Chapter 1225: Chapter 123 Unparalleled Wondrous Land
The Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave was of unknown length and width, only endless surging gray currents could be seen in the line of sight. Having only advanced a few hundred meters, Shi Xiaole had no choice but to exit.
The life and death energy inside was too profound and mysterious, far beyond the limits of what the Life and Death Martial Path could decipher. Perhaps only if the Life and Death Martial Path achieved a major breakthrough would it be possible to utilize it.
But that would take how long? Five years, ten years?
For a Martial Emperor of the Void Origin Realm, ten years is just a flick of the fingers, perhaps not even enough for a single meditation session, but Shi Xiaole didn’t want to wait that long.
He knew he was impatient, but seeing that chaos was about to engulf the world, his enemies would not possibly give him ten years!
Could he really only give up? Shi Xiaole had thought and tried every possible method, all without exception ending in failure.
Shi Xiaole’s mental power entered the system space, which stored a stream of gray energy. He wasn’t prepared to discard it, even if it couldn’t be transformed for now, it could still be used as a secret weapon.
Suddenly!
Shi Xiaole noticed a piece of black stone within the gray current.
This was what he had found in the ruins of Yanbei Country. Originally filled with death energy, after absorbing it all, Shi Xiaole casually put it back in the system space.
What made Shi Xiaole’s spirit tremble was that, at some unknown time, the black stone was again filled with dense death energy, not inferior in quality to what it had been before.
"Could it be..."
An astonishing conjecture surfaced in Shi Xiaole’s mind. He forcibly calmed himself, took out the black stone, and immediately began to absorb the death energy within it.
At the peak of ten degrees, the Life and Death Martial Path’s absorption rate was far superior to that of the past. Approximately after a day, the death energy within the black stone was completely absorbed.
Shi Xiaole then put the black stone back in its place. After waiting with mixed feelings for several days, upon taking out the black stone again, he was surprised to find that there was another surge of death energy!
"Death energy cannot appear out of thin air, so can this black stone decompose gray energy?"
Shi Xiaole didn’t know the origin of the black stone, he only knew that he had found a way to make great strides by utilizing this treasure mountain. He had never thought that his trip to the Western Region back then had actually led to such an astonishing opportunity today.
It roughly took five days for the black stone to be filled with death energy, and one day for Shi Xiaole to absorb it once, totaling six days. After five cycles of absorption in a month, the Life and Death Martial Path was infinitely close to the initial stage of eleven degrees, just half a step away from breakthrough.
For some unknown reason, as the number of times decomposing gray energy increased, the black stone became more profound and the conversion efficiency improved.
From the previous five days a cycle, it was shortened to four days, three days.
The endless death energy entering the Life and Death Martial Path caused the black part to continuously grow stronger, gradually surpassing the white part, making the overall aura more profound and unfathomable.
A year and nine months had passed since coming to the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave.
With a bang!
The intense life energy caused the earth to regain its vitality, but it was then covered by a stronger wave of death energy, the active molecules in the soil were shredded, turning it completely into a wasteland.
On this day, Shi Xiaole’s Life and Death Martial Path finally broke through to the initial stage of eleven degrees.
The past Life and Death Martial Path was biased towards recovery and transformation, but this should not underestimate its lethality. In fact, the destructive power of the Life and Death Martial Path is also among the best in the world.
With the index and middle fingers of his left hand joined, Shi Xiaole launched a black sword light, and in the blink of an eye, a verdant mountain tens of thousands of miles away became a pitch-black mountain of death.
It’s unthinkable what kind of destruction this death energy would cause if it penetrated an opponent’s body.
With the aura of life stimulated, Shi Xiaole shot out a white sword light. The withered seeds sprouted anew, the grass grew robustly, and the dead mountain returned to its lush green state.
Life and death are all in one thought.
Thus, even in terms of attack power, the Life and Death Martial Path was in no way inferior to the Wind Sword Way. If not for the fact that the Sword Way was more in tune with the Heart Sword, it might have even surpassed the Wind Sword Way.
Hum...
Inside the system space, that black stone radiated a black light that devoured everything, as if sensing something, it automatically flew out.
Shi Xiaole was suddenly startled; catching it with his hand, his body was uncontrollably pulled by the black stone into the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave.
The rolling gray current surged towards him, but it was all absorbed by the black stone. This time, Shi Xiaole didn’t feel any discomfort. Like an arrow, he and the stone kept shuttling deeper.
One thousand meters.
Two thousand meters.
Three thousand meters.
...
After a long time, Shi Xiaole emerged from the gray river, ahead lay vast hills and forests without any life and death energy, replaced instead by starlight filling the sky.
Shi Xiaole even felt the gravitational rules unique to the stars, which caused all four of his martial paths to resonate. Fortunately, the black stone resisted a great deal of energy; otherwise, Shi Xiaole would have been crushed to death.
Stellar Martial Path!
The most authentic Stellar Martial Path, undoubtedly a part of Supreme Martial Arts, and moreover, it was one of the top classes within the Supreme Martial Arts.
Being just a hundred meters high in the sky was already subject to such strong gravitational rules, Shi Xiaole couldn’t imagine how strong the gravitational rules would be at higher altitudes.
If a martial artist who had mastered the Stellar Martial Path were to come here, they would definitely consider it a precious land. Of course, this is under the precondition that their strength is sufficient.
