Archfiend

Chapter 208: Danxia Temple (27)

Jiang Shang first and Sun Bin last; Zhuge Liang five centuries prior and Liu Bowen five centuries later. Yet among them, the Legend of the White Snake had suddenly appeared. Moreover… the “Xiaoqing”, who always followed the white snake at her side, held a relationship of the greatest importance with the azure carp. 

Xiaoqing… had no name… She was actually a supporting character, or because her name was too old and distant, it had been drowned in history’s long river.

The Animus Armament’s roar-like summons, the sword point’s trembling, and a sovereign king’s Millennium Grudge. All secrets would be solved here...

And who had carved the characters strokes in the Yellow Springs Path, wanting someone to go down and save them? Xu Yangyi’s mind circled a thousand times and revolved a hundred. As he opened his eyes and took a quick glance, he immediately looked at the sky in shock.

In the sky, there was a formation… A tremendous formation! It was night, but each golden talisman engraved on it was enough to destroy Xu Yangyi ten million times!

“Where’s that mighty figure…?” Xu Yangyi breathed in deeply, bestirred with emotion. The formation was boundless, enveloping the entire space. And as for this space...

His gaze flashed. Everything before his eyes caused him to feel familiarity yet confusion.

The lotus sea! This was indeed the lotus sea! The infinite lotus sea… Its limits were simply unseen! In the surroundings, there wasn’t a tree, a gust of wind, or a ray of light. There were moreover no stars in the night sky. Even if there were, they would still be covered up without a trace by the tremendous formation. Beneath all of this, there were no mountains and borders. All that entered the eye was a vast lotus sea!

“The lotus sea… It really is here!” In Xu Yangyi’s heart, hot blood rushed. It was here that he’d encountered the Eternal Alchemy Canon for the first time. It was here that he’d witnessed the omnipresent azure carp. And it was here… that he was erased for three years!

All secrets… were now below his eyes, waiting for him to uncover them. How could he not be excited? Not thirsting for this?

“But…” He cautiously stood in his original position, motionless. His spiritual sense mobilized all around and observed everything in his surroundings. This was the lotus sea… but not like the lotus sea!

There was no water!

When he had come, this place was daytime, a domain of serenity. Hidden fragrances floated and drifted. The sky welcomed the boundless jade of the lotus leaves, and the sun shining on the lotus flowers struck out a different kind of red. Nonetheless, at this moment… this place was already completely dried up!

Withered lotus leaves sprouted out from the ground and covered the sun overhead. Xu Yangyi forcefully stomped the ground. It was rather solid, to the extent that he could see dust kicking up as his foot slammed down. This illustrated that this place had already been dried up for an awfully long time.

“No…” He mumbled and sat down cross-legged. “Looking at the area here and the amount of lotus flowers, there’s no doubt that this is the lotus sea. But if this is the lotus sea, why is it completely different from what I saw that day? There’s no water… Why did the hundred streams that formed a diagram come out? And it’s not like the soil quality completely dried up recently.”

“More importantly…” He inhaled deeply, his gaze extremely serious. “That giant fish… wasn’t it here? If it’s here, where did it go?”

Lotuses and lotus leaves grew out from every little cranny, yet all of them were wilted. With a pinch of the hand, they immediately became dried-up yellow scraps, falling and withering layer after layer. Likewise, they absolutely couldn’t have become this withered in a short time.

In particular… there wasn’t a single person in his surroundings. Everyone that he’d transferred together with had been split apart! Yet the strangest thing was… that the Animus Armament, which had still been incredibly excited in the past, was now dead quiet! Even the sword point was the same!

Xu Yangyi meditated in his original position for a long time. There was qi in this place. Although the qi couldn’t be regarded as dense, it was passable. He adjusted himself to peak condition, but didn’t launch a signal whatsoever.

However, he was not alone… At this moment, there were numerous people awakening. In the same vein, not one of them used a similar method. The reason was very simple. Perhaps those who would rush over… weren’t on their side! If those closest to him was the Ming Clan, maybe this would be the place where he lost his life.

“If all of them really are the geniuses of every major clan, then each step has to be taken very carefully…” He smiled and licked his lips, standing up. “But… at the same time, that tells me one thing.”

Xu Yangyi settled his thoughts and looked all around. Whether or not this place was the lotus sea… there was one thing that could verify it the most accurately! The giant lotus flower… that he had first saw with the Eternal Alchemy Canon! And also the ancient pavilion on top of the lotus! As long as this structure was here, then there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that this was the lotus sea!

“Anyways… this issue is simple to talk about, but in the current circumstances…” He knitted his brows and tore at lotus leaves at his side. He gently waved and the lotus leaves transformed into golden dust in the wind.

This… should’ve originally been the lotus sea’s bottom. To be able to hold that giant demon form, one could imagine how deep the lotus sea was. Several thousand meters… even ten thousand meters was possible! As for the lotuses back then that floated on the water’s surface and blotted out the sky… One could picture what degree these lotus roots grew to!

Xu Yangyi gazed all around. It was like a forest of withered lotuses. The ground was piled up with the remains of wilted lotus leaves. The height of the remaining lotus leaves didn’t exceed two meters at all. The longest ones had dried up and withered early on. However… these two meters of height boundlessly concealed one’s vision!

“These kinds of situations can be said to be a two-fold problem.” Both his hands formed a seal. “Pill Cauldron Builds Spirit!” 

Swoosh! With him as the core, a ray of spiritual sense swept forth like a storm! Even the surrounding withered lotus leaves danced. A 300-meter-diameter radar greatly increased his detection strength. Continuously using Pill Cauldron Builds Spirit was quite the waste of spiritual force, but his storage ring was packed with pill elixirs that restored spiritual force. To say that the last pill master in the End of Days lacked pill elixir and what not… was a lost of face.

