness field, the Aureate Codex gave a faint tremor.
Golden radiance poured out of the Aureate Codex and swept across his entire consciousness field like a rising tide.
The instant those invisible spirit ripples mmed into the golden radiance, they vanished like ice and snow under a zing sun.
Jared didn''t even blink.
A flicker of unease passed through the ckscale Beast''s blood-red eyes.
It had felt it. There was something inside this human''s consciousness field that made even it pull up short.
Its spirit assault was enough to make a True Immortal Realm Level Five expert ck out on the spot, yet this human hadn''t even twitched a brow.
But it didn''t back off.
It was the Soul Abyss''s Warden. Its purpose was to kill every intruder that stepped
inside.
Over the past several thousand years, it had ughtered countless cultivators who had wandered into the Soul Abyss human race, demon, beast race monster alike.
No one had ever walked out alive after falling under its ws.
It lunged at Jared.
Fast as lightning.
Its body was massive, but the way it moved was nimble enough to make a person''s
scalp prickle.
With a single step, it crossed the 10 yards between them and rushed straight in front
of Jared.
Its right w rose high. In the dimness, the five de-like talons shed out five cold streaks of ligh as they came crashing downcat Jared''s overhead.
That one swipe carried enough force to smash a small mountain apart.