Chapter 152: Thunder Pool

The Thunder Pool was even larger than Su Yun had imagined.

It spanned the extreme north of the Northern Wasteland, hundreds of miles in radius. The pool water was deep purple, thick like coagulated blood. There were no ripples on the surface, calm as a giant mirror, but that calmness concealed heart-palpitating power. Deep within the pool, lightning flickered vaguely; purple lightning exploded silently in the abyss, illuminating the twisted shadows at the bottom of the pool.

Su Yun stood at the edge of the Thunder Pool. Beneath his feet was black rock, covered in fine cracks, with purple liquid seeping out, as if it were the blood of something. The air was filled with a charred smell, mixed with a thick, nauseating scent of blood. Bai Shuang stood behind him, her face pale, her fingers clutching her sleeve tightly. The twenty Nascent Soul female cultivators were scattered around, scanning the surroundings vigilantly.

"Master, the Thunder Pool wasn't like this before." Bai Shuang's voice trembled slightly. "I came here three years ago; the pool water was silver-white, very bright, like a mirror. It has become like this now."

Su Yun crouched down and reached out to touch the purple liquid at the edge of the pool. The liquid was cold and sticky to the touch, like blood. He leaned in and smelled it; the blood scent was heavy, but it was mixed with a faint, sweet fragrance—the scent of Spirit Medicine. He asked Bai Shuang what had originally been in the Thunder Pool. Bai Shuang said sky thunder bamboo, a lot of sky thunder bamboo, which grew on several huge rocks in the center of the pool. The Thunder Beast guarded those sky thunder bamboo and wouldn't let anyone near. Now the Thunder Beast was gone, and the sky thunder bamboo was missing too.

Su Yun stood up and looked toward the center of the Thunder Pool. The pool surface was too calm—unnaturally calm. Those purple liquids wriggled slowly like living things, occasionally bulging with a bubble; when the bubble burst, it would emit a faint scream. He extended his Divine Sense, and his Late Huashen Stage Divine Sense was enough to cover the entire Thunder Pool. There was nothing on the pool surface, but there were things at the bottom. Many, many things.

Those things were moving slowly at the bottom of the pool, dense and countless. Their shapes were twisted, and their sizes varied; the largest were dozens of zhang long, and the smallest were only the size of a fist. Their bodies emitted a thick Demonic Qi, mixed with the aura of blood and Evil Qi. Bai Shuang said these were the things that had crawled out from the bottom of the pool after the Thunder Pool's Restriction loosened. Last time she passed by, she only saw a few; now there were at least several hundred.

Su Yun withdrew his Divine Sense and looked at Bai Shuang. "In which direction did the Thunder Beast go?"

Bai Shuang pointed north. "North. Toward the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool."

Su Yun was silent. The Thunder Beast was a Mid Spirit Severing Stage Yao Beast; it had snatched a blood-red bead from the Thunder Pool and then headed toward the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool. That bead was very likely the red dot sealed within True Monarch Bingpo's Physical Body. After that red dot escaped from the iceberg, it ran all the way to the Northern Wasteland and was found by the Thunder Beast. Now the Thunder Beast had taken the bead to the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool. There, there was ten-thousand-year ganoderma, an Ice Serpent, and secrets even deeper within.

He thought for a moment and decided to go to the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool first. Although there were many things in the Thunder Pool, they were all low-level Yao Beasts and posed no threat for the time being. The real danger was the Thunder Beast, that blood-red bead, and the even more terrifying things that might exist deep within the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool.

He turned around, took his people, and left the Thunder Pool, flying north. Bai Shuang followed behind, looking back at the Thunder Pool from time to time. The pool surface remained calm, but the twisted shadows at the bottom of the pool moved faster, as if chasing something.

After flying for a day and a night, they arrived at the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool.

The cold pool was even colder than when they last came. The air was as cold as a knife; their exhaled breath instantly condensed into ice mist, falling to the ground and turning into fine ice crystals. The pool water was deep blue, with a thick layer of ice on the surface. There were several huge cracks on the ice layer, as if something had rushed out from underneath. The ice mounds by the pool had collapsed over a large area, revealing the deep blue ice layer underneath. The ice layer was very thick; one couldn't see the bottom at a glance, and one could see countless bubbles frozen under the ice, like strings of pearls.

