Rise of Humanity

by <unknown>

  Right now, the bell surface would ripple like water when an attack landed on it, the ripples on the bell surface were growing in number, and looking out from the inside of the bell, it felt like the bell was a curved river and the attacks were raindrops.

  The attack rate was steadily increasing as they walked further into the flame sea. Bai Shuyue was incredibly terrified, but to her surprise, no matter how many strikes landed on the bell, it remained unscathed through all of it!

  Gosh, is this really a skill?

  Her little brain went blank. It was hard to imagine that this was a skill of an Inner Core Qi Practitioner, being able to fend down the attacks that could even kill the Imminent Deity Qi Practitioners!

  There shouldn't be such a heaven-defying skill in this world!

  Bai Shuyue calmed herself and thought, Senior Martial Brother Zhong must have some other means to enhance this bell skill, there is no other explanation for this!

  She was, after all, a young lady with high intelligence, it didn't take long for her to deduce it, but even so, she could never begin to fathom what was actually augmenting that skill!

  One must say that even Zhong Yue himself was worried at first, but once the Shao Hao Bell blocked all of the attacks, he relaxed and laid back.

  The two of them continued like this for a few hundred miles before suddenly, Zhong Yue sensed a very faint divine aura. Although it was weak and faint, it was still very distinct in his senses.

  Such a godly aura was a far cry from the aura emitted from divine weapons. This was from a god!

  How weird, are there still gods in the ice palace?

  Zhong Yue was puzzled, Just how strong are the gods, the demon god in Eight Barren managed to clamp me in the air just with his arcane energy. He didn't even need to be present at the time or use any other medium. If there really is a god in this ice palace, who can it be?

  Soon, Bai Shuyue also sensed it and became as curious as Zhong Yue. As they walked further in, the godly aura kept getting stronger.

  They had traveled for another hundred miles, and the godly aura was so powerful as if a god were standing right in front of them!

  While around them, the ice flames were still continuously striking, countless ripples were raised on the bell surface as the attacks continued landing on it!

  Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue then suddenly stared at the front, and in the midst of the ice flames, there was the faint figure of a giant man.

  The ice flames around were huge and were shaped like shards. They pierced through the god and pinned him to the ground.

  "Our Bai Zhe Clan god!"

  Bai Shuyue shouted in shock, "He is the Bai Zhe Clan's god! Senior Martial Brother Zhong, do you remember that I said I've felt a god's aura? That godly aura belonged to him!"

  Zhong Yue nodded heavily, they walked past the Bai Zhe Clan god and stopped beneath him. Zhong Yue lifted his head up and looked at the magnificent god frozen in the ice flames.

  Everything that came into visions was colored white. The god's clothes were white, his brows were white, and they were so long that they touched the floor. His mustache and beard also covered half of his face, and his hair was even whiter than the clothes he wore.

  In his hands was a divine weapon — a scepter made of an alabaster wood which he used as a cane up to this point before being frozen to death in the end.

  Bai Shuyue was dead quiet, she was staring at this god of the Bai Zhe Clan, and she mumbled bitterly, "Why are the seals so strong, why did Lord Bai leave behind such powerful sealing array formation … did he not want his descendants to obtain his heritage…"

  Even a god died here. It wasn't hard to infer that Lord Bai never even thought of leaving his heritage behind for his descendants. The whole ice palace he left behind was a dead end!

  Zhong Yue then shook his head and responded, "I don't quite agree with you. With all these arrangements, it seems like Lord Bai was trying to seal something instead of leaving his heritage behind. He just didn't want the Bai Zhe Clan to vanish and is trying to save his people."

  Bai Shuyue was bewildered, and she asked, "What do you mean?"

  "I'm saying that Lord Bai must have found something dangerous that can erase the whole Bai Zhe Clan from existence. Thus, he built this ice palace and placed down various seals with his divine weapons. But something must have happened that caused him to die before being able to notify the Bai Zhe Clan of his intentions."

  Zhong Yue continued, "As such, all of you have thought that the ice palace contained the greatest heritage of the Bai Zhe Clan left behind by Lord Bai. You all tried with all your might to get past the seals. But little did you guys know that doing so was simply going against his will."

