On the mountain peak, Qianye was on one knee at the moment. His entire body was trembling, his bones were crackling, and he had just straightened his body somewhat when this small movement elicited a series of bone fracture sounds.
Qianye’s entire body was drenched in grey liquid. The water bore down on his body with the weight of a small mountain and made it impossible for him to stand straight. Moreover, the grey rain’s suppression on his vitality remained. Large areas of his flesh were dying and regenerating by the auric flame blood in a constant cycle. Fortunately, the skies over the summit were clear and devoid of clouds. Warm sunlight was showering down from some unknown place, evaporating the water and rapidly lessening Qianye’s pressure.
In the end, Qianye stood up and expelled a mouthful of deathly air. When this breath reached the ground, it immediately turned the earth into a patch of ashen grey.
Qianye regained his movement after this exhalation and couldn’t help but rejoice in his heart. He knew, toward the end, there was no way he would’ve reached the summit by following the normal rules. That was why he had staked everything on one throw by activating spatial flash under the support of the Wings of Inception.
Qianye’s physical attributes shot up under the effects of the wings, allowing him to resist the corrosion of the grey rain. The s.p.a.ce traversal power of Spatial Flash was extremely suitable here, capable of piercing through the many barriers to reach the top.
The Black-Winged Monarch’s two great inheritances had expressed their peerless might once more. Without them, Qianye would’ve long since turned into a pile of bones. The Pointer Monarch’s Heartseeker Path was more an expression of his murderous intent than a trial. It was abnormally simple yet extremely perilous, a path of no return for all under the divine champion realm. Even a divine champion would need to be strong enough to reach the summit. An expert like Caroline would only have a fifty percent chance of completing the path. People like that ex-marshal from the empire, the one whom Qianye had faced before, had no chance of survival at all.
Only after experiencing the Pointer Monarch’s mood did Qianye come to understand how full of dismay the man’s heart was—how could he be in the mood to nurture descendants? This Heartseeker Path wasn’t an opportunity for his descendants, but rather a trap to kill greedy individuals and bury them along with whatever was at the summit!
Only something like Andruil’s core inheritance could break the hopeless situation. Now that he thought of it, neither the sacred seals nor the ancient scrolls in Elder Wei’s hands were the work of a divine champion. They had to be from a certain heavenly monarch.
Only a heavenly monarch or a great dark monarch could deal with a heavenly monarch.
The Black-Winged Monarch’s inheritance was able to help someone of Qianye’s meager strength reach the peak. So, comparatively, the monarch was more powerful than the major character behind Elder Wei.
Now that Qianye had gained a temporary advantage, it was likely that Elder Wei would hurry over to stop him. Although he had no idea when they would arrive, he knew that he didn’t have much time left. The weather at the summit was clear and there was neither any grey rain nor dangerous traps. It was either the Pointer Monarch had felt that the Heartseeker Path was enough or he didn’t have any resources left to set up more traps. Regardless, Caroline and Elder Wei would be free of all restraints after arriving at the top, thus forcing Qianye to fight two divine champions. Though injured and fairly weak, they were still divine champions. Qianye might not be able to deal with one of them, let alone two.
With what little time he had left, Qianye understood that his only hope of survival lay in whatever the Pointer Monarch had left behind.
The summit was covered in lush greenery and bright sunlight. Even the wind was clear, gentle, and contained a trace of origin power. Breathing the air here filled one with great comfort. After a long period of living here, one’s strength would increase steadily even without any cultivation and eventually break through to the champion rank.
There was a small, uneven hill at the center of the mountaintop. At a glance, it looked almost like a dormant flying-serpent with a dozen or so large bone spikes on its back. They almost looked like a row of masts from afar, with the tallest one standing a hundred meters tall. There was a stone hall halfway up the small hill. It was rather crude in its construction, but as the only building on the mountaintop, it was rather eye-catching.
Qianye made a beeline for the stone hall as soon as his body had recovered slightly. If the Pointer Monarch had left something on the mountain, it would definitely be inside the building.
Qianye unleashed his full speed, traversing several kilometers in a flash to arrive before the hall.
