"Look at these veins," Wu Xinghan whispered. His fingers did not touch the surface, but his divine sense pierced through Hu Bao’s hardening skin. "His essence hasn't vanished; rather, it is frozen exactly within his ridians. It is as if the laws of ti in this place gripped him before he even had the chance to scream."
"It is not ti," Zhi Xuan replied, his eyes fixed intently on Hu Bao’s pupils, which had now beco grey stone. "It is a rging. This land does not rely swallow the fra; it transforms the body into a part of the underworld's foundation. He is now a new pillar in this labyrinth."
"You an the pillars we have been passing this whole ti... are all those who failed?" Ji Yuanyi swallowed hard. She looked around, staring at the thousands of pillars soaring like a forest of stone. "So, we are walking among infinite frozen practitioners?"
"Look at that pillar, Haoxuan," Wei Tianfeng pointed to a three-zhang-high pillar curved in a strange shape. "If you observe the pattern, that is the fra of a practitioner who was attempting to release a high-level martial art. Look at the traces of his arms; he turned to stone just as he was about to release a seal."
"A three-zhang pillar?" Ji Haoxuan murmured. "Perhaps it is several practitioners stacked together, but the fra alone... is already like the ancient practitioners who were rumored to have towering statures."
"Like Senior Gu?" Lu Qingyan added. "Although it almost doesn't match the fra that looked like eight to nearly nine chi, Senior Gu has a height of six chi. This is majesty!"
Ji Yuanyi furrowed her brow for a mont, her wide eyes blinking. "Perhaps it is because Senior Gu has cultivated longer than all of us. And look at ng Zhan, that arrogant giant; I actually hope he is the one who becos part of a pillar."
"ng Zhan would not beco a pillar this beautiful," Wei Tianfeng snorted while narrowing his eyes at the labyrinth ahead. "He is too full of rage. The death aura here prefers a soul that is calm and resigned to be used as a foundation."
"Four hundred breaths left before the next cycle appears," Ji Haoxuan observed the movent of the grey vapor beginning to seep from the gaps of Hu Bao’s stone fra. "Senior, shall we look for another protective statue, or continue to break through this labyrinth?"
"There are no statues ahead," Zhi Xuan said, staring straight into the increasingly thick darkness. "There is only a larger altar. Ji Yuanyi, stop staring at that pillar. What do you see?"
"Those faces, Senior..." Ji Yuanyi whispered. Her fingers trembled, yet her eyes remained sharp in observation. "The pillars ahead are no longer frozen in fear. Look at that one, and the one next to it. They seem to be... worshiping."
"Worshiping?" Wu Xinghan took a step forward, trying to see what Yuanyi ant. "It’s true. These stone fras are all facing a single point behind the bend of the labyrinth. Their hands are clasped, their heads bowed."
They resud their pace, following a narrow corridor ford by the increasingly dense stone bodies. The deeper they ventured into the labyrinth, the more intact and ancient the frozen fras appeared. So of them no longer wore modern practitioner robes, but rather armor made from the hides of extinct beasts or heavenly silks that had lost their luster.
Suddenly, as they passed a pillar shaped like a woman's fra with outstretched arms, a soft whisper crept into their sea of consciousness. "Eternity... The Great One gives us eternity... join us... this eternity is so fragrant and crowded..."
The voice struck the sea of consciousness of Ji Haoxuan and the others just as their eyes began to dim, lulled by the frequency of the whisper that spread like poisonous honey. Ji Yuanyi gasped; her hand, which had reached out to touch the stone woman, was imdiately pulled back with violent trembling.
White mists erged and thickened, making everything appear peaceful, and a fragrant heavenly scent enveloped them. Zhi Xuan remained unmoved, his face cold and his jaw tightly set as the stone statues moved within the mist, their faces erging from behind the fog in a horrific manner.
Wu Xinghan seed to step unsteadily, his hand reaching toward a stone fra that now appeared to transform into the figure of his most respected sect elder, offering a warm smile promising eternal peace. On the other side, Lu Qingyan began to shed tears, seeing shadows of her past dancing atop the dust of the gods' bodies.
Zhi Xuan stepped forward, allowing himself to pierce the mist alone. However, his steps stopped as the silhouettes ford figures he recognized—a woman in an elegant sky-blue robe and a figure in heavenly leaf-green robes that appeared so calming.
The image of Ye Xishui stood there, in the midst of the billowing mist scented with heavenly lotus. Her clear eyes looked at Zhi Xuan with a longing capable of toppling mountains. Beside her, Zhu Qinglan smiled thinly, a smile that had once been the only light for Zhi Xuan when he was still crawling in the valley of humiliation.
