Chapter 1081: Summoning Soul Lamps, Stepping Into the Ancient Realm!
Chapter 1081: Summoning Soul Lamps, Stepping Into the Ancient Realm!
The crimson Door of the Ancient Realm let out an intense rumble as it opened. Then, a wind sprang up, which swept over Meng Hao, causing his life force and his soul to hover on the verge of extermination.
In the face of such danger, Meng Hao let out a hoarse shout. At the same time, his heart started to beat rapidly, and shocking fleshly body power transformed into a surge of qi that fought back against the Realmwind!
The cultivators of the Nine Seas God World who hovered above the surface of the water were all watching as this happened.
After the wind passed, shockingly, something else appeared within the crimson Door of the Ancient Realm. That was... a bell!
“The Bell of the Ancient Realm!!”
“The Bell of the Ancient Realm has appeared! When you ring that bell, you can ignite Soul Lamps. However many times you ring the bell, that’s how many Soul Lamps you can ignite!”
“Generally speaking, it's one Soul Lamp for every five Immortal meridians that you have!!”
“This Meng Hao... he has 123 Immortal meridians. He... he can ignite more than twenty Soul Lamps?”
“The more Soul Lamps you have, the more difficult the Ancient Realm will be for you. On the other hand, you will be that much more powerful!”
As the shouts of astonishment rang out, Meng Hao took a deep breath. He was not entering the Ancient Realm with his cultivation base, but rather, his fleshly body. He actually wasn't sure if any Soul Lamps would appear.
Furthermore, Meng Hao had no one to follow as an example. Although his fleshly body appeared to be that of a body cultivator, he was actually different from body cultivators. Body cultivators needed to bathe in the blood of a God to be able to rise up into another Realm. Furthermore, their type of cultivation was not separated into Immortal and Ancient.
Meng Hao walked a different path, a path far removed from the norm. His was not the ancient path of body cultivators, but rather, a combination of different systems of cultivation. He was walking his own path.
“Let’s find out if I’ll get any Soul Lamps or not!” Meng Hao took a deep breath. and without any further hesitation, stepped forward into the great Door of the Ancient Realm. He saw the enormous Bell of the Ancient Realm in front of him, clenched his right hand into a fist, and punched out.
The tolling of the bell echoed out, and waves surged across the Ninth Sea. Everything blurred, and the world distorted. All the cultivators felt their minds reeling.
A tremor ran through Meng Hao, and his body showed signs of withering. His life force, as well as his qi and blood, were now being absorbed, not by the Bell of the Ancient Realm, but rather, by a black-hole-like vortex that had appeared in his chest!
Meng Hao took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Moments later, a shocking image appeared in his chest!
It was... the image of a Soul Lamp! It looked like a tiny person, a person sitting there cross-legged in the position of Meng Hao’s physical heart!
“So Soul Lamps really will appear!”
“Stepping into the fleshly body Ancient Realm also produces Soul Lamps! This Meng Hao is in defiance of the Heavens!” To the spectators, shock piled upon shock until it seemed beyond belief.
That was because they realized that the tiny person that was the Soul Lamp was actually not burning, but instead, was already extinguished!
Everyone was stunned. Normally speaking, striking the Bell of the Ancient Realm caused ignited Soul Lamps to appear. Later on, those lamps would be extinguished one by one, giving the cultivator increased power.
However, Meng Hao’s Soul Lamp was already extinguished.... He was exactly the opposite of everyone else! Fleshly body Soul Lamps did not need to be extinguished, they needed to be ignited!
Godmaster’s eyes snapped open, and a slight tremor ran through him. His voice hoarse, he said, “Anti-Ancient!!”
“It’s... anti-Ancient!!” An expression of disbelief appeared on Granny Nine’s face. Ling Yunzi gasped, and looked shocked. As for the two Demonic Patriarchs, they looked like they had been struck by lightning. They trembled as they stared at Meng Hao in astonishment.
When the Soul Lamps of the Ancient Realm fleshly body appeared, that was shocking in and of itself. However, for the lamps to appear in an extinguished state caused the Dao Realm Patriarchs to suddenly remember a legendary and terrifying stage within the Ancient Realm!
That was... the anti-Ancient Realm!
According to the legend, in the heyday of the Paragon Immortal Realm, there had once appeared a person whose Ancient Realm was the opposite of the norm. Instead of extinguishing Soul Lamps, that person ignited them.
The details of that person’s life was shrouded in mystery, and subsequent generations knew little about him. All that was known was that it was forbidden to follow in his footsteps. The Paragons of the time intentionally wiped out all information about him. Later, the Paragon Immortal Realm was destroyed, and the term ‘anti-Ancient’ became a term known only to the Three Great Daoist Societies. No one outside of those sects had even heard of it.
In the moment that the Dao Realm experts were shaken, Meng Hao took a deep breath, opened his eyes and struck his fist out once more toward the Bell of the Ancient Realm.
That strike caused the bell to toll, and Meng Hao’s body to tremble. He withered some more, and a wave of weakness caused him to shudder.
A second Soul Lamp appeared, this time in his abdomen, absorbing more of his qi, blood, and life force!
“Fleshly body Soul Lamps are so powerful....” he thought. He quickly consumed a medicinal pill, then frowned when he realized that the pill... did nothing. It was incapable of restoring him. Furthermore, his Eternal stratum was sealed, and could not spring into motion to help him recover.
His eyes glittered, and he ignored the withering of his body, striking out a third time, and then a fourth!
