Chapter 1121 - A Beast Skin Scroll
When the dust and smoke dissipated, silence descended upon all sides.
Su Yi examined the fragments of Spirit Ashes, his brow gradually furrowing.
Meanwhile, Mo Yu and the other old monsters of the Demons’ Elysium approached to express their gratitude to Su Yi, only for the Heavensdeath Demon Empress to stop them.
“You go back first,” she ordered. She could tell that Su Yi didn’t care at all about having killed the Sixth Warden, but he viewed the fragments of the man’s sword with great importance.
“Understood.” Mo Yu and the others promptly set off.
The Heavensdeath Demon Empress stood to the side, looking at the fragments of Spirit Ashes and Su Yi’s gradually deepening frown.
Finally, Su Yi let out a long breath of turbid air and tightened his grip. The fragments of Spirit Ashes turned into powder and dissipated into nothingness.
“Did you perhaps run into a difficult problem, Brother Su?” asked the Heavensdeath Demon Empress.
“Spirit Ashes wasn’t actually anything impressive,” Su Yi said thoughtfully. “However, the seemingly taboo sword intent emblazoned on it was strange. If I’m not mistaken, it originated from a different sword altogether.”
“A different sword?” The Heavensdeath Demon Empress felt a bit bewildered.
“Do you remember me telling you about the supreme treasure of the Nine Heavens Pavilion?” said Su Yi. “That mysterious Dao Sword?”
The Heavensdeath Demon Empress instantly understood.
The Nine Heavens Pavilion had a mysterious Dao Sword that only their supreme leader had ever laid eyes on. The others, from the ordinary disciples to the Heavenly Libationers, had never seen its true appearance.
But when someone joined the Nine Heavens Pavilion to cultivate, all of them stood before the sword and swore a Grand Dao Oath.
These Grand Dao Oaths were like a restriction or a curse. When violated, it didn’t matter how lofty your cultivation base was. You would die, and your Dao would be destroyed.
“Brother Su, you think that taboo sword intent came from the Nine Heavens Pavilion’s supreme, sect-protecting Dao Sword?” exclaimed the Heavensdeath Demon Empress.
“That’s right.” Su Yi nodded.
Although he didn’t tell her this, were that the end of it, he wouldn’t have cared as much.
The crux of the matter was that if that taboo sword intent really originated from the Nine Heavens Pavilion’s supreme treasure, their Dao Sword surely had some sort of connection to the Sword of the Nine Hells!
Otherwise, during their earlier battle, the Sixth Warden’s taboo sword intent couldn’t possibly have reacted like that!
Su Yi most certainly hadn’t forgotten. When that taboo sword intent encountered the Sword of the Nine Hells’ aura, it was as if it were returning home. It left the Sixth Warden’s control and fused with the Sword of the Nine Hells’ aura of its own accord!
How could Su Yi not take note of such a development?
“Ah, no wonder you just killed him instead of keeping him alive to interrogate. He swore a Grand Dao Oath; there’s no way we’d get answers out of him,” muttered the Heavensdeath Demon Empress.
A moment later, something occurred to her, and she gathered up the spoils. Before long, they discovered that the Sixth Warden had left valuable treasures behind.
Including a full six Dark and Gold Treasures!
“That bastard! And here he told me that he only had four Dark and Gold Treasures. So, he was tricking me all along,” grumbled the Heavensdeath Demon Empress.
“Ee?” Suddenly, she noticed one of the treasures, a beast skin scroll, which she passed to Su Yi. “Brother Su, have a look at this Dark and Gold Treasure. It actually looks like a map.”
The beast skin scroll had a perfectly ordinary map of mountains and rivers drawn on its surface. However, it emanated an air of antiquity.
Su Yi examined it briefly, then unleashed the Mysterious Truths of the End and waved his hand over it.
Kcch!
The power sealing the scroll broke without resistance, and the map instantly underwent a startling transformation. Misty light filled the air, and the scroll surged with a dense, chaotic origin power.
The mountains and rivers depicted on its surface changed completely. Furthermore, eight of the most ancient of glyphs arose on the map.
Su Yi scrutinized them briefly before realizing what they said: “The Birthplace of Ten Thousand Daos, the Origins of the Dark and Gold!”
His heart shook.
“The birthplace of ten thousand Daos” meant exactly what it said: that this was where they’d first arisen.
And the “origins of the Dark and Gold” most likely referred to the chaos source of the Dark of Gold Star Realm!
When he saw both phrases side by side, Su Yi realized that the beast skin scroll was almost certainly a map of the Dark and Gold Star Realm’s chaos source!
As well as the origin of the stars’ ten thousand Daos!
Waves coursed through Su Yi’s heat. Finding the location on the map would be equivalent to finding the most fundamental chaos source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm!
The Heavensdeath Demon Empress had obviously realized that the scroll was extraordinary too. She exclaimed, “The place depicted on the map looks like the ‘Graveyard of Fallen Immortals!’”
The Graveyard of Fallen Immortals!
The people of the Wilds saw it as their foremost forbidden ground, and its infamy spread far and wide.
Over the years, the cultivators who ventured into the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals either lost their minds and went completely insane, or simply never returned.
One particularly shocking incident took place forty-nine thousand years ago. Three months after an Imperial Apex expert entered the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals, he returned alive, but completely insane, his awareness muddled and his Dao Heart shattered. He frequently rambled and raved.
