Yoriichi's head broke the surface of the pitch-black water, a desperate gasp tearing through his burning lungs.
He didn't waste a single millisecond. Ignoring the heavy, freezing chains of water clinging to his shredded robes, he paddled furiously toward the jagged iron bars of his isolated cell. He grabbed the rusted metal, his muscles screaming in protest, and hauled his shivering, exhausted body out of the abyssal pool.
He collapsed onto the slippery, moss-covered stone floor of his cell, rolling onto his side.
Cough! Hack!
Yoriichi violently retched, expelling the foul, freezing swamp water he had inadvertently swallowed during his frantic escape from the depths. His chest heaved erratically. For several long minutes, the only sound in the dark cavern was the desperate, ragged rhythm of his survival.
Eventually, the violent shivering began to subside, replaced by a deep, hollow ache in his stomach that threatened to consume his consciousness.
Yoriichi pushed himself up into a seated position. He looked down at his lap, where he tightly clutched the massive, spongy cluster of Abyssal Thorn-Weed he had ripped from the deep reef.
'Survival over comfort,' Yoriichi reminded himself, his stoic Dao heart suppressing the primal disgust of eating raw, unrefined flora. He didn't have the luxury of a fire, nor the Dou Qi to refine its medicinal properties.
He raised the cluster to his mouth. The outer thorns were razor-sharp, but his teeth, fortified by years of extreme physical tempering, systematically crunched through them. He spent an entire agonizing hour slowly, methodically chewing the tough, fibrous outer layer, grinding the thorns down into a manageable paste before finally reaching the soft, spongy core.
He swallowed.
Almost instantly, a profound, soothing sensation bloomed in his stomach. The dense, pure Yin energy of the aquatic plant began to passively radiate through his bloodstream. It wasn't the explosive, fiery vitality of an Alchemist's pill, but rather a cold, steady nourishment.
The crippling hunger pangs vanished. More importantly, the faint, freezing energy acted as an internal coolant against the biting chill of the cavern air, and the minor scrapes he had sustained from the Iron-Fin Shark began to slowly knit together.
Yoriichi nodded slightly in the dark. 'It is highly effective. The caloric density is exceptional. With this portion, I can sustain for at least another week.'
However, as he sat in the dark, his heightened senses noticed a terrifying change in his environment.
The water level in the cavern had risen. The flat, mossy stone he had initially used for meditation was now completely submerged. The dark liquid was slowly, steadily creeping up the walls of his cell.
'The subterranean tide of the Riverlands is shifting,' Yoriichi analyzed, feeling the cold dampness seeping into his boots. 'I cannot rest on the floor anymore. If I fall asleep in the freezing water, my core temperature will plummet, and I will not wake up.'
He stood up, walking to the heavy iron bars that formed the front gate of his cell. He reached up, grasping the horizontal crossbars located near the ceiling.
With a grunt of exertion, he pulled his body upward. He attempted to swing his legs up and lock them around the vertical bars, aiming to suspend himself above the rising water. But the iron was slick with centuries of condensed moisture and slimy algae.
Slip.
He fell heavily, his boots splashing into the ankle-deep water.
Yoriichi didn't curse. He simply wiped his hands thoroughly on his dry inner robes and tried again. He adjusted his grip, finding the microscopic, rusted grooves in the iron. He pulled himself up, contorting his body, and finally managed to forcefully wedge his calves and thighs between the narrow vertical bars. He locked himself into a bizarre, suspended, horizontal seated position near the ceiling, resembling a bat clinging to the rafters.
It was incredibly uncomfortable. His muscles cramped under the awkward, continuous tension, but he was safe from the creeping water. He closed his eyes, forcing his heart rate to drop, and entered a shallow meditative trance to conserve every ounce of energy.
Time in the abyss became a blur of cold, dark survival.
Days bled into a week, and then two more weeks agonizingly passed. Yoriichi had officially survived a full month in the Riverlands Purgatory without a single drop of Dou Qi.
Meanwhile, outside the pitch-black hell of the Riverlands, the Jia Nan Academy was completely bathed in the warm, golden light of the afternoon sun. The campus was no longer tranquil; it was buzzing with an electric, almost violent anticipation.
The Inner Academy Qualifying Tournament was rapidly approaching.
The usually quiet, disciplined pathways of the academy were now flooded with a terrifying array of auras. Students who had been in deep, secluded closed-door cultivation for the past year were finally emerging. Elite mercenaries who had taken extended leaves of absence to temper themselves in the blood-soaked borders of the Black-Corner Region were returning to claim their spots.
The true monsters of the Outer Academy were gathering.
In the central arenas, the atmosphere was at a boiling point. The bleachers were packed with thousands of cheering, awe-struck freshmen and junior students, their eyes glued to the elevated stone rings where the heavyweights were testing their newly acquired powers.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave of displaced air rocked Arena Number One, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust.
"Is that Senior He Xiu?!" a freshman gasped, clutching the railing of the stands. "I thought he graduated! He's been in the Black-Corner Region for eight months!"
"He took a leave of absence to temper himself for this exact tournament!" an older student replied, his eyes wide with reverence. "Look at his aura! He actually broke through!"
Down in the arena, the dust cleared to reveal a towering, scarred youth holding a heavy halberd. But it wasn't the weapon that commanded attention; it was the dense, solidified, earth-yellow crystalline armor wrapping his entire torso and arms.