  Bai Shuyue kept quiet and answered, "I asked Senior Martial Brother Zhong to come with me with a promise of the Bai Zhe Clan's greatest heritage, but now, it turns out that it was just hot air on my part. I hope Senior Martial Brother Zhong's can forgive me. There is really nothing much that Shuyue can offer senior martial brother at this point, but if senior martial brother has any difficulties in the future, please let me know, and Shuyue will help at all cost."

  "You can ask her to repay with you with her body!" The little flame hopped around in Zhong Yue's psyche ocean and urged.

  Zhong Yue ignored him and replied with a smile, "The Luminant Sun Gold is already a greater harvest than I could've hoped for. Senior Martial Sister Shuyue, let us continue forward, I believe we can find out exactly what Lord Bai wanted sealed in here."

  Bai Shuyue nodded softly, and the two continued moving forward. Not long later, another surge of godly aura came into their sense, and the two youngsters' faces stiffened up again. Soon, they came across a second god of the Bai Zhe Clan that was frozen in ice!

  After another few moments, they saw the third god.

  They continued moving forward and saw the fourth god, Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue was stunned. Their bodies shuddered in shock, and Bai Shuyue shouted, "This god, it is not from our Bai Zhe Clan!"

  Zhong Yue stared vacantly at the frozen god and raised his brows, and he mumbled, "The insect race!"

  Before them, an enormously huge, dreadful looking golden insect was frozen in ice and pinned down to the ground by the ice flame shards. This golden insect had the body of an insect and a torso of the demon race. It was huge, and many thick totem patterns were wrapped around it, but they were also frozen by the ice flames!

  Bai Shuyue's body shuddered in fear, and she mumbled, "Insect race? Why is it here, how did it slip into the Bai Zhe Clan saint city and enter the ice palace…."

  Zhong Yue scrutinized the golden insect god and abruptly said, “I don’t think he came from the outside, but more like he was trying to get out of this ice palace.”

  A flash of fear flashed across Bai Shuyue's eyes, and she quickly looked at the golden insect. It was true; the golden insect was walking in the opposite direction. They were trying to go deeper, whereas the golden insect was trying to walk away from the palace!

  “From now on, the truth will slowly unveil itself.”

  Zhong Yue strode forward, and Bai Shuyue quickly followed. They walked for another few miles and saw another frozen insect god.

  Then the third, fourth, fifth…

  Along the way, they saw many insect gods frozen in this sea of ice flames, more than twenty in just a few hundred miles of distance!

  Finally, the two of them trekked past the sea of ice flame, and they looked back and unsurprisingly found the sea of ice flame disappearing with only a towering ice tower remaining at that spot.

  “This…”

  Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue looked forward. Their bodies then stiffened up, and their eyes widened with fear.

  In front of them was an endless battlefield, huge shards of ice were pierced into the ground, scattering across the battlefield like swords falling from the sky. Millions of ice sculptures appeared in their vision as far as they could see; these were all the dreadful-looking insect race Qi Practitioners!r />
  While in the middle of the battlefield, there were two giant corpses. One was a mother queen of the insect race ... and the other was Lord Bai!

  Chapter 409: Lord Bai's Heritage |

  Beside the insect mother queen and Lord Bai, there were many battles marks left behind by the strong and powerful skills; even after such a long time, some of the stronger skills were still active. It lent a deadlier air to the bloody battlefield.

  Even a god wouldn’t be able to withstand those skills!

  A distance away from the center of the battlefield, there was a teleportation portal that was linked to another planet.

  Through the portal, they could see a planet that was larger than the Ancestral Star. The planet was also pockmarked with craters of various sizes all over its surface.

  There was no ocean in the planet, and it looked like a wretched ball.

  In the sky, they could also see clouds formed by the insects, flying above the ground and on the surface of the planet, there were the large and towering buildings, majestic temples, and mountainous insect god statues!

  This was a planet of the insect race!

  It was connected to the Ancestral Star, and this ice palace in the Frozen Ancient Capital was the nexus between the two!

  “Interesting, very interesting!”

