Li Muyang pondered briefly, then asked with a confused expression, “But why would they toss Master Zhen’s body into that spatial rift after killing her?
“If our speculation is correct and it’s really them who put all these human corpses here, they should do everything they can to keep this place a secret, right?”
Xing Huanyue calmed down and chimed in, “That’s right. Their doing will provoke the wrath of Heaven and the anger of men. (idiom: provoke widespread indignation and discontent) Once it’s exposed, the Thousandsword Mountain Sect’s name would be dragged through the mud. I believe many human powers would condemn them after learning about their unspeakable collusion with the Bonebrutes.
“That’s right,” Nie Tian chimed in. “They should have done everything within their power to keep this secret.”
“Junior martial sister was not necessarily thrown into that spatial rift by people from the Thousandsword Mountain Sect,” Zhao Shanling said with a grim face.
Nie Tian’s gaze naturally landed on him.
With an icy look in his eyes, Zhao Shanling explained, “Junior martial sister was well-versed in all kinds of spatial magics. There’s a short-distance escape magic among the magics our master taught us. It’s just that it’ll inflict great damage on the caster who uses that escape magic, so even I wouldn’t use it unless I was in a desperate situation.”
After spending a moment to comb through his thoughts, he continued, “Perhaps junior martial sister had already sustained heavy injuries by the time she resorted to that escape magic. By the time she got to the spatial rift, she was in critical condition.
“That spatial rift is very special too. It appears and vanishes from time to time. Perhaps junior martial sister flew into the spatial rift and jammed it with her last remaining strength.
“By the time she had done all that, the flame of her life force went out, and she died.
“I think this is one of the possibilities.”
These words enlightened Hua Mu, and he asked, “Do you mean Huilan actually escaped the Thousandsword Mountain Sect’s blockade and flew into the spatial rift right before she died? And she used up her last bit of strength to do that so that she could warn us? Or she hoped that even if she died, her body would lead us to this place?”
“Yeah, I think that’s possible,” Zhao Shanling answered. “But we’ll have to find someone from the Thousandsword Mountain Sect to confirm our speculations.”
With these words, he exploded skywards.
In Nie Tian’s senses, Zhao Shanling’s immense soul awareness spread in all directions like an enormous net.
Immediately afterwards, Hua Mu and the others also flew off in different directions to search this heaven and earth for Bonebrutes or Thousandsword Mountain Sect disciples.
Now that they were already on it, Nie Tian didn’t feel the need to do it himself.
He a.s.sumed that the five Soul realm experts would be able to finish scanning every inch of this place within a short time.
Therefore, he just stayed there and watched the Bone Blood Demon.
The Bone Blood Demon was still standing in the middle of the altar of bones and madly channeling pale-gray death power from the surrounding skeletons with the help of the altar.
Originally, the Bone Blood Demon’s backbone had been ruptured in multiple places. Now, after it had absorbed a copious amount of death power, the ruptured parts gradually healed, as if they were being reforged.
“The Bonebrutes’ indestructible form!” Nie Tian let out a soft exclamation.
He realized that this powerful Bonebrute must have gained its indestructible form when it had been alive.
Now that it had absorbed a significant amount of death power, its indestructible form was once again activated, allowing it to heal its damaged bones with the death power in this place.
As the sea of bones was gradually drained of its death power, the very uncomfortable feeling was relieved to a great deal.
He took a step forward.
BOOM!
The skeleton he stepped on instantly shattered.
As he continued to step forward, more bones shattered under his feet, as they were bereft of any death power.
Zhao Shanling’s exclamation echoed out in a distant location. “Over here!”
Nie Tian shot another glance at the Bone Blood Demon, and realized that it was still recovering with the help of the altar of bones. Therefore, he left it alone.
He summoned the Star Boat and sped off towards the source of Zhao Shanling’s exclamation.
Standing on the Star Boat, he glanced down at the earth, and saw numerous mountains and seas of skeletons.
An altar of bones could be seen at the center of every sea of skeletons.
By the time he reached Zhao Shanling’s location, he discovered that Hua Mu and the other experts were already gathered there.
Zhao Shanling was standing in front of a huge arch, which seemed to be made of the bones of some gigantic spirit beast.