His body withered even more, until he looked like nothing more than a bag of bones. However, two more Soul Lamps appeared, one in each of his shoulders.
Meng Hao staggered back a bit; the sense of weakness that filled him seemed to have reached a pinnacle of intensity. However, he wasn’t willing to stop with only four Soul Lamps. Gritting his teeth and growling, he punched the bell three more times! Every strike cause him to wither even more!
Instantly, two Soul Lamps appeared in his knees, and one in his forehead. By now, he didn't even look like a person, but rather, a skeleton! His life force was weak, like a candle on the verge of being snuffed out!
This was a type of weakness he had never experienced before, and it made him feel like a feeble old man laying on his deathbed. All of his life force had been handed over to the new Soul Lamps!
Heart, abdomen, shoulders, knees, forehead: a total of seven Soul Lamps!
At this point, the will of the Bell of the Ancient Realm could sense that Meng Hao had reached his limit, and began to fade away.
“I'm not finished yet!” Seeing the bell beginning to fade away, he threw his head back and roared! Both hands turned into fists, and flew toward the Bell of the Ancient Realm. His entire body appeared to have been destroyed, vanished into thin air. And yet... two Soul Lamps suddenly appeared in his eyes!
Nine Soul Lamps!
His Soul Lamps were unlike anyone else's. They even looked different. The Soul Lamps of others actually resembled lamps, but Meng Hao’s Ancient Realm fleshly body Soul Lamps looked like people!
Each and every one sat there cross-legged, looking very somber and dignified. They seemed threatening without appearing to be angry, and if you looked closely, you would be able to see that they looked like exact representations of Meng Hao!
Nine Soul Lamps distributed throughout his body. They did not circulate around him, but rather... existed inside!
This was the Ancient Realm fleshly body!
In almost the same moment that the final Soul Lamps appeared, the Bell of the Ancient Realm faded away, and a fierce wind blew out from inside the huge door. When it touched him, he shook, and a majestic qi and blood power poured into him.
His body soaked it in like a rice paddy after a drought. It contained boundless nourishing power that transformed into incredible life force inside of him. It nourished his blood and flesh, grew his bones, fed his fleshly body. It caused his qi and blood to experience rapid and terrifying growth.
He could clearly sense the incredible transformations occurring. Cracking sounds rang out, and he seemed to be completely shedding his previous self. His fleshly body power broke completely past the peak of the Immortal Realm, stepping into a new level, that of the Ancient Realm!
An Ancient Realm fleshly body appeared, causing all Heaven and Earth to tremble. The Ninth Sea roared, and Meng Hao could sense the nine Soul Lamps inside of him madly absorbing all of the rushing Realmwind. It was as if... they were using that power to ignite themselves!
Meng Hao could sense that with each Soul Lamp that he ignited, his fleshly body would grow even more powerful!
As the wind blew, his Soul Lamps began to show signs of igniting. In the end, however, the wind wasn't enough to complete the job. Only the two Soul Lamps in his eyes came to life.
In that moment, Meng Hao felt like a million lightning bolts were crashing around in his mind. Shaken, he felt his fleshly body power rising explosively. The air around him distorted, and as he clenched his fists, it shattered.
It was a boundless feeling of power, giving him the confidence that he could easily slay Ancient Realm experts with numerous extinguished Soul Lamps. It made him feel like... the power of one punch could shake the entire world. Meng Hao truly felt... much more powerful!
The difference between himself now and moments before... was incredibly vast!
He took a deep breath, and his eyes began to shine with a bright light. Behind him, the great Door of the Ancient Realm slowly faded away. As it disappeared, the Ninth Sea finally returned to a state of calm.
In contrast, the hearts of the countless cultivators above the surface of the sea were anything but calm. The scene they had just witnessed was the fastest they had ever seen anyone enter the Ancient Realm, and also the most shocking!
That shock would not end, nor would it ever be forgotten. This day could be considered the day that Meng Hao truly rose to prominence in the Nine Seas God World, and was a day that would not be forgotten for countless years to come!
Meng Hao turned into a bright beam of light that shot back down into the sea, through the water, into the Nine Seas God World, and then into the golden gate stone stele to finally appear beneath the sect in the deep sea!
Great waves rolled out across the surface of the sea, and a vortex appeared deep under the water. However, the regions down below which had previously exerted massive pressure on Meng Hao now barely affected him at all.
30,000 meters. 60,000 meters. 90,000 meters. 120,000 meters....
Meng Hao surged with energy as he shot downward madly. At the same time, his name shot up in the rankings on the first golden gate stone stele. Although he was in 5th place, the name in 1st place only had a depth of 99,000 meters next to it! [1. 99,000 meters is “3 wan 3 qian zhang,” or “3 (10,000), 3 (1,000) zhang”]
Meng Hao had already vastly exceeded everyone, except in the matter of the time spent. However... not every rank of depth required time spent. Anyone who could sink down past 180,000 meters would automatically shatter the records of any other name, and would be completely deserving to stand in 1st place!
Rumbling filled Meng Hao as he sank down further. 150,000 meters.... 180,000 meters. 210,000 meters. 240,000 meters.... Finally, when he reached 261,429 meters, he caught sight of the sea floor, and was completely shaken. [1. 261,429 meters is 87,143 zhang]
Outside on the first golden gate, a bright golden light of unprecedented intensity shot up into the air as Meng Hao's name reached... 1st place!
When people saw the number next to his name that represented the depth he had reached, they were thunderstruck.