Beyond the endless starlight, what appeared in front of Shi Xiaole was a world interwoven with the Five Elements. The earth was divided into five colors, cycling endlessly and inexhaustibly.
Following the world of the Five Elements, there were dragon and phoenix cries, the aura of a Supreme Lord permeated, strong forces became manifest, eerie ghost realms floated in the sky...
One after another, entirely distinct worlds pervaded with various forms of Supreme Martial Arts energy that Shi Xiaole had and hadn’t seen before, with high realms and pure essences, surpassing even the platforms in the land of Fate.
The Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave is named Death Without Life—could this be its true meaning?
Unfortunately, in the vastness of the world, not even those who could cross the gray river could be found, so who would be able to witness the unparalleled scenery of this place?
The black stone’s glow grew even deeper, like a black hole, shielding Shi Xiaole from the onslaught of martial energy. Eventually, the duo halted before a low earthen mound.
The mound was only a few meters high and tens of meters in diameter, exuding an intensely strong aura of death. A hundred meters away, Shi Xiaole felt his life force slipping away, beyond the ability of even the art of Life-and-Death Martial Arts to retain.
The Martial Arts of Death, and it had reached an indescribable realm!
Feeling the black stone tremble, Shi Xiaole instinctively let go, and the black stone quickly plunged into the mound. A sigh of satisfaction and sentiment echoed faintly from within.
"Who?"
Even with Shi Xiaole’s composure, his heart couldn’t help but race.
In the present world, no one was supposed to be able to enter this place, yet the black stone seemed to be under control, having journeyed all this way. So how terrifying must the power that controlled it be?
Shi Xiaole was certain he hadn’t misheard; someone had made a sound. Was it the voice’s owner controlling it?
The pitch-black mound radiated eternal death, with no one responding.
"Senior, is the black stone yours?"
Shi Xiaole asked again.
The surroundings remained dead silent, creating an eerily frightening atmosphere.
Confident that he could still resist, Shi Xiaole took steps forward. Gradually, he could no longer see the mound, even his spiritual perception became ineffectual, leaving only darkness.
At the end of loneliness lies darkness, but what is darker than darkness itself, if not death itself?
A new understanding of the Martial Arts of Death began to surge into Shi Xiaole’s mind.
Moving a few steps farther, feeling the Life-and-Death Martial Arts overwhelmed, Shi Xiaole stopped. With boldness, he began to gather the essence of death from the area into his system space.
He judged that the owner of the mound wouldn’t mind; otherwise, they wouldn’t have allowed him to come this close.
A quarter of a two-hour period.
Half a two-hour period.
...
An entire two-hour period.
With each second of gathering, Shi Xiaole’s delight grew.
Without the black stone, it meant he couldn’t enter the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave, couldn’t decompose the grey aura. Hence, the death aura here became incredibly precious.
At the turn of one two-hour period, with a thud, Shi Xiaole was repelled by an invisible force, the scenery reverted, and he began to retrace his steps along the path taken.
Was this an expulsion?
Shi Xiaole stood there stunned.
Behind the mound of death qi were several different barriers, each more formidable than the last, enough to deter the masters of the present age. Yet, at the deepest part of the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave, was a spring-like celestial paradise in full bloom.
Flowers blossomed in profusion, butterflies danced and orioles sang, waterfalls and streams meandered through the flowers, their spray forming beads on the petals, refracting rainbow glows in the sunlight.
In the heart of the flowers, a man and a woman lay hand in hand, silent and still as if they had no breath.
At a certain moment.
The man’s eyes suddenly opened, revealing a mesmerizing grey-green hue. His features, carved as if from white jade, eased into a smile that could make the women of the world swoon.
Regrettably, that tenderness and smile were only showcased before the comatose woman.
"Do you feel it? Our child has come, yet we cannot meet just yet, Yu Ji. Soon, very soon, you will awaken, and our family of three will be reunited," the man murmured as he caressed the woman’s cheek, his eyes filled with boundless love.
...
Outside the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave.
Shi Xiaole felt as if he had awoken from a dream.
Places of fate are considered some of the world’s miracles, but what were they compared to the Life-and-Death Unfounded Cave? Alas, the world’s cultivators lacked the power to witness it for themselves.
Furthermore, whether it was an illusion or not, at the moment of his expulsion, Shi Xiaole sensed a surge in his bloodline as if someone immensely important to him lay even deeper within.
Standing dazed for a while, not until the sunset did Shi Xiaole compose himself again, determined to return once his power was great, to explore the truth.
As for now, best to set aside distractions and focus on improving himself.
...
Inside a man-made underground cave.
Shi Xiaole, day and night, voraciously absorbed the death qi from the system space.
To elevate the Supreme Martial Arts from the early stage of eleven percent to the middle stage was as hard as reaching the heavens.
Even the formidable Xuan Yuan Jue had taken decades, plus the boost from the Fate Realm’s Supreme Pool, to make the breakthrough, otherwise, it would have taken a hundred years.
Fast as Shi Xiaole was compared to Xuan Yuan Jue, he couldn’t achieve it overnight.
But the death qi in the system space was abundant, and its realm extraordinarily lofty, soaking it up like a sponge, gradually making progress with every moment.
Thus, the recently stabilized Life-and-Death Martial Arts began striving towards a higher realm again.
