Nine Star Hegemon Body Art c1-2048
Page 228
“What are we doing? We’re the Righteous path’s disciples, grand warriors of justice! Eliminating evil and defending our values is our sacred mission! Kill them all!” ordered Zhao Mingshan. The Righteous disciples, who had been flabbergasted by the change in events, raised their weapons against the Corrupt disciples.
Previously, they had all been apprehensive about the Corrupt Chosen. Now that he was heavily wounded and weak, who would give up on getting an advantage?
“Kill!”
Zhao Mingshan and the other Righteous Chosen both charged at the Corrupt Chosen. They didn’t give him any time to heal. They didn’t even give him a chance to consume medicinal pills.
In just a couple of exchanges, that Corrupt Chosen was on the verge of defeat. He might lose his life at any moment.
“Contemptible Righteous path, I curse you all!”
BOOM!!!
Once he realized that there was no chance of getting away, the Corrupt Chosen cursed them and self-detonated.
Although he had been fighting fiercely and had even taken mortal wounds, his Dantian had still contained an abundant amount of spiritual qi.
Due to his intense resentment, he detonated his Dantian without any hesitation. A Chosen’s self-detonation was terrifyingly powerful.
A huge crater over a dozen miles wide formed in the ground around him. Zhao Mingshan and the other Chosen hadn’t expected him to be so unyielding. He hadn’t begged for forgiveness, nor had he tried to flee.
The two of them had been the closest, and they had been sent flying, wildly vomiting blood. The majority of their bones had broken, and they were extremely miserable.
After coughing up more blood, Zhao Mingshan just barely managed to sit up, his face ashen, his eyes practically spitting flames.
The other Corrupt disciples were all dead at this point. Less than half of the monastery disciples were still alive. As for the other Righteous disciples, they had long since fled.
“What are you all waiting for? Are you all dead men? Do you not know what to do?!” Seeing these idiots just foolishly looking at him, Zhao Mingshan began to curse them.
A Favored quickly ran over and took out a medicinal pill for him.
Zhao Mingshan directly slapped that person in the face and cursed, “You fucking idiot, I’m not crippled! I don’t need your boot-licking! Hurry up and go find that bastard’s spatial ring!”
The Favored was furious at being slapped, but he didn’t dare release that on Zhao Mingshan. He led everyone to go searching. But inside, he began to curse every single damn member of Zhao Mingshan’s family.
“How fucking vexing. Even after all that work, we didn’t gain anything.” The two Chosen both consumed healing pills. They were furiously watching the disciples searching.
This time, they hadn’t obtained anything, but many of their disciples had died. Furthermore, they were now heavily injured.
“All the good stuff inside the ancient tomb was taken by Long Chen and that Guo fellow. Long Chen’s dead in the tomb, so there’s no way for us to get it,” sighed the other Chosen.
Although Long Chen had some shocking treasures on him, there was no way they could reach him when he was buried so deeply. This dirt here wasn’t the same as the outer world. It was incredibly dense.
Even if they were to dig until the secret realm closed, they still might not be able to reach where Long Chen’s corpse was buried. So they could only give up on Long Chen’s treasures.
“That brick he used should be the bricks used to pave the ground of the ancient tomb. It’s a very rare metal. I bet that Guo fellow has quite a few of them. If we find him, we might be able to get some benefits at least.”
Zhao Mingshan nodded. “What if we can’t find him?”
The other Chosen smiled sinisterly. “Then we’ll just offer a bounty and put him on the list of wanted criminals. We’ll say he was Long Chen’s lackey who slaughtered disciples from the same sect. We can make up any accusation we want. As long as that brat shows his face, he’ll be attacked by all our people. As long as we offer some incentive as a reward, we’ll be able to get all those precious materials from his body. It’s a pretty good investment.”
“Not a bad plan. But if we can’t find him, fuck, I really won’t be able to swallow this rage. Tch, the best option is to release this rage on the damnable 108th monastery. If I don’t exterminate them all, I won’t be Zhao Mingshan!” A vicious light shone in Zhao Mingshan’s eyes.
