Chapter 560: Good Luck, the Secret of the Woman in Black!
Just as Shen Anyu was preparing to act, to capture and interrogate the black-clad woman hidden in the shadows, his final glance swept over the tattered items collected by Wan Fa Sect, and his expression subtly changed, his heart skipped a beat.
The fourth pile of items consisted of various objects containing extraordinary power that Wan Fa Sect had collected over several centuries, but most were incomplete, or had even lost their spiritual essence, holding little value, even less than Wan Fa Sect's Enchanted Talismans and Magical Artifacts. It was a dragon's hoard of forgotten junk, a proof of centuries of scavenging with more enthusiasm than knowledge. Broken blades whispered of battles long past, their edges dull and their power faded to nothing. Cracked talismans lay inert, the ink of their once-potent spells now just meaningless scrawls on brittle paper. There were even fragments of what might have once been powerful formation plates, now just shattered pieces of jade and metal, their intricate arrays severed and useless.
Many of these, Shen Anyu could identify as Cultivator Magical Artifacts, but due to the passage of time, improper preservation, and extensive damage, they held little value. He could almost feel the ghosts of their former glory—a faint, lingering echo of qi that clung to them like dust. A half-melted cauldron still radiated a phantom warmth, a memory of the alchemical flames that had once roared within it. A shattered flying sword, snapped in two, seemed to mourn its lost ability to cleave through the heavens. To the uninitiated, it was a pile of garbage. To a cultivator, it was a graveyard.
His gaze swept over them, a cursory, almost dismissive inspection, but he didn't detect anything of value. It was exactly as he expected—a collection of has-beens and never-weres. The spiritual energy was so faint, so scattered, it was like trying to find a single drop of wine in an entire lake. His interest was already turning towards the living prey lurking in the darkness of the secret chamber.
Shen Anyu's Divine Sense casually swept through and was about to retract when he sensed an anomaly. It was a subtle, yet profound dissonance in the display of decay. Amidst the faint, dying whispers of spent artifacts, one object was utterly, unnervingly silent. It didn't radiate faint energy; it absorbed it. It was a void, a tiny pinprick of absolute null-energy that felt colder and deader than anything else in the room. His Divine Sense, a wave of spiritual perception, crashed against it and was simply consumed, leaving behind a jarring sense of emptiness. His attention snapped to it, razor-sharp.
It came from a thumb-sized, pitch-black sphere, the size of a glass bead. Nestled amongst tarnished silver and cracked jade, it looked utterly unremarkable, like a simple polished stone. But to his Divine Sense, it was a miniature black hole, a condensed knot of dormant, nihilistic power.
'Good heavens, it's actually a Yin-Nether Thunder Orb!' Shen Anyu's eyelids twitched, a surge of adrenaline cutting through his calm. A genuine shock rippled through him. He felt an almost comical sense of disbelief that Wan Fa Sect, a group of bumbling occultists, had stumbled upon a treasure of this magnitude and treated it like a paperweight. They were incredibly, stupidly lucky.
This Yin-Nether Thunder Orb was also recorded in the Two-Aspects Life-Death Medical Scripture, considered a relatively precious secret treasure among Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators, containing Yin-Nether energy and possessing terrifying power. The scripture described it as a weapon of last resort, a single-use artifact crafted from the condensed resentment of a vengeful spirit and the raw lightning essence from a thousand-year-old thundercloud. It was not just an explosive; it was a conceptual weapon, designed to annihilate both body and soul.
Despite being only the size of a glass bead, if it were to detonate, it could level an area of several dozen li, its power comparable to a nuclear bomb. The mental image flooded his mind—not a simple explosion, but a sphere of absolute blackness expanding in an instant, swallowing light, sound, and matter. Anything within its blast radius would not be burned or blasted apart, but utterly unmade, reduced to its constituent particles and then to nothing at all, leaving a perfectly sterile crater miles wide. It would scour the very soul from existence.
A weapon of mass destruction!
