by <unknown>
Xin Huo then instructed, “Right there, behind the magma cataract, there is a hidden jade flask, take it out.”
Zhong Yue moved forward, he burst his psyche to materialize a dragon claw and reached out into the magma. he groped around for the jade flask, and indeed, it was there.
It was tens of feet tall, crafted by an unknown type of jade and engraved with exquisite and elegant carvings. Zhong Yue barely managed to catch a glimpse of it before it broke into tiny shards right after he extracted it, the shattered jade fragments splintered across the ground.
“This jade flask was in fact, a god's treasure. But sadly, the strain of tens of thousands of years acting as the core of the sealing array has gravely eroded it; it is normal for it to shatter into shards the moment you've relieved it of the burden.”
Xin Huo smiled and said, “The ninth layer of array formations in the seal will destroy itself, young tribesman of Fuxi god race, prepare to enter the teleportation portal, you are going to the moon!”
Zhong Yue was startled and his mind went utterly blank, he shouted out at Xin Huo, “This jade flask is the array formation's core? You've placed the core right behind the magma waterfall? Did not even the slightest fear of the others breaking your array formation cross your mind?”
Before he could finish his words, the 109 spatial arrays started crumbling, the space in front of Zhong Yue was twisted and distorted, one after another, the spatial arrays whirled and disappeared in thin air.
“The core of the ninth array formation is also the core of the whole seal, who would ever know that I would place the seal's core behind the magma cataract?”
Xin Huo said proudly, “Even if they've arrived at the ninth layer, they would only be thinking about going further and deeper into the seal, none of them would ever realize that the key would be right in front of them!"
Zhong Yue mustered his strength and sprinted down, he could hear the sounds of rocks crumbling above him, the eighth layer of the seal was starting to collapse; the volcano was getting sultrier, the once refreshing air turned an inhospitably burning hot!
The seal siphoned away the energy from the volcano to operate itself, but as the seal was disintegrating, the immense volcanic power was released!
The cultivators in the eighth array formation were watching the battle when all of a sudden, the surroundings started to quake. Their faces changed drastically and the mighty fiery dragons in their eyes suddenly dispersed into thin air!
The totem carvings around in the air and the magma cataract were also disintegrating!
“What is happening?” Someone shouted.
Totem carvings on the volcanic rock pillars were also starting to disappear, the cliff crumbled and lava splashed down from the sky, blazing heat glutted the surrounding air!
The young aces that were locked in combat immediately sensed the drastic change in atmosphere and realized that the pressure of the seal was expunged. They quickly stopped and pulled back and to look down at which their countenance contorted in shock.
The seal, it self-destructed.
Gu Hongzi was the first to realize the circumstances, he released an overbearing whistle as he unveiled his true beast form – a big black bird flitting amidst gale and lightning, and hastily, he fluttered downwards!
The god's treasure!
Qiu Qingshan, Lang Qingyun and the like quickly realized it too, they immediately left Feng Wuji, Lei Hong and the others followed behind Gu Hongzi down to the ninth array formation.
At the same time, the monster ace cultivators were exhilarated, one after another, the monsters leaped down from mid-air into the base of the volcano.
Even the Sulphur Island Lord Yan Yunsheng and Jinxiu Island Lord Xiutian Chen could not restrain themselves. They dashed towards the bottom of the volcano in the midst of the ensuing chaos.
The god's treasure.
The monsters had sacrificed way more than what could be described in words; tens of thousands of arduous years spent, the death of innumerable peak figures, and the lifetimes of analysis and research done – all for the sole purpose of breaking through the seal.
But now, right before their eyes, the seal was disintegrating on its own, did it mean that an unimpeded path to the god's treasures would be exposed to them?
“Senior Martial Brother Feng?” Jun Sixie placed her palm on her zither, she gazed at Feng Wuji and asked.
Feng Wuji hesitated for a second and he turned to Lei Hong and Fang Jiange, “What do the two senior martial brothers think?”
