Chapter 209: Secrets of the Past
Upon returning, Wei Yuan immediately entered his sea of consciousness, but what he saw left him speechless.
The Cold Flies were everywhere in the Great Realm; some near the jade hill, and others as far as a hundred li away. He had captured no fewer than several thousand of them.
However, every single of the Cold Flies were lying motionless on the ground, devoid of any sign of life. And regardless of distance, every fly’s head was pointing toward the jade hill as well, as if they had suddenly dropped dead while flying toward it.
Wei Yuan picked up a Cold Fly and discovered that it had completely lost all of its vitality. The quietude energy inside its body was seeping out and converging into the jade hill.
How did these Cold Flies die?
When he first captured them and tossed them into his Dao Foundation, he could clearly feel them flying chaotically throughout the Great Realm. They were clearly alive at the time. However, the moment he returned to the Homeworld, they had suddenly frozen in place and turned toward the jade hill.
Unable to figure it out, Wei Yuan left his sea of consciousness and sought out Sun Yu.
In Sun Yu’s courtyard, Wei Yuan materialized several Cold Flies. The healer’s expression changed the moment he saw it. He took them away for study before shooing Wei Yuan out.
Next was the butterfly daggers. After losing a leg to them, Wei Yuan treated them with extreme caution, encasing them in multiple bells and cauldrons and suppressing them with several mortal-suppressing pagodas. Only then did he hand it over to his Big Senior Sister.
Although Big Senior Sister wasn’t particularly skilled at artifact forging, she was an expert at taming artifact spirits. The main issue with the pair of daggers wasn’t with the blades themselves, but with their artifact spirits.
After handing over the daggers, Wei Yuan left the crucial decision of whether they needed to be reforged entirely up to his Big Senior Sister.
Wei Yuan returned to his quarters after that. It was a new day, and there were countless trivial matters waiting for him to resolve.
First, intelligence from the north had arrived. Instead of continuing its assault on the realm, the Shaman’s main force had turned east and attempted to wipe out Yue Jinshan’s border troops in one fell swoop. However, Yue Jinshan proved to be a seasoned commander. When he noticed that the Shamans’ main force outnumbered his, and they were advancing with great ferocity, he immediately ordered a retreat, fighting while pulling back.
The two sides proceeded to engage each other in a back-and-forth tug-of-war, fighting their way thousands of li over the course of several days, from the northern border of the realm of Qingming all the way to the outskirts of Hanyang Pass. Eventually, Western Jin dispatched a large reinforcement from Inner Jin and finally forced the Shaman’s army to retreat.
After several days of bloody combat, both sides suffered heavy losses. Yue Jinshan’s main force of 80,000 border troops was reduced to half its original strength. The Shamans more or less suffered the same amount of casualties as well. All in all, the two sides were evenly-matched.
Judging by troop strength and casualties, Yue Jinshan held a slight advantage. The veteran soldiers he had brought from the northern frontier truly lived up to their reputation.
However, things were much grimmer in terms of high cultivators. The Avatars dispatched by various clans to protect their heirs had nearly been wiped out. With the exception of Trueman Bao Shu of the Bao Clan, not a single one managed to escape.
Just moments before the blood curse began, Trueman Fen Hai and Trueman Lan Hua had been mingling with these clan Avatars, exchanging greetings, reminiscing, and making small talk. But as soon as the battle began, Fen Hai went off to play Go against a peak-level Dao Warlock, while Lan Hua headed over to the Shamans’ main force to monitor their movements and intimidate the Great Warlocks who were acting independently. Both Truemen had unwittingly left their original positions.
On the other hand, the Truemen from the noble clans felt that the battle did not concern them, and that they would not be affected no matter how it unfolded. Thus, they had watched the battle with leisure and devoted more energy to their own covert rivalries.
A Trueman who was dispatched to safeguard the clan’s younger generations naturally could not be an ordinary figure. Nearly half of them possessed immortal foundations, while the rest were exceptionally powerful heaven foundations. Avatars like them were highly valued within their respective clans as well. Otherwise, they would not have been entrusted with the critical task of rescuing a key target in the midst of battle.
Before showing up, they had all reinforced themselves with feng shui arrays. This was just the basic measure, though. Some wore objects that were imbued with fortune, while others had their fortunes improved by high cultivators. After all, the legend of places of bad feng shui—courtesy of the Heavenly Mysteries Hall of the Palace of Absolute Beginning—had become deeply ingrained in everyone’s minds. They feared not that their fortune might be too good, but that others’ might surpass their own. Thus, they had all done their homework thoroughly.
Since every single one of them was empowered by fortune, the difficulty of divining them naturally skyrocketed. Moreover, they were all masters of concealment arts, capable of coming and leaving without a trace. Logically, the Shamans should have no way of detecting their arrival unless a Sky Warlock had intervened. Yet, they knew.
In fact, no sooner had the high cultivators of the noble clans gathered, a blood curse had descended upon them.
Wei Yuan set down the intelligence report, his fear and dread growing the more he thought about it. Had Trueman Fen Hai and Trueman Lan Hua not actively participated in the battle, had they taken even a moment’s rest, they would have met the same fate as their fellows.
The Truemen under True Lord Xuan Yue might have slim wallets, but no one could question their resilience.
In this great battle, one could say that Qingming had scored a minor victory, the northern force of the Shamans and Yue Jinshan were locked in a stalemate, and the noble clans had lost a significant number of high cultivators. Overall, the human race still lost.
The pressure weighing down on Wei Yuan’s shoulders felt positively crushing. They were lucky this time because they weren’t the primary target, but what about next time? And the one after that?
Suddenly, Wei Yuan recalled something. According to his Big Senior Sister and shifu, the female Warlock with three pairs of wings had once infiltrated the realm and attempted to steal the realm stone. The only reason she abandoned the plan was because she failed to solve the riddle his Big Senior Sister had left behind.
