by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
Only later had Long Chen learned that when a Celestial reached the Sea Expansion realm, they would be able to refine themselves and return to the Heavenly Daos, erasing a portion of the karma relating to them.
Someone who had at least been a Sea Expansion Celestial had actually been just a servant, and had sacrificed their entire existence to save him. Long Chen felt almost suffocated when he thought of his origins.
Taking a deep breath, Long Chen pushed aside those thoughts. As his parents’ son, he definitely couldn’t retreat just because of some difficulties. That wasn’t his style.
Jumping off the gate, he saw that there was a large design on its sharp corner. Because it was too big, he couldn’t get a good look at it from up close. He retreated into the distance to get a good look.
“This seems to be a rune. Although I can’t understand it, I’ll record it for now.” Long Chen took out and activated a photographic jade.
Bang!
Suddenly, the photographic jade exploded. Long Chen was stunned as this was too bizarre. He couldn’t recall such a thing ever happening before.
He took out another one, and as soon as he activated it, it exploded again. Long Chen grew more suspicious.
He carefully looked at that diagram. Taking out a beast hide, he was just about to draw it when he realized that despite clearly memorizing it, his head was blank. He had no memory of what that diagram looked like.
“There’s definitely something strange here.”
Long Chen stared closely at the diagram, once more memorizing it, and then he rapidly raised his brush to draw it.
But his brush had only just touched the paper when his hand stopped. His memories had disappeared again.
“You won’t let me remember you? Then I’ll just draw you while I look at you.”
Long Chen stared at the diagram, and his hand began to move. He had just lightly touched the paper when his brush exploded, and Long Chen let out a pained groan. He almost collapsed on the ground.
Chapter 780 Obtaining the Rune
Long Chen felt piercing pain in his head as though it was about to explode. As for the beast hide and brush in his hands, they both exploded. Strange energy was blocking Long Chen from remembering the diagram, and it also refused to allow Long Chen to record it.
“There’s definitely something wrong here. Whatever this diagram is, its origin must be extraordinary.” Long Chen held his head in pain. Looking at the diagram, his gaze became even more fiery.
Although he didn’t know what this diagram could be used for, his intuition told him that anything that could be carved at this location was definitely not some random picture. There had to be some secret behind this.
“I must think of some way to get it.” Long Chen clenched his fists. This kind of mysterious diagram was something he had to obtain. But he couldn’t copy it with a brush or record it with a photographic jade. His memory of it also disappeared in the blink of an eye. What was he supposed to do?
His head was still hurting intensely. He hadn’t yet recovered. And this was him. If it was someone with weaker Spiritual Strength, their soul would probably have instantly dissipated.
“Let’s try it.”
Long Chen suddenly had a thought. With his gaze on the diagram, his mind entered the primal chaos space. He gathered a few medicinal ingredients. According to the diagram in front of him, he began to plant their seeds.
BUZZ!!
Incomparable pain wracked his head while a terrifying kind of energy charged into the primal chaos space through some unknown means. Long Chen turned pale. If the primal chaos bead was destroyed, he really would be screwed.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the primal chaos bead trembled and an incomparably powerful pressure descended. The encroaching energy was instantly blown apart.
Not only that, but the pain in Long Chen’s head also disappeared. Long Chen was delighted. The primal chaos bead had actually suppressed it. He hastily used seeds to replicate the diagram. Because he was using his Spiritual Strength, he finished replicating it in just an instant.
Suddenly, a heaven-shaking explosion erupted. Long Chen was startled to see that the huge diagram on the corner of the gate actually exploded. A supreme power sent Long Chen flying.
It was with great effort that Long Chen managed to stabilize his body. He saw that the corner of the gate had disappeared. It was like it hadn’t been able to endure the primal chaos bead’s force.
Long Chen’s heart pounded wildly. Just what was the primal chaos bead? Not only had it been able to resist the diagram’s power, but it had even caused it to explode.
Just now, he had been too nervous, but now that he thought back to what had just happened, it seemed as if the primal chaos bead had been provoked and so it had automatically released its own power.
He hastily looked inside the primal chaos space and saw that everything was calm. That made him relax. The diagram he had made of the seeds was still present.
In order to make it more dependable, Long Chen tried to draw the diagram. This time, everything was normal. No outside force tried to stop him.
Once he had drawn the diagram, he carefully looked at it. It was an irregular octagon. Eight paths converged toward the center, and at the center, there was a small spot. It looked as if eight things were converging at the center.
“Is this an image of a woman’s breast?” Long Chen looked at the dot and was a bit bewildered. But the outer edge was octagonal, not circular, so that probability was low. The main thing was that Long Chen was now too sensitive to this kind of thing after obtaining the blouse before.
He found that even without the diagram in front of him, he could remember it. It was extremely curious.
Putting the diagram away, he decided not to try investigating it further since he couldn’t understand it. He suddenly found that more and more people were appearing where he was.
There were five people here now, and they were all rank two Celestials.
