Han Mountain Bell

The Han Mountain Bell is an ancient treasure later acknowledged by Su Ming. Its public chimes announce challengers to the Chains of Han Mountain, but that role conceals an older inheritance: a Nine-Headed Dragon sleeps as its Vessel Spirit, with awakened heads unlocking control, soul-stunning sound, defense, materialization, and soul consumption. Neither the bell's true name nor its maker is established. “Han Mountain Bell” is the name given by Han Mountain's ancestor. (Chapters 173–177, 196–198, 376–379)

History

The bell above Han Mountain City

Before Su Ming claims it, the great bell stands as the signal for the Chains of Han Mountain. Striking it produces chimes heard through the city and surrounding tribes, while repeated chimes manifest illusions of beasts carved upon it, including the Dragon Clam and Alpine Dark Turtle. Each strike draws Qi from the challenger and produces increasingly powerful rebound. When Su Ming activates the bell more deeply, a single impact yields two chimes and releases enough force to dissipate a tribe's mountain protection. (Chapters 173–175)

Local tradition does not regard the bell as tribal property. Han Mountain's ancestor named it but never obtained its complete inheritance, and the three nearby tribes agree that whoever can truly take it should do so. Si Ma Xin had previously sounded it three times and gained control associated with two heads of its hidden spirit. Su Ming's response awakens one head under his will, revealing that the apparent carved beasts conceal a nine-headed existence and that partial inheritance is not the same as ownership. (Chapters 175–177)

Su Ming later sits upon the bell while completing his Awakening and uses it to bear the lightning drawn to him. When his breakthrough ends, the bell chimes as if recognizing its master, floats from the earth, shrinks to the size of a fingernail, and enters the center of his brows. This voluntary acknowledgment ends its stationary role in Han Mountain and begins its use as Su Ming's carried treasure. The bell's connection to that city remains strong enough that taking it becomes part of how old witnesses identify him much later. (Chapters 195–199, 1232–1235)

Learning the awakened heads

Early ownership gives Su Ming only partial control. He can release sound waves, form the bell around himself as armor, and seal hostile entities within it, but these actions burden his body. Blocking Si Ma Xin's rod-shaped insect makes Su Ming cough blood, and capturing the struggling creature leaves the bell shaking. He can ring the bell around a captive to inflict sustained spiritual torment, yet his limited mastery makes prolonged or high-force use dangerous to him as well. (Chapters 237–245)

As Su Ming's cultivation grows, he refines the bell with divine sense, power drawn from the world, and large quantities of spirit stones. He identifies the first head with basic control, the second with soul-stunning chimes, and the third with defensive fusion. By this stage he controls four heads. Breaking another inner barrier awakens the fifth and grants temporary materialization of the Nine-Headed Dragon Vessel Spirit. The sixth demands still more energy; Su Ming forces the barrier open only by exhausting reserves and extending his effort for a few crucial breaths. (Chapters 376–379)

The sixth head introduces One Hundred Million Souls Devouring Heaven. It pulls vengeful spirits away from a hostile Spirit Medium and consumes them, both attacking the enemy's control and accumulating what the bell requires for further awakening. The stated threshold for the next stage is one hundred million vengeful souls, a scale Su Ming does not complete in the supplied evidence. Soul consumption is therefore a developing function with a vast requirement, not proof that all nine heads become permanently available to him. (Chapters 379, 428, 436, 453)

During the period when Hong Luo controls Su Ming's body, his superior power shocks all nine heads awake and replaces Su Ming's marks with a red will. That state is borrowed: after Hong Luo dies, the final three return to sleep, though Su Ming senses that waking them again has become easier. Su Ming's durable personal access remains six heads, while the temporary nine-head display belongs to Hong Luo's intervention. (Chapters 389–391, 404–428)