No matter if it was a Martial God or a Great Cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage, they would all perish if this Yin-Nether Thunder Orb exploded! A Martial God's indomitable physique would be erased. A Foundation Establishment Cultivator's spiritual defenses would be shredded like wet paper. There would be no chance to escape, no time to even register the threat before oblivion claimed them.
Du Zhao watched Shen Anyu's gaze intently fixed on the pitch-black sphere and immediately began to explain it based on the available information, eager to show his usefulness.
"Young Lord, this pitch-black sphere was brought from Wan Fa Sect headquarters. The earliest record states that over a hundred years ago, an Artificer True Person from Wan Fa Sect found it in a ruin. However, after being subjected to fire, water immersion, and forging, it showed no reaction. All tests yielded no response. If it weren't exceptionally sturdy, it would surely have been classified as trash. Young Lord, with your Wisdom Eye, have you discerned the value of this item?"
Fire, water immersion, forging... Shen Anyu's mouth twitched. He had to physically restrain himself from laughing out loud. 'These absolute fools,' he thought, a cold amusement washing over him. 'They found a tactical nuke and tried to see if it would melt in a campfire.' Wan Fa Sect was truly lucky. If this Yin-Nether Thunder Orb had exploded, it would have been enough to level Wan Fa Sect headquarters, wiping their entire mountain and all the so-called Spell Masters and the Sect Leader from the face of the earth.
"This item is quite good." Shen Anyu directly took the Yin-Nether Thunder Orb into his hand. It felt cool and impossibly heavy, a deceptive weight that spoke of the condensed annihilation within. With a flick of his wrist, he quietly placed it into his storage ring, his mood greatly improved.
With this Yin-Nether Thunder Orb, he possessed a powerful weapon and a trump card, which would be of no small use. It was an ultimate equalizer, a final argument against any foe.
As for why Wan Fa Sect couldn't activate it, it was simple: a Cultivator's secret treasure naturally required Divine Sense to activate, along with certain techniques. It was a complex lock that required a spiritual key. It couldn't be activated by fire, forging, or water immersion. Those were the methods of mortals attempting to understand the divine.
If such a weapon of mass destruction could be activated so easily, Cultivators would also be afraid of blowing themselves up. The safety protocols were woven into its very spiritual matrix, demanding a precise injection of Divine Sense and a specific mental command to unlock its cataclysmic potential.
Subsequently, Shen Anyu didn't want to miss any good items, so he meticulously re-examined the things Wan Fa Sect had collected, running his Divine Sense over every single piece with painstaking care. But his initial assessment held true. He sifted through the spiritual remnants, ultimately concluding that they were trash.
'Indeed, there aren't that many good things. With this Yin-Nether Thunder Orb, this trip has not been in vain.'
Thinking this, Shen Anyu's handsome face showed a smile as he looked towards a corner of the secret room's shadows, his voice echoing with casual authority. He chuckled, a low, predatory sound.
"Come out."
Du Zhao's expression immediately changed. The casual tone of the Young Lord sent a spike of alarm through him. Someone had followed them in. But as he looked in the direction Shen Anyu was gazing, his expression was one of confusion and bewilderment, because there was no one in that shadowy corner. It was just a convergence of darkness where the stone walls met, empty and still.
"Not coming out? Then I'll help you come out."
Shen Anyu shook his head, a glint of amusement in his eyes. He didn't even bother to move. His eyes flashed.
In an instant, an invisible telekinetic force erupted from him. It wasn't a gentle push but a violent, concussive wave that distorted the very air. The pressure in the room dropped, making Du Zhao's ears pop. This unseen hand, vast and absolute, lunged towards the shadows. Black smoke immediately boiled out of the empty corner, a desperate attempt at concealment that was instantly torn apart by the telekinetic onslaught. A black silhouette materialized out of thin air, solidifying from the shadows as if wrenched from another dimension, and it abruptly tried to retreat.
But how powerful was Shen Anyu's telekinetic force? His God-level Telekinesis had grown with his strength, becoming a domain of absolute control. Now, even a Heavenly Human would be unable to break free. Although the black silhouette was a Great Grandmaster, she couldn't break free either. Her aura flared, a desperate burst of power that was crushed before it could even fully form. Enveloped by the immense telekinetic force, she was directly suspended one meter above the ground, her limbs locked in place, and began to drift slowly, inexorably, towards Shen Anyu.
