Chapter 2055: Ruined Temple
Zu An had already been prepared ahead of time. Ripples appeared behind him, and all of the weapons in front of him were duplicated. When the endless armaments clashed against each other, even though the ones he created were a bit weaker than the original, it wasn’t to an overwhelming extent.
Zu An took the chance to say, “There"s no way Imperial Gate Bei Qing went through all that trouble just to trap your souls here. He must have ordered all of you to do something to atone for your crimes, right?”
He"d been about to use the Primordial Origin Sutra to completely purge all of the spirits, but he quickly realized that if that happened, he"d just he just be letting these traitors off easy! Imperial Gate Bei Qing definitely had a purpose behind his actions.
Sure enough, when he heard what Zu An said, Shi Bingxiu’s expression became conflicted, as if he was engaged in some kind of internal conflict.
The Tranquility Bell’s projection appeared around Zu An again. At the same time, streaks of clear light appeared, and many formations appeared around him. He continued, “Do you really think you can win against me?”
Shi Bingxiu remained quiet. He was feeling rather discouraged, actually. He really wondered just where this absurdly powerful guy had come from. Of course, if Zu An hadn"t had a skill that just happened to counteract their soul bodies, then with the army behind him, Shi Bingxiu wouldn’t be all that scared. However, with all these disadvantages stacked against him, there really was no fight left to be had.
When he sensed that Shi Bingxiu"s will was being shaken, Zu An gave him one more push, saying, “If I’m not mistaken, if I kill your soul bodies one more time, you might never be able to transcend, right?”
When they heard what he said, the weapons also began to hesitate. Normally, if you died, then you died, but now that they knew that there was another world after death and that perhaps they would never be able to pa.s.s on, didn’t that mean they didn’t even have the slightest future left?
When he sensed his subordinates’ wavering will, Shi Bingxiu finally said, “You win. Back then, Imperial Gate Bei Qing told us that we needed to fight for the Fiend races. As long as we helped our descendants seal the monsters, we would naturally be set free.”
Zu An nodded.
This is largely similar to what he said before. Earlier, he had to speak mostly the truth in order to fool me.
At the same time, he was a bit shocked that Imperial Gate Bei Qing actually had that ability, and could actually decide whether or not someone could be set free even thousands of years later.
Just how did he do it?
Even though he had learned the Baopu Sutra and was quite well learned in this field, he still couldn"t imagine just what kind of method could produce a similar result. He could only ask, “Can I still use this Skycloud Sword to summon you?”
“That’s right, but a special incantation is needed,” Shi Bingxiu said, then repeated the incantation to him.
Zu An vigilantly tested it out. When he saw that he could indeed order the ghosts around through the incantation, he sighed in relief. He was a bit confused, however. He said, “Imperial Gate Bei Qing was able to keep all of you here to help the Fiend races, but he didn’t pa.s.s on the incantation to the Fiend races directly, and pa.s.sed it on to you instead?”
Shi Bingxiu’s expression grew strange as he replied, “I didn’t understand it either and just thought that guy was a fool. There was no way I would obediently listen to him, after all. At the time, he said that only if I sincerely spoke of this incantation and collaborated with a certain person from the future would I be truly set free. Now, I seem to understand a bit better.”
Zu An was stunned.
It seems Imperial Gate Bei Qing wanted them to repent genuinely and sincerely, and only then would they actually help at the crucial time. Otherwise, if they once again chose betrayal at the crucial battle between the fiends and monsters, everything would be over.
Even though he could understand the reasoning, Zu An still felt that Imperial Gate Bei Qing was just too brave. Was he not scared that these fellows would never change their ways? If it weren’t for his quick wits, and if another Fiend descendant had come in his stead, they would’ve already died several times over. There was no way Shi Bingxiu would have obediently offered up the true incantation.
After thinking about it for a long time, he couldn"t figure out just where Imperial Gate Bei Qing had gotten such confidence from. However, he still had more important matters to worry about, so he couldn"t be bothered to worry about all of those things. Thus, he took the Skycloud Sword with him and quickly headed in another direction.
The soldiers’ souls stood on the snowy tombs and watched Zu An gradually disappear. They were clearly trapped here unless the Skycloud Sword was used to summon them.
Among them, there was a deputy general who couldn"t help but move over to Shi Bingxiu’s side, asking, “General, do you think he"ll only use the divine weapon for the seal and won’t free us?”