The other Chosen also nodded. But then he sighed regretfully. “Who would have thought Long Chen would be so terrifying. The entire time he was fighting with us, he wasn’t using his full strength. He was obviously using our subordinates to open the coffin and bring out the treasures. How insidious.”
In truth, they had misjudged Long Chen. Long Chen had actually made a mistake this time. In all his plans and assumptions about the coffin, he had never imagined it to have no traps.
According to common sense, the coffin should have at least had some poison gas or hidden arrows. At the very least, there should have been some sort of trap.
That was why Long Chen hadn’t done anything to try to personally open it. One reason was because he was worried about the danger, and the other reason was because it was too troublesome. His other intention was to test his strength since he had advanced to Tendon Transformation.
Perhaps it was because that era had been too peaceful, thus, there had only been a set of mechanisms that would only be able to stop stupid beasts. Perhaps the owner had never imagined there would be people to come and smash apart their coffin.
There hadn’t been the slightest trap throughout the entire process. If Long Chen had known that before, he would have probably slaughtered them all instantly. Then he wouldn’t be buried in the tomb.
“It’s too bad about that golden page. It was definitely a priceless treasure. There might even have been some heaven-startling secrets written on it,” sighed Zhao Mingshan.
The other Chosen agreed. Although they hadn’t gotten a good look at the golden page, the aura that had come from it was enough for them to determine that it was a priceless treasure. It must have something amazing recorded on it.
“It’s all Long Chen’s fault. Just thinking about him gives me a stomach ache. Those brutes from the 108th monastery better not let me see them. If I don’t slaughter them, I won’t be surnamed Zhao!”
“Let it go. That’s the second time you’ve said that. Look, that little fellow’s coming over. They should have found something.” The other Chosen saw a person rushing over.
“Reporting to senior apprentice-brother Zhao, this is for you.” That person carefully handed over a small object.
Seeing that thing, Zhao Mingshan’s expression grew darker. This was the shattered remnant of a spatial ring.
That Corrupt Chosen had been incredibly vicious. Before self-detonating, he had even destroyed his spatial ring.
Spatial rings contained special spaces. Once they were destroyed, the contents within it would disappear into the chaotic void, disappearing completely.
Zhao Mingshan’s expression grew incredibly ugly, looking like someone whose whole family had just died. This time, they really hadn’t made any harvests.
But they were helpless about that. After glancing at the collapsed tomb, Zhao Mingshan and the others all left furiously.
Three days after they left, a small amount of ground at the top of the tomb sunk in, and a large hand emerged.
Chapter 336 You Can Touch, But You Can’t Use Her
“Boss!”
Over a hundred miles from the tomb, within a hidden cave, Guo Ran was excitedly looking at Long Chen.
“Boss, I heard those bastards talking about you back on that day when I was hiding. Tch, I knew my boss wouldn’t die from being buried in the tomb! With boss’s brilliance and divine martial arts, with boss’s incomparable smarts, how could you possibly be buried inside while they managed to come out safe and sound?”
Long
Chen had just entered the cave. Sitting down on his butt, he seemed somewhat exhausted. “This time you’re wrong. Your boss really did get buried inside.”
“No way! Boss, you really were buried? You do kind of look like you just dug your way out of the ground.” Long Chen’s robes were covered in dirt, and he seemed weary.
“While playing with idiots, I ended up being the one played. Your boss really did end up failing miserably. I am really ashamed,” sighed Long Chen.
On that day, Long Chen had sent out a full-strength blow that had managed to send the three of them flying.
But those three were all Chosen and working together, they managed to also force Long Chen back several steps.
At that time, a huge pillar had smashed down on the top of the passageway, essentially burying Long Chen inside the tomb.
As the tomb collapsed, more and more dirt was falling from the ceiling. Even with Long Chen’s physical body, there was no way he could withstand that kind of terrifying weight. As the dirt began to cover him, he had felt as if he might be crushed to death.