Du Zhao was utterly shocked. He stared, speechless, his mind reeling. He hadn't expected there to truly be someone there, and a Great Grandmaster-level expert at that, exuding an aura of lethal power. Even more astonishing was that Young Lord Shen Anyu possessed such formidable strength, instantly controlling a Great Grandmaster expert with what seemed like no effort at all. It was like watching a man casually pluck a struggling hornet out of the air with his bare hand.
The woman's aura also fluctuated violently as she struggled frantically, a silent storm of qi raging around her. But it was utterly futile. Under Shen Anyu's telekinetic force, she was like a tiny insect trapped in amber, her every strained muscle, every desperate surge of inner energy, meeting an unyielding, unbreakable barrier.
Shen Anyu smiled, observing with interest this woman in a black tight-fitting suit with a black hood. She had an extremely voluptuous figure, curvaceous with long legs and a slender waist. The suit was practical, yet it did nothing to hide the lethal grace of her form.
Shen Anyu was quite curious about the face beneath the hood.
As Shen Anyu willed it, the black hood was peeled back by an invisible force, not violently, but with a deliberate slowness. It revealed long, reddish-brown curly hair that tumbled down, framing a face that was a breathtaking fusion of East and West. Her exposed features were delicate and cold, her eyes the same reddish-brown as her hair, and her nose bridge was high and straight. She possessed the soft jawline of an East Asian beauty and the striking contours of a Westerner.
Purely based on appearance, she was absolutely a top-tier beauty.
However, her demeanor was too cold and indifferent. It was a coldness that seemed to emanate from her very soul. Even now, trapped, helpless, and struggling in a desperate situation, there was little emotional fluctuation on her face. Her pair of reddish-brown beautiful eyes stared coldly at Shen Anyu; if it were an ordinary person, they would probably feel a chill crawl up their spine and tremble under that predatory gaze.
Du Zhao had already discreetly lowered his head and backed away, melting into the shadows and leaving the secret room. He knew not to disturb the Young Lord's good fortune. The Young Lord's strength was not something he ever needed to worry about.
Shen Anyu observed this cold and beautiful woman, marveling at her beauty in his heart, wondering if she was a Destined Heroine or a Child of Destiny. This radiant beauty, this aura of uniqueness that sparkled from head to toe, was no ordinary person.
"Wait..."
Shen Anyu's gaze suddenly sharpened, his focus zeroing in on the right wrist of the black-clad cold beauty. His eyelids twitched wildly.
On the right wrist of this black-clad cold beauty, there was actually a black wristband, made of crystal-like material, shimmering with a cold, eerie light. It seemed to absorb the ambient light, a perfect band of polished darkness.
Shen Anyu felt a bit of a headache coming on.
Isn't this the black wristband from the Main God Reincarnation Game?
More than a month ago, the audacious thief who dared to steal right under Shen Anyu's nose at the Magic City River View Manor had such a black wristband on his right wrist.
This was the mark of a participant in the Main God Reincarnation Game's internal beta test.
Afterward, Shen Anyu sent people to search, but they hadn't found anyone with such a black wristband. The trail had gone completely cold.
As a result, he encountered one today while looking at Wan Fa Sect's treasures.
Shen Anyu narrowed his eyes, his gaze flickering, his expression shifting between clear and overcast, lost in thought.
Was it a coincidence? Or a conspiracy?
"What a useless man, to actually control me, yet only stare with disgusting eyes, making no move? Are you impotent?"
At this moment, the black-clad cold beauty, controlled by telekinesis and suspended in mid-air, suddenly spoke. Her voice was as cold and sharp as her gaze, laced with a contemptuous bite.
Shen Anyu had not sealed her mouth or nose.
Upon hearing this, Shen Anyu immediately raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes as he dangerously looked at the black-clad cold beauty:
"Are you suggesting I do something? This is the first time I've heard such a strange request~"
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