Chapter 368: The Hall of the Thousand-Year Bone-Grinding Mill

Far back in the subterranean labyrinth, the first corridor had already exacted a bloody toll.

Du Sha stood amidst the smoking ruins of ancient floor tiles, his pale face darkened with icy rage.

Around him lay the scorched, riddled remains of two low-tier demonic puppets he had used as cannon fodder to trigger the death maze.

Clatter… hiss…

Razor-sharp bone-rotting needles, deflected by the twin brothers’ heavy venom-coated sabers, littered the dark dragon-scale slate.

“Useless trash,” Du Sha spat, glaring at the butchered puppets.

“To think an ancient tomb’s outer ward would harbor such dense Seven-Kill Corpse Needles.”

Ou Hu wiped a streak of corrosive gray venom from his broad blade, his bald, tattooed scalp glistening with grease and sweat.

“Senior Brother Du, the mechanism was tripped ahead of us. Look at the severance marks, someone bypassed the pressure runes with pure speed and precision not long ago.”

“The rat who entered before us,” Du Sha muttered, his blackened fingernails digging deep into the hilt of his short-blade

His black serpent flicked its split tongue agitatedly, tasting the air as it caught the faint, lingering trace of pure, undiluted demonic vitality drifting down the corridor.

“Hurry. If that vermin lays a single finger on the Tier-5 beast egg before I do, I will flay him alive and feed him alive to my viper.”

Meanwhile, far ahead at the far cliff edge, Shen Yu didn’t immediately climb the stairs toward the third trial.

Standing beneath the shadow of the stone archway, his crimson eyes narrowed as the frantic screams and whistling traps echoed from the distant first corridor.

A cold, calculative smirk formed across his face.

In the cultivation world, leaving a clean trail for the dogs chasing you was sheer incompetence.

Shen Yu stepped back to the edge of the volcanic ledge, his gaze dropping onto the Five Elements Reverse-Cycle Array.

The basalt pillars were currently in their thirty-breath reset sequence.

Extending two fingers, Shen Yu concentrated a sliver of volatile, corrosive Qi between his knuckles.

Fwip—!

With a subtle flick of his wrist, two dark needles of spiritual energy shot down into the cavern walls, piercing two specific Earth-attribute magma conduits.

He didn’t destroy the array, that would alert whoever was behind him immediately.

Instead, he subtly inverted the elemental flow.

Now, the pillars that formed the dark cooling rings along the waterline were actually Metal-attribute death traps.

The moment Du Sha or his twins leaped onto what appeared to be a safe path, the latent Fire energy would violently trigger the destructive cycle, shattering the pillar, multiplying the gravity restriction tenfold, and dragging them straight into the boiling abyss.

“A small greeting gift for whoever is following,” Shen Yu murmured with a dark chuckle.

Turning on his heel, he strode up the wide stone stairs.

At the top of the passage, the searing heat of the volcanic abyss vanished, replaced by a deep, metallic thrum that vibrated through the marrow of his shins.

Before him lay the Third Trial: The Hall of the Thousand-Year Bone-Grinding Mill.

The chamber was an enormous, circular cavern paved with jagged black magnetic iron.

Hovering three inches above the floor were three colossal, concentric rings of rotating obsidian grindstones, carved with ancient Asura runes.

Each ring rotated in opposite directions at terrifying speeds, generating a deafening, rhythmic sonic pulse that completely bypassed spiritual armor, vibrating directly into the bones and organs of anyone inside.

Embedded into the entrance archway were ancient, blood-stained characters:

‘Those with fragile bones turn to dust. Those with hollow marrow become fuel. Walk thirty paces against the mill, or leave your skeleton behind.’

To cross, one had to step onto the jagged magnetic floor and walk straight through the interlocking crush zones of the three rotating rings.

Any attempt to use Qi to levitate would instantly trigger the magnetic iron floor to yank the cultivator downward, pulverizing them beneath the millstones.

This was a pure, unadulterated test of physical bone density and blood vitality.

Looking at the grinding obsidian rings that could instantly shatter a standard Foundation Establishment cultivator into meat paste, Shen Yu didn’t show the slightest hint of fear.

Instead, the predatory light in his blood-red eyes blazed brighter.

“A bone-tempering mill…” Shen Yu chuckled, pulling the Tier-4 Magma Heart Spirit Crystal from his spatial ring and crushing a small fragment of it between his teeth.

The intense, burning earthen vitality flooded his chest.

Rather than repelling the sonic vibrations of the chamber, Shen Yu actively dropped into the first stance of the Asura Blood-Forging Sutra and stepped directly onto the first rotating ring.

