Archfiend

Chapter 373: Sky Burial (1)

The sky breeze whistled. Xu Yangyi was like a hawk breaking through the air. Wild gales several thousand meters above blew on his clothes, causing them to ripple loudly, yet the squalls were simply unable to bar his path.

Swoosh! From the ground, an arrow piercing through the clouds was visible. One could even see the tunnel cleaved through the clouds with their naked eye. As he flew and soared, a faint smile suddenly tugged at his lips.

Such a feeling… truly was of the utmost relaxation and freedom, the heart untroubled and the spirit pleased.

In the sky, he looked down on the masses. This was his first long-distance flight since reaching Foundation Establishment. Although he was much slower than a helicopter in comparison, such a thrill was something an airplane could be drawn parallel with on a fundamental level!

After approximately four hours, four of the most utterly content hours he had since reaching Foundation Establishment, the shadow of the North Sea was already distantly in view.

At this time, he came to an abrupt halt and quickly looked to his dantian!

It moved… 

Just now, the Dream Eater’s cocoon had actually twitched twice!

He immediately performed Innersight. As if it was afraid that Xu Yangyi hadn’t seen, the Dream Eater slightly rocked back and forth again two times. He could sense a kind of intimacy coming from inside. It was completely different from the previous mystery of Zhuang Zhou, and yet… he could more importantly see slivers of ash-black aura being gradually absorbed by the Dream Eater. While the stream was fairly small, it went absolutely uninterrupted!

It was like… a little black universe was absorbing something without limit or end. In any case, he couldn’t see the origin of this aura outside his body.

“What is this?” He carefully went through all his memories. This situation should’ve occurred after he left District A-31, as if… the Dream Eater was beginning to recover.

Xu Yangyi shook his head. Just as he was about to take flight ahead, the Dream Eater quickly swayed twice!

His spiritual sense fell into a wave of haziness. He’d never expected that the mere cocooned Dream Eater would actually be able to make his spiritual sense sway. Suspiciously, though… it seemed as if it was blocking something?

“Interesting.” Xu Yangyi looked at the cocoon, full of interest. “What do you want to tell me?”

There was no reply.

He stowed his gaze. Just as he was about to move forward again, the cocoon unexpectedly began to shake again! An extremely weak, yet extremely dependent on him, spiritual sense spread into his mind. There were no words, only whining gibberish. The sounds were somewhat urgent, as if they were a little anxious.

Xu Yangyi pulled back a step. The cocoon didn’t move whatsoever. Knitting his brows together, he advanced again, and the Dream Eater actually started to sway once more!

“You don’t want me to go ahead?” He gazed at the Dream Eater’s cocoon, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. This was just like a child throwing a tantrum to their father. The cocoon couldn’t speak, only able to use primitive movement to express itself.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he laughed as he extended his hand and held it flat. His smile, however, didn’t reach his eyes, merely hanging at the sides of his mouth. Already, his expression was starting to turn grave.

“If you were warning me about something else, maybe I wouldn’t care… but can you compare to Senior Xiaoqing in intuition? Experience? Congratulations, you got my attention.”

“Ten Cardinals Purgatory.”

Swoosh!!! Three crimson fire-dragons screamed into existence from three of his fingers and wildly surged head! In the next second, though, they seemed to encounter some barrier they couldn’t cross. Impacting with a loud boom, the three dragons transformed into swirling flame. Motes of starlight sprinkled down in the air.

Xu Yangyi breathed in deeply and took three steps forward with extreme caution. In the instant his arm completely extended, his strong brows raised up.

His hand seemed to stretch into the surface of a lake, waves beginning to ripple in front of him. It was to the extent… that an inverted image of himself was reflected from the hollow void!

“This is…” The mirror-like void reflected his surprised expression. “A nation-protector array?” 

The smile on his face vanished without a trace, and he prudently stuck out his hand. Qi revolved all around it, and he gently stroked the void in front of him.

Bang!!! A burst of blue lightning pulsed wildly! Total caution finally overtook his mien.

In front of him, a gray talisman emerged at his fingertips. Very soon… it was ten meters… a hundred meters… a thousand meters! In less than ten minutes, the gray talisman pervaded half the sky! It formed a massive, endless, faintly discernible formation that was no less than tens of thousand of meters in size!

He took a deep breath and took his arm back. “Daomaster Ancientpine once told me that each country has its own nation-protector array. However…” He deeply eyed the boundless formation in front of him. “How could something like that be in this lower realm?”

“After Daomaster Ancientpine said this, I specifically looked up information on nation-protector arrays. It was only vaguely brought up, though. It wasn’t until I was promoted to branch master was a little explained. On Earth, countries like America and Canada don’t have nation-protector arrays. That’s because they don’t have religious inheritances and strong cultivators. Only ancient countries with long histories, like China, Greece, India, and so on have them.” 

“Otherwise, there are the nation-capitals where great cultivators at Core Formation or above once came from. Vatican City, Rome, Sweden, and other countries. Even though this a lower realm, I didn’t expect that the State of Shangchen would also have a nation-protector array.”

He calmly stared at the the formation before his eyes. Evidently, it wasn’t complete. Its power was very weak, and its range wasn’t great, either. However, a nation-protector array’s awesomeness stemmed from its “rules”.