The stone hall was over ten meters in height, and its doors opened up into a deep pa.s.sage illuminated by flickering flames. After seeing the giant gate and the Heartseeker Path, Qianye understood that the Pointer Monarch was proficient in spatial arrangements. This stone hall looked narrow, but there might be a vast world inside.
Qianye didn’t rush into the building. Instead, he stood at the doors to observe the place.
The stone hall wasn’t constructed evenly—most of the stones used to build it were natural and unpolished, giving off a different kind of artistry. It felt as though they were supposed to be exactly where they were and shouldn’t be moved in the slightest. Not to mention changing positions, even shaving off or polis.h.i.+ng an edge would destroy the concept here.
Qianye’s heart was moved as he gazed at this stone hall. The mood enshrined within the stone tablet was a form of discontent and loneliness, but all he could feel from this stone hall was a deathly dejection—as though all hope and expectations had left, never to return again.
Qianye was just as depressed when Nighteye had left him. The sacred mountain was not a place humans could set foot on. As confident as he was, Qianye knew that he couldn’t break a thousand-year tradition to stand on the Evernight Council’s sacred mountain. Even people as strong as the Martial Ancestor and the Founding Ancestor had never managed this.
Such a hope was no different from being hopeless.
Qianye entered the stone hall with a sigh.
The tunnel inside the hall wasn’t long. He arrived in a chamber after walking for a while. The furnis.h.i.+ngs here were just as simple—there was a stone brazier in each corner, and the flickering light from them flooded the room with a faint glow. For some mysterious reason, the fire in them had been burning for close to a hundred years without going out.
There was a stone table at the end of the chamber, adorned with traces of axe-hacks and sword slashes. In Qianye’s eyes, each vestige was like a bolt of lightning striking the depths of his consciousness. The will contained in them stopped him from breathing!
He dragged his eyes away from the table with great effort, only to see the two rows of giant words carved into the wall. The right sentence read, “Herein, I bury my heart,” and the left, “And point to the heavens to seek the dao.” Overwhelmed by the enlightenment, the scenes before him s.h.i.+fted, and that green-robed man appeared once more. He was standing in the middle of the hall and writing through the air with his fingers as his brush. Every stroke of his would produce a carving on the wall, forming those two sentences in the blink of an eye.
The man’s mood was different now. He was both tired and empty, almost as though he had lost interest in all things. A slight ripple of anger appeared only when he wrote the words “point to the heavens to seek the dao”.
He seemed to have lost all energy after writing those words. Even his spirit seemed exhausted, much like an empty sh.e.l.l without a soul. That man placed something on the stone table and stood there for a long while before turning to leave.
The man’s figure stopped in front of Qianye and shot him an indifferent glance. “You’ve come, it looks like she isn’t willing to fade away here after all. Fine, let her go with you. It’ll be ample repayment for me if you become strong enough to repair her one day.”
With that, the man walked through Qianye and out of the door.
Qianye stood gazing at the chamber doors, unable to tell immediately whether the scene just now was real or illusory. Wasn’t this a scene from dozens of years ago? Was that the Pointer Monarch when he was young? What was with those words he had spoken just now? Had he seen Qianye? Or could it be that the chamber was an intersection in both time and s.p.a.ce, allowing the Pointer Monarch from seventy years ago to see the current Qianye?
All those thoughts threw Qianye’s mind into chaos.
Through the doors of the giant hall, Qianye saw two figures appear at the edge of the summit. It was Caroline and Elder Wei. They had finally broken through the lockdown of the grey rain to reach the peak. Both divine champions were battered, exhausted, and drenched in rain. There was water dripping down the old man’s hair and beard. Caroline’s lightning had long since vanished, and her long hair was almost soaked and sticking to her scalp.
By the time they reached the peak, Caroline was already dragging the crate on the ground. She felt her legs grow weak afterward, falling to one knee as she gasped for breath. Elder Wei was swaying and almost collapsed before finally stabilizing himself.
But the two were still divine champions after all, so their recovery was much faster than Qianye’s. In the span of a few breaths, they had