“I’m the only one within 300 meters…” He coolly planned on stowing his spiritual sense, but all of a sudden he stopped. All his energy concentrated towards a single direction!

The lotus sea was too immense. North, south, east, and west were simply indistinguishable. In addition, the whereabouts of the center was a mystery. However… at this moment, in a region unknown to whether or not it was the center, he clearly sensed… an especially heavy qi!

“This is…” Xu Yangyi’s gaze flashed. Bereft of the slightest hesitation, but with great caution, he grabbed onto a hawk-puppet and flew up about seven to eight meters high. Subsequently… he laid eyes upon a marvel that one was hard-pressed to forget!

In the black night and below the wilted lotus leaves… a giant white object commanded one’s focus like the scattering of bloody meat chunks in a hunting ground! Even separated so far away, Xu Yangyi could still “see” that this object was unreasonably large. Soon after, he used both his hands and spread out his thumb and index finger in front of him. In basic mortal knowledge, this was a method to measure a distant object’s size. After ages, he pulled his hands back. Ripples had already appeared in his heart.

“The length… is at least 4,500 meters… The width is unable to be measured. What the heck is this thing?”

Without any hesitation, he sprinted towards the object. If he could discover this, then others could find it as well. That… was the place where all cultivators who survived entering Danxia Temple’s central region would gather!

He vaulted over lotus flowers and walked for an unknown passage of time. One hour… perhaps two hours… Six hours… As he dashed with full strength, a fierce qi wave suddenly passed into his spiritual sense from not too far away.

There was someone fighting ahead! Xu Yangyi’s gaze flashed, and he immediately restrained his aura. Using the softest movements, he slowly advanced to the area where the qi erupted.

Two late-stage Qi Condensation… Moreover, they weren’t normal late-stages… As he walked while sensing the qi fluctuations, an outline gradually appeared in his mind.

The two people couldn’t be discerned. As for both of them… between the duo, he dared not say that he could easily defeat them! Even if he was able to win, it wouldn’t be effortless at all!

Silent, he approached the region from where the qi erupted, like a cat. In the folded layers of wilted lotus leaves, he could already make out two fighting people.

A man and a woman. The man was wearing a white changpao, simply not resembling a cultivator. Yet as he waved his hand, bamboo leaves transformed and pierced towards the woman like sharp swords. 

The woman… could be considered an acquaintance.

Sister Nine!

Her face wore a cold grin. An odd, ancient corpse seemed to come alive, and the man’s bamboo leaves were unable to penetrate whatsoever. They could only trap this opponent, yet Sister Nine’s hair, like a spider’s spun web, surprisingly wrapped up the environment into a cocoon over a gradual period of time! A cocoon with a radius of tens of meters!

“Why are you being like this, Fellow Daoist?” Rather than a cultivator, the white-gowned man was instead more like a doctor. His complexion was unstirred, absent of great billows. “I, Li, have never crossed with the Ming Clan. Why must you insist on these irreconocible animosities? What reason is there to engage in these minor issues while there is a greater danger at hand? The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.”

“CSIB hound… since you’re going to die, there’s no need to know more,” Sister Nine erupted with a cackling fit. At her side, there was an ancient three-meter-tall corpse. Its facial features were ashen and it was donned in ancient armor from head to toe, however, its speed was incredibly nimble. At its fingertips, there were half-meter-long black nails like blades. Once they swept through, the surrounding wilted lotus leaves sprinkled down in succession. “To die by This Palace’s hand can be regarded as your good fortune.” 

“Fellow Daoist God Ming speaks so easily.” The opposing man wasn’t colored by fear. “You dare fight me to the death here? Although my cultivation is inferior to yours, you’ll have to waste a great amount of effort if you want to kill me. If there’s someone waiting on an opportunity right now, hehehe… The Ming Clan’s enemies don’t seem to be less than the CSIB’s, no?”

In this place… everyone had torn off their masks of hypocrisy. This was an asura ground of blood and fire. Only the truly powerful could obtain treasures and return with them. Here, only the most naked and primal law of the jungle was upheld!

As he smiled and sauntered leisurely, he raised a hand and another qi bamboo leaf flew out to the other side. He laughed faintly, “What do you say? Fellow Daoist?”

Sister Nine’s gaze abruptly skipped, and she couldn’t help but look. At that moment, the light of Cultivator Li’s eyes slightly flickered. An azure serpent shadow quietly followed the ground and spread forth!

Xu Yangyi’s brows furrowed a little bit as well, but realization soon dawned on him. No one had discovered him.

This Cultivator Li wasn’t Sister Nine’s opponent, but he was rather crafty. This region… Indeed, before people had yet to completely gather and the appearance of benefits, killing the other was a minor issue once she took action. The greatest worry was that someone was lying in wait to reap an opportunity!

This was Cultivator Li’s diversion. He wanted to split Sister Nine’s attention for an instant!

Swoosh swoosh swoosh! At this moment, a part of Sister Nine’s hair seemed to suddenly come alive. Before she herself even reacted, it fiercely ran through the azure snake shadow!

In the wake of an alarmed cry, the ground blossomed with an orb of cyan light, and the serpent shadow died away in a flash. Cultivator Li was unable to prevent himself from hacking out a mouthful of blood, and laughed hatefully, “The Ming Clan’s Sister Nine… As expected, your great reputation isn’t unfounded.”

Yet at this time, Sister Nine’s gaze flashed. She glared daggers towards Xu Yangyi’s direction. “Which Fellow Daoist is it? Haven’t you been watching this play for a while? Hiding your tail in the shadows, can you even be considered a cultivator?”