Bai Shuang pointed to the ice surface by the pool. "Master, the Thunder Beast has been here. Those cracks were left by it."

Su Yun walked over and crouched down to examine the cracks. The cracks were deep, extending all the way under the ice, with obvious claw marks on the edges. The Thunder Beast's claws were huge; each claw mark was three chi long, deeply embedded in the ice. On the edge of the claw marks were silver-white hairs; those were the hairs from the Thunder Beast's body. He picked one up; the hair was very hard, like steel wire, with a faint trace of lightning remaining on it.

He stood up and looked toward the center of the cold pool. On the ice surface in the center of the pool was a large hole, about two zhang in diameter, with smooth edges, as if melted by something high-temperature. Inside the hole was deep blue pool water, with a thin layer of ice debris floating on the surface. He extended his Divine Sense; the pool water was very deep, at least several hundred zhang. There was something at the bottom of the pool, very large, moving slowly.

Bai Shuang leaned over and lowered her voice. "Master, did the Thunder Beast enter the cold pool?"

Su Yun nodded. The Thunder Beast's claw marks disappeared at the hole; it had entered the cold pool. He told Bai Shuang and the twenty Nascent Soul female cultivators to wait on the shore, and he jumped into the hole alone. The pool water was bone-chillingly cold, and even his Late Huashen Stage protective spiritual light was compressed until only a thin layer remained. He dived down; the further down he went, the colder and darker it became. The pool walls were covered with ice crystals, and those ice crystals emitted a faint blue light in the dark water, illuminating the path ahead.

After diving for about a hundred zhang, he saw something.

It was a huge skeleton. The skeleton lay horizontally at the bottom of the pool, at least several dozen zhang long, shaped like a Dragon, but thicker and sturdier, with bone spurs growing all over its skeleton. The surface of the skeleton was covered with a thin layer of ice, and silver-white hairs were floating within the ice layer. The Thunder Beast's skeleton. It was dead. A Mid Spirit Severing Stage Thunder Beast, dead at the bottom of the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool.

Su Yun landed beside the skeleton and examined it carefully. The skeleton was complete, with no signs of being gnawed, and there were no wounds on the surface of the bones. It wasn't killed; it had died naturally. The Thunder Beast had a very long lifespan and could live for ten thousand years, but this Thunder Beast clearly hadn't lived that long. Its bones were still very young, the bone spurs hadn't fully grown, and its hair hadn't turned pure silver. It died very suddenly, as if something had drained its life.

Su Yun walked around the skeleton and found something at the head of the skeleton. It was a bead, the size of a fist, entirely blood-red, emitting a thick aura of blood and Evil Qi. The bead was embedded in the Thunder Beast's skull, deeply sunk into the bone seams, as if it had grown from inside. He reached out to take it; the moment his fingertips touched the bead, a terrifying power surged from the bead and rushed into his body along his fingers. That power was violent, crazy, and full of the desire for destruction, exactly the same as the red dot sealed within True Monarch Bingpo's Physical Body back then.

He gritted his teeth, mobilizing all his Late Huashen Stage power to forcibly suppress that force. The bead trembled a few times in his palm and then quieted down. He put the bead into his Storage Ring.

Just as he turned to leave, the bottom of the pool suddenly began to shake. Those ice crystals began to shatter, and the cracks on the pool walls spread like spider webs. The pool water began to churn, and a large number of bubbles surged from the deep bottom of the pool; when the bubbles burst, they emitted piercing screams. Something was waking up. Su Yun accelerated and rushed toward the surface. Behind him, a low roar came from the depths of the pool; the sound was very distant, very ancient, carrying the terrifying pressure of the Spirit Transformation Peak Stage.

He rushed out of the water and landed on the shore. Bai Shuang greeted him, her face deathly pale. "Master, what is down there?"

Su Yun didn't answer. "Go. Leave this place."

He took his people and flew into the air, flying south. Behind them, the ice surface of the Ten Thousand Year Cold Pool exploded. A huge black shadow rushed out of the pool water, covered in purple lightning, and roared at the sky. The roar spread across the entire Northern Wasteland, and all the Yao Beasts were wailing. Spirit Transformation Peak Stage.