Shi Bingxiu shook his head and replied, “He won’t. He still needs us.”
Immediately after, the countless figures gradually vanished into the air. Wind and snow covered the snowy tombs again.
...
Zu An went northwest, toward another location the people of Mengte City had deduced. There was another divine weapon hidden there, and that fact was confirmed by Shi Bingxiu, who had said that the Ninefoot Mirror would be there. Zu An knew that if he delayed for even a bit longer, those monsters could break through, so he flew at full speed without spending even a moment to rest.
When he arrived at the region designated on the map and searched for a while, he decided to stop near a few black rocks that were quite conspicuous in the end. He walked up to those rocks and saw that they weren’t naturally formed, but rather had traces of being handmade. He could even make out some decorative carvings, and he could barely recognize some characters written on them.
He was about to remove the snow that covered them to look at them more closely when the ground beneath him gave out. The entire world seemed to suddenly cave in, and he immediately fell down. Even so, with his cultivation, he quickly stabilized himself in the air. At first, he thought that perhaps there was some trap below, but once he took a look, he saw that the acc.u.mulated snow had begun to slide off, gradually revealing the scene underneath.
These weren"t rocks, but rather towering pillars! They had been buried under the snow and their entire form couldn"t be seen, so that was why he had mistaken them for stones. However, since there was a huge amount of s.p.a.ce below, the years-old piles of snow weren’t too stable. His steps on the surface had caused the snow to completely collapse and reveal the pillars" original appearance.
When he saw the ruined walls up ahead and the pillars that soared into the air, Zu An was a bit confused. He hadn’t expected this place to actually have such structures, because they was clearly made in the style of the Fiend races’ buildings. The looked like a ruined temple.
The ancient Fiend races had actually built a temple here? Could it have been built specially to store the Ninefoot Mirror?
Zu An"s divine sense scanned the area. When he was sure that there were no monsters waiting in ambush, he then moved further inside.
As he went further in, Zu An was a bit confused as he looked at the surrounding buildings. These walls were a bit too strange, right? Normally, after the endless pa.s.sage of time, many buildings would naturally be eroded and destroyed, but there would still be some traces left. There was no way there could be no traces left at all. Furthermore, many other walls were clearly well-preserved. Being buried under snow had ended up preserving them. That made the missing buildings’ complete disappearance seem even stranger.
Zu An was quite puzzled. He didn’t delay and quickly walked inside. In theory, the Ninefoot Mirror would be stored at the very center of the temple. The layout the Fiend races designed their temples with appeared in his mind; he headed toward several palaces where the mirror could be.
And yet, not long after, he ran into a dead end. There was no great hall or other such areas, only a bare wall. He reached out his hand and investigated the wall. It was solid, without any hidden secret rooms.
He wasn’t willing to just give up and continued to search the broken structure, searching every nook and cranny of it, but he ended up with nothing. The areas that could be considered actual rooms could be counted on his fingers. There was no way that any Ninefoot Mirror could possibly be hidden here.
Could it be that a monster got here first?
Zu An shook his head. These three divine weapons were the Fiend race’s greatest secrets. Not even the higher level figures in Mengte City knew of such intelligence, so there was even less of a chance of the Second Prince knowing.
It seemed the Ninefoot Mirror definitely had to be hidden somewhere here, but he just hadn’t found it yet. He decided to just sit down by an empty area and try to figure out a solution.
Could it be that the buildings here were all a kind of formation? He had investigated them earlier. The stone material that these structures used was quite special, something that he had never seen before. When he hit the surface, it had even absorbed some of the force and remained unharmed. No wonder this place had remained standing for so many years.
Of course, with Zu An’s current cultivation, if he really wanted to destroy it, he had ways. Even so, he was worried that he could destroy the layout and end up ruining his chances of finding the Ninefoot Mirror forever.
Countless formation combinations appeared in his mind, but not a single one of them matched up with the one in front of him right now.
...
Time pa.s.sed. Soon, the sky gradually turned white, clearly signaling the end of the night.
Zu An, who had been sitting in meditation, opened his eyes. He stared at everything around him in disbelief. After all, almost every inch of the surroundingsstructures were already engraved inside of his memory so he could find a way through this place’s puzzle. And yet now, these structures had changed greatly in appearance!
No, apart from some minor things, it was already entirely different from what he had seen before. Many buildings from the previous night had vanished, and many other places now contained more structures!