These rules were just like a game of chess, Chinese chess, or perhaps a game of Go, or Battle Flag Chess. When one entered the field of this chessboard, they had to comply with its rules. If not, one would suffer unimaginable retaliation. The more ancient a country and the greater amount of cultivators that appeared within it, the more vicious the rules were and the more comprehensive the restriction. [1]

Cool and collected, he swiped his storage ring. A hawk-puppet whizzed out, and he casually flung his hand out. The hawk-puppet promptly charged ahead into the array. Yet in the next second, the hawk puppet suddenly plunged down as if it was a kite cut of its string. 

“Sky Restriction.” His brows quickly furrowed. Unless he himself exceeded the level of the one who set down the nation-protector array, then he had no choice but to follow the rules within. In other words… 

“The power of the person who carved this formation is above mine.” He was silent for ages and rubbed his pale chin. “Interesting… the Clearcloud Realm actually produced a cultivator that was over Foundation Establishment. Daomaster Floatingcloud… could you really by this Zhang Guangyao?”

Xu Yangyi didn’t use the Summoning Talisman that Zu Huai’en had given him. From their last meeting, he couldn’t fully believe in the other Foundation Establishment cultivator. Instead, his silhouette flickered, and he was already at the corner edge of the array. His expression unchanging, he pierced straight through and went in.

The talisman wall only trembled slightly. Nonetheless, just as he strode in, all his pores actually became so relaxed that they opened wide.

Qi!

Such strong qi!

So strong… that it transcended the degree of some of Earth’s cities! It directly pressured second-tier provincial capitals!

“Unbelievable.” He inhaled deeply. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been to Baizhai City, but the qi definitely wasn’t this strong last time! This qi was totally sealed inside by the nation-protector array. It couldn’t be sensed outside by any respect!

Presently inside Baizhai City, it could be said that people came and people went. At this moment, the decennial Sky Burial Festival turned the metropolis into the most fervent place in the entire country. It was unknown how many pedestrians brushed past Xu Yangyi’s side. Because he wasn’t moving, quite a few people bumped into his shoulder and then cursed him out as they kept on walking.

He collected his thoughts and cast an invisibility technique. Although he couldn’t fly, large jumps weren’t within the array’s jurisdiction scope. After several leaps, he was already standing on top of a 300-meter-tall building, his hands at his back. He closed his eyes and unleashed his spiritual sense without hesitation. In an instant, he shrouded a range of 10,000 meters.

In the next second, however, his eyes snapped opened!

“What’s going on?” His gaze was rapidly flickering. In that fleeting moment… there was no city in his spiritual sense!

His feet rested on top of the city’s largest building… yet his spiritual sense reflected a totally different image!

Brewing in silence for a few seconds, he closed his eyes once more.

Whoosh… The same situation arrived again. In his eyes, a world of interweaving white and black came into view!

Like tides… waves of black qi ceaselessly battered the white at the horizon… no, not the horizon. In this place, there was no heaven and earth, only black and white. It was akin… to a space of dual color.

There were no people. There was no city. There were no trees. In the vast everything, there was only black and white.

“This doesn’t make any sense…” Xu Yangyi lamented as he surveyed the vicinity. Spiritual sense was one’s other set of eyes. There shouldn’t have been any change from what he could see with it and his eyes in itself. He’d never heard about a situation of the eyes and the spiritual sense seeing two completely different things!

Reticent for a brief moment, he brought his foot up and walked forward. He walked without obstruction for five minutes and then stopped in his steps again. His expression had long since entered a state of total caution.

“I’m afraid… ‘big’ can’t describe the problem with the Clearcloud Realm anymore.” 

“With my speed, I’ve walked at least a couple dozen meters from the top of the building. Since I’m at the top… I should’ve fallen down by now.”

“Right now, though… it’s like I’m still on level ground. In other words, the world in my spiritual sense and the world in my eyes are actually entirely separated!”

“In that case, which one is real? Zu Huai’en said there’s no one alive here, could that be what he meant? Are my eyes deceiving me?”

Just as Xu Yangyi was about to open his eyes, he abruptly paused and gravely looked towards a direction.

A voice… 

In this infinite monochrome world… there was actually another voice!

“Huff…” It was like the wind rising.

“Huff…” It was like the clouds falling.

The voice was soft. If one wasn’t careful, they wouldn’t hear it at all. In the wake of this voice, however, the black-white world unexpectedly rose and fell!

The extent was very small, so small that it almost couldn’t be felt.

Xu Yangyi said nothing. This was too strange… Just as he’d entered Baizhai City for the decennial Sky Burial Festival, he had encountered such an odd scenario. His spiritual sense quietly spread forth. Ten minutes… twenty minutes… an hour. In this time he felt nothing, yet suddenly a tremor jolted him from head to toe!

Something… in some place, was pulling on his spiritual sense!

In the world of spiritual sense, his spiritual sense world, Xu Yangyi was actually being invaded by someone amidst his unwittingness! This entity had furthermore seized onto him!

“You… can see me?”

Just as his spiritual sense cycled through his entire body, a voice wild with joy suddenly rang out, “You can see me?! You can see me, right?!”

“That’s right… that has to be it! I got you! You’re here! You can definitely see me!”

“How many years has it been… boohoo boohoo… It’s been over a hundred years… but someone can finally see me! Someone can finally enter this nightmare…”

1. “Battle Flag Chess” is called Luzhanqi. It is a Chinese game. “Chinese chess” is called Xiangqi, or “Elephant Chess”.