Chapter 91 – The Inheritor Palace’s Barrier
Translator: Mr Voltaire
Editor: Phoobiee
“Make sure you clean your eyes before trying to bully someone in future; the Moonwind Kingdom isn’t a place where your Qiu family can cover the sky.” Xiao Yun calmly looked at the Qiu family’s people who were tightly holding their breaths, before turning and walking to the edge of the fire chasm. He looked out, and saw everything within the ma.s.sive fire chasm.
Although the sea of flames had retreated, magma continued to bubble and flow around, giving off incredibly hot heatwaves. Within the magma, a golden flashing palace could be seen. The palaces’ pillars were all inscribed with mysterious runes. It was these runes that gave off mystical ripples that prevented the palace from being destroyed by fire and magma.
Xiao Yun walked down the fire chasm on the stairs. The stairs were about 500 metres high, and each step was very steep. Looking down, one couldn’t help but feel in awe and fearful; you would fall if you made one wrong step. However, Xiao Yun’s senses were incredibly sharp and he could sense almost everything around him.
Soon, he came to the bottom of the stairs. There was a flat and narrow path which connected to a platform. All of the other stairs had a path to this platform and where they intersected, there was a bridge of chains connecting to the palace in the middle.
The bridge of chains was very wide and every chain glowed with runes, giving off a mystical air.
“These are all runes. Looks like this Skyfire Inheritor Palace lives up to its reputation,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow said pa.s.sionately after sending out its senses and detecting the aura from the bridge. “Let’s hurry. Otherwise, all of the treasures inside will be taken by others.”
Seeing that the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow was so eager to go in, Xiao Yun did not dally and immediately stepped onto the bridge. This Inheritor Palace gave off the aura of a mountain, and the powerful airs it gave off made one almost feel suffocated.
“There’s something strange about this palace,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow muttered.
“How’s it strange? Xiao Yun asked.
“The runes on this palace are incredibly mysterious, and the palace possesses such a grand aura. An ordinary person definitely couldn’t leave behind something like this; I wonder who left behind this palace? The runes also have a sealing aura. Could it be that they’re sealing this fire chasm?” The Heaven-Devouring Sparrow felt that something was off, but could not pinpoint it.
“Will there be any danger going in?” Xiao Yun asked.
“It should be fine,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow replied. “We just need to be careful.”
Xiao Yun nodded and looked towards the palace’s large doors.
Light flashed ahead, like streams of fire twisting and turning. Xiao Yun felt that he would be devoured if he rashly approached.
He stopped in front of the palace doors and took out a medallion. This was evidently the Skyfire Medallion – only with this could one open the Skyfire Inheritor Palace’s doors.
Normally, medallions required spirit energy to activate, which would open the palace doors and allow the holder to enter. Normal cultivators didn’t have any spirit energy, so it would be impossible for them to use it. However, this Skyfire Medallion was different – it only required Fire Essence Qi to activate. As such, everyone who came to this Skyfire Inheritor Palace needed to have an affinity with Fire Essence Qi.
Since Xiao Yun not only possessed flames, but also powerful spirit energy, the medallion let out a brilliant light without expending much effort. Following this, the light condensed into a rune and shot towards the palace.
Buzz!
As this rune entered the palace door, ripples appeared in the air and the tightly-closed palace doors finally slowly opened.
“That boy opened the Skyfire Inheritor Palace.”
“So he indeed came for this!”
“I wonder who will be able to obtain the treasures inside?” Hearing the palace doors being opened, the cultivators of the various families looked down pa.s.sionately.
Half an hour ago, they thought that this youth was seeking his own death, but after seeing his strength, most of them held high hopes in him.
“Hmph, with our old patriarch inside, how can he obtain any benefits?”
“I hope the old patriarch kills him.”
“What are you so worried about? Even if he doesn’t die, after the old patriarch comes out and finds out about this, he’ll definitely kill him.”
The Qiu family’s cultivators all looked incredibly bitter and hateful as they spoke maliciously.
Those who heard them calmly laughed. If they hadn’t gone out of their way to bully others, how could things have come to this?
“So this is the Skyfire Inheritor Palace?” After the palace doors were opened, Xiao Yun was greeted with the sight of flames, as opposed to a grand hall as he had expected.
“This is a barrier; there’s a completely different world behind these flames,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow said.
Before Xiao Yun could say anything, the medallion in his hand let out a runic light, completely covering him and separating him from the flames.
“Looks like we’ll be able to enter if we have this Skyfire Medallion,” Xiao Yun said held the Skyfire Medallion and stepped into the palace.
Buzz!
After entering, Xiao Yun indeed felt as if he had entered another world, and his entire figure trembled. In the next moment, he felt an incredibly tense atmosphere.