The female Warlock’ cultivation was already extremely close to that of a Great Warlock. Her mystic abilities were both bizarre and powerful, rivaling that of Ji Liuli and Zhang Sheng. Even Bao Yun, being too young and lacking in cultivation, was a tad inferior compared to her.
With such a powerful Warlock present on the playing field, why hadn’t she played a more significant role in the war?
The Warlocks he had encountered in the Coldbelow were quite formidable in their own right. That said, they had inevitably weakened themselves due to their need to refine shelter components into their primordial spirit. In the Homeworld, they would only be two-thirds as strong as they should have been. On a battlefield where life and death hung in the balance, it would be tantamount to courting death.
Wei Yuan instinctively sensed that these Warlocks must be operating exclusively within the Realm of Coldbelow. They probably rarely returned to the Homeworld.
He couldn’t help but wonder: What could be so important in the Coldbelow that it took precedence even over the border war against the human race?
Unfortunately, the Cold Fly swarm was too terrifying; it hadn’t left even a trace of the Warlocks behind. Otherwise, Wei Yuan might have been able to find some clues by examining their bodies.
The more Wei Yuan thought about it, the more uneasy he felt. So, he went to the merit hall to exchange information regarding the Realm of Coldbelow. But upon entering the hall, Wei Yuan realized he had no Heaven Merits left. With no other choice, he had to seek out Zhang Sheng.
Zhang Sheng had ample Heaven Merits, and the information he sought didn’t cost much. So, they didn’t hesitate to exchange it. Next, the master and disciple summoned all members of the Palace of Absolute Beginning to study it together.
As Dream Eater had said, the Realm of Coldbelow was the convergence point between the Outside and the Homeworld. It was situated at the edge of tangible and intangible, and the site of many strange and terrifying phenomena. Yet this place was also crucial for a Blood Warlock’s ascension; if they could not establish a kingdom here, the Blood Warlocks would be unable to alight with the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth and achieve the status of Sky Warlock.
In the past, the human race had tried sending people into the Coldbelow to uncover how a Blood Warlock became a Shadow Warlock, or even something greater. However, nearly everyone they had ever sent had perished in their respective expeditions. They had even lost two cultivators who were considered promising candidates for Immortal Lords.
Since then, the human race had ceased exploring the Coldbelow entirely.
Wei Yuan had not anticipated that the cost of exploring the realm would be so immense. Over the years, thousands had been sent in, yet only a few dozen had returned alive.
But come to think of it, it made perfect sense. Dream Eater’s Paper Wedding Gown trap alone could wipe out nearly all humans. Having experienced it firsthand, Wei Yuan believed that only geniuses of the caliber of Zhang Sheng, Ji Liuli, and Bao Yun stood a chance of surviving. Their Dao Foundations and primordial spirits were both incredibly powerful, and each possessed immortal methods that allowed them to awaken from the illusory dream. For anyone else—even Xiao Yu—it would have been certain death.
But how could anyone risk sending a genius like Ji Liuli into the Coldbelow? If it weren’t for the fact that he had fallen victim to the powerful curse cast by the Shadow Warlock Shu Li, Wei Yuan himself would never have set foot in the strange realm.
After reviewing the materials, Zheng Sheng suddenly remarked, “This report doesn’t explicitly state whether the Immortal Lords are already aware of the Coldbelow’s secrets.”
The intelligence records of the Palace of Absolute Beginning followed extremely strict protocols, especially those obtained through the exchange of Heaven Merits. If a matter was a secret or unknown, it would be explicitly marked as “unknown”. However, if a matter was known—even if only a single Immortal Lord was aware of it—then the records would either state it as “known” or omit it entirely. They would never list it as “unknown”.
Ji Liuli replied, “That means they might have known about it, or had some suspicions, but for some reason chose not to make it public.”
“What kind of information could it be that even an Immortal Lord is keeping it tightly under wraps?” Wei Yuan asked curiously.
Zhang Sheng didn’t answer him, so Ji Liuli continued, “There are plenty of such cases; the history books are full of them.”
Wei Yuan recalled the history he had studied, but could not seem to find any similar accounts.
Seeing that he couldn’t remember, Ji Liuli reminded him, “Have you forgotten what Feng Chutang taught in A Comprehensive History of the Human Race and Foundational Studies of the Path to Immortality? For instance, how did the first Immortal Lord come to be?”
Wei Yuan fell into deep thought. After reviewing the materials, he concluded that the importance of exploring the Realm of Coldbelow had skyrocketed, if only because it held the secret on how a Blood Warlock ascended to become a Sky Warlock. Moreover, if Wei Yuan could stir up enough commotion there, it would be like setting fire to the Shadow Warlock’s backyard. It might just be enough to divert their attention from Qingming to the Coldbelow.
Wei Yuan’s mind was set. He immediately sought guidance from his Big Senior Sister and Master on the Daoist methods and techniques for capturing living creatures. He intended to capture a few of them alive in the Coldbelow and interrogate them thoroughly.
Zhang Sheng and Ji Liuli both shared their knowledge without reservation, but Wei Yuan was not prepared. Specifically, the sheer ruthlessness and treacherousness of their methods left him in cold sweat when all was said and done. Zhang Sheng, in particular—the Master whom Wei Yuan had always regarded as having a Dao Heart of Invincibility—turned out to be no less ruthless as Ji Liuli behind the scenes[1].
Having accidentally discovered this other side of Zhang Sheng, Wei Yuan finally understood why the Skyblue Hall had repeatedly emphasized the importance of respecting one’s betters.
1. He was the mastermind behind the push that would bind Bao Yun and Wei Yuan together after all. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ☜
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