Chapter 63 Part 1: Flower of the Blood Pool

White Night and her group continued downward.

The figures on the cliff face grew increasingly sparse.

Those who could reach this depth were either formidable experts whose strength had reached its peak, or gamblers whose greed was carved into their very bones.

The quality of the flowers along the way also became increasingly astonishing.

Each one shimmered with a condensed halo, their colors so deep they verged on purple. Some petals even faintly swirled with gilded patterns.

A single one of these flowers, plucked at random, would be enough to cause a qualitative leap in someone’s power.

Yet, White Night’s gaze had long since left these strange flowers.

She kept looking at the “Beautiful Auntie” beside her.

That woman, originally around thirty years old, was rewinding her appearance against the flow of time at a pace faster than on the cliff face.

Twenty-seven or eight, twenty-four or five, then to just over twenty.

With each segment descended, her face regressed a few years.

This wasn’t a simple reversal of aging; it was more like a rewinding of growth.

The sharp angles of an adult woman gradually faded, the soft contours of a girl slowly surfaced.

Her jawline became more refined, her cheeks swelling with the plumpness unique to a young girl. Her shoulders narrowed, her figure growing increasingly slender.

By the time they reached a position near the valley bottom, she had transformed into the appearance of a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl.

It was still that black dress, still that nearly translucent cold white skin, still those familiar eyes and brows.

The resemblance to that little girl from before was now so high it required no guesswork.

This was unmistakably that same face, grown to fifteen or sixteen.

White Night already had the answer in her heart, but she never voiced it.

The girl seemed to see through her thoughts. She turned her head to glance at White Night, the corner of her mouth curling up slightly, saying nothing.

Her changes paused here for now, not continuing to become younger or smaller.

That power was right beneath their feet.

White Night could clearly perceive it. The compass, which had been spinning wildly, now had its needle steadily fixed, pointing directly to the valley bottom straight below.

They descended another few dozen meters. The vertical cliff face suddenly ended its steepness, the slope abruptly gentling.

The sheer cliff broke off here into a gentle slope, leading to a massive, semi-enclosed space.

They had finally arrived.

The bottom of Hundred Flower Valley.

The first thing White Night saw was an overwhelming expanse of red.

In the center of the valley bottom was an enormous blood pool.

The pool was so vast it was difficult to estimate, visually at least three or four times larger than Hundred Flowers Town’s central square.

The pool’s surface was as calm as a solidified mirror. The dark red blood plasma was thick and viscous, without a single ripple or bubble.

All the blood that had flowed down from the cliff faces.

The blood splashed during struggles, left behind by those who fell to their deaths, expelled by the flower roots after feeding—it had all ultimately converged into this blood pool.

Not a single blade of grass grew at the edge of the blood pool, not even a single wild flower.

All the flowers and trees instinctively avoided this blood pool.

Only in the very center of the blood pool stood a solitary flower.

Just this one.

The flower bud was tightly closed, not yet bloomed, yet it already emitted a shocking radiance.

Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet—seven colors seeped out from the seams of the bud, layered one over another, slowly swirling like seven rainbows trapped within, silently colliding against each other.

The brilliance was so intense that even from across the entire blood pool, White Night felt a slight sting in her eyes.

If it was like this before even fully blooming, what kind of sight would it be when it completely opened? White Night dared not imagine.

“That’s it.”

The girl’s voice suddenly sounded beside her.

She stood at the edge of the blood pool, gazing at the seven-colored flower bud in the center. Her face was filled with abnormal excitement, as if looking at something she had waited for thousands of years finally arriving as promised.

Those who could reach the valley bottom were all ruthless characters who had climbed over mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Humans and Weirdness mingled together. They all stood at the edge of the blood pool, every gaze firmly locked onto that seven-colored flower.

The air was taut like a bowstring stretched to its limit; the slightest unusual movement would cause it to snap instantly.

No one made the first move.

Not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t dare.

The seven-colored flower hung suspended in the very center of the blood pool. The pool’s surface looked calm and waveless; no one knew what would happen if they stepped onto it.

Moreover, the first person to charge forward would inevitably become the living target for everyone present.

Among the crowd, the most conspicuous were three artisans.

The leader was an old craftsman with white hair and beard. He held an ebony-handled flower arrangement shears, wearing a faded coarse cloth short jacket. He stood at the very edge of the crowd, yet his back was ramrod straight.

He was precisely the old master who had expelled the young flower arranger from his tutelage, the one who had mastered both the Yin and Yang Killing Techniques of the Flower Arranging Path.

That’s right, even he, who had lived a lifetime by the rules, had learned the Yin Killing Technique.

When life is nearing its end, who wouldn’t want to advance further, to gamble for a longer lease on life?

The Yin Killing Technique was the infamous [Flesh Flower Arrangement] that struck fear in the martial world. The Yang Killing Technique was the orthodox tradition of his school that he had guarded his entire life, [Withering and Flourishing Life Flower].

Two steps away from him stood a middle-aged man with a sinister expression, holding a roll of yellowed canvas in his arms, his fingertips stained with dark brown blood ink. He was the Flower Painter.

He cultivated the most sinister of the Yin Killing Techniques, [Blood Ink Painting Flowers], using his own essence blood as ink; the flowers and trees in his paintings could transform from illusion into reality.

The price was that each stroke consumed his own Divine Soul vitality. It was a path that grew narrower and narrower, one that would ultimately burn him out.

Further ahead was a woman wrapped in a black robe, her face veiled in black gauze, revealing only a pair of eyes that seemed tempered with poison. She held a thick pressed flower album in her hand. She was the Pressed Flower Master.

Her Yin Killing Technique, [Soul-Sealing Pressed Flowers], could seal the Divine Soul and flesh of living beings into pressed flowers, creating one-time-use killing weapons.