  Xin Huo scanned the surroundings through Zhong Yue's eyes and said, "Ah, so this is what happened - someplace on the insect planet has overlapped with the dimension that the Ancestral Star is located in. It must be due to the insect god's skills that had opened a path to the Ancestral Star, falling right on the North Barren, right in Lord Bai's Frozen Ancient Capital, and Lord Bai sensed all of this. Thus, the ice palace was built, and layers of seals were put into place to prevent the insect race from infiltrating to the Ancestral Star. Then, he went over and fought with the queen mother, killing her but also dying himself!"

  Zhong Yue nodded and softly said, "Lord Bai ... he really died in battle, these seals are not to leave the heritage behind but to seal the insect race away. His purpose was clear. And that was to prevent the insects from entering the Bai Zhe Clan territory."

  He then looked at Bai Shuyue and said softly, "But death came upon him too quick. Lord Bai died in the battle without being able to tell the Bai Zhe Clan. His descendants then explored the ice palace in search of a non-existent heritage. And because of this, countless of your race's experts died here in vain.

  Bai Shuyue's face blanched, and a profound sadness filled her eyes. She stared at Lord Bai's corpse, and her aura undulated violently.

  Lord Bai, the grand ancestor of a great race, and a godly marquis of the ancient West Barren Imperial Court, had died in a battle against the insect race's queen mother for the survival of the Bai Zhe Clan. And yet, it was only after 50,000 years that his descendants would come to understand his sacrifice.

  This was a great tragedy, countless Bai Zhe experts had entered the ice palace in the hope of obtaining Lord Bai's heritage, and because of this, one talent after another was killed. Eventually, resentment built up against Lord Bai for leaving behind such a vicious test. They all questioned why he hadn't just passed down his heritage to the Bai Zhe Clan directly?

  But now, every question and doubt were made clear with this revelation.

  It wasn't that Lord Bai didn't want to leave his heritage behind, but that death came way too quickly before he could explain.

  However, even so, he had placed down three layers of seals and an array formation that could even kill the gods all so that he could protect his people even after death.

  Suddenly, Bai Shuyue mumbled to herself, "No, no … Lord Bai left his heritage behind. He did, they are hiding in the skills he left behind on the battlefield. On this piece of land, these skills contain his totem patterns!"

  She mumbled, "His heritage is still here!"

  Her eyes were then filled with enthusiasm as she said, "I can study the skills here, I can attain his knowledge and recreate Lord Bai's heritage!"

  While on the other hand, Zhong Yue shook his head and sighed. Even Zhong Yue himself with the divine third eye couldn't comprehend the knowledge and totem patterns in these leftover skills in a short time, let alone Bai Shuyue who didn't have the divine third eye.

  She might not even be able to understand all of the skills even if she were to spend the rest of her life here.

  Just as he thought about it, a bright ray of light blasted over like a rainbow bridge from the other end of the battlefield and shone right on Bai Shuyue's forehead.

  The power of the light ray lifted Bai Shuyue into the air as if there were an invisible hand pulling her up from the ground. Then, more of these rainbow light rays blasted toward Bai Shuyue from every corner of the battlefield!

  Zhong Yue was shocked, and just as he was going to pull her down, Xin Huo stopped him and shouted, "Don't! This is the little girl's fortune! Lord Bai's scattered soul is still lingering in this battlefield. He must have felt the aura of his own people. Lord Bai's scattered soul is passing all of his heritage into Bai Shuyue!"

  “Lord Bai’s scattered soul?”

  Zhong Yue's heart skipped a beat, and he watched as the rainbow rays flashing across the sky disappeared into Bai Shuyue's forehead. Meanwhile, on Lord Bai's corpse, his wretched phantom was floating above it, looking at Bai Shuyue.

  This celestial was slowly fading away. It wasn't hard for Zhong Yue to deduce his identity as Lord Bai.

  His spirit was utterly destroyed, and even with the Bai Zhe Clan worshipping him as much as they could, it was still useless. The insect queen mother certainly possessed some means that could vanquish spirits.

  However, there was an obsession he could never let go even after death, and this was what tethered this fragmentary piece of his soul to the mortal plane. Now, with his final wish being successfully carried out, his scattered soul began to disperse.