If that had continued, Long Chen would definitely have died. But then he had thought of the passageway that had been filled with traps. If he didn’t want to be crushed to death, he had to enter there.
That passageway was definitely specially constructed, as it was the only defense for the tomb. Long Chen estimated that it should be able to withstand the pressure coming from above. Forcing his way through the dirt, he had waded towards the passageway.
Once he had managed to enter the passageway, he realized his expectations were correct. As the only defensive line in the tomb, it was definitely special. Even as the rest of the tomb collapsed, it managed to stay intact.
The outside was continuously rumbling. Long Chen knew that the pressure above would continuously compress the ground around here. In the future, this dirt would become as hard as stone.
There was no further influx of air into the tomb. With Long Chen’s cultivation base, he estimated he would have three days’ worth of air. Any longer than that and he would suffocate.
The rumbling outside only stopped a full day later. Everything had gone silent, a chillingly, deathly silent.
Long Chen had tried using Spiritual Strength to probe the ground. But his Spiritual Strength, which had a range of three thousand meters in the air, had less than a thirty-meter range in this ground. The density of this earth was too high.
Just as he had been at his wits’ end, he had suddenly looked at the golden page in his hand which was emitting that faint light.
Pouring his Spiritual Strength into the page, it had immediately lit up the entire passageway.
For some unknown reason, the page possessed a great affinity for Spiritual Strength. Combined with Spiritual Strength, it was able to emit an unimaginable power.
Trying out the page’s power, he had used it to cut the wall of the passageway. The incredibly hard wall had instantly been cut through as easy as if it were tofu.
In fact, he found he didn’t need to control it with his hands, and that he was able to make it fly through the air just by using his Spiritual Strength.
Just like that, he had begun to use it to pierce through the top of the passageway.
He was able to control it at long distances, and he found that after just a few miles, the golden page managed to pierce through the top of the mountain.
The golden page was just too efficient. It cut apart the rock as easy as cutting tofu, and it didn’t exhaust much Spiritual Strength. Just like that, Long Chen had started a large-scale engineering project, using the small page to bore a path to the outside.
The first thing he did was cut a thin passageway to allow fresh air to enter so he didn’t suffocate.
He then expanded the passageway, absorbing all the parts he cut away into his spatial rings. He had multiple spatial rings on him, so he just filled two empty ones with the dirt.
Digging a well down might be hard, but digging a passageway up was much easier. He only needed half a day to cut a passage two feet wide. Rather than immediately leaving, he had then stayed another day to be safe before crawling out.
Once out, he had gone to this hidden cave where he had agreed to meet Guo Ran at. As soon as he had walked in, he had felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.
The feeling of being able to escape from the jaws of death was a good one. As you would expect, a tomb was no place for the living. The living should stay in the world of the living.
Even Long Chen had felt powerless with the specter of death hanging around him. If it hadn’t been for that golden page, he really would have died inside.
“Let’s switch locations. I’ve got some good stuff to show you.”
After resting a bit, Long Chen brought Guo Ran to another hidden but more open space. With a wave of his hand, he directly summoned out the forging table.
When he saw the forging table, Guo Ran’s eyes almost popped out of his head, his jaw dropping to the ground.
“Am… am I dreaming?” he stuttered.
“This was the treasure inside the huge coffin. It should probably be the forging table that the owner of the tomb used during their life. Your luck really is not bad.”
Although Long Chen wasn’t a forging master, he was an alchemist. These kinds of professions all had a certain occupational disease. That crazy disease was a fanatic obsession with the profession’s tools.
Long Chen had his Pill Sovereign memories, but he had always longed for a good pill refining furnace. He was like a top chef who was cooking using broken roof tiles as pots.
“Boss, I really love you to death!”
Guo Ran suddenly hugged Long Chen excitedly.
“Hey! No kisses! I only like women!” warned Long Chen hastily.