"Senior... look, there is a way ho," whispered Ji Yuanyi’s voice, which now sounded distant as her soul began to be dragged by the current of illusion.
The two figures reached out their hands—an invitation to stop running, stop wagering lives, and rest in the embrace of an eternity without suffering. Zhi Xuan pulled back the corners of his lips; he moved his fingers and imdiately a mass of circles radiating a thick aura appeared.
"Illusions? My Heavenly Eye can even pierce through a person's consciousness," Zhi Xuan hissed, his eyes flashing in cold sapphire blue. "Borrowing holy faces to deceive ? You are not worthy of determining what influences ."
Instantly, the aura of the Life-Death Slaughter domain seed surged out. A vortex that was more like infinite blades shredded the mist without rcy, creating roars and the screeching of stone statues being scratched. Zhi Xuan stomped his foot, his long black hair fluttering.
The vortex widened until it repelled the stone statues surrounding him. Yuyan Die shot out and perched on Zhi Xuan’s shoulder; the butterfly began to swallow the desires and every doubt erging there, buzzing happily as she felt the thick aura of desire.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The fluttering of Yuyan Die’s wings created ripples that washed away the fragrant mist. Each ti her wings t, the aroma of heavenly lotus turned into the stinging stench of rotting carcasses—the true form of the soul-misleading illusion. The figures of Ye Xishui and Zhu Qinglan, who had looked so real, began to crack and dissolve, revealing stone fras grinning with empty eye sockets.
"Mmm... the scent of desire is delicious," Yuyan Die buzzed as she returned to the collar of Zhi Xuan’s robe, peering through the gaps. "Master! The desires here are very thick with the six shackled desires; this will be a good recovery for Yuyan!"
"Remnants of souls and trapped desires, truly clumping here," Zhi Xuan said while casting a cold gaze toward the grinning stone statues, no longer moving but still radiating a dense aura of darkness.
A few steps behind him, Ji Haoxuan and the others had just snapped awake from their nightmares. Wu Xinghan stumbled, clutching his head which felt as if it had been struck by a giant mace, while Lu Qingyan imdiately wiped her tears with stiff movents, her face red with sha and horror.
Ji Yuanyi panted, her fingers clutching her brother’s robe so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "That... that wasn't Brother just now..." she whispered with a broken voice. "I saw Brother calling from behind a gate of light, asking to lay myself down..."
"Wake up!" Ji Haoxuan barked, though his own eyes still radiated remnants of shock. "If not for Senior, we would all be part of these pillars, frozen in a false illusion."
"Yan'er, be calm," Wu Xinghan said, soothing his shaken sister. "Fortunate that I still held you even in the midst of the illusion. Otherwise, perhaps you would have vanished in the middle of that illusory mist."
"You were not holding anything," Zhi Xuan said without turning, his voice as cold as ice cutting through the silence. "You were only holding empty air. If I were a breath later, your bodies would have begun to harden from the tips of your fingers to your hearts."
Wu Xinghan was stunned. He looked at his own palm, which was still in a position of grasping his sister’s wrist. However, as he deployed his divine sense, he realized with horror that his hand was truly only grasping emptiness.
Wu Xingyan stood two steps beside him, frozen with a hollow gaze, while between the two of them, a small stone pillar resembling the shape of a human hand began to grow from the ground.
"This illusion... it separates our fra from our perception," Lu Qingyan murmured, snapping her fan shut with a tremble. "We feel together, but actually we were being led toward an eternal separation."
"Vile statues..." Wu Xingyan hissed. She clenched both hands in front of her and detonated those statues. "Moon and Stars subrge the world!"
The statues around Wu Xingyan were imdiately repelled as silvery and purple light enveloped her surroundings. Hundreds of statues exploded before dissolving as Wu Xingyan stared with sharp, flashing eyes. Her breath was ragged; the fear in her heart had been replaced by an uncontainable rage.
Wu Xingyan stomped her foot, each step creating fine cracks on the floor she trod. Her eyes flashed wildly as she stared at the dust of the statues scattered on the floor, as if it weren't enough to simply obliterate the statues themselves.
Zhi Xuan narrowed his eyes. He saw how the dust of the statues blown up by Wu Xingyan did not fall to the ground but floated in the air, drawn in by the girl’s breath of anger. The grey dust began to creep up Wu Xingyan’s ankles, rging with her turbulent spiritual essence.
