Chapter 989: Chapter 988 The Grand Ceremony Begins_1
There were only three days left until the Ritual of Blood Sacrifice.
In the Wuzi Temple, only Shi Xiaole was left.
When he had awakened earlier, a young man named Xia Qianshan had warned him not to get too engrossed in his cultivation and miss the timing of the ceremony.
Shi Xiaole responded with a smile, but didn’t take it to heart.
It wasn’t because he had never thought of attending the Ritual of Blood Sacrifice. Who knew what kind of people the Witch Heavenly Guards were or what kind of mentality they had towards him.
In nearly three months, Shi Xiaole had cultivated the "Wizard Scroll" to the peak of the sixth layer. If he showed this progress, even if he were a Witch Heavenly Guard himself, he would be restless.
It was hard to believe that others wouldn’t have any thoughts about it.
"Just three more days, cultivate to the seventh layer, and then leave."
With that thought, Shi Xiaole continued to meditate.
Aside from the progress of the "Wizard Scroll," his Demon Martial Way had also reached the mid-nineties percent, and the negative forces inside his body had just begun to appear before being absorbed completely.
It was midnight, and Shi Xiaole touched upon the edge of a breakthrough.
Bang!
A soft sound.
If one could see through, they would find that seventy percent of Shi Xiaole’s blood had turned into a thick black substance, with strands and threads containing unimaginable wonders.
But just then, an anomaly occurred.
The crystal Demon Bone vibrated slightly, and the black blood flowing past it seemed to be somewhat different.
Hum...
At the same moment, the four stone pillars of Wuzi Temple emitted a faint light, interweaving into a quadrilateral that enveloped Shi Xiaole.
The next moment, Shi Xiaole was yanked up, the world spinning before his eyes. When everything settled, he found himself standing inside a rectangular stone temple that was a hundred meters tall.
The temple was very deep, with dim surroundings. Every hundred meters, a protruding stone appeared on the wall, each with a torch inserted on top.
In the deepest part of the temple, through the mottled moonlight coming from a hole above and the flickering, firefly-like torchlight, one could vaguely see a massive human face, with slightly pursed lips and a spooky gaze, looking down on everything from high above.
When Shi Xiaole looked up, it seemed as if the face was also looking at him. If you listened closely, a series of incomprehensible, low chants would enter your ears, along with the darkness around, silent and eerie.
"Is that, a statue?"
Shi Xiaole suppressed the palpitations in his heart.
He didn’t know where he was or why he had come here, but it was definitely related to the crystal Demon Bone. Driven by intense curiosity, he stepped forward, his power raised to the limit.
"Wait, my current state is, a spiritual body?"
After a while, Shi Xiaole belatedly realized his state. He wanted to turn back, but when he did, there was another giant face shrouded in darkness staring back at him, with its eyes downturned, an immense sinister pressure bearing down on him.
Shi Xiaole turned back and continued walking step by step.
He sensed a group of people whose presences were all so powerful, like the sun and the moon in competition. Some of them had such vigorous vitality, it seemed as if it could scorch the heavens and boil the earth, and the feeling they gave Shi Xiaole was not any weaker than that of Rainbow State’s Ghost Emperor or the master of Illusion Orchid Tower.
Through the mist, Shi Xiaole saw that these people were wearing uniform black clothes, and even their hair bun was tied in exactly the same way, exuding a sense of religiosity, sitting cross-legged on both sides, chanting in a low voice.
"Witch Heavenly Guard!"
Shi Xiaole’s heart shook violently; he had seen pictures of the Witch Heavenly Guard, and they were dressed exactly as the people before him. So, this place was... the Witch Queen’s Temple?!
How did he get here?
The spiritual power Shi Xiaole could currently utilize had reached the peak of the Void Origin Realm. In fact, his own spiritual power surpassed this level. Therefore, as a spiritual body, no one present noticed him.
Nevertheless, someone still lifted their head, glanced in his direction, and Shi Xiaole tensed up. Only when the person lowered their head again did he breathe a sigh of relief.
He observed for a long time, noting that these Witch Heavenly Guards were flipping through the scriptures and chanting, before he continued to walk forward.
The statue in front was hundreds of meters tall; the closer he got, the more intense the creepy and eerie feeling became. Judging from the attire, it seemed to be a female, and to have a statue in the Witch Queen’s Temple, it wasn’t hard to deduce her identity—the Witch Queen, who left the most mysterious Chapter in the history of the Daxia Dynasty!
Until now, no one knew the origin of the Witch Queen. Few had even seen her true face. All that was known was that this woman had world-shaking powers and had single-handedly trained the first Xia Emperor and the master of the Ancestral Temple, two peerless great masters, before vanishing without a trace.
After taking a full look at the huge statue that seemed to be the Witch Queen, Shi Xiaole walked around to the backside. For some reason, his heart slowly began to race faster and faster.
Behind, there was a stone door tens of meters high and several meters wide, a grand and mysterious aura rushing towards him.
All at once, Shi Xiaole recalled the legend of the Witch Queen’s Temple—whoever could condense the blood of the Witch Ancestor would be able to enter the deepest part of the Witch Queen’s Temple and discover the grand secret left by the Witch Queen.
Could it be behind the stone door?
His curiosity was stronger than ever, and since the crystal Demon Bone wouldn’t activate for no reason, Shi Xiaole slowly approached step by step. After contemplating for a long time, he raised his hand and gently pressed it against the stone door.
After all, as a spiritual body, he should have no problem escaping.
