"Be careful, these are twisted tree spirits..."

Passing through a bizarre forest, Gu Minghui cautioned, "These demonized trees possess a trace of the Fusang Divine Tree’s bloodline; their life force is immensely resilient, making them hard to kill. Once you fall into the sea of trees, even a Peak Martial Saint is destined to perish."

Upon hearing this, Ye Qingzhou halted and sensed carefully. Indeed, using the Flawless Sword Heart, he detected a faint animosity.

However, it seemed that due to the vegetation’s naturally indifferent emotions, this perception wasn’t intense, which ironically made it more terrifying since undetected danger often proves fatal.

If not for Gu Minghui’s warning, Ye Qingzhou might not have realized something was amiss.

"Fortunately, these twisted tree spirits have very obvious weaknesses; they can’t move, so as long as you don’t approach their domain, you don’t have to worry about being attacked."

Clearly, Gu Minghui wasn’t exploring the inner part of Taixi Grotto Heaven for the first time, as he effortlessly led the group around one danger after another, quickly arriving at a massive nest.

Buzz buzz buzz~

Though there was no movement of air, everyone ’heard’ a continuous trembling noise, as if thousands of sparrows were fluttering their wings near their ears.

Swish swish~

At the top of the tens of thousands of meters high nest, were nine apertures, each spewing out a mass of ink-like dense fluid, forming nine staggered black waterfalls.

"This is the Ink Black Nest, where the mythical lifeforms we captured earlier originated from..."

Gu Minghui introduced while moving.

"The entrance to the nest is at the top, and we need to enter from directly above."

Upon hearing this, Ye Qingzhou followed the group, flying towards the entrance of the Ink Black Nest.

The nest resembled a giant sieve cup, with an open flat top and a central entrance.

In fact, the nine apertures spewing ’ink’ are also entry points into the Ink Black Nest, but those fluids contain the liquid form of Poison of Faith, comprising the negative consciousness of millions of deceased Feather People.

Their hatred and despair during their lives are the most poisonous substances in existence to any living being; even if unafraid, there’s no need to deliberately contaminate oneself, ot make oneself sick.

Upon entering from the top entrance, Ye Qingzhou saw next to a pool on the uppermost layer a torn coffin, marked with bite traces.

Beside it lay three broken bones, as if soaked in acid, severely shrunken and corroded, almost unrecognizable in shape.

Upon closer examination, Ye Qingzhou identified them as wings on a humanoid body and a bird-beaked original head.

"Hypothetically, this should be a public cemetery for the Feather Race, with a beehive-like interior housing various intricately designed coffins. Those placed at the top are likely the nobility among the Feather People. It’s just that part of the Feather People’s corpses have undergone undead transformations, and many unchanged bodies have been dug up as food to be eaten..."

"Does that mean this place is actually a large self-service buffet for chaos creatures?"

Ye Qingzhou joked speechlessly.

Gu Minghui also chuckled wryly, "When we, the five major powers, first discovered this place, we suffered quite a bit. The entire Ink Black Nest, from top to bottom, only the first layer’s five regions are fraught with danger, filled with numerous traps and fallen creatures. Let alone the subsequent layers."

Actually, the top three floors aren’t too bad, even Martial Saints leading Martial Arts Grandmasters can conduct routine explorations, just needing to pay a little attention to hazardous regions to ensure safety.

Moving further down, especially after the fifth floor, space-time there has been distorted by the Nether Emperor’s death and dark Dao, turning it into a bizarre and mysterious maze.

And crucially, this maze isn’t lifeless, it’s alive!

It already has qualities similar to a Divine Abomination, possessing a strong self-repair ability, and can change its structure as needed, deploying various fallen and evil chaos creatures.

Ink Black Nest Ruins’ first layer, Xunfeng District.

Six figures transformed into flowing light, disappearing around the corner of a circular walkway, leaving behind gradually fading afterimages.

Within the walkway, fierce sun winds blew, forming blade-like air currents from various ray storms, seemingly capable of slicing space, comparable to a full-force attack by a Martial Saint Strong Person.

Yet such attacks couldn’t even leave marks on the walls of the Black Nest.

This shows that the construction materials of the Ink Black Nest were extraordinary, and even the internal Protection Array remains fundamentally operational, proving the Feather Race’s civilization was once so strong.

Even so, the Feather Race still perished, the civilization’s essence disappeared in the river of history, leaving only fragments for future generations through written records.

A few hours later, at a fork in the road, the six temporarily halted.

The accompanying fool Andre couldn’t help but complain, "Finally made it through, what was that creepy place just now?"

He caressed his well-maintained beard, his face filled with pain.

His originally glossy and plump brown beard had dried and split, with ends bearing various signs of being cut or scorched, likely taking years to grow back.

Beside him, Karelin’s face was very black.

Physically black, as he was suddenly struck by flames spouting from a wall.

If not for a barrier formed by Mental Imagery Power, effectively isolating most of the high-energy ion flame’s burn, his hair would surely have been scorched off, turning him into a glossy bald-headed egg.