He once proclaimed that the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals really did house the bones of immortals.
And he said that he’d inadvertently entered the immortal realm. There, he saw terrifying visions of skies full of dying immortals, their corpses falling like rain.
...In the end, a few months after that Imperial Apex cultivator went insane, he suddenly dropped dead.
In the last moments before his death, he shouted hysterically, “One day, the Daos of the Dark and Gold Star Realm will crumble, and it will become nothing but a burial ground for immortals!”
This incident caused widespread uproar, and many of the Wilds’ peak factions took it seriously. Many of them investigated.
But in the end, they discovered nothing at all.
Furthermore, as time passed, people gradually forgot about this incident. Soon, no one took that insane Imperial Apex powerhouse’s words seriously anymore. They simply took them as the ravings of a madman.
But it was precisely because of this that people now paled at the mere mention of the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals.
As mighty as peak orthodoxies were, even they dared not venture there lightly.
“The Graveyard of Fallen Immortals?” Su Yi picked up the scroll and examined it. Indeed, the map drawn on its surface was extremely similar to the area around the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals.
Su Yi couldn’t help but sink into a daze.
Although the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals was the Wilds’ most dangerous forbidden ground, he’d visited it three times in his past life.
The first time had been after he stepped into the Imperial Apex Realm. He thought that with such a powerful cultivation base, he ought to be able to explore the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals.
In the end, he’d barely made it into the outer perimeter of the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals when he met with terrifying danger, and he had no choice but to leave empty-handed and flee for his life.
The second time was not long after that Imperial Apex cultivator went mad. Su Yi heard his mad ravings and suspected that enormous secrets were hidden in the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals, so he decided to visit once more.
He prepared all manner of trump cards this time, but in the end, he didn’t get far before he had to return empty-handed. He only barely escaped with his life.
His third trip was after years of bitterly seeking out a higher path to no avail.
At the time, Su Yi landed on three possible solutions to his predicament: he could venture into the stars, he could seek out the secrets of reincarnation, or he could explore the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals.
At that point, he’d already spent years searching, and he’d already uncovered some leads regarding the secrets of reincarnation.
In the end, Su Yi gave up on venturing into the stars and decided to try the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals. If it didn’t pan out, he’d devote his full attention to the secrets of reincarnation.
That was how he began his third expedition to the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals.
Alas, although his cultivation base made him supreme beneath the heavens, and although they called him the greatest sword cultivator in the Wilds' history, the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals was still fraught with peril.
In the end, although he made it past the outer perimeter this time, after entering the heart of the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals, he encountered a mysterious flying beam of light. It merely brushed past him, but it shattered his physical body as it passed. If not for the Sword of the Nine Hells protecting his soul, he would have died.
After this third failed expedition, Su Yi was keenly aware of how terrifying that place was. Never mind ordinary cultivators, even Imperial Apex cultivators faced almost certain doom!
It was then that Su Yi decisively committed to seeking out the secrets of reincarnation.
Who’d have thought he’d see the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals here, on the beast skin scroll? Furthermore, according to the scroll, the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals most likely contained the chaos source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm!
Assuming the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals really is the source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm, had I found the source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm, I wouldn’t have needed to seek out the secrets of reincarnation. I could have stepped onto the path of Heaven’s Ascension and become a World King regardless.
When he thought back to the experiences of his past life, Su Yi couldn’t help but feel rueful. Perhaps he simply hadn’t been fated to encounter these secrets then.
But Su Yi didn’t regret it.
After all, that wasn’t the only opportunity he’d given up on. Had he ventured into the stars in his past life, he might well have found the Path of Heaven’s Ascension. But in that case, no matter what heights he reached, his accomplishments could never have surpassed those of the Temple Master.
He might have been the uncontested sovereign of the Wilds in his past life, but his Dao was ultimately flawed.
By the same logic, had he found the chaos source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm in his past life, he would never have reincarnated. But by undergoing rebirth and cultivating anew, he fixed the flaws in his cultivation and forged a new, perfect path to mastery of the Dao of the Sword!
“Brother Su, a powerhouse of the lost ancient era must have left this beast skin scroll. With it, we might well be able to explore the Graveyard of Fallen Immortals!” The Heavensdeath Demon Empress’s eyes sparkled with eagerness. “If we find the chaos source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm... the benefits will be huge!”
But Su Yi immediately dampened her enthusiasm. “The greater the good fortune, the greater the danger. I visited three times in my past life, and I barely escaped with my life. Do you think you can do it?”
The Heavensdeath Demon Empress’s expression froze, but then, she batted her eyes. “I can’t do it. Are you telling me you’re no good either?”
“....” Su Yi didn’t quite know what to say to that. What man thinks he’s no good?
But Su Yi really was tempted.
He once located the chaos source of the Netherworld on the Path of Samsara. In doing so, he acquired unforeseen, enormous benefits. It was also then that he grasped the fundamental truths of reincarnation!
Now, if he could find the true chaos source of the Dark and Gold Star Realm, he’d surely gain far more than he had from the Netherworld’s source!
After all, the former Dark and Gold Star Realm was considered the ancestral ground of the countless Grand Daos of the starry skies.
And this place had once given rise to numerous legendary, all-powerful experts!
As Su Yi pondered, he examined the beast skin scroll once more.
Before long, his eyes lit up. He’d just discovered a detail he’d overlooked before.
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