Pale white light burned like flames in the arch, giving rise to intense spatial fluctuations.
From the look of it, the pale white light seemed to lead to some arcane realm. By entering it, people would be able to teleport away from this burial ground.
Pointing at the arch, Zhao Shanling said, “This is a portal built by the Bonebrutes. The pale white light is actually flames created by burning the bones of a rare kind of spirit beast. This kind of special spirit beast is born with the ability to teleport through the void. Their bones are even more precious than high grade s.p.a.ce power stones, as they can provide teleportation portals with a lasting power supply.”
Hua Mu chimed in. “This place isn’t a vast one. It’s not even one fifth as vast as the Realm of Split Void. We conducted a thorough search of it, but didn’t find any living Bonebrutes or humans.”
Eyes narrowed, Qi Bailu said, “A sea of skeletons can only hold a certain amount of skeletons, and the altars of bone can only channel death power from the seas of skeletons. Those mountains of skeletons are probably reserves, which will be thrown into the seas of skeletons after the skeletons in the seas of skeletons are drained of their death power.
“As far as I see it, this burial ground isn’t a place that Bonebrutes use for daily cultivation.
“It’s more like a depot.”
Nie Tian was taken aback. “A depot?”
“Exactly,” Qi Bailu said with a grim face. “When the Bonebrutes are in an extended battle with humans or other outsider races, sometimes it’ll be inefficient to teleport back and forth between the battlefield and their base, where they live and practice cultivation.
“So they built these depots, where they’ll be able to recover when they’re fighting in places that are a long way from home.”
Face gloomy, Nie Tian said, “There are hundreds of thousands of skeletons in just one depot alone. And most of them are humans’!”
Hua Mu sighed. “Many of them weren’t even Qi warriors, but rather commoners.”
A shudder ran through Nie Tian. “Commoners?!”
Hua Mu looked somber as he said, “Even though the amount of death power commoners’ corpses can produce is very limited, after putting hundreds of thousands of them together, they’ll still be able to produce a considerable amount of death power. If the Bonebrutes invaded human realms and ma.s.sacred humans, the powerful Qi warrior sects would definitely launch a ma.s.s retaliation.
“However, if Qi warrior sects fought among themselves and caused great casualties, it wouldn’t raise too much attention to s.h.i.+p the dead to these places.”
Nie Tian then said, “So it’s most likely that it’s the Thousandsword Mountain Sect that has s.h.i.+pped these corpses here.”
Hua Mu nodded.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
While they talked, the pale flames in the arch of bones suddenly started to flicker violently.
“Watch out!” Zhao Shanling exclaimed.
Nie Tian a.s.sumed a stance as if to face formidable foes.
Hua Mu and the other experts each gathered their strength and summoned their spiritual tools, preparing for battle.
WHOOs.h.!.+
Seconds later, a Bonebrute that was about ten meters tall flashed out of the arch of bones, holding a huge bone saber in his hand.
Signs of being hacked by sharp blades could be seen on his bony, pale-gray body, which was covered in blood that clearly didn’t belong to him.
He seemed to have just gone through a fierce battle.
Ghostly flames burned in the grayish green beads of his eyes, as his whole body was wreathed in a strong aura of death.
The moment he saw the strange Qi warriors that were gathered before him, he let out a sharp scream and attempted to lunge back into the portal.
“Wanna leave?” Zhao Shanling gave an icy grin as the miniature Voidspirit PaG.o.da flew out from between his eyebrows.
As it rapidly expanded, the numerous spatial blades that were carved on its walls flew out like a shoal of bloodthirsty fish.
CRACK! CRACK!
The Bonebrute was instantly engulfed by the swarm of spatial blades. One after another, his bones were chopped into pieces and scattered to the ground.
The bits of his bones danced on the ground, as if they were hoping to rebuild him.
WHOOs.h.!.+ WHOOs.h.!.+
More than ten Bonebrutes flashed out of the arch of bones successively.
Hua Mu, Qi Bailu, Xing Huanyue, and Li Muyang cast spells to attack them with their Spirit Channeling grade spiritual tools.
Shortly afterwards, the human experts slaughtered more than half of the Bonebrutes that had entered this burial ground, hoping to recover their battle prowess with the altars of bones here.