Looking over, Xiao Yun found that there were a few True Essence realm cultivators next to him. These people were the cultivators from the Qiu, Yan, Yuan and Wu families. The others were from the Scarlet Fire Gang.
“They’re still here?” Seeing these people, Xiao Yun felt quite surprised. However, after Xiao Yun looked closely, he found something strange. All of them had brought in quite a few youths, but all of them were now missing a youth by their sides, and were anxiously looking ahead.
In front of them, a fiery light could be seen, as well as a mist. Looking closely, beneath the fiery light there was an iron bridge extending forwards, while beneath the iron bridge was a bottomless abyss with flames raging like a furious serpent.
Upon the bridge was a mysterious rippling.
“There’s a restriction on that bridge,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow said. “Once the restriction is triggered, it will attack. This bridge is quite dangerous.”
At this moment, there was a youth standing on the bridge, his face filled with terror.
This youth was from the Scarlet Fire Gang. Just then, quite a few people had already died because of this restriction. He had been forced to test out this restriction and even though he had gained some information from the previous people, he was still incredibly nervous.
The further forwards he went, the more complex the runes became, making it difficult for him to tell which would lead to death and which would lead to life.
“If you keep dallying, don’t blame me for not showing any mercy,” one of the Qiu family’s elders said.
Although the Scarlet Fire Gang’s elders weren’t very pleased upon hearing this, they did not say anything. After all, they all needed to observe someone testing the route out.
The youth gritted his teeth and continued forwards, because someone had triggered the restriction as a result of not moving.
It was unknown just what the bridge was made of, but it seemed like iron plates. There was a scarlet light flashing on the bridge and every time the youth took a step, ripples would spread out as a rune would appear. The elders of the various tribes carefully noted where the youth had stepped each time, forming a safe path in their minds.
The iron bridge was less than 100 metres long, but the youth walked incredibly slowly, making everyone feel quite nervous.
Xiao Yun also silently observed by the side.
“The bridge is on fire, but there are places where it’s quite weak,” Xiao Yun thought to himself. “Could that be related to the restriction?”
Buzz!
Suddenly, as the youths’ foot landed, a burst of flames flared up from the bridge, devouring him like a fire serpent. In just the blink of an eye, the youth had been incinerated into nothing. Following this, the flames became peaceful again and returned to their position above the bridge.
“What’s going on?” Xiao Yun felt quite surprised. Just then, the place where the youth had stepped on was where the fire had been the weakest.
“There should be some sort of rule,” the Heaven-Devouring Sparrow said. “You need to detect the Fire Essence Qi – even though it rises and falls like a wave, there are a few places with mysterious ripples. That’s where the restriction is.”
“Mysterious ripples?” Xiao Yun raised his eyebrows as he sent out his spirit energy. Following this, he found something strange.
There were a few deeply-hidden restrictions which Xiao Yun would not have been able to detect if his spirit energy had not become more powerful.
“Another failure.”
“Looks like it’ll be difficult to move to the next stage!” The cultivators all frowned, but almost no one felt any sorrow towards the youth’s death. The other youths looked incredibly worried, as if they had seen their own end.
“Who will go next?” Suddenly, Qiu Xuan Feng’s eyes glinted as he looked around. Seeing this, the other cultivators tightly frowned.
This person was at the Essence Core realm, and was the strongest of them here. No one dared to go against him. As such, apart from the person who had rashly stepped onto this bridge after they had entered, no one from the Qiu family had been forced up.
“Haha, why do we need to send our own people? Isn’t there an extra person now?” one of the Wu family’s elders laughed as he turned to look at a youth. Hearing this, the other elders’ eyes lit up.
That youth was naturally Xiao Yun.
These people had long since noticed Xiao Yun’s arrival, but they had been memorising the path that the previous youth had walked, so they did not pay much attention to him. As such, they naturally wanted to send him up – who would want their own people to go up and die?
“That’s right. Boy, go up and scout the path,” an elder from the Scarlet Fire Gang said.
Following this, all cultivators turned to look at Xiao Yun.
The other youths let out a sigh of relief – it seemed that they would be safe for now.
“You want me to scout the path?” Xiao Yun looked at them closely, feeling quite displeased that they wanted to force him.
“What, could it be that you dare to refuse?” the elder from the Scarlet Fire Gang coldly laughed. “Just then, even my subordinates went. Since you’ve come, don’t think you can escape this. Even if you don’t want to, you’ll still have to go up. Otherwise, we’ll make you go.”
“Young man, if you go, there’ll be a sliver of hope for you. Otherwise, you’ll have to die.” Qiu Xuan Feng’s sharp eyes fell on Xiao Yun’s body like blades, and a powerful aura descended on him like a mountain.