Beneath the earthen-yellow towering wall knelt a hunched figure.
It was as if this figure had been kneeling here since the very mont of birth, never having moved even half a step. Its lower body was nowhere to be seen. In place of legs were countless tangled roots, driven deep into the earth.
Its head of white hair looked as though it had never once been combed, spreading outward like a treetop canopy before trailing across the ground.
Rather than a human, it looked more like a tree.
A tree that had stood eternal outside the Imperial Mausoleum’s burial mound.
Before this figure, Zhao Cheng was incomparably respectful.
“Elder Mu, this is His Majesty’s decree.”
Elder Mu slowly raised his head, revealing a weathered face lined with countless furrows, like decayed ancient wood.
Zhao Cheng produced a sheet of golden foil shimring with seven-colored radiance.
The golden foil burst apart at once, transforming into streams of light that shot directly into Elder Mu’s body.
Elder Mu’s long hair, spread all across the ground, suddenly began dancing without wind, writhing like ten thousand roaming dragons.
Only after a long while did the strange phenonon subside.
Elder Mu turned his gaze toward Li Shun beside Zhao Cheng.
“He’s the one going in?”
Zhao Cheng nodded.
Elder Mu stared at Li Shun for a few monts. Then, without warning, a strand of white hair shot out like a serpent, coiling around Li Shun’s neck and biting a tiny wound into his skin.
As though savoring the taste of Li Shun’s blood, Elder Mu revealed an expression of enjoynt.
“Not bad. He carries the Mu family bloodline.”
“Child, once you enter the sealed earth, you will never have the chance to co back out in this lifeti.”
“Have you thought this through?”
Elder Mu looked at Li Shun, a strange, unreadable aning flickering within his clouded eyes.
‘Mu family bloodline?’
A trace of confusion flashed through Li Shun’s heart.
But feeling Zhao Cheng’s gaze upon him, he did not hesitate in the slightest. Raising his head, he answered firmly,
“This junior is willing.”
“Very well. Since that is your choice...”
Elder Mu’s originally withered, twig-like body suddenly began expanding at a horrifying rate, growing dozens of tis larger in an instant as he transford into a monstrous ancient tree that blotted out the heavens.
That eerie face stared down at Li Shun from above, examining him for the briefest mont.
Then the bark-like flesh of its face split apart with a thunderous tear. A gigantic blood-filled maw opened wide and swallowed Li Shun whole in a single gulp.
The horrifying sound of swallowing echoed continuously beneath the silent burial mound, enough to make one’s scalp go numb.
Only after that dreadful noise finally faded did Elder Mu’s body shrink back into its previous frail, elderly form.
“Many thanks, Elder Mu, for your assistance.”
Zhao Cheng respectfully bowed.
Elder Mu did not reply.
Instead, a single lock of hair suddenly lashed out, shrieking as it tore through the air, and struck Zhao Cheng viciously.
Zhao Cheng had no power to resist whatsoever.
His body was blasted hundreds of ters away in an instant. When he crashed heavily into the dirt, he imdiately vomited a mouthful of blood, every trace of color draining from his face until it beca deathly pale.
“That slap was on behalf of that pitiful child.”
Elder Mu spoke indifferently.
Zhao Cheng struggled to his feet. Despite taking such a brutal blow, he did not dare show even the slightest trace of resentnt.
He rely stood respectfully to the side, waiting for Li Shun to complete his mission and return.
Beneath the burial mound, silence returned once more.
“The Mu family truly produced a fine emperor...”
Elder Mu raised his head to look at the burial mound he had guarded for several thousand years and let out a faint sigh.
Zhao Cheng lowered his head and closed his eyes, pretending he had heard nothing at all.
Within the sealed earth.
When Li Shun was hurled out from the pitch-black tunnel and his vision finally returned, he saw another Elder Mu.
Only...
The instincts flooding in from every part of his body told him that he had arrived in a completely different place.
“Find the item and hand it over to .”
“As for yourself, stay here and live or die as fate wills.”
The voice and appearance were unchanged, but the other half of him remained rooted within the Imperial Mausoleum’s burial mound.
“This object will point the way for you.”
A worn, broken tree branch flew through the air toward Li Shun, spinning rapidly in suspension before finally coming to a stop, its sharpened end pointing in a certain direction.
“Many thanks, Senior.”
Li Shun cupped his fists in salute.