“Fu Shan, let's go.”
Fang Jiange said, “We will wait for them at the volcanic crater, and we will slay whoever comes out alive.”
“Good idea!”
Lei Hong's eyes shined with excitement, he guffawed and said, “As long as we control the crater, it is impossible for them to run away!”
The four of them then turned and flew up towards the volcanic crater.
At the same time, Zhong Yue had reached to the teleportation portal; it was an array formed from many stone tablets, they were arranged to surround the array in concentric circles extending out to at least a few hundred layers!
In the middle of the array, where the smallest circle was, the ground was as crystal clear as a mirror, reflecting the pristine image of a moon on it, paradoxically seemingly close at hand and yet, further than one can imagine.
The mirror was around three feet in diameter, just the right size to fit one person on it.
Zhong Yue carried the Fang Blade on his back and stood on it, he asked. “Xin Huo, how long will it take to reach to the moon ... En?”
Zhong Yue stumbled upon the surroundings, without him realizing anything at all, he had left the volcano and arrived at a devastated palace.
He was standing on a teleportation portal made of stone, one which was even grander and larger than the one under the volcano!
Zhong Yue looked down, and he could see a sky-blue planet floating in his eyes as the Sun shone and illuminated half of it – the astonishing scene was utterly breathtaking.
“I'm already on the moon?”
He recollected his thoughts and examined the palace, the plaque on it wrote two words.
‘Moon Palace.’
Zhong Yue was baffled, “This Moon Palace, is there someone staying here?”
“Once there was a goddess that stayed here, but she had died of age before I went into slumber, leaving behind only this palace.”
Xin Huo stood atop Zhong Yue's shoulder and said, “Don't leave the perimeter, the air only exists within the radius of three miles around the palace, any further than that and the lack of air will suffocate you. Your prowess is still far from allowing you to roam the galaxy without the need to breathe. Right here, you can reach out your senses to the fullest extent and manifest the strongest moon spirit ... NO!”
The little flame suddenly hopped into the air, visibly distressed as he cried out in panic, “The moon ... No, no, it can't be! Who stole the moon, and simply left the crust behind?”
Chapter 76: God in the Moon |
At the bottom of the volcano, Gu Hongzi, Lang Qingyun and the other monsters were staring at the teleportation portal in stupefaction. The volcano had just cooled down; a split second before this, they could feel an unearthly strength siphoning away all of the energy from within thousand miles radius of volcano!
And when the array was activated, such a force of energy beyond imagination was entirely consumed in an instant!
“The ancient god's treasure ... it flew away by itself?”
Over hundreds of monsters lost their composure, some started laughing out loud, and guffawing to the extent that tears rolled down their cheeks as peals of chagrined laughter sounded throughout the bottom of the volcano like discordant cries. “We monsters spent so many years trying, sacrificing lives and time, and yet, in the end, it was all in vain, all in vain!”
The face of the Jinxiu Island Lord and Sulphur Island Lord darkened, their limbs quivered, their heart
s seemed to suddenly lose direction, and they were bewildered.
What had just happened ... was out of their comprehension.
The monsters had spent ages and countless lives on the seal, driven by the high hopes and anticipation that one day, the prospect of acquiring the god's treasure would finally come to fruition. But the ending took a sharp turn for the worse, no one could have foreseen that the treasure would 'fly' away on its own!
A sad and sorrowful ambiance inundated the monsters, no one expected things to turn out this way, and yet the reality continued to contemptuously stare at them in the face. All the efforts the monsters had poured down on the seal and the trials and tribulations they suffered through were completely in vain.
I think I just saw someone dashing into the stone array....
The Jiuxiu Island Lord, Xiutian Chen, squinted his eyes and thought, My injuries are so severe that I kept seeing figments of my imaginations, I have to heal up as soon as possible.
“This is bad, the Swords Gate's four young successors have sealed the volcanic crater!” One of the monsters shouted.
