Chapter 503: Chapter 503: Overstuffed
Located in the heart of the desert, these ancient city ruins were once the capital of the Great Yin Dynasty.
The Great Yin’s legacy lasted over five hundred years, yet its history has long been obliterated in the river of time. Zhang Yuan had read numerous books, but never saw a single mention of this dynasty.
And the Skeleton King he slew was, in fact, the last ruler of the Great Yin Dynasty—King Zhou of Yin!
King Zhou was born as the Crown Prince, possessing unrivaled martial arts talent, reaching the highest realm before the age of thirty.
Becoming an invincible existence.
Yet his temperament was extremely tyrannical, mercilessly exploiting internally, leading the Great Yin Dynasty into destitution.
Causing frequent rebellions.
But no matter the scale of these rebellions, they were all personally crushed by King Zhou leading the army.
His power was despairingly overwhelming!
However, even the invincible King Zhou of Yin had his weaknesses.
And that was his fear of death.
To pursue immortality, he mobilized the entire dynasty’s manpower and material resources to build this underground palace beneath the capital.
And within this underground palace, laid out the Array of Eternal Life.
This King Zhou attempted to utilize this array to ascend and become immortal.
To achieve this, he did not hesitate to conduct ritual sacrifices on tens of thousands of civilians and extracted the souls of his loyal soldiers, sealing them within stone statues.
However, King Zhou’s actions of tyranny not only aroused great anger and opposition across the Great Yin Dynasty.
In the end, the rebel army stormed the capital, eradicating all of King Zhou’s confidantes and supporters.
Despite King Zhou’s unmatched martial prowess, he could not withstand the relentless and costly attacks of the rebel army.
He was forced to retreat into the underground palace and sealed its entrance.
In a fit of rage, this final ruler recklessly activated the Array of Eternal Life, intending to sacrifice the entire capital’s population.
In the end, he succeeded halfway.
A million people of Great Yin perished, turning the capital into a terrifying ghost town.
But King Zhou also suffered backlash from the array, destroying his powerful body and extinguishing his hope of immortality.
Before his demise, he extracted his divine soul consciousness from the core, compressing it within his skull.
Then awaited the arrival of an intruder to the underground palace.
At that time, King Zhou would seize and reincarnate!
This waiting lasted for hundreds and thousands of years.
And Zhang Yuan, who came to the ancient city ruins in search of treasure, naturally became King Zhou’s last hope.
Yet the king never expected that at the moment he was about to execute the soul seizure, his divine soul was pierced by the Red Blood Saber!
If King Zhou were still in his prime, the Red Blood Saber could hardly truly harm him, and he might even have seized this divine soldier.
Unfortunately, after hundreds and thousands of years of slumber, his strength had weakened to the extreme.
Simply unable to withstand the heavy blow of the divine soldier.
Eventually leaving only a trace of a remnant soul attached to the blade.
Then came the divine soul battle between Zhang Yuan and King Zhou within the sea of consciousness.
King Zhou’s defeat was, in fact, predestined!
And now Zhang Yuan, by merging with King Zhou’s remnant soul, not only obtained most of this former king’s memories.
And his divine soul power was greatly enhanced!
Thus Zhang Yuan learned that the glow he had swallowed earlier was actually a Golden Core.
An Extreme Martial Golden Core!
This Golden Core was refined by King Zhou with the help of the Array of Eternal Life, condensing the soul power of seventy-six grandmasters of the Great Yin Dynasty, along with countless martial arts memories.
The Extreme Martial Golden Core was also prepared by King Zhou for after his soul seizure.
Yet...
Suffering year after year of suppression, only to make wedding clothes for others!
All of King Zhou’s efforts, sacrificing the entire dynasty, ultimately benefited Zhang Yuan.
Of course, what Zhang Yuan actually obtained was only a very small part.
Because whether it was King Zhou’s remnant soul or the Extreme Martial Golden Core, they were both weakened after being weakened again.
Not even one percent of their prime state.
Otherwise, Zhang Yuan might have a great chance of leaping to become an existence close to the former King Zhou!
But opportunities are truly mystical things; if it were the Golden Core in its prime state, he wouldn’t even have the ability to digest it.
He would have exploded to death upon ingestion.
Now, misfortune turns into a blessing, driven by strong luck.
Fortunately, the power of time is too formidable!
Zhang Yuan is already immensely satisfied.
It’s important to know that despite the remaining power of the Extreme Martial Golden Core being negligible, the martial arts knowledge and techniques sealed inside it are intact, it’s as though he acquired a comprehensive compendium of martial arts from the Great Yin’s five hundred years.
The value of this compendium is immeasurable by any other item!
Most importantly, having possessed King Zhou’s memories, Zhang Yuan mastered the method to control and utilize the Extreme Martial Golden Core.
A whole new martial arts world opened its doors to him!
It took Zhang Yuan a full one to two hours to barely adapt to the rapid increase of divine soul power while also roughly organizing the vast memories he had acquired.
As for the Extreme Martial Golden Core "residing" in the Qi Sea Dantian, it would require a lifetime for him to develop and utilize!
Zhang Yuan suppressed the indescribable excitement and thrill in his heart and began to clean up the battlefield.
The result was yet another new harvest.
First, he found a dark golden ring among the bone fragments left by King Zhou.
This ring was originally worn on the left ring finger of this skeletal king, and now only the ring itself remained.
The ring’s design is plain and simple, with no visible magical attributes from the surface.
However, when Zhang Yuan tried wearing it on his hand, an aura of profound and mysterious essence instantly enveloped him, invigorating his spirit and giving a unique sense of security.
It felt as if he was clad in an invisible armor, shielding against external harm.
But this harm wasn’t a physical attack.
It was on the divine soul level!
Zhang Yuan immediately searched King Zhou’s memory, and as expected, found the relevant information.
This ring is called the Witch God Ring, a treasure left by an ancient wizard, passed down through an ancient tribe.
Yet this tribe was exterminated by King Zhou, and he acquired the Witch God Ring.
As Zhang Yuan felt, the purpose of the Witch God Ring is to protect the wearer from all curses, suppressions, head lowering, and gu poison killings.
It also shields against all attacks on the divine soul.
The Witch God Ring can even reflect these damages and attacks!
But wearing the Witch God Ring isn’t without its conditions—only those with sufficiently strong divine souls are worthy of possession.
If Zhang Yuan hadn’t merged with King Zhou’s divine soul power, he might not have met the requirements to wear it.
This is a divine artifact.
Of the same caliber as the Red Blood Saber!
Following that, Zhang Yuan picked up the weapons left behind after the destruction of the four war general statues.
A long halberd, a great hammer, a war axe, and a longsword, a total of four high-quality profound soldiers!
Compared to the Extreme Martial Golden Core and the Witch God Ring, these profound soldiers were undoubtedly of much lesser value.
Zhang Yuan planned to feed them to the Red Blood Saber.
To reward this immensely meritorious divine weapon!
Truthfully, Zhang Yuan felt a bit overwhelmed.