The stone door did not budge, but a strong suction force came through, then quickly vanished. Shi Xiaole contemplated this, but his gaze fell upon the surface of the stone door.
With the naked eye, the surface appeared perfectly smooth, yet Shi Xiaole, with his keen spiritual power, distinctly felt a series of intricate, invisible lines crossing over each other, each fluctuation transmitting into the distance.
Was this the power of an Array System?
Every Array System, especially the stronger and more complex ones, would have a disk for manipulation. Shi Xiaole needed no further guesses, the stone door before him was unmistakably the control disk for the entire Daxia Royal Palace Array System.
For ordinary people, to unravel this disk and grasp the principles of controlling the Array System would be nothing short of wishful thinking, and even a grandmaster of arrays would need a considerable amount of time to achieve this.
But Shi Xiaole was different.
His unrivaled spiritual quality allowed him to dissect and unravel comparable levels of array powers swiftly. Having spent two 2-hour periods, Shi Xiaole completely grasped the secrets of the Array System of the Daxia Royal Palace, not only enabling him to break it effortlessly but also to reverse its use.
This discovery did not cause him to stop. Shi Xiaole pressed on the stone door again, this time stimulating the Demon Bone inside the crystal, but there was no response.
"I seem to have forgotten that I am merely a spirit body now, utterly incapable of utilizing the power of the Demon Bone."
Shi Xiaole felt a sense of regret, empty and unfulfilled. What exactly was hidden behind the stone door?
He wandered around the vicinity for a while, finding some undecipherable, eerie murals in the darkness.
The Witch Heavenly Guards chanted for three 2-hour periods and finally came to a stop, dispersing like puppets without uttering a word, making the stone hall oppressively uncomfortable. It was hard to imagine what their daily lives were like.
After confirming there was no further discovery, Shi Xiaole made his way back along the path he came from. Now that he knew all the secrets of the Array Systems, the Witch Queen’s temple obviously could not confine him. In a few breaths’ time, Shi Xiaole walked out smoothly, using the previous Array System to return his spirit body to its place.
Normally at this time, he would have gotten up to leave, finished what he had to do, and fled immediately. But now, Shi Xiaole hesitated.
No matter whether the Witch Heavenly Guards would be detrimental to him or not, now that he had mastered the Array System of the Daxia Royal Palace, if he played his cards right, he could make an unexpected move and retreat safely.
So, should he take the risk and maybe gain a chance to uncover the secrets behind the stone door?
Recalling the anomaly of the Demon Bone crystal, Shi Xiaole pondered back and forth, weighing the pros and cons, and finally clenched his teeth and made a decision.
He stayed at the Wuzi Temple for three more days, and it wasn’t until the Blood Sacrifice Ceremony began that a royal prodigy came in to remind him, and only then did Shi Xiaole step out.
Outside the temple stood Xia Xiaonine and Xia Youying. The former looked at Shi Xiaole, seemed to want to say something but hesitated with a rather forced smile.
The latter approached, once again broached the topic of union, and subtly reminded Shi Xiaole that once he became a Heavenly Guard, he would be restricted by the Witch Queen’s temple, and would inevitably be harmed by Min Tianliang. After all, given the latter’s influence, his power would certainly be greater after joining the Heavenly Guard.
Shi Xiaole took no notice.
"Stubbornness isn’t always a good thing in a person," Xia Youying said, without his usual teasing jest and full of disappointment.
"Your Majesty, Princess, it’s time to depart," reminded a guard who came forward.
Other royal family members stood in the distance, none focusing on Shi Xiaole. In their minds, the upcoming Blood Sacrifice Ceremony would once again become a stage for the Ancestral Temple to display its might, and many even harbored thoughts of resignation.
However, regardless of their internal resistance, the Blood Sacrifice Ceremony was still held today as scheduled.
...
The sun had not yet risen, and the sky was a hazy grey.
In the rear of the Daxia Royal Palace lay a heavily guarded platform, never shown to outsiders, but today, two groups of people successively entered it.
Whoosh!
Under the enveloping light of the Array System, those who entered the platform immediately vanished into another dimension.
This was a plaza paved with marble, immeasurable in length and width, stretching as far as the eye could see.
To the east of the plaza lay ten steps rising one after the other. Astonishingly, each step was thousands of meters in both length and width, effectively individual platforms.
And atop the highest tenth step stood a majestic, hundred-foot-tall Female Statue.
"That is the Witch Queen!" whispered Xia Youying next to Shi Xiaole.
Was this the Witch Queen?
Shi Xiaole suppressed the doubts in his heart and noticed some gazes falling on him. He looked towards them, seeing a group of youths with cold expressions and unfriendly eyes a few hundred meters away.
Shi Xiaole disregarded these people and shifted his focus to the center of the crowd, where a man crowned with a purple-gold crown stood.
The man did not reveal even a hint of his aura, but he was like the sun and the moon among stars, exuding an overwhelmingly powerful, invincible aura.
The purple-gold crown man also noticed Shi Xiaole; his mouth curled into a half-smile as he casually averted his gaze.
"Kirin, that man is Min Tianliang. Be careful," said Xia Qianshan, walking up from the royal side.
In his view, the Kirin would probably not take action today. After all, even with exceptional aptitude, mastering the first layer of the Wizard Scroll in just three months would be remarkable, and no one expected him to do anything as long as he could become a Heavenly Guard in exceptional circumstances.
But since they were on the same side, Xia Qianshan felt it was necessary to warn him. In case Min Tianliang, also a Heavenly Guard, played some tricks, the Kirin would likely find it hard to cope.
