Chapter 1044: Chapter 1043 Heavenly Desire Origin_1
Heavenly Desire Origin, one of the universally acknowledged ten most dangerous places in the world, ranks alongside places like Soul Losing Hill, Mirage City, and Falling Star Gorge.
Those top ten dangerous places each have their unique features.
For example, Soul Losing Hill is rumored to be swept by Demonic Vigorous Winds all year round. Deep within, the winds are said to extinguish a person’s soul, making even the Martial Emperors of the Void Origin Realm dare not enter.
Then there’s Mirage City, rumored to have been created by gods. Shi Xiaole once entered it in Rainbow State. But even now, he dares not truly confirm whether the Mirage City he entered was the real one.
Falling Star Gorge, located within the Daxia Dynasty, is said to be the place closest to the stars in the sky, where stars fall from time to time, creating all sorts of terrifying phenomena. Some say it’s where the celestial beings first descended.
Compared to the above-mentioned places, Heavenly Desire Origin is undoubtedly more perplexing; among the ten dangerous places, it holds a very special status.
For it is the birthplace of peerless treasures.
In recorded texts, even the top ten Exotic Fruits like the Red Sun Vermillion Fruit, Heavenly Hidden Fruit, and Holy Bodhi Fruit had all appeared there, and there were legends of ancients stumbling into Heavenly Desire Origin and becoming saints on the spot.
Through the ages, countless people from the Martial World have ventured in, but eerie incidents soon follow.
Those who enter Heavenly Desire Origin either disappear mysteriously, or if they’re lucky to come out, sometimes they have an extra silver coin in their pocket, sometimes a secret tome... But more often, they emerge with bloodied fingers, mutilated legs, or even heads hung upside down, scaring the living daylights out of people.
Afterwards, these individuals became madmen, fools, simpletons – It’s rare for anyone to escape unscathed. And yet, the glorious scenes of Heavenly Desire Origin that they describe before their insanity always lure countless desperate adventurers to follow in their footsteps.
So, compared to the other dangerous areas with well-known risks, Heavenly Desire Origin is undoubtedly more mysterious and unpredictable.
However, according to Gui Zhihang, Mu Ling, and others, their elders had claimed that Martial Emperors of the Void Origin Realm have walked out alive, unaffected.
To save the Purple Wood Sword Emperor, it seems the only choice left is to enter Heavenly Desire Origin. Time waits for no one, and Shi Xiaole has no other option.
He concealed this decision, simply saying he was going to traverse the Martial World. Xia Yunxi requested to accompany him but was laughingly turned down.
Xia Yunxi looked at him intently, "Every time you lie, you always smile more naturally. Sometimes I think, Yunxi will never be a help to you in this lifetime, only a hindrance. I shouldn’t cling to you!"
Shi Xiaole quickly hugged Xia Yunxi, who nestled into his embrace with tear-filled eyes.
"Only with burdens do we find drive. A person who has nothing to worry about, nothing to bind him, even though he may reach the pinnacle, what he tastes is only loneliness! So, are you willing to leave Shi Xiaole alone?"
Xia Yunxi cried even harder, laughing while crying, shaking her head constantly with whimpers like a kitten’s mew.
Just like previous times, Xia Yunxi could only watch the man leave from afar, waiting for his next return. She knew she would keep waiting, until the day they would never have to part again.
...
Heavenly Desire Origin, located at the furthest western reaches of the Flying Horse Dynasty, is of unknown length and depth, for no one knows where exactly Heavenly Desire Origin truly begins, often becoming lost as they venture in.
The vast western lands sparsely populated, some ruined buildings, lush jungles, hid beneath the dying light of the setting sun, casting large, eerie shadows.
A figure clad in blue robes quietly arrived in this desolate place.
Having decided to enter, Shi Xiaole would not be timid. He stretched his mental force to the limit, and casually proceeded westward.
About three days later.
His mental force clearly sensed a very covert layer of void membrane.
Heavenly Desire Origin?
Shi Xiaole focused his mental force into a beam, quietly penetrating the void membrane, but in the next moment, the void membrane suddenly disappeared without a trace.
With increased caution in his heart, Shi Xiaole continued forward. As he deeper into the western lands, the terrain underwent drastic changes, with plains transforming into green mountains, accompanied by streams, waterfalls, meadows, and so on – it was truly a landscape of paradise.
Sometimes, Shi Xiaole would see sprawling palaces and bustling city corners, but as he approached, these scenes would abruptly vanish.
He even encountered two groups of people fighting to the death, which disappeared into smoke and dust when he got close.
"Could this be the true nature of Heavenly Desire Origin? Just an illusion?"
Although Shi Xiaole admitted that he could not grasp the illusions here and could only resist them, he thought it would be too fake if such things could stump everyone in the world.
When two more months had passed, Shi Xiaole met a real person for the first time.
They were two black-clad men of similar height, wearing bamboo hats, one with a saber at his waist and the other with a sword in his hand. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Shi Xiaole.
"Damn it, not this getup again. Do they really think we don’t dare to make a move?"
The man with the saber was furious.
"Better to avoid unnecessary trouble, let it go."
The man with the sword glanced at Shi Xiaole and held back his companion.
Throughout this time, they had seen six men dressed in green with white temples, each carrying a long sword on their waist. Did they think that look was cool?
But they dared not make a move.
The reputation, the notoriety of that person was too intimidating; even if they knew someone was impersonating him, what if, by some fluke, they ran into the real one?
Moreover, among the impersonators, there were no few devotees of the Kirin, including some who were indeed powerful, beyond what they could handle.
"It’ll be hilarious the day they run into the real deal."
The man with the saber stared at Shi Xiaole, feeling that despite the young man’s sinister appearance and something quite Kirin-like about him, he still didn’t take him seriously and left with the man with the sword.
Watching the two depart, Shi Xiaole shook his head and chuckled. What was all this about?
After this encounter, he met more real people, and Heavenly Desire Origin at last began to reveal its eerie tip of the iceberg.
In the sky, pavilions and towers floated, with people coming and going. Behind the structures, connected to them, lay an endless grassland. Yes, connected.
At the center of the grassland was a vast lake, clearly at its heart, and though the grassland was opaque, those on the outside could see it clearly.
Even the sun in the sky was distorted, like a reflection in water. At night, the stars in the sky were ten times larger than the sun, each like a floating diamond.
All of this reminded Shi Xiaole of abstract paintings from a previous life, completely devoid of reason and logic.
On a staircase leading straight to the sky, a group of people were desperately fleeing.
Among them were three individuals: an old man with missing eyebrows, an enchanting woman with purple eyeshadow and a wickedly beautiful demeanor, and a young man with a gloomy air.
These three people, unmistakably, were Tang Que, one of the eight elders of the Tang Sect who had attended the sword evaluation convention, and the rising stars Tang Mei and Tang Zhiyang.
But gone were their spirited appearances from that time; the three were each wounded to varying degrees, especially Elder Tang Que, whose right arm had been severed.
"Multi-armed Martial Emperor, stop hiding! This time I want your entire Tang Sect annihilated, hahaha..."
Chasing after them were two caped elders, one of whom, a caped elder with tumors on his face, laughed maniacally.
"Evil Leech Martial Emperor, Withered Annihilation Martial Emperor, you may kill us today, but the Tang Sect will surely exterminate your entire line!"
Leading the Tang Sect experts in flight was an old man with extraordinarily long limbs. Without turning his head, he shouted back, though his eyes betrayed hints of despair.