He did not set out in a hurry. Instead, he first took a careful look at his surroundings.
The towering ramd-earth walls were still visible, suggesting that after passing through Elder Mu’s stomach, he had arrived on the inner side of the earthen enclosure.
Sparse trees dotted the area around him, and in the far distance, he could vaguely make out a vast, boundless ocean.
Even from so far away, Li Shun could already sense the surging moisture in the air.
“The direction that branch pointed to seems to be over there.”
Li Shun cupped his hands in farewell to Elder Mu, then began heading toward his destination.
By instinct, he was about to write the character “Speed” to hasten his journey.
However...
“Hm?” Li Shun was shocked to discover that the golden character shattered for no apparent reason monts after condensing.
It produced no effect whatsoever.
Li Shun examined the circulation of Principle Qi within his body. Everything seed perfectly normal.
Yet whenever he attempted to use Principle Qi to cast techniques or divine abilities, every single attempt failed without exception.
Inside the earthen enclosure, there seed to be so unfathomable force preventing techniques from taking form.
“I possess a body full of Principle Qi, yet I can’t make use of any of it. Right now, I’m no different from an ordinary mortal.”
“Fangcun...”
A thought stirred in Li Shun’s mind, and his divine sense instantly slipped into the Fangcun space.
“Fortunately, the Fangcun space doesn’t seem to be affected.”
“Without divine abilities, if I have to rely on my own two legs to travel, will Duanmu Qiuche still be able to hold on until then?”
“Or could it be that ti flows differently inside this earthen enclosure compared to the outside world?”
Li Shun could not help but look upward.
Then, at that mont, Elder Mu’s faint voice drifted over.
“One year within the earthen enclosure. One day within the Imperial Mausoleum.”
“That’s more than enough ti for a round trip.”
Li Shun’s heart jolted violently at those words.
“One year inside the enclosure, one day in the Imperial Mausoleum. In other words, seven years here would only equal a single day in Great Qian’s outside world?”
“The distortion of these Yin-Yang laws has reached an utterly inconceivable level.”
“And on top of that, in here...”
Li Shun attempted to draw in the [Primordial] from heaven and earth, but just as expected, it ended in failure.
“Although the sealed land contains circulating heavenly and earthly Primordial Qi, it feels as though it has been fixed in place, impossible for outsiders to absorb.”
“That ans cultivation is completely impossible here.”
“For cultivators, this is an absolute land of death.”
Still able to feel Elder Mu’s gaze upon him, Li Shun had no choice but to continue onward in the direction indicated by the branch.
There was no official road along the way. It seed the sealed imperial land had preserved nothing less than the pure, untouched natural landscape of Great Qian.
Li Shun’s gaze swept across the vegetation by the roadside, as well as the various bizarre creatures that occasionally poked their heads out to observe him. An indescribable sense of unease surfaced in his heart.
“They all clearly seem alive, and yet…”
“Why can’t I sense even the slightest trace of vitality from them?”
After pondering for a long while, Li Shun finally identified the source of that unsettling dissonance.
Everything before him felt like a series of hyper-realistic paintings.
No matter how closely he looked, they were indistinguishable from real objects. But no matter how lifelike a painting might be, it was still not a true living being.
“Within the sealed land of the Imperial Mausoleum, vitality is unnecessary.”
“What is needed is only eternal companionship.”
Li Shun murmured thoughtfully.
The “living beings” within this sealed land displayed no hostility whatsoever.
Toward Li Shun, this outsider, they showed at most a few curious glances.
In this vast world, it was as if Li Shun were the only true person.
He trudged forward with difficulty, and not long afterward finally arrived at the edge of the vast ocean he had seen earlier.
The branch continued pointing toward the center of the waters.
“There’s no road left. What now?”
Just as Li Shun was at a loss, the boundless expanse before him silently split apart, revealing a pathway forward.
“This…”
“Could this be the effect of the Qian Emperor’s handwritten decree?”
“And if so, it also ans soone is still watching .”
Countless thoughts flashed through Li Shun’s mind in an instant, but his steps did not hesitate as he entered the path along the lakebed.
It was not rely the lakewater that had parted. Even the silt at the bottom had been forcibly pushed aside, exposing the rocky lakebed beneath.
Thankfully, it was not especially difficult to traverse.
And once he passed through, the waters would close behind him once more.
Thus, after roughly seventy days of travel, Li Shun finally arrived at a city standing in the middle of the lake.
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