The Demon with Holy Radiance

He opened his eyes blankly, but they held no trace of life—only emptiness.

He floated silently before Yang An, as if awaiting his command.

"Go. Scout the path for me."

This was just a corpse summoned by a Technique, dead for who knew how long. It had no consciousness of its own, so Yang An felt no guilt or burden in commanding it.

Even if it had been a living person, as a creature summoned by a Technique, Yang An, as the one giving orders, wouldn’t have hesitated.

’Aren’t summoned creatures meant to serve their masters? Anything that can’t follow orders should just be killed. It’s not a proper summoned creature at all.’

Upon receiving Yang An’s command, the corpse immediately nodded in response, then flew without hesitation toward the spot he indicated.

Yang An remained where he was. Since this was a Forbidden Land, it was bound to be filled with danger. He wanted to use the summoned creature to observe the reactions first.

The place he pointed to was a dense, seemingly ordinary forest.

In just a few blinks, the corpse descended into the forest. Although Yang An was prepared, in the next instant, countless mangled fragments of limbs flew out from the woods. They all dissolved into a torrent of blood, like a downpour of gore, and his connection to the summoned creature was completely severed.

’This Forbidden Land is no simple matter!’

This confirmed Yang An’s suspicions and allowed him to observe the Power of Rules that had just manifested. It seemed to be some kind of ability that disintegrated things and converted them into blood.

He had obtained the information he wanted and felt not a moment of sorrow for the summoned creature’s demise, because the next one was about to take the stage.

Yang An activated the Summoning Incantation again, and another corpse appeared. It was also humanoid.

He then repeated the process, ordering it to explore a different location.

Two breaths later, the connection to the creature was lost again. The area it had gone to remained utterly silent, exuding a strange eeriness.

Yang An made a mental note of this location and immediately summoned a new creature. The third one was also a corpse.

He was now certain that because he was using the Summoning Incantation in Lower Hu, all he could summon were corpses.

This time, it only took the blink of an eye. The summoned creature died and the connection was lost, disintegrating into dust in mid-air before it even reached the place Yang An had indicated.

The fourth corpse... the fifth... the eighth... the tenth...

Yang An continuously summoned new corpses. With each one, he gathered important information from the places they were sent, which helped him identify the most mysterious areas.

A large amount of information converged in Yang An’s mind. While summoning new corpses, he also began to calculate the route he should take and his destination if he were to venture deep into the Forbidden Land himself.

By the time over twenty corpses had been destroyed, Yang An finally determined the most crucial point.

The path due east must lead to the core of the Forbidden Land. The deeper one went, the faster and more bizarrely the corpses died. Although the outer regions of the Forbidden Land were also deadly, there were some places he himself could traverse.

A relatively easy route began to form in Yang An’s mind.

Unfortunately, starting with the seventy-sixth corpse, Yang An repeatedly tried to send them into a general area deeper within. But before they could even get close, the corpses would simply vanish.

A total of twelve corpses all met the exact same fate, leaving Yang An with only a single piece of information:

Approaching that area triggered an unknown event. It was most likely the very core of the entire Forbidden Land.

’Should I risk it?’

Yang An had no absolute certainty about what kind of risks he would face once he reached that point.

But his probing had reached its limit; he couldn’t gather any more information this way. Not unless he was willing to spend the time to find and capture that One-Eyed individual from before.

But if he didn’t risk it, with his current strength, he was no match for Huan, nor for the other Boundary Repairers.

Unable to leave Lower Hu, he would be completely defenseless if he encountered a Boundary Repairer.

Finding the Xianyuan Forbidden Artifact to increase his strength was his only hope of fighting back.

Having made his decision, Yang An stopped using the Summoning Incantation. Instead, he activated his Light and Shadow Escape Technique, instantly teleporting to one of the locations he had observed earlier.

He didn’t fly to bypass the dangerous areas below because the sky was even more perilous. The greatest number of summoned creatures had died in mid-air, and their deaths had been the most baffling.

To be safe, the best method was to travel along the relatively easy route he had already verified.

He had just landed in a barren patch of land next to a weed-choked stream. The soil was fertile, but it was not to be underestimated.

The moment Yang An appeared, countless weeds transformed into a sky full of sharp blades, blanketing an area of a thousand meters in every direction.

But Yang An had anticipated this. The instant he landed, his figure vanished again, escaping the area.

As long as he was fast enough, this place couldn’t cause him any trouble.

The second location was also relatively easy. It seemed to be a manifestation of the Power of Rules related to "earth." Countless grotesque monster heads solidified from the soil and surged upward, but Yang An dodged them with ease.

As long as he wasn’t touched by those things, he wouldn’t run into any trouble.

The third... the fourth... the fifth...

With the knowledge gained from scouting with his summoned creatures, Yang An’s advance was incredibly smooth.