Two of them came from the Corrupt path, while two came from the ancient races. One had a horn on their head and was clearly from the Fullmoon race, while the other had red scales on one arm, so Long Chen didn’t know what race he was from.
There was also another one who was just wearing ordinary human robes. When that person saw Long Chen, he was a bit surprised, but he still amicably nodded toward him.
Obviously, since they were the only two ordinary humans, he wanted to maintain a good relationship with the two ancient race experts and two Corrupt experts.
Long Chen also nodded back to him. Looking at the two Corrupt experts, he hesitated a moment and decided not to attack them. Instead, he continued onward.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kill them, but that he didn’t want to fight while others were watching. In any case, he had endless enemies waiting for him. There was no need for him to get anxious just because of two rank two Celestials.
Those two Celestials were clearly a bit nervous. They were tense and on guard as they stared closely at Long Chen.
They only relaxed when they saw Long Chen turn and leave. That caused the Righteous disciple and the two ancient race experts to be startled. They hadn’t expected that they would be so afraid of Long Chen.
What they didn’t know was that Long Chen had already become the pinnacle figure of the Corrupt path’s must-kill list. The Corrupt path had long since sent down orders that rank two Celestials and below were not to attack Long Chen, because there was no chance of them winning.
In order to kill Long Chen, the Corrupt path had sent out two exceedingly powerful figures. So the other Corrupt experts would all retreat in front of Long Chen.
Although the Corrupt experts were famed for their cruelty and viciousness, they followed the higher-ups’ orders without the slightest hesitation.
It could be said that while Long Chen’s fame wasn’t so high in the Righteous path, he had long since become the most dangerous threat to the Corrupt path.
T
hat was because the danger that came from Long Chen didn’t just come from his combat strength. The most dangerous thing about him was his scheming ability. This was something that had started back in the Jiuli secret realm.
The Corrupt path had suffered many times under Long Chen’s hands, and they had lost more geniuses to him than they had in the past hundred years of the Righteous and Corrupt battles.
Furthermore, four of their Foundation Forging experts had been slaughtered. That careless loss had shaken the entire Corrupt path.
At the same time, they finally realized that they had fallen for the Righteous path’s scheming. They linked together the loss in the chaos region with the loss of four Foundation Forging experts. It was too obvious.
In truth, they were wrong. It wasn’t that the Righteous path had tricked them. Nor had they tried to trick them. They really had wanted to cooperate with them to get rid of Long Chen. It was just that the Corrupt path was already infuriated and refused to listen to a word from the Righteous path any longer. No matter who tried to communicate with them, they would all be slaughtered without exception.
Long Chen had used his own efforts to completely destroy any diplomatic ties between the Righteous and Corrupt paths. Even Long Chen hadn’t realized that he had such a great ability.
Following the large, broken path, Long Chen continued forward. Ancient ruins appeared, ruins that were battered and crushed. It was unknown how many years had passed for it to be so full of such desolate air. But considering how huge the ruins were, it should be the first place that ancient disciples had stopped to adjust themselves to the Immemorial Path. Perhaps this place had been used to get disciples adapted to the environment.
Passing through the ruins, a smooth path appeared before him, but after several miles, the path ahead was severed by an abyss. Long Chen decided to give up on this path and just continue forward.
This place was just the entrance of the Immemorial Path. Other than the gate, he hadn’t found anything of value. If he wanted to understand the Immemorial Path, if he wanted to find opportunities, he would need to go deeper.
“Oh?” An abyss suddenly appeared before Long Chen. But this abyss was different from the one before. It was over a hundred miles long, and space was constantly twisting. Long Chen sensed great danger from that distorted space.
He randomly flung in a low grade Enchanted sword. When it struck that distorted space, it directly exploded.
“I can’t pass here. I’ll have to go around.” Long Chen shook his head. Although his physical body was strong, he had no intention of trying to barge through here. He would rather find another path.
The Immemorial Path was like a broken jigsaw puzzle. If he couldn’t advance from ahead, he could just go around. It was just that he didn’t know how far he would have to detour. But even if it was far, it was better than taking this risk.
That was especially true since there was nothing to entice him to take this risk. It was definitely not worth it. Long Chen began to travel along the edge of his current block. He found another spot where the abyss was much narrower and he didn’t feel that sensation of danger.
Long Chen felt like he was traveling through a maze. It was extremely infuriating, but he was also helpless to do anything about it.
After a while, a large mountain range appeared in front of him. It was mostly covered in shrubbery instead of trees, and the land had plenty of small mounds on it that made it look like a cemetery.
“These mounds are placed according to a set pattern. They aren’t natural. Is this place a trial?” Long Chen hastily looked at his map.
As expected, he saw a faint color here. If he hadn’t looked carefully, he wouldn’t have noticed. It seemed the Corrupt path’s disciples were extremely crafty and didn’t want people to notice this spot even if they managed to steal their maps.
The Immemorial Path was huge, and it was unknown how many trials and ancient secrets it was hiding. Some places had been found, but the majority were still secrets waiting for someone to find them.