  A god that was killed in the way he was would not be able to send his spirit into the Void World anymore, because the spirit and soul were destroyed entirely.

  Zhong Yue sighed and then bowed at Lord Bai's scattered soul; although Lord Bai did it for the Bai Zhe Clan, his actions also saved the whole Ancestral Star.

  If these insects entered the Ancestral Star, the whole planet would be turned like the insect planet, the landscape would change, and the world would become devoured by the insects. In the end, nothing would be left behind except for the insects and a ravaged planet.

  The bright rays kept flashing across the sky, and Bai Shuyue's aura grew increasingly strong. All of a sudden, her inner core flew out and the rainbow rays curled around it, refining her inner core!

  “This little girl is just so lucky!”

  Xin Huo exclaimed, "Lord Bai's scattered soul is refining her inner core, strengthening her foundation and rectifying any flaws in her cultivation!"

  Zhong Yue could also feel Bai Shuyue's rising aura as her cultivation base was steadily increasing. A lord-level deity, even though he was only a scattered soul, could still bring unimaginably huge benefits to Bai Shuyue!

  With the fact that Bai Shuyue had acquired Lord Bai's heritage, she was destined to be the next clan master of the Bai Zhe Clan. She was initially just half a step away from the Heavenly Dharma level, but and after her inner core had undergone the refinement, she would break through to the next cultivation level in just the next few days!

  Zhong Yue grew envious as he thought, In addition to the heritage of Lord Bai and his cultivation technique, she would be one of the strongest Heavenly Dharma Qi Practitioners in this world!

  This was really a fortune one could ever dream of, although Zhong Yue was envious of her, he felt no resentment at all. This was meant for only Bai Shuyue, the fortune belonged to the Bai Zhe Clan, and in contrast to the powerful races, Zhong Yue had his own path to walk. He knew his own direction and was taking one step after another toward his goal with staunch conviction. He believed that even without any heritages, he would not be any weaker than her in the sam
e cultivation level!

  After a long time, Lord Bai's scattered soul had finally faded away, and the rainbow rays slowly dispersed before the last light of the rainbow rays disappeared into Bai Shuyue's forehead. The Bai Zhe Clan lady slowly returned to the ground, and her eyes were tightly shut as if she were asleep.

  Moments later, she opened her eyes, and they flashed with a divine light.

  Zhong Yue laughed and said, “Congratulations, Senior Martial Sister Shuyue.”

  Bai Shuyue thanked him, and she said, "If it weren't for you, Senior Martial Brother Zhong, I wouldn't be able to obtain my grand ancestor, Lord Bai's heritage at all. Shuyue has said before. I will share the heritage of Lord Bai with senior martial brother; if you don't mind, you and I can study it together."

  She raised her finger and elegantly touched on his forehead, a surge of psyche billowed into Zhong Yue's mind, and an abstruse cultivation technique was imprinted into his memory.

  Zhong Yue's heart was in awe as he looked at the cultivation technique Bai Shuyue have passed onto him. It was one that contained 11,520 visualization picture arts!

  Drawn on these visualization picture arts were many celestial gods. They covered over 11,520 celestial races!

  The【Million God Ice Saint Art】!

  A cultivation technique that included over ten thousand gods in it, with every forte and weakness of the many celestial races detailed within. With the knowledge granted by the cultivation technique, one wouldn't be hard to defeat someone a level above themselves!

  However, there was a huge difference between the【Million God Ice Saint Art】that was given to him by Bai Shuyue and the one passed onto Bai Shuyue by Lord Bai. After all, Bai Shuyue was just an Inner Core Qi Practitioner. It was only her own understandings of the【Million God Ice Saint Art】that were passed to Zhong Yue, they weren't that profound and of course, incomparable to Lord Bai's.

  Even so, Zhong Yue was still satisfied. He wasn't going to cultivate the【Million God Ice Saint Art】at all, only taking it as a reference.

  With this【Million God Ice Saint Art】, my【Celestial Demon Tai Chi Art】can be strengthened even further. My attainments in the skill can also be heightened to a new level! Zhong Yue thought to himself.