"Anger is the widest entrance for the underworld," Zhi Xuan’s voice flowed flatly. "You are not destroying them, Wu Xingyan. You are inviting them to nest within your blood."
Wu Xingyan jolted, her head turning in a fragnted manner toward Zhi Xuan. Her eyes, usually clear, were now covered by a thin grey film. "They... they tried to take my Brother! They must be destroyed! All of them!"
"Yan'er!" Wu Xinghan growled sharply. He tapped his sister’s back and imdiately made Wu Xingyan go limp. "Wake up!"
Wu Xinghan caught his sister’s limp body; the creeping dust imdiately dissolved and fell away from Wu Xingyan’s feet. Wu Xinghan moved his fingers, closing his eyes for a mont to let his divine essence stabilize his sister.
Wu Xingyan coughed, spitting out a clump of blood carrying traces of the illusion that caused her rage. Wu Xinghan helped her rise, supporting her back. Wu Xingyan leaned on her brother’s shoulder, her breath gasping, but her eyes had returned to clarity.
"My anger was suddenly uncontrollable," Wu Xingyan murmured. "That illusion... made it seem as if I were alone and Brother Xinghan was taken away. Fortunately, I was saved."
Zhi Xuan turned his body, his black-and-white robe rustling softly over the dust of eternity. Ahead of them, the labyrinth of stone pillars began to loosen, the pillars now lined up neatly to form a path leading to a wide field spread behind the shadows of giant pillars.
They walked slowly. Zhi Xuan did not walk toward that wide field. He stepped aside, heading toward a palace ruin that looked like an ancient, soaring tower. He ignored the wide field stretching before them, which despite appearing like an exit, was only a trap to his divine sense.
He stared at two statues standing upright before the tower, radiating a divine aura similar to the giant statue from before. They walked past the two statues and stepped inside after Zhi Xuan gripped the air and pushed the tower doors open.
As the doors opened, a gust of air from inside the tower swept across their faces—not the foul air of the underworld, but a cold draft carrying the scent of ancient paintings. Zhi Xuan stepped inside first, his boots tapping on the black floor covered in thin dust.
"These paintings... no, these carvings..." Wei Tianfeng murmured. He stepped forward and touched the carvings on the tower wall. "Look, these are depictions of the warriors that appeared in that dark aura."
There, the rows of headless warriors they encountered in the fog were depicted, but in these carvings, they still possessed gallant features, wore intact war armor, and held banners radiating heavenly glory.
"They weren't monsters of darkness from the start," Lu Qingyan murmured, standing beside Wei Tianfeng. "They... fought until the end, guarding the glory of the immortal world until it fell to the Lower Realm, buried here in Huang Tu."
"So, they were the warriors who refused to submit even after death called?" Ji Haoxuan whispered, his voice echoing in the silent tower hall.
"Not just refusing to submit, Haoxuan," Lu Qingyan replied while tracing the grand-looking robe carvings on the wall. "Look at this. They intentionally cut off their own heads. A blood oath so that not a single one of them could be influenced by the enemy's illusions through eyes or ears."
"Horrific... what kind of oath demands such a cruel sacrifice of the body?" Ji Yuanyi shuddered, pulling her robe closer. "Is this the reason why the fog couldn't touch those near the statues? Because their intent of sacrifice was stronger than the desires of the underworld?"
"When your heart is unshakeable, when your faith is supre, even the universe cannot erase you, Yuanyi," Zhi Xuan replied. "They cut off their heads without hesitation. For them, losing a head was too small compared to seeing the glory they worshiped collapse."
"However, that glory still collapsed, didn't it?" Wei Tianfeng snorted bitterly, his eyes fixed on the carvings of the torn banners. "An oath that powerful, a sacrifice that rigid, and look where they are now. Turning into aimless ghosts harvesting mortal lives every five hundred breaths. Does blind loyalty always end this tragically?"
Zhi Xuan smiled thinly. He closed his eyes for a mont as the mory of seeing practitioners higher than the Sacred Passage prostrating in surrendering their souls and bones to witness the birth of Great Emperor Zhetian surfaced. It was as if the heart’s conviction was sothing Reincarnation could not displace.
"They did not endure, because they were the bones that were stepped upon," Zhi Xuan whispered, his eyes opening again to stare at the wall. "If soone is truly majestic, then even thousands of lives will willingly surrender themselves as that figure's bridge to the high realms. Even if that bridge originates from their very bones."
Reviews
All reviews (0)