Even if a trial region had been found, there were only a few people that were capable of finding the secrets within it. This place was filled with unknowns and dangers.
Stepping onto this land, a desolate air of death assaulted him. It was extremely uncomfortable. After just a few steps, he noticed that there were already footprints here.
He followed these footprints to a certain hill where he could see a large cave around thirty meters high. There were two large fangs at its entrance that made it look like a mouth.
There were three large words written above the entrance. They should be immortal characters, but Long Chen didn’t recognize what they meant.
Although he didn’t know the meaning of them, he knew this place should be a trial region. He carefully walked into the cave. Before he could get used to the dark, a sword stabbed toward Long Chen’s back out of nowhere.
Blood splashed!
Chapter 781 Enemies Inside the Ancient Cave
A body had been pierced and blood flowed out. But what was doing the piercing was a lightning spear, not a sword. In an instant, a person in a mask had appeared behind Long Chen.
Long Chen didn’t look back. Still holding the lightning spear, he icily said, “You might be able to hide in thin air, but you can’t hide from my senses. Your assassination arts are just a joke in front of me.”
Suddenly, the lightning spear shook, and the assassin from the Bloodkill Hall exploded before they could make a sound.
Putting away the lightning spear, Long Chen continued forward. From the beginning to the end, Long Chen hadn’t even looked at the person.
Ever since coming into contact with the Bloodkill Hall’s assassins, Long Chen had lost count of how many times they had tried to assassinate him. Now, he could feel it whenever assassins from the Bloodkill Hall approached him.
So even though these assassins could suppress their auras, their heartbeats, their breaths, and their killing intent, they were still unable to escape the senses of the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. So for them to think that they could assassinate Long Chen was an immense joke.
Long Chen advanced several hundred meters into the cave. Eventually, he arrived at a well-lit area that was like a den. There were eight caves he could go into now, and each of them had an immortal character written above their entrance. But Long Chen didn’t recognize the characters.
But what he didn’t expect was that as soon as he walked in, he became the focus of six Corrupt Celestials. Those six people all possessed powerful auras, and they surrounded him.
“Long Chen?” One of the Corrupt experts was like a dried-up corpse. His eyes were deeply set, and he looked like a zombie that had crawled up from the underground.
Long Chen immediately realized why that assassin hadn’t entered here. He had most likely entered here, but then seeing the six people in front of him, he had retreated.
The Bloodkill Hall was neutral just like the Pill Tower. They accepted business from the Righteous path and the Corrupt path. So they weren’t allied with the Corrupt path. He had left before the six of them could sense him.
As a result, at that time, he had encountered Long Chen walking in. That assassin really was unlucky. After dodging six hungry wolves, he had been slaughtered by a fierce tiger.
“You’re not running from me? Then that must mean you’re quite the figure. Are you that fellow called Xue You?” asked Long Chen. He sensed a great deal of pressure from this corpse-like man.
“Hmph, a great man like Xue You doesn’t need to personally kill you. Today, I’ll bury you here.” The corpse-like man suddenly took out a staff, a staff of mourning. Countless strips of scarlet cloth were tied around the top.
BOOM!
As soon as the corpse-like man took out his weapon, countless runes erupted like a volcano. There were actually three different runes.
“Rank three Celestial!” Long Chen was startled. He hadn’t expected that one of them would be a rank th
ree Celestial, and his aura was actually much stronger than Shui Guanzhi’s.
“Die!” The corpse-like man’s mourning staff smashed down like a bolt of lightning. Long Chen snorted and smashed his fist at it. He wanted to test this person’s skills.
But the instant his fist touched the mourning staff, the red cloth on the staff suddenly stretched out like snakes, wrapping Long Chen completely before he could do anything.
“Hahaha, this is the existence at the top of the must-kill list, the figure that shook the entire Corrupt path? He’s just trash. Die.”
The corpse-like man laughed heartily. This weapon of his was no ordinary weapon. It was a high grade Enchanted item, and it was a corrupt weapon.
This weapon could absorb the souls, blood, and flesh of the people it killed. Those things were condensed to form the scarlet strips of cloth. Normally, those strips of cloth were completely ordinary, but once they attacked, they could instantly coil around someone and crush them to death.
Each strip of cloth had absorbed the flesh and Spiritual Strength of countless people. They were incredibly powerful, and it was essentially impossible to tear them apart with physical strength. Once they were activated, a person would immediately be crushed to a pulp.
BOOM! Just as the corpse-like man was about to kill Long Chen, the cloths wrapped around him exploded. Long Chen’s entire body was surrounded by lightning runes.
“How close. What a strange attack.” This was Long Chen’s first time encountering such a strange weapon. The instant he had been wrapped, he had circulated his thunderforce to protect himself. Thunderforce possessed quite an advantage over corrupt weapons.
Taking advantage of his shock, Long Chen immediately launched an attack. A fist covered in thunderforce smashed toward the corpse-like man.
The corpse-like man hastily used his staff to block. As a result, both Long Chen and the corpse-like man were forced back a few steps.
