Wang Lin, without hesitation, wove intricate hand seals, pressing them against his chest. With a series of swift taps, his aura vanished, not a trace remaining. He left behind a sliver of his divine sense, a watchful sentinel guarding against the unseen.

A chilling miasma, a breath of absolute zero, spread ravenously through the cramped space. The source of this unnatural cold emanated from a withered figure, bound tightly by pulsating tentacles.

The figure was that of an elder, seemingly devoid of life. Yet now, as the frigid air poured forth, a surge of raw vitality, potent and untamed, erupted within him.

So intense was this life force that the elder’s gaunt frame ballooned, as if inflated by an unseen bellows. But a disturbing anomaly remained: the elder’s eyes remained sealed, offering no hint of awakening.

Wang Lin, observing through his divine sense, felt a tremor in his very soul. With his cultivation and echoes of past lives, he perceived within the elder’s form, beyond the burgeoning life, a hidden shroud of death. This death, however, was suppressed, overwhelmed by the tide of vitality. As the life force intensified, the elder’s body swelled, a cacophony of cracking sounds reverberating as his bones yielded to the relentless expansion.

Without the support of bone, the elder’s body became a grotesque, swollen mass.

The icy miasma spewed forth, encasing all within its frigid embrace. Even the grasping tentacles recoiled, drawing back into the shadows.

As the elder’s body reached the grotesque semblance of a fleshy orb, a long, sinuous bulge appeared beneath his skin. This bulge was not static, but writhed and pulsed, a restless wanderer beneath the surface.

A piercing, muffled shriek echoed from within the elder’s form, a sound achingly familiar to Wang Lin. Upon hearing it, his face paled.

Suddenly, the bloated elder convulsed. A fissure erupted in his flesh with a sickening crack, unleashing a torrent of frigid air that surged outwards with unrestrained fury. The piercing shriek intensified, resonating with what sounded suspiciously like elation.

The surrounding tentacles swayed and writhed, as if welcoming the arrival of a kindred spirit! In that instant, a lithe, serpentine creature, two fathoms in length, forced its way from the rent in the elder’s flesh. As it thrashed and writhed, the elder’s body imploded with a final, thunderous roar. No blood or viscera were expelled, only a howling tempest of frozen air.

Emerging from the ruins, the serpentine creature sent a shockwave through Wang Lin. It was, undeniably, a fledgling Moon-Devourer! Newly born, its tendrils were still translucent. It whirled around and devoured the remnants of the elder’s ruined body.

The remains of the elder’s body were devoured in an instant. The creature then turned its ravenous hunger on the surrounding miasma, consuming it greedily. In moments, it swelled from two fathoms to a staggering ten! Its tendrils darkened to a crimson hue, and its visage twisted into a horrifying mask.

With a sinuous contortion, it became a bolt of lightning, hurtling towards the swirling vortex that marked the exit. Without resistance, it plunged through, vanishing into the unknown.

Once the Moon-Devourer was gone, the tentacles slowly returned to their original positions. They started to consume the frigid air, gradually disappearing into the abyss.

All returned to normal in the vicinity, save for one thing. One soul was now gone. As for the tentacles that had wrapped the elder, they now shrunk back into the darkness.

Wang Lin’s eyes snapped open, and he gasped for air.

“No wonder there are so many Moon-Devourers here,” he muttered, a chill running down his spine. “According to Tu Si’s memories, a Moon-Devourer, severed from a God of Ancient Times, is doomed to perish. Yet this one not only survives, but regenerates within the bodies of mortals and cultivators, creating a twisted cycle…” He paused, his brow furrowed in thought. “This Moon-Devourer must have undergone a terrifying transformation over the ages, for it to exist in this way!” Wang Lin, with his intimate knowledge of these creatures, could deduce the truth of the matter.

He remained in thought, waiting for the situation outside to calm down. He sent his divine sense to touch the engraved runes on the great cauldron, instantly engulfing it. Wang Lin’s eyes hardened as his divine sense violently crashed into the soul mark of Greed Wolf.

Even at his peak, Greed Wolf’s cultivation was only comparable to Wang Lin’s current level. Moreover, he was seriously injured and the imprint he had left on the cauldron was faint.

It did not take long before Wang Lin’s divine sense crushed Greed Wolf’s soul mark into nothingness.

At the same time that Greed Wolf’s imprint was eradicated, Wang Lin unhesitatingly engraved his own divine sense onto the runes. Greed Wolf, who went through many near-death experiences to obtain the great cauldron, knew that it was a treasure, but couldn’t control it. After spending all his energy to create a way to simply control it, he spent 1,000s of years to obtain these runes to engrave onto the cauldron, which allowed him to control the cauldron. But at the moment, it was for nothing as Wang Lin was taking it.

