Chapter 55: The Hidden Realm
The Taiqing disciples were tied up and placed on the altar, many severely injured and barely alive.
At the center of the altar was the Lady Arclight, bloody all over. Her internal organs had been severely damaged, and she was coughing out blood. Seals laid out all over her body rendered her immobile.
"Marquis Wu, what exactly are you planning?! Aren't you afraid of follow-up investigations from the Taiqing sect?!" the Lady Arclight called out, glancing at a nearby mountaintop. There, Marquis Wu and a group of his subordinates were looking down coldly at the mountain valley.
"I need a large quantity of spiritual power. Ordinary cultivators only begin cultivating spiritual power at the peak of Immanence, but the Taiqing Immortal Sect, an orthodox school of cultivation, begins such cultivation at the start of Immanence. The spiritual power of Taiqing disciples is pure and unadulterated, incomparable to those of many other Immortal sects. As for the investigation, well, all of you will have died to a group of spirits more dangerous than you could handle. What does it have to do with me?" Marquis Wu smiled innocently.
"What are you planning to do with our spiritual power?!" The Lady Arclight coughed out a mouthful of blood.
"You'll see right away," Marquis Wu told her, then looked toward a group of black-armored warriors. "Activate the array!"
"Yessir!" the warriors around the altar replied.
The warriors brought over a hundred buckets of mysterious red liquid, then poured it over the altar, dyeing it a lurid blood red color. The altar squirmed and made a chugging noise, causing the red liquid to seep into its stone surface. The gray, faded altar turned blood-red.
"This is..." A deep-seated unease filled the Lady Arclight.
The runes on the altar suddenly emitted red light. From the intersection of the red beams materialized a translucent red whip, which seemed almost to take physical form.
The whip snapped in mid-air, and its tip agilely darted into the center of the Lady Arclight's forehead like a snake.
The Lady Arclight cried out in pain, but she was helpless against the whip's assault. A flood of blue spiritual energy was sucked out of her forehead and infused into the altar.
"My spiritual power! Argh!" the Lady Arclight screamed. "Such a perverse tactic—you'll suffer retribution for this!"
She tried to struggle, but the seals placed all over her body made any resistance impossible. Tremendous pain filled her body, causing her to shriek in despair. In addition to her spiritual power, her vitality also seemed to be coursing out of her.
Atop the mountain, Marquis Wu smiled coldly. He had no interest in conversing with the soon-to-be dead.
With a sudden burst of energy, a hundred translucent red whips manifested from the altar, then shot straight toward the Taiqing disciples.
"No!" they cried out in fear and shock. However, there was nothing they could do. The whips shot straight into the center of their foreheads and began leeching their spiritual power.
The Taiqing disciples screamed.
In the wounded camp not too far away, Yu'er turned her head away, not daring to witness the traumatic sight. She almost screamed out a few times, and Xiao Nanfeng hugged her tightly.
Xiao Nanfeng was also visibly angry, but he was unable to intercede at this point. Marquis Wu had too many men in the vicinity. The moment he and Yu'er exposed themselves, they would end up suffering the same fate as those on the altar. He had to escape, return to the sect, and come back for revenge with the sect elders in tow!
After about half an hour, the screams on the altar slowly diminished. Some of the disciples, grievously wounded, lay still and unconscious after also having their spiritual power sucked away from them. The Lady Arclight herself lay still on the ground. It was unclear whether she was alive or dead.
Just then, a red mist seeped out of the altar and slowly condensed into a blue portal of light, one that grew larger and larger until it transformed into a circular passageway ten meters wide.
Spiritual energy gushed out of the passageway.
"Spiritual energy—such a dense outpouring of spiritual energy! Father, the entrance to the hidden realm has opened up. Just the atmosphere alone is a treasure!"
Marquis Wu glanced at the entrance to the hidden realm with eager anticipation. "This entrance will persist for a day at most. I wonder what the situation is like inside?"
"Let me scout!" Xiang Kun couldn't wait to rush in.
"Although the ancient records state that the entrance is safe, you are a lord of this household, Lord Xiang. As a safety precaution, please let me take the lead!" the red-robed eunuch began.
Only then did Xiang Kun calm down and nod.
Marquis Wu instructed the eunuch, "Regardless of what you encounter, head back out and report in immediately."
"Yes, Master!" the eunuch responded.
The eunuch was a Spiritsong-realm cultivator, confident in his own strength and abilities. Even so, before entering the realm, he carefully protected his body with qi.
The old eunuch vanished from sight in an instant.
Everyone waited patiently for good news from the eunuch, but even after long moments, there was no sign of his return.
"What's going on? Why hasn't the Chief Steward come out?" Xiang Kun's face turned dark.
"Crow King, have your subordinates take a look!" Marquis Wu commanded.