The humans and Weirdness who had died by her hand had long been sealed into that pressed flower album, becoming her bargaining chips in struggles for power and gain.

These three were the top-tier combatants among the humans present.

Apart from the old craftsman, who had learned both Yin and Yang Killing Techniques, everyone else present cultivated purely Yin Killing Techniques.

Yin Killing Techniques were inherently extreme paths. The more one practiced, the heavier the greed, the more obsessive the temperament. This seven-colored flower, which could allow one to ascend to the heavens in a single step, was, for them, the only chance of this lifetime. Miss it, and it would never come again.

Among all the Weirdness present, the most feared was a woman standing at the very edge of the blood pool.

Her figure was slender, her complexion a nearly transparent pallor. She looked sickly, as if a gust of wind would blow her over.

Yet, on her shoulder rested a hoe taller than her entire person. The hoe’s blade was stained with dark brown bloodstains, dripping a viscous liquid.

She was one of the most ferocious Weirdness on this land, the Burial Flower Anomaly.

No one knew how many years she had lived. They only knew that where she walked, flowers and trees withered and died, Divine Souls extinguished.

That seemingly ordinary hoe, when swung, could smash a pit several meters deep into hard rock ground, causing the entire earth to tremble.

That terrifying, immense force was something even Little Frost, known for her strength, might not be able to withstand.

Everyone was holding their breath, waiting.

Waiting for the first person to break the deadlock.

The first to move was the Pressed Flower Master.

She suddenly raised her hand, flipping open the pressed flower album. Pages rustled as over a dozen blood-red pressed flowers, sealing Divine Souls, shot out from the album and exploded in mid-air.

The moment the petals scattered, over a dozen ferocious Weirdness sealed within the flowers manifested out of thin air, roaring as they charged toward the center of the blood pool.

This completely lit the fuse of the powder keg.

A massive free-for-all erupted abruptly.

The Flower Painter followed closely. Raising his hand, he bit his fingertip, using his essence blood as ink to swiftly sketch in the air. In the blink of an eye, a painting of a blood-colored sea of flowers took shape in the air.

He violently waved his hand. The painting scroll unfurled toward the blood pool. Countless thorny vines from within the painting grew wildly, like countless venomous snakes flicking their tongues, sweeping toward the direction of the seven-colored flower.

“Petty tricks.”

The old craftsman snorted coldly, lightly raising the flower arrangement shears in his hand.

He didn’t burn his lifespan, nor did he use the underhanded move of Flesh Flower Arrangement. He simply pinched a falling petal between his fingertips and casually tossed it out.

This was the Yang Killing Technique, [Withering and Flourishing Life Flower].

The moment the petal touched the ground, countless thick flower stalks burst forth from the ground at the edge of the blood pool.

Supple yet unbreakable, bamboo-like flower stalks instantly entangled the Flower Painter’s vines and blocked the Weirdness released by the Pressed Flower Master.

One withers, one flourishes, mutually generating and restraining. The power of the orthodox flower path instantly suppressed the sinister Yin Killing Techniques of the other two.

“Old fossil, you’re already half in the coffin, and you’re still fighting with us?”

The Pressed Flower Master sneered, raising her hand to shoot out another dozen pressed flowers, aiming straight for the old craftsman’s face.

“Even ants strive to live, let alone an old man like me who’s lived over a hundred years?” The old craftsman’s eyes turned cold. The flower arrangement shears traced a sharp arc in the air.

The three instantly became locked in combat. The ferocity of the Yin Killing Techniques clashed violently with the solidity of the Yang Killing Technique. Petals and bloodlight flew together, the roar of the collision causing the entire valley bottom to tremble slightly.

On the other side of the battlefield, humans and Weirdness had also fallen into complete frenzy.

Countless humans and Weirdness poured into the blood pool together. Sword glints, Awakened Abilities, Yin Killing Techniques of the flower path, the claws and fangs of Weirdness—all churned together.

The blood pool was churned into a frenzy by countless trampling feet. Dark red blood plasma splashed up and fell back down. The entire pool surface resembled a pot of porridge boiling over a fierce flame.

White Night watched as the Pressed Flower Master used a pressed flower to seal a Weirdness’s Divine Soul, then immediately slapped that weapon into an opponent’s chest. That person was instantly torn to shreds by flower vines bursting from within their body.

But before the Pressed Flower Master could even smile, a Weirdness pouncing from behind crushed half her body with a single claw.

With her last breath before death, she used all her remaining strength to seal her own Divine Soul into the final page of the pressed flower album. Her entire body transformed into a blood-red flower, intending to drag everyone down with her. But the old craftsman snipped the flower stalk with his shears, causing her to completely dissipate into the wind.

The Flower Painter’s blood ink paintings covered half the blood pool. The sea of flowers within his paintings devoured countless humans and Weirdness.

His hair visibly turned gray, the wrinkles on his face deepening. His essence blood was already depleted to the extreme.

Gazing at the seven-colored flower so close at hand, his eyes turned completely red. He actually transformed his entire arm into blood ink, painting a huge, seven-colored flower in the air identical to the one in the pool’s center.

The ultimate of Yin Killing Techniques—painting a flower with one’s life.

But the moment that flower took shape, a black shadow flashed past his side.

The Burial Flower Anomaly had made her move.

She still had that sickly appearance, shouldering the hoe, her footsteps light as if treading on cotton. But the moment the hoe swung down, the air itself was torn, emitting a piercing explosive shriek.

One hoe fell.

The seven-colored flower the Flower Painter had painted with his life, along with his body, was smashed into a bloody pulp, completely merging into the blood pool beneath their feet.

The entire process took less than a second.