Dou Qi Armor. The absolute, undeniable hallmark of a Da Dou Shi.
Standing opposite him was a 9-Star Dou Shi, a prominent genius also, panting heavily. The 9-Star student had just unleashed his strongest, High-Tier Xuan Class sword skill directly into Lin Xiu's chest, only for the blade to bounce off the crystalline armor without leaving a single scratch.
"You fight well, junior," He Xiu laughed, his voice booming with the confidence of a veteran who had danced with death. "But if you want to breach the Top 5 and see the Hidden Library Pavilion, you'll need more than flashy swordplay! You need absolute, crushing power!"
With a casual sweep of his halberd, He Xiu unleashed a wave of heavy earth Dou Qi that sent the 9-Star genius flying out of the ring, securing a flawless victory.
The crowd erupted into deafening cheers.
"The competition this year is insane," a junior muttered, shaking his head. "7-Star, 8-Star, and 9-Star Dou Shis are everywhere. And now we have actual Da Dou Shis returning? How is anyone supposed to secure a spot?"
"It's all for the Hidden Pavilion," another replied in a hushed whisper. "They say there are authentic Di-Class manuals in there. For a prize like that, these seniors will break every bone in their bodies."
The air across the academy was thick with rivalry, ambition, and the scent of impending battle.
Miles away from the bustling campus, at the secluded crescent lake, Zhan Yue sat perfectly still on the flat boulder. The roaring cheers of the arenas were entirely absent here.
The silver-robed Dou Huang opened her amethyst eyes, a faint, genuinely relieved smile touching her lips.
Her immense spiritual perception, constantly sweeping over the subterranean array, had just felt the faint, steady heartbeat of a mortal vessel surviving in the deep. It was weak, its biological rhythm slowed to an absolute crawl, but it was remarkably persistent.
'One month down. One month to go,' Zhan Yue thought proudly, looking at the dark water. 'You are stubborn, Xiao Ning. The academy is gathering its monsters above, but I know he is forging himself in the dark. Keep fighting.'
Deep beneath her, in the rising waters of the Purgatory, Yoriichi was forced to move again.
The portion of the Abyssal Thorn-Weed had eventually run out. To avoid starvation, he had executed two more stealth dives into the pitch-black labyrinth over the past week. He had learned the intricate, twisting layouts of the shallow reefs by heart, relying entirely on his Transparent World vision to navigate the deadly, jagged terrain.
He had successfully harvested a different species of glowing, aquatic moss. It provided significantly less caloric energy than the Thorn-Weed, barely keeping starvation at bay, but it was enough to keep his heart beating.
During these dives, he had encountered a few more Rank 1 beasts—mostly blind, venomous eels and aggressive mud-crabs. Stripped of his katana and his Dou Qi, he had relied entirely on pure, physical evasive maneuvers and blunt-force strikes to the gills to drive them away, strictly avoiding prolonged combat that would drain his oxygen.
But the environment was becoming increasingly hostile.
The subterranean tide had not stopped. The water level in his cell had now risen to halfway up the iron bars. He was forced to climb to the absolute highest point of the gate, clinging horizontally to the ceiling just to keep his torso dry. The air was suffocatingly damp, the cold biting deeper into his bones as his body fat depleted entirely, leaving only lean, shivering muscle.
'Five days,' Yoriichi calculated, his crimson eyes gleaming softly in the absolute dark. 'There are only five days remaining until the sixty-day sentence is complete and the seal dissolves.'
But his stomach rumbled violently, a sharp, twisting cramp reminding him of his biological limits. His rations were completely finished. The low-energy moss had burned away far too quickly. To survive the final five days, he needed another substantial, high-calorie harvest.
He looked down at the dark, swirling water that had now flooded his cell up to his chest.
He knew the shallow reefs near his cell had been completely picked clean by his previous excursions. If he wanted to find the nutrient-dense Abyssal Thorn-Weed again, he would have to swim further out. He would have to cross the invisible boundary into the deeper, uncharted trenches of the cavern.
It was an immense risk. The deeper trenches were the undisputed territory of the apex predators—beasts that did not rely on sight, but on vibration, heat, and the scent of blood.
But starving to death while clinging to the ceiling, mere days away from freedom, was not an option his unyielding spirit would accept.
Yoriichi took a long, steadying breath, filling his lungs to their absolute maximum capacity. He released his cramped, agonizing lock on the iron bars and dropped silently into the freezing water.
He submerged completely. His Transparent World vision flared out like a radar as he navigated through the submerged iron gates and swam out into the vast, open cavern.
He pushed past the familiar, picked-over reefs, his powerful, measured strokes carrying him toward the terrifying, unknown depths.
As he crossed the threshold into the deep trench, the ambient water pressure instantly spiked, pressing heavily against his eardrums. The darkness felt heavier, almost physical.
He swam for ten minutes, his lungs beginning to burn, desperately searching the rocky walls for the familiar, soft texture of the Thorn-Weed.
Suddenly, the water around him went dead still.
The erratic, ambient vibrations of the smaller fish and lesser beasts swimming in the shallows vanished entirely. The ecosystem had gone completely silent.
Yoriichi's eyes widened. A primal, suffocating danger sense exploded in his mind.