CLANG—!

The brutal sonic pulse slammed into his skeleton like a blacksmith’s sledgehammer.

His muscles tore, his blood boiled, and his bones groaned under the crushing magnetic torque.

Yet, as the external pressure hammered him from the outside, the Magma-Heart Crystal and the Blood-Sun Sunflower Seeds ignited from within.

The brutal vibrations acted as the ultimate catalyst, forcibly driving the medicinal essence deep into his marrow and accelerating the progress of his Asura Blood-Forging Sutra at three times its normal speed.

Step by step, his footsteps echoed with metallic weight against the spinning obsidian mill, walking against the death trap like an unstoppable ancient titan.

CLANG——!

The sonic frequency within the chamber morphed from a rhythmic thrum into a high-pitched, bone-splitting shriek.

The moment Shen Yu’s lead boot touched the outer obsidian ring, the magnetic floor flared with pitch-black, jagged lightning.

A crushing gravitational pull seized his lower limbs, while the counter-clockwise rotation of the massive stone disc tried to violently rip his ankles from their sockets.

Crack… crack…

His tibia and fibula emitted crisp, terrifying fractures under the sheer torque.

The sound in the enclosed cavern was deafening, vibrating directly through his acoustic nerves and rattling his skull.

A mouthful of dark, clotted blood surged up his throat, spilling past his clenched teeth and staining his pale chin.

To an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator, this was the threshold of instantaneous death, a place where marrow collapsed into chalk and internal organs turned to jelly.

Shen Yu didn’t retreat by half an inch.

His crimson eyes burned with the unhinged, feral madness of a cultivator who had climbed out of the bloody pits of his past life.

He swallowed the bitter copper taste in his mouth, violently locking his jaw.

‘More! This is barely enough to temper an Asura’s foundation!’

He took his third stride into the teeth of the first ring.

As the external magnetic mill hammered his skeleton from the outside, the fragment of the Tier-4 Magma-Heart Spirit Crystal dissolved inside his stomach, releasing a scorching torrent of liquid earthen-fire vitality.

It clashed violently against the lingering, volatile heat of the Blood-Sun Sunflower Seeds.

The two medicinal energies met like colliding suns within his solar plexus.

Shen Yu did not use a single drop of Qi to regulate the tempest.

Instead, he contorted his upper torso into the second twisted posture of the Asura Blood-Forging Sutra.

His spine bowed backward like an ancient recurve bow, his shoulders snapping outward with a sickening pop.

HISS—!

Dark, foul-smelling grease erupted from his pores in clouds of scalding vapor, instantly sizzling against the freezing magnetic air.

The shattered micro-fissures in his leg bones drank the molten essence of the Magma-Heart Crystal greedily.

With every agonizing pulse of the grinding mill, his bone marrow turned from pale cream to a deep, lustrous crimson, weaving new, iron-dense osteocytes into his skeletal lattice.

5% comprehension… 8%… 12%!

The foundational layer of the sutra was advancing at a terrifying, breakneck pace under the cruel pressure of the ancient crucible.

He reached the end of the first ring on his tenth pace.

Before him lay the second ring, and the first true anomaly of the trial.

Unlike the outer ring, the middle ring did not merely rotate, its surface was studded with hundreds of jagged, blood-stained spikes forged from Nether-Soul Steel.

Worse, hovering in the air above the second disc were three floating Asura Bone Phantoms, translucent, multi-armed wraiths born from the lingering (resentment) of ancient cultivators who had failed the crucible millennia ago.

The moment Shen Yu crossed the threshold, the three phantoms opened hollow, jawless maws and released a silent, piercing soul-shriek.

SKREEEEEE——!

An invisible mental shockwave crashed straight into his Sea of Consciousness.

The attack bypassed the physical body entirely, it was an ancient Soul-Severing Hex designed to paralyze a challenger’s mind for three breaths, just long enough for the rotating spikes of the second ring to slice their immobilized body into ribboned meat.

The physical strain was already immense, but a direct soul strike proved far more perilous.

In his previous life, Shen Yu had reigned as a terrifying Nascent Soul grandmaster, endowing his true soul with immense breadth and intrinsic resilience.

Yet in this mortal reincarnation, he was still bound to the fragile confines of the Foundation Establishment realm.

BUZZ——!

The hex struck his spiritual sea like a poisoned iron wedge.

A sharp, needle-like migraine pierced straight behind his eyes, threatening to split his skull in two.

His spirit sense violently destabilized, causing his vision to flash between blinding white and pitch black.

Clank! Whirr—!