Chapter 47: Heaven-Earth Life-Extinguishing Formation, Another Part of the Truth
Chapter 47 – Heaven-Earth Life-Extinguishing Formation, Another Part of the Truth
An hour passed, and Chen Changsheng smoothly withdrew from his meditative state.
Sensing the steady thrum of his late-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue.
“Late-stage Nascent Soul should suffice. Breaking through to the Soul Formation realm would consume a full decade, which is a poor transaction.”
Muttering to himself, he stepped out of the stone coffin and stretched his stiff, ancient bones.
Simultaneously, he pondered the disappearance of his Spiritual Qi. Whenever he sank into slumber, the lifeforce within his mortal shell entirely ceased to flow.
Consequently, the Spiritual Qi trapped within his meridians would slowly evaporate, much like moisture bleeding from dried meat.
Though he could swiftly cultivate it back, restoring his foundation after every cycle of slumber was an intolerable nuisance.
Seeking a remedy, he retrieved the beast-skin tome. Thumbing through the heavy parchment, he soon discovered a solution.
“Heaven-Earth Life-Extinguishing Formation.”
“This will do!”
Slapping the beast-skin tome, a genuine smile crept onto his face as he locked onto the specific Formation.
The Heaven-Earth Life-Extinguishing Formation stood as one of the three great killing Formations recorded within the ancient text.
According to its laws, anyone trapped within would find their path to the Heavens severed above, and their descent to the Yellow Springs severed below. It extinguished Heaven, extinguished Earth, and naturally, extinguished life.
Such a terrifying, absolute Formation would undoubtedly serve to seal the slowly leaking Spiritual Qi within his flesh during his slumber.
His objective secured, Chen Changsheng cheerfully stepped out of the Bronze Ancient Hall to resume his study of the surrounding Dao Patterns.
The Heaven-Earth Life-Extinguishing Formation was designed for absolute slaughter. Modifying its laws to trap without killing was no trivial matter.
Yet, time was the one currency he possessed in abundance. Such a grand undertaking could be whittled down slowly.
……
“Hoo—”
Delicately placing his foot upon the final step, Chen Changsheng successfully breached the Ward of the second Bronze Ancient Hall.
“Your Majesty, performing your burial rites cost me a full ninety years.”
“I trust you will not let my efforts go unrewarded.”
Whispering to the scattered remains, he carefully gathered Emperor Zuo’s crystal-clear bones and laid them to rest within the heavy wood.
As for Emperor Zuo’s missing lower half, he could not locate it anywhere in the dust. Left with no alternative, he carved a wooden effigy to complete the corpse.
With Emperor Zuo’s burial concluded, Chen Changsheng rightfully claimed two items as his fee.
The payment consisted of the shattered True Martial Sword, completely missing its tip, and a golden plate the tyrant had worn as a heart-protecting mirror.
Weighing the golden plate in his palm, Chen Changsheng frowned.
“Is this not the Nine Revolutions Profound Art of the Xuanwu Kingdom?”
“Furthermore, this material feels profoundly familiar.”
Searching through his inner space, he eventually extracted another golden fragment of the exact same texture.
The jagged edges of the two golden plates aligned perfectly, fusing to form a complete, flawless ancient page.
Confronted with this revelation, Chen Changsheng stared blankly at Emperor Zuo’s coffin.
“Your Majesty, this business practice is truly a bit underhanded!”
“It seems the ancestors of the Xuanwu Kingdom had long breached the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land and successfully smuggled relics out.”
“I always wondered. If the Xuanwu Kingdom had never set foot within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land, how did they know an Bronze Ancient Hall awaited inside?”
“Now, with the Nine Revolutions Profound Art acting as proof, the truth is laid bare.”
Shaking his head, Chen Changsheng examined the golden page. He could not decipher a single character etched upon it.
Recognizing it as the Nine Revolutions Profound Art was entirely a matter of Fated Chance.