“Haha!” Guo Ran laughed and suddenly charged at the forging table and began to ferociously kiss it. Just looking at that scene chilled Long Chen.
This forging table was a complete set. It contained a forge, a hammering station, ventilators, ice cylinders, water tempering stations, etc. All the various tools were linked together, which caused its weight to be shocking. Even Favored were unable to absorb it.
“This is definitely a treasure! My treasure!” Guo Ran had definitely become infatuated. He was gently stroking the forging table as if each portion of it was a beautiful woman’s delicate body. That infatuated look in his eyes caused Long Chen’s hair to stand on end.
“I declare she is now my wife! Even you boss, you can touch, but you can’t use her!” declared Guo Ran.
Long Chen had an urge to vomit. This rascal really had gone insane. Even his words were becoming incoherent. “Stop spouting nonsense. I brought it back just for you. But can you even absorb it into a spatial ring?”
“Hehe, I’m not an amateur.”
Guo Ran laughed and pressed down on a certain part of the forging table. A secret section of the forging table popped out, revealing a button.
As soon as he pressed that button, the forging table disappeared in front of Long Chen’s stunned gaze. A square little case had appeared in Guo Ran’s hand.
“Us Forging Masters’ tools are all tastefully chosen. How could it be used by relying on brute force?” Guo Ran laughed, seeming extremely pleased with himself.
Long Chen was speechless. As expected, each profession was worlds apart. Back in that fight for the forging table, they had only been foolishly trying to brute-force absorb it into a spatial ring.
Seeing Guo Ran’s incredibly self-important expression, Long Chen had an urge to beat him. Sighing, he tossed something else to Guo Ran.
“Here. There was also a forging hammer on the table, mister great Forging Master.”
“Haha, another treasure! Let me- aiya!”
Seeing Long Chen just randomly toss it over, Guo Ran just grabbed it lightly. As a result, his hand smashed into the ground, creating a small crater.
Before Guo Ran could even react, the hammer brought his hand sinking into the groun
d. In fact, the rest of his body continued with him, leaving only his two legs above the ground.
Looking from a distance, it looked like someone had decided to stick their body into the ground. It was a comical sight.
“Aiya, grandmaster, are you practicing your dives? Forging Masters really are interesting people. To practice diving on flat land.” Long Chen simply looked on at Guo Ran’s miserable plight.
“Boss, I was wrong! Pull me out please!” Guo Ran’s voice was extremely muffled from all the dirt.
Only then did Long Chen grab his legs and pull him out of the ground like pulling out a carrot. But even as he was pulled out of the ground, Guo Ran was still tightly holding onto the hammer, refusing to let go no matter what.
“A treasure, definitely a treasure. Your appearance foretells that the name of Grandmaster Guo Ran is about to suddenly rise. My great name will resound throughout all the heavens, north, south, east, west, up, down, the entire world!” Guo Ran excitedly stared at the hammer in his hands.
Bang!
Suddenly, Guo Ran smashed his own head with the hammer. Blood immediately burst from his forehead, giving Long Chen a fright.
“Little fellow, have you gone insane?”
“Hehe, boss, you must not know. Such an amazing item definitely has its own spirit! It requires me to offer a respectful sacrifice. I’m using my blood to offer my sincere devotion to it. I need to emotionally move it so that it accepts me as its master.” Guo Ran talked as if he was a holy sage.
Long Chen felt as if he had really gone insane. Offer sacrifices and devotion to a tool to make it accept you as its master?
Buzz…
The hammer in Guo Ran’s hands suddenly blossomed with light.
“Hahaha, I’ve succeeded!”
Long Chen was shocked to see Guo Ran suddenly begin to easily wave around that incredibly heavy hammer as if it was weightless.
“What the actual fuck?!”
Chapter 337 Continuing Forward
“Hehe, boss, this hammer is a remnant of that senior’s life. It has its own spirituality. I’ve used my will and sincerity to move it, and now it is willing to be controlled by me.” Guo Ran looked at the hammer in his hand with reverence.