Brian Carter looked up toward the east. Dawn had not yet arrived; it was still night.

After the great mountain demon had passed through earlier, the land here had collapsed and cracked, and all the fierce birds and beasts had been frightened far away.

So this path should be clear and unobstructed.

Brian Carter asked, “Are you curious?”

Howard Green lowered its head and gave a muffled response.

Brian Carter glanced at Little Grace, fell briefly silent, then looked again at Howard Green.

“But I need you to protect her and find a place to hide.”

After a pause, Brian Carter added, “You must not harm her.”

Howard Green kept its head down and gave another muffled response.

After what had happened earlier, Brian Carter could just barely trust this Howard Green, and now that time had passed and the moon was no longer high in the sky, he was no longer afraid it would use Little Grace to complete the ritual.

……

As the saying goes, “A horse can die running toward a distant mountain.”

The great mountain demon appeared clear to the eye, making it seem closer. But actually traveling in that direction, it was extremely far.

Brian Carter was injured, and as he ran, he felt his wounds worsen.

But there was a stubborn obsession in his heart that he refused to let go.

“The place where the mountain demon fell is to the south…”

“In the Immortal Palace, the clay figures of nine bulls and two tigers also fell to the south.”

“The north is death, the south is life.”

He gritted his teeth and kept running.

The sky was gradually brightening.

The wild beasts frightened during the night had fled this area, but perhaps after dawn, they would return.

He dared not delay.

……

When he got close and saw the scene before him clearly, he couldn’t help but be shocked.

The thoughts in his mind, his ingrained beliefs, were all overturned.

The great mountain demon lay sprawled on the ground, back facing up, chest and belly down, head turned to the right, eyes lifeless.

What shocked Brian Carter most was that this mountain demon was not a creature of flesh and blood, but had turned to stone.

Its hair was red rock, its head blue stone, its fangs white stone, and its body a pale yellow tinged with black.

It was clearly a mountain formed from stones of different colors, shaped in the likeness of the mountain demon.

If it were in another place, Brian Carter might have thought it was a statue carved in the image of the mountain demon, created with great effort.

But here, it was clearly the mountain demon itself.

During the earlier landslide, Brian Carter had seen clearly that it was a giant capable of moving mountains and filling seas, brimming with vitality, with knotted muscles.

“So it was a creature of flesh and blood, but after death… it turned to stone?”

Brian Carter saw not a trace of life, and tentatively concluded that the mountain demon was dead.

But the mountain demon’s cultivation was so profound that, by the standards of cultivators, it was unfathomable and could not be judged by common sense.

Brian Carter circled the mountain demon and finally stopped at its head.

Before him was the mouth of the mountain demon.

It had died with its eyes open, mouth agape.

After its death, as it turned into a mountain, this mouth became a cave.

Without thinking much, it was clear the cave must lead into the mountain demon’s body.

Brian Carter intended to enter, but couldn’t help hesitating.

“Should I go in and take a look?”

“But could there be danger inside?”

“Could the mountain demon come back to life? If I go in and it revives, wouldn’t I be walking into my own death?”

“But… what’s inside?”

After years in the lower realm, he still didn’t know what kind of opportunity he was searching for.

He only knew he needed something to further his cultivation.

But he had no clue; these years he had been utterly lost. As long as there was even a sliver of hope, he would risk it.

This was not his first time taking such risks. But this time, the urge was stronger than ever before.

“As people say, fortune favors the bold.”

“If that’s true for wealth and glory, how much more so for the path to immortality?”

Brian Carter took a deep breath, then stepped forward, entering through the mountain demon’s mouth.

……

The mountain demon could not be regarded as an ordinary living being.

But at this moment, Brian Carter could only treat it as such.

By rights, passing through here should lead straight to the stomach.

Ahead, there were some branching paths.

He looked down and saw many broken logs and weeds.

These were the remains of the thatched hut, which the mountain demon had bitten and swallowed earlier.

“For a cultivator, the dantian is of utmost importance.”

Brian Carter pondered for a moment, thinking, “If I divide the body’s meridians as in a human, then the dantian should be in this direction.”

With this in mind, he moved forward.

He had worried that the mountain demon’s exterior had turned to stone, but its insides might still be flesh and blood, and he might be digested within. But now it seemed those worries were unfounded—the mountain demon was stone both inside and out.

He followed the passage, long blade in his left hand, iron staff in his right, staying on guard.

The dark red passage gradually turned a dim yellow.

He suddenly recalled the Huangting Immortal Sutra he practiced.

Earth is yellow, occupying the center; “ting” means the open space before steps, thus “huangting” refers to the hollow center, and the dantian is named for this.

He sensed some light ahead, dim yellow with a golden sheen, flickering.

If he was not mistaken, the dantian should be just ahead.

“I wonder what’s up ahead?”

Brian Carter suddenly stopped.

If the mountain demon had swallowed something alive earlier, and it had not yet died, would it have turned to stone inside, or… could it still be alive?

Though he had some martial skills, he was still an amateur. As for cultivation, he hadn’t even entered the door. If there were even one or two tigers or wolves here, it would be dangerous.