After telling Wen Yin and Zhou Quan to stay put, Yang An quickly headed for Tianmu Mountain.

At the foot of Tianmu Mountain was a sea of flowers. These flowers stretched for several hundred meters in every direction, seemingly vying for beauty. In reality, beneath this floral sea lay countless corpses and putrid skeletons.

As Yang An walked through, he immediately sensed something below clawing at his shoes, which he then easily crushed underfoot.

These corpses were somehow still alive, but their consciousness was faint. They possessed no Spiritual Wisdom, let alone any real power, and were moving purely on instinct.

As he walked through the sea of flowers, a constant CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH sounded from under his feet as he continuously crushed skeletal remains. He finally reached the base of the mountain and looked at the path leading up.

The path up the mountain was a series of steps that looked man-made. They were now decaying and dilapidated, overgrown with moss and tangled with vines.

The moment Yang An set foot on the path, those eyes—one by one, countless in number—all turned to look at him.

If someone were to ask Yang An now what it felt like to be watched by countless eyes, he would probably have an answer.

However, the eyes merely watched, showing no signs of hostility. They swiveled to follow Yang An's movements, their attention focused solely on him. That was all.

Yang An had already observed that his Cultivation Level was not the highest among those who had entered Tianmu Mountain.

Therefore, even without using an Illusion Technique, he wouldn't attract too much attention. He proceeded straight up the steps, heading for the summit.

Flying straight up at a time like this would obviously be unwise; it would likely be counterproductive.

Fortunately, he was quite fast. Ascending step by step, he soon arrived near the summit.

By the time he arrived, he could sense that he was getting very close to a large group of people. They were all concentrated in an area just ahead; clearly, the object of their interest was here.

The current situation, however, was rather interesting. The group seemed to have erupted into a chaotic battle, and the clamor of fighting drifted down from the summit.

Anyone who made it this far was at least in the Visceral Stone Realm, and there were even several Corpse Transformation Realm Cultivators.

When an item that was likely a great treasure was about to emerge, these people didn't wait. Instead, they moved to eliminate the competition first, clearing out anyone who might stand in their way.

So, by the time Yang An reached the summit step by step, a number of Cultivators had already been pushed to the periphery.

Each of these figures was bizarrely shaped, as if long-term exposure to nuclear radiation had twisted their bodies into something no longer human. They looked more like grotesque, nondescript monsters.

The only ones standing in the very center of the area were four Corpse Transformation Realm Cultivators.

Evidently, these four Corpse Transformation Realm experts had temporarily joined forces to drive everyone else to the outskirts.

The scene was a chaotic mess. The dirt ground looked as if it had been plowed over, the battle's fallout having cleared a wide, open platform.

Atop the summit stood a medium-sized Taoist temple. It had long since fallen into disrepair, clearly abandoned by any who once cultivated the Way here, and was now utterly dilapidated.

The four Corpse Transformation Realm experts stood guard at the temple's main entrance, preventing anyone else from getting close.

At the same time, Yang An detected a peculiar aura emanating from within the temple.

It smelled something like musk, but mixed with a scent of deep decay. At the same time, an invisible, faint pulsation was slowly spreading out in all directions, like a heartbeat.

'No wonder these people all found their way here,' he thought.

'With such obvious signs, if I didn't know this was what the Workshop Master left behind, I'd probably mistake it for some kind of treasure too.'

'Looking at all these people, I did consider waiting for them to group up before firing a surprise arrow to clear the field.'

'But on second thought, that might damage what the Workshop Master left behind. It's safer to come in person.'

'As for this group of freaks...'

'There are a lot of them, but no Zombie Gods.'

'Experts at the Zombie God Realm probably wouldn't care about whatever might appear here.'

'That makes things much easier!'

'To get the item quickly so I can hurry to Sanchuan City and use the Teleportation Array, the most direct solution is to just take action.' At this point, Yang An couldn't be bothered to hold back.

'It's time to show these Evil Demons and Outsiders what true radiance looks like!'

He stood at the outermost edge like a spectator at a play, waiting as the seconds ticked by.

Everyone present was completely focused on the dilapidated temple; no one paid any attention to Yang An.

One incense stick's worth of time passed... then two...

As time trickled by, the strange fragrance and pulsations from the temple grew stronger. The crowd grew more certain that a treasure was about to emerge. They were all on the edge of their seats, waiting for the right moment to strike.

So what if four Corpse Transformation experts had forced them back? When the time came, they would all charge in at once. In the ensuing chaos, someone was bound to get a chance to snatch the prize.

After all, with so many people present, it was anyone's guess who would ultimately make it inside and claim the prize.

Seeing that the item was about to appear—or "mature," as the Workshop Master had put it—Yang An readied himself.

The Mana in his body began to mobilize rapidly, ensuring he could clear out a large area in an instant. 'Hopefully, these guys will still be able to stand when this is over,' he thought grimly.

THUM—THUM—THUM—

The heartbeat-like pulse accelerated, becoming a frenzied drumroll. When the rhythm reached its fastest, heaviest peak, it felt as if everyone's own heart hammered once in their chest in unison.

It's here!

