A thunderous roar sounded out as vast amounts of spiritual energy rushed into his Core sea. Once again it rippled boundlessly. He was still at the eighth level of Qi Condensation, but had actually made significant advancement, and his current power level was almost as much as someone at the ninth level of Qi Condensation.
Within his Core sea, the Demonic Core undulated, sending out a Demonic aura. It began to absorb all of the Demonic Qi that Meng Hao had accumulated. Its Demonic aura grew stronger and brighter.
Finally, Meng Hao opened his eyes.
He looked calm. He was not excited or shocked or astonished. He had intentionally picked the North Sea as the spot for the showdown. It had all been a gamble, in the hopes that the North Sea Demon would help him.
As he opened his eyes, he straightened his body. There was only water beneath his feet, although some distance away he could see the bottom of the lake. Everything should be pitch black. But because of the silvery sand that spread out, there was a little bit of a glow, which faintly illuminated the surroundings.
Within the murky waters, Meng Hao could see a boat.
The boat was dilapidated, sunken and resting on the lake floor. Meng Hao suddenly realized that he recognised this boat. It was… the boat he had ridden in that day when he crossed the lake!
He stared silently at the boat, and then cupped his hands and bowed in respect.
Even as he bowed, he heard the twittering laughter of a young girl echoing out across the lake bottom. The laughter circled around, making it impossible to determine its origin. Meng Hao narrowed his eyes, looking down at the floor of the lake.
As the laughter rang out, he saw arms emerging from the silver sand at the bottom of the lake. The hands were all as white as jade. Along with the arms appeared corpses. They were the corpses of young women, floating up from the silver sand.
Black hair swept across the faces of the dozens of them as they floated up from the depths of the lake. Their eyes were closed, their faces pale white but beautiful. Amidst the rippling lake water, Meng Hao watched on, an expression of astonishment on his face as he realized that all of the women… looked exactly the same!