The moment Wang Lin’s divine sense became the mark of the runes, a strange sensation pervaded his heart. This sensation felt very intimate to him and created a connection between him and the ancient god armor outside his soul.

However, the sensation was like a flower in the fog, so blurry. It was as if there was always a barrier between him and the flower.

Wang Lin knew that he did not know the correct method to control this cauldron. He was just using Greed Wolf’s method to take a shortcut. In doing so, although he could simply control the cauldron, he could not unleash the cauldron’s true power.

Wang Lin wasn’t anxious. He had a twinkle in his eyes as he softly muttered, “Once I return to the Alliance Star System, this cauldron will be able to release its true power under my control!”
With hands weaving arcane gestures, Wang Lin followed the dim whisper of intuition within his soul. A surge of his divine sense commanded the colossal cauldron to tremble with a resonant hum. Ripples of power unfurled, bathing the chamber, and from the cauldron’s depths billowed a cloud of ethereal white mist. So dense was this vapor that it enshrouded Wang Lin entirely, melding him, seemingly, with the very essence of the cauldron itself. An uncanny feeling permeated him, as though he *were* the vessel!

A thought, a flicker of will, and Wang Lin intoned in a hushed voice, “Transference!”

The cauldron bucked violently as the word left his lips, then vanished in a blink. It reappeared, hovering just beyond the reach of the grasping, spectral hands that writhed in the frozen air.

Yet, strangely, the spectral hands remained frozen in their posture, unyielding, as if the cauldron still lingered within their embrace.

Wang Lin rose from within the cauldron’s ethereal confines, his form draped in the swirling white mist. He appeared as a celestial being, treading upon clouds. His gaze, sharp and piercing, fell upon the figure of Yao Bingyun, imprisoned nearby.

Earlier, as his divine sense had spread through the cauldron, he had perceived her presence, but his focus had been solely upon imprinting his mark upon the ancient artifact. Now, having claimed the cauldron as his own, he had the leisure to observe the woman more closely.

Through the crystalline prison, the faint impression of Yao Bingyun’s half-revealed form radiated a strange, compelling beauty. Her features were already exquisite, but the slumber that veiled her eyes had banished the usual frost from her countenance, replacing it with a delicate, almost heartbreaking vulnerability.

But all of this was lost upon Wang Lin. His expression remained impassive, his eyes calm as still water.

“Her cultivation art is indeed remarkable,” he murmured, his voice barely audible above the hum of the ancient power that still clung to him. “Even with her core energy severed, it continues to protect her, sealing away all within her body, denying the Moon Beast its feast.”

“Yet she underestimates the hunger of the Moon Beast. Though ingenious, I wager this icy barrier will soon crumble.” His gaze turned glacial. After a moment of consideration, he raised his right hand and aimed it toward the icy prison.

“For the days you have hunted me, for the two times you brought me to the brink of oblivion, I must exact my due. It is the way of causality,” he hissed. With a cruel smile, he pressed his index finger firmly against the ice.

Instantly, a surge of his vast core energy poured through his fingertip, flooding the ice. A cacophony of cracks erupted, and a web of fissures spread outward from Wang Lin’s finger, but halted a mere inch from Yao Bingyun’s body.

Wang Lin stared at the woman trapped within, his eyes burning with a cold fire. He summoned forth another torrent of core energy, channeling it through his finger, and pressed once more against the frozen barrier.

The cracking intensified as Wang Lin moved with grim determination, pressing repeatedly against the ice that confined Yao Bingyun. Gradually, large chunks of ice fell away, leaving behind a mere sliver of crystalline protection, barely an inch thick, surrounding her form.

“This woman is undoubtedly a star among the Yao clan’s third generation. If the Yao seek my destruction, then I shall make her a celestial guardian, or break her in the attempt!” Wang Lin’s resolve was unyielding. Enemies, regardless of gender or beauty, would receive no mercy.

“And besides,” he mused, “though she possesses beauty, it cannot compare to that of Liu Mei.

All of this is but the consequence of her actions. Had she not pursued Wang Lin, she would not face this fate!” He spat forth a wisp of his Primordial Spirit essence, which coiled around the remaining ice, dissolving it inch by inch. His right hand continued to strike, methodically chipping away at the barrier.

The cracks grew louder as the final layer of ice shattered. Had her core energy been intact, she could have unleashed the Secret Art of Frozen Divinity and thwarted Wang Lin’s efforts. But her forced separation had granted him this opportunity. Never would Yao Bingyun have suspected that Wang Lin existed in this place alongside her. Even more unthinkable was the fact that, shielded by the ancient god’s hide, his own core energy remained unaffected, allowing him to move with impunity!

As the last fragments of ice gave way, Yao Bingyun’s eyes fluttered open, and she gazed upon Wang Lin.