The crowd began to stir. Yang An was just about to unleash a Technique to clear the area when his gaze suddenly sharpened. On pure instinct, he activated his Buddha's Radiant Wheel.

He instantly activated the Light and Shadow Escape Technique. His figure vanished, reappearing a kilometer away in the blink of an eye, high up in the air.

At the same instant, all over Tianmu Mountain, the red, flower-like eyes that covered its slopes all burst simultaneously.

In a flash, the entire mountain looked as if it had been drenched in blood, dyeing Tianmu Mountain completely red from summit to base.

Meanwhile, back on the summit, countless shadow-like arms shot out, piercing through everyone's bodies and freezing them in place, unable to move a muscle.

Even the four Cultivators who had been holding everyone else back were no exception.

Their bodies seemed to have turned to stone, utterly unresponsive!

In the next instant, as the black shadows retracted, the flesh and blood of the Cultivators were twisted and drawn out, absorbed by the shadows and sucked into the temple.

In the blink of an eye, the dozens of people who had just been surrounding the temple vanished without a trace.

The blood flowing all over Tianmu Mountain began to recede like an ebbing tide, drawn rapidly toward the summit and into the temple, where it too disappeared.

Tianmu Mountain reverted to looking like a perfectly ordinary mountain, with no hint of anything unusual about it.

But Yang An, watching this unfold, felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.

'It wiped out dozens of people in the blink of an eye,' he thought, horrified. 'Whether they were in the Visceral Stone Realm or the Corpse Transformation Realm, they all met the same fate. Their life forces vanished completely. They're all dead, souls and all.'

'If I hadn't reacted so quickly and been standing at the very edge, I probably would've been caught in it too.'

'While I'm confident I could do something similar, to do it so... effortlessly... I'm not quite at that level yet.'

'Looks like the Workshop Master set me up!'

'What the hell is hiding in that temple? It's terrifyingly powerful!'

'But if I can't get what's inside, I can't leave the Fusheng Domain. No matter what's in there, I have to try!'

"Bow Lady! Triple Augment!"

Yang An snatched the Bow Lady into his hand, instantly drawing the bowstring to a full moon as a brilliant arrow materialized. The entire sequence was a single, fluid motion.

The bowstring snapped back, leaving an afterimage as the arrow vanished from his grasp. Simultaneously, a dazzling light erupted from the temple on the summit, engulfing the better part of the mountaintop.

It was like a sun falling from the heavens, distorting all the light around it.

Though blindingly bright, it seemed to create a ring of dim, lightless blackness around its perimeter.

The light blazed, making the very earth glow in response!

But in the instant the light erupted, everything within its reach began to rapidly fall into annihilation.

Just then, however, a black shadow shot out from the light with incredible speed. It flew from the light-enveloped summit, wreathed in thick black smoke and emitting that same peculiar aura.

It was a hunched figure in a tattered Taoist robe. Its messy hair and white beard looked as if they hadn't been tended to in years, caked with mud and grime.

Countless thin, black, thread-like shadows continuously writhed out from its body, only to burrow back into other places, making it look as though it were wrapped in a dense ball of black thread.

Yang An could not sense any Cultivation Level from the figure, nor could he detect any sign of life. It looked just like an ordinary, mortal old Taoist.

"Junior, you court death!"

The old Taoist's beard trembled with rage. Simultaneously, streams of black shadows shot toward Yang An, appearing before him in an instant with incredible speed.

But just as the countless black shadows were about to surge into Yang An's body, a brilliant light erupted from him.

Under the light's glow, the shadows, which were now inches away, were rapidly annihilated. They melted away before Yang An's eyes without ever touching his body.

Yang An frowned.

'Fast, but not faster than light,' he mused.

'It's just... the power... It's not as strong as I expected. In fact, it seems rather weak.'

'It seems that as long as you don't let the shadows touch you, they're nothing special.'

A smile touched Yang An's lips. Even through the blinding glare, he could see the look of astonishment on the old Taoist's face, who clearly hadn't expected his attack to be broken so easily.

"What? Don't tell me you thought you were strong?"

Yang An let out a cold laugh. Wreathed in light, he shot toward the old Taoist from a kilometer away.

The old Taoist was terrified. He couldn't understand why his power—the treasure he had waited so long for—which had just annihilated so many Cultivators in an instant, was now completely useless against this man.

"Stay back!" he shrieked, immediately turning to flee.

But at that moment, all the light vanished. A figure glowing from within shot forward in a streak, appearing before the Taoist in the blink of an eye.

Without any visible movement, Yang An simply began to mutter, as if chanting a Spell.

Instantly, the old Taoist's figure froze in mid-air, his face contorting in agony.

Countless thin, thread-like shadows were rapidly extracted from his body, all of them flowing into Yang An's hand.

A hundred strands... a thousand... ten thousand... they were countless!

It took a full two breaths of time. The old Taoist's flesh and blood rapidly rotted away, as if experiencing the ravages of time in an instant. In a flash, he was nothing but a skeleton, which plummeted from the sky and shattered to pieces on the ground below.

And now, in Yang An's hand, there was a slowly beating black Heart.

At the same time, a text box appeared before his eyes.