“We will fight our way out!” The monster ace cultivators turned the acrimony of their sorrow into a raging fire of strength as they bellowed.
……
On the moon, Zhong Yue's mind was utterly blank, he took a few moments to regain his composure, and he shouted in shock, “What did you just say? The moon, stolen? Who is capable of snatching it away?”
Xin Huo leaped down from Zhong Yue's shoulder and hovered in the air, pacing back and forth and exasperation, “Not all of it, but the most crucial and essential fragment, which is the moon's core! The moon spirits come into being from the moon's core, and whoever did this, took the moon's core and the moon spirits away from the moon!”
“So, the moon is only left with the crust, it's empty in the core?”
The fact was too hard for him, in fact, for anyone to ever accept, Zhong Yue cast his psyche into the crust and seeped into it. The psyche was an intangible and abstract facet of his prowess, unencumbered by a physical body, his psyche could extend all the way into the depths of the moon's mantle.
He could not tell how much time had elapsed nor how deep the mantle was, Zhong Yue's psyche was on the verge of reaching its limit when all of a sudden, the pressure on his psyche was alleviated and he came to a vast space swallowed in emptiness,
The moon was literally empty, there was only a stratum of rocks that formed the shape of the moon.
Zhong Yue could not believe it, the crust was all that was left of the moon, while the entire core went missing!
Zhong Yue never knew how massive the moon was. When he was young, he would often look up to the sky and think that the moon was only the size of a dinner plate, ignorant of the nature of optics. But ever since he started cultivating, especially after he began practicing the Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art, his psyche turned stronger and his sights grew sharper than ever before – he could see things clearer and became cognizant of the often forgotten details that escaped the sight of many.
That was when he knew that the moon was bigger than what he imagined it was.
But now, he arrived on the moon and was standing right on it, he realized the extent of his hubris when he thought he could measure the size of the moon with his imagination – its size was something far beyond the limits of his psyche.
And yet, as of now, the moon which was of a size beyond his imagination had its core stolen away!
Who would have such a ghostly ability?
Who would be able to sneak onto the moon and snatch away its core under the nightly watch of the innumerable living beings that lived under its light?
Countless nights passed and no one had ever realized that the moon, robbed of its essence, was now only an empty husk!
“Who did this?”
It was right at this time where Zhong Yue discovered a surge of a holy and saintly aura inside of the moon as if there were a miniature sun hiding within it. A golden radiance shined in all directions and instantly wiped his psyche away!
Zhong Yue was shocked, and he quickly withdrew his psyche back into the recesses of his mind. The moment when his psyche moved, he could ‘see’ the figure of a god towering inside the moon – it was the source of that saintly aura.
The figure was so huge that it that the whole moon seemed to circumscribe it, it's arms extended outwards and pushed against the moon's crust from the inside as if it holding the moon so that it would not crumble!
“A totem spirit!”
Zhong Yue was shocked, and he quickly recovered his psyche back into his psyche ocean. This godly figure was a totem spirit, one that was also the same the those worshipped by the human tribes; they were all spirits.
But this godly figure was not the moon spirit; a thief stole the moon's core away and placed his spirit here, forcibly taken over the moon so that when the living worshipped the moon, it was his spirit that they were inadvertently worshipping!
Right when his psyche returned to his psyche ocean, the aura also followed behind and transmuted into a godly figure in his psyche ocean!
Right away, the saintly aura engulfed his psyche ocean, pulverizing his psyche and crumbling the space around; and later, the aura emanated from the godly figure started to reach out to his soul!
“Soul Sovereign!”
Zhong Yue gravely murmured, his soul transmuted to the form of the Sui Sovereign and sitting down solemnly, he was like a Heavenly Emperor sitting in the midst of the endless void accepting the supplication from the gods, emanating a burst of strong rays.
Wherever the rays gleamed on, the holy and saint aura would be dispersed, when the rays shone onto the godly figure in his psyche ocean, it started to burn and melt while releasing green fumes!
“An ancient saint?” Zhong Yue could faintly hear that godly statue mumbling a sentence before disappearing.
“You are saying, that in the middle of the moon, there is a godly statue of a totem spirit?”
Xin Huo was baffled, he said, “Could it be that during the period where I was asleep, someone has stolen the moon's core and replaced the moon spirit with his spirit and received the worship in its place? This thief, what a genius he is. It seemed like the event took place a very long time ago, I wonder if he is still alive ... and he had spoken of something about the ancient saints?”
Zhong Yue nodded, and Xin Huo's face turned solemn, he said, “He must be a god from the celestial race, vying for eternal life, so there are still celestials living in this planet, and so are the gods? We can't stay here any longer, we must leave now, I suspect that the god is in hibernation, but he will have his descendants looking over and guarding his godly spirit.
Zhong Yue nodded and agreed that they should not stay down. As the moon spirit was stolen away, if someone ever tried to manifest a moon spirit, that god would be the one that the cultivators were reaching out to In the end, all their hard work would only be beneficial to the god!
If the truth were to be revealed to the world, there would be an uproar, and no one would ever reach out to the moon and manifest the moon spirits anymore.
“Without the moon spirit, we can still go to the sun and manifest the sun spirit.”
Xin Huo quickly said, “If the god's descendants noticed that someone saw the godly spirit inside of the moon, they will worship the god and awaken him to slay you and me on the spot! Quickly enter the teleportation portal, I will trigger the array and send us to the sun!”
“If that god can steal the moon's core away, can he steal the sun's?” Zhong Yue rapidly stride into the teleportation portal, and he asked curiously.
Xin Huo trotted around the giant stone tablets, wherever he went, totem carvings would emerge on the surface of the giant stone tablets, the totem carvings absorbed the moonlight and shimmered brightly.
“It's not that easy to steal the sun's core; it'll be at least a trillion times harder! The sun is terrifyingly gargantuan, the moon is j
ust a drop of water in the ocean when compared to the sun. If you don't believe it, you can take a look at the sun and see if there's any difference in looking at it from here and from the ground.”
Zhong Yue cast his gaze over to the sun, looking at it from the moon, it appeared to be smaller, the sun now sized like an orange, looking strange and yet marvelous.
An ordinary human could never stare at the sun for long or they would blind their eyes; but he was different, his psyche was strong, and his eyes were refined, his sights were a hundred times superior to ordinary humans, staring at the sun would not pose any adverse effect on his eyes.
As he continued staring at it, the distance between the sun and himself seemed to be pulled closer, it was the doing of his psyche, augmenting his vision so that he could see clearly with utmost precision!
The orange-sized sun was enlarged in his eyes, it got bigger and larger, and all of a sudden, Zhong Yue's heart pounded heavily as a fiery and spherical conflagration nonpareil in size appeared before his eyes. It overtook his whole vision, and enshrouded the whole moon and even the planet he lived on!
Unequaled in size and unbelievably beautiful!
Flames danced and blasted on the gargantuan fireball, the indomitable power of fire could easily pulverize everything away, the fire emerged and took the form of dragons, or some, in the form of the phoenixes. Regardless of the forms, each and every one of them was far larger than the moon, ranging from millions to tens of millions of miles long!
Zhong Yue quickly closed his eyes, the scenery was utterly terrifying, it was way beyond his cognition of the universe!
“There is also a god in the sun, but not a cultivated god, he is an inborn, innate god from birth, he is the sun spirit.”
Xin Huo activated more and more giant stone tablets, the stone tablets here on the moon were all bigger than the ones in the volcano, and they were also larger in number.
The totem carvings on the stone tablets shimmered and drew away all the moonlight around them!
“Brat Yue, are you ready, we are going to the sun!” Xin Huo shouted out aloud.