The Nine Yin battles and repeated damage

In the World of Nine Yin, the bell serves simultaneously as armor, prison, and offensive spirit treasure. Su Ming shelters his small snake inside it, protects himself while moving at extreme speed, and has the sixth head devour hostile vengeful souls. Against the dead Candle Dragon's will, he materializes the six awakened heads. The Nine-Headed Dragon and Candle Dragon recognize one another as mortal enemies and fight as weakened spiritual remnants, demonstrating a specific antagonism rather than a universal superiority of one species over the other. (Chapters 404–467)

The bell's defenses repeatedly save Su Ming but visibly reach their limits. It absorbs impacts, self-destruction, and crushing pressure, sometimes forcing itself back inside him while his Qi tumbles and he coughs blood. A bone blade destroys three manifested heads, cracks the bell, and still continues toward Su Ming after its force is weakened. The bell is extraordinarily resilient, not impenetrable, and the bearer can suffer transmitted shock even when it blocks the direct strike. (Chapters 461–496, 546–560)

Su Ming later makes the bell one of his prepared attacks against Di Tian. It expands thousands of feet, traps the projection, and releases vengeful souls through its awakened heads. Di Tian's counter shatters the bell into pieces and disperses the Nine-Headed Dragon, stripping away much of its spiritual aura. Su Ming recovers the fragments and stores them while they heal. Within a year the damaged bell is usable again, showing recovery rather than permanent restoration to its former condition. (Chapters 585–600)

The bell then absorbs the power of one mountain from Eastern Wastelands Bell, adding a mountain image to its surface and increasing the usable strength remaining after its destruction. It continues to block or delay opponents and forms part of Su Ming's layered defenses with other treasures. Stronger attacks can still disintegrate or overpower it, after which it later re-forms. Its last confirmed operational appearances remain defensive uses in the Barren Lands of Divine Essence; later memories of Han Mountain identify the relic but do not establish its final physical location. (Chapters 616–641, 657–661, 781–793, 1232–1235)

Abilities and properties

• Chimes and rebound: Strikes produce far-reaching sound, illusions, and escalating recoil. Under Su Ming's control the chimes stun souls, disrupt concentration, injure captives, and delay opponents. The sound can also affect the user, and stronger activations consume Qi or spiritual resources. (Chapters 173–175, 237–245, 274–281)
• Defensive manifestation: The bell can shrink into Su Ming's body or expand around him as a shell, intercepting weapons, pressure, wind blades, and explosive force. Damage and backlash still pass through at high levels; severe strikes crack, shatter, or temporarily disintegrate it. (Chapters 198, 237–239, 461–496, 560, 586, 657, 781–793)
• Sealing and shelter: It can trap an enemy or object inside and house the small snake safely. A sealed captive may continue resisting, and Su Ming's early incomplete control limits what he can do beyond sound and imprisonment. (Chapters 238–245, 456–460)
• Nine-Headed Dragon Vessel Spirit: Awakened heads progressively unlock the bell's deeper functions. The fifth permits temporary materialization; the sixth consumes vengeful souls and can fight hostile spirits. Su Ming permanently awakens only six in the documented progression; Hong Luo's brief awakening of all nine ends with the final three returning to sleep. (Chapters 376–430, 453–465)
• One Hundred Million Souls Devouring Heaven: The sixth-head inheritance absorbs and severs control over vengeful spirits. Further development requires the enormous accumulation implied by its name, and the corpus does not show Su Ming completing that threshold or awakening the seventh head through it. (Chapters 428, 436, 453)
• Size and physical force: The bell changes from fingernail size to thousands of feet, can be driven forward like a blow, and can combine with Su Ming's movement or fist. Its force depends on his control and energy rather than operating as an unlimited autonomous attack. (Chapters 198, 379–380, 430, 493, 586)
• Absorption and recovery: After being shattered, its fragments can be gathered and slowly recover. Absorbing one mountain's power from Eastern Wastelands Bell strengthens the damaged relic. Recovery takes time and does not erase the record of spiritual loss or guarantee restoration after every future destruction. (Chapters 586–641)

Ownership and custody