Whoosh—
Suddenly, Chu Feng shot into the air, hurtling straight toward the stone stele.
This time, unlike Lü Jie before him, Chu Feng was not blocked.
He arrived before the stele without any hindrance.
As Chu Feng drew close, every gaze in the crowd locked onto him, growing tense.
Even Lü Jie—who had his Dantian destroyed by Chu Feng—grimaced through the pain and forced himself upright, turning to look at Chu Feng.
Although none of those present had any hope of claiming the inheritance now, they still wanted to know what that inheritance truly was.
But the moment Chu Feng landed before the stele, the radiance upon it began to fade.
The stele had always been plain, and without that glow it looked even more ordinary. As the light dissipated, the aura that had captivated everyone vanished along with it.
The stele now standing before Chu Feng looked like nothing more than an unremarkable stone.
There was no inscription. Nothing at all.
Chu Feng studied it carefully, but he could discern nothing.
Yet though he could not read the stele's secrets, standing before it he felt a calling.
The stele was calling to him.
And so Chu Feng took action. He extended his hand and pressed his palm against the surface of the stone.
*Scree scree scree—*
The instant his palm made contact, a bizarre, unsettling cry emanated from within the stele.
At the same time, no fewer than thirty black lines slithered from the stele through his palm and burrowed into his body.
"Ugh—"
The black lines pierced into him, and Chu Feng was immediately wracked with agony. He collapsed to the ground in short order.
The onlookers could see that beneath Chu Feng's skin, black lines had spread everywhere—resembling countless worms writhing rapidly through his flesh.
"Those are... Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms!!!"
A shrill cry of recognition rang out almost at once.
"Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms?"
"They really are—those are actually Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms?"
"Why would something like that be inside the stele?"
Seeing the worms, many people were stunned.
On the faces of Grandmaster Tang Chen, Yuan Shu, and Yu Ting, deep worry surfaced.
They knew Chu Feng's bloodline was incredibly powerful and had witnessed him refine the Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms before. But the number of worms now entering his body was far greater than what he had faced that day. With this many Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms, they had no idea whether Chu Feng could endure.
And the sight of his agony was clearly more severe than it had been last time.
That only deepened their concern.
"Serves him right. It truly serves him right."
"Haha! That Chu Feng thought he could claim the inheritance!"
"Turns out what awaited him wasn't an inheritance at all—it was a trap!"
"What kind of genius is he? He's nothing special!"
"There were Boundary Ghost Talisman Worms hidden in that stele and he couldn't even see through it. Serves him right. It absolutely serves him right!"
Laughter erupted from several people—Lü Jie's senior martial brothers and sisters.
And though Lü Jie was so weak he could barely keep himself alive, watching Chu Feng writhe on the ground, a mocking smirk curled across his lips.
Lü Jie had been utterly wretched today, but Chu Feng's fate was no better.
After convincing himself he had obtained the inheritance, he was going to be tormented to death by poisonous worms instead.