"Very well." The crow king nodded, then cawed at the crow spirits in the air. They flew through the entrance en masse—but none flew back out.
"Father, according to the ancient records, shouldn't this entrance be safe?" Xiang Kun asked impatiently.
Marquis Wu was frowning himself. He had expended a great deal of energy merely on opening up the portal, and there was an object within that he had to acquire at any cost. If the entrance itself was so dangerous, what was the point?
"Warriors, listen up!" Marquis Wu called out.
"Yessir!" The black-armored warriors paled, knowing what was about to happen. Everyone looked at the strange blue portal above the altar. Who knew what had happened to those that had entered the portal?
Marquis Wu did want to send more subordinates to explore the hidden realm, but he didn't want to sacrifice his carefully trained warriors, either.
"The wounded troops will head in and scout the hidden realm. Everyone else will stand guard at the entrance!" Marquis Wu commanded.
'"Yessir!" The black-armored men nearby exhaled in relief, whereas the wounded soldiers' eyes suddenly widened with fear. They were to be the scouts?
The three hundred troops glanced at each other, but they could hardly disobey orders from their direct superiors. Some of the unwounded soldiers even began to push and herd the wounded along.
"Understood!" To avoid dying at their comrades' hands, they could only step forward with trepidation.
Xiao Nanfeng and Yu'er were among them. They didn't dare resist and reveal their identities, so they had no choice but to walk up to the blue portal above the altar. At their feet were Taiqing disciples paralyzed on the ground. Who knew how many of them were still alive?
Yu'er glanced at Xiao Nanfeng in worry. He forced himself to remain calm and consoled Yu'er, "I know it must be somewhat dangerous inside, but that doesn't mean we'll die. We simply need to be more careful when exploring it."
Yu'er grabbed Xiao Nanfeng's hand with some amount of fear. Not daring to expose themselves, they followed behind a group of wounded and stepped inside.
The moment they did so, Xiao Nanfeng felt the spiritual energy in the background, dozens of times denser than in the material world. The wounded walked all the way through the dark tunnel before seeing light once more.
The danger they had been expecting never surfaced, and everyone was able to make it to their destination safely.
It was midday in the secret realm, with a sun hanging high in the air. The realm was filled with spiritual energy. There were towering mountains in the distance, and from afar, it felt as though there were beasts flying in the distance around the mountaintops.
The crow troop warriors found themselves standing by a cliff. Below that cliff was a raging river, magnificent to behold.
The old eunuch and crow spirits who had entered the realm before they did weren't too far away. They were being chased by a group of palm-sized wasp spirits. The old eunuch was surrounded by a huge group of wasps, and he was fighting for his life in the air.
The largest of the wasp spirits was about half as large as a human, and it was able to spit out flames of light at the old eunuch. In addition, the wasps had sturdy bodies resistant to bladed weapons, countering the eunuch's attacks and leaving him in a difficult situation.
The thousand crow spirits, against an equally numerous group of wasps, were no opponent for them. They were forced to scatter and flee.
Xiao Nanfeng saw that there were ten giant beehives situated by the cliff, each about the size of a small mountain.
The old eunuch and the crow spirits had lured away the patrolling wasp spirits, allowing the three hundred wounded warriors to emerge from the portal unscathed.
"While it's safe, hurry and report back to the marquis!" one wounded warrior cried out.
"Strike now!" Xiao Nanfeng whispered.
"Got it!" Yu'er was thinking the same thing.
The two Immortal Cicadas flew toward the wounded warriors, who were shocked and tried to resist, but the strongest of them were only at Immanence, and they were all rather grievously injured. They found it difficult to even move, and they were no match for Xiao Nanfeng and Yu'er. In the blink of an eye, with a flash of light, they were summarily beheaded.
The three hundred wounded warriors fell to the ground in pools of blood.
"Nanfeng, there are more wasps emerging from the hives! Should we run?" Worried, Yu'er pointed into the distance.
Indeed, a large group of wasp spirits were poking their heads out of the hives upon smelling the iron tang of blood.
Xiao Nanfeng glanced at the ten mountain-like hives with a sudden glimmer in his eyes. "Yu'er, we'll break these hives and lure the wasps all out."
"You can't be thinking of—" Yu'er trailed off, her eyes widening.
"That's precisely it!"
"Very well." She exchanged a glance with Xiao Nanfeng as the two of them spurred their flying swords toward the hives.
As the hives fell to the ground in a tremendous crash, the Immortal Cicadas instantly returned to the two disciples' hands as they ran for their lives toward the portal entrance.
The wasps' hives crashed into the ground and exploded before they could do anything about it.
Countless wasps swarmed out and set their sights on Xiao Nanfeng and Yu'er.
The whirring of their wings was like the rumbling of thunder. A huge cloud of wasps, angered beyond belief, swarmed toward the blue portal entrance.
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