Among the items Zuo Xinghe had entrusted him to process was a translated manuscript of the Nine Revolutions Profound Art.
Beside the title on that manuscript sat four peculiar ancient symbols. He had casually inquired about them at the time.
Zuo Xinghe explained that those four symbols represented the manual’s true name. As for the actual translation of the ancient script, the entire Xuanwu Kingdom was completely ignorant.
Chen Changsheng had dismissed the anomaly back then.
Yet, decades after descending into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land, he had unearthed the lower half of this golden plate from the crimson dirt.
The metal was indestructible, its severed edges unnervingly sharp. Though blind to the meaning of its symbols, he had retained it as a peculiar curiosity.
Had he not recovered the upper half from Emperor Zuo’s corpse, he could have lived another ten thousand years without realizing he possessed the missing fragment of the Nine Revolutions Profound Art.
Brushing the dust from Emperor Zuo’s coffin, Chen Changsheng sighed.
“Your Majesty, the myriad unsolvable mysteries of the mortal realm are likely all born from such hidden truths.”
“Your ancestors trespassed into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land. Exactly how much of this abyss did they map? That is a secret only you possessed.”
“Furthermore, they managed to pry a fragment of the Nine Revolutions Profound Art from the jaws of this graveyard.”
“Successfully smuggling an artifact from such a primordial terror proves its peerless nature beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
“Now that you have perished, these truths are sealed within your coffin forever. A heavy pity.”
Delivering his final eulogy, he turned and walked toward the Bronze Ancient Hall.
Ever since learning that Niansheng had vanished within the teleportation array, he had relentlessly pursued the secrets of these Bronze Ancient Halls.
Having paid a toll of two hundred and ninety years to finally breach its doors, his immediate priority was to unravel the hall’s internal mysteries.
……
Within the Bronze Ancient Hall.
Countless profound murals stretched across the metal walls, their intersecting lines forming a sprawling, albeit partially fractured, historical scroll.
Unlike the ruined structures within the Boundless Secret Realm and the Night Moon Country’s forbidden ground, the hall housed within the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land remained exceptionally pristine.
Thus, the ancient murals granted him a far clearer vision of the forgotten epochs.
In the primordial past, the myriad living beings of the world borrowed a deeply inauspicious power to evade the grasp of the “Giant Hand.”
Initially, this desperate gamble succeeded, violently repelling the Giant Hand.
However, the myriad beings soon realized that this inauspicious power was parasitically eroding the very foundation of the world.
Cornered by an existential threat, the living beings forged an alliance with the Giant Hand, successfully purging the inauspicious taint.
Yet, a lingering remnant of that suffocating power refused to be erased.
To prevent the rot from resurfacing, the living beings and the Giant Hand jointly forged eighteen Bronze Ancient Halls, entrusting them to eighteen distinct races to stand eternal vigil.
Nine of these ancient structures were placed under the direct stewardship of the Giant Hand. To maintain unbroken communication across the vast realms…
…they harnessed the momentum of Heaven and Earth to engrave Three-Color Teleportation Arrays within the metal floors.
These Three-Color Teleportation Arrays commanded a limitless range, entirely immune to the interference of external Dao laws.
Logically, after weathering such a cataclysm, the myriad beings and the Giant Hand should have shared a lasting, peaceful coexistence.
Yet, the cycle of slaughter inevitably resumed. The murals here displayed a glaring stratification in their artistry.
The foundational engravings and the later additions were clearly etched in entirely different epochs.
After sweeping his gaze over the tragic history, Chen Changsheng was left utterly speechless.
The Three-Color Teleportation Arrays were initially designed for precise, anchored transit. However, following the ravages of ancient wars and the shifting of tectonic eras…
…it was virtually guaranteed that the eighteen Bronze Ancient Halls had been displaced from their original coordinates. Consequently, the Three-Color Teleportation Arrays could now only perform blind, randomized transit.
Facing a one-in-seventeen gamble, could he truly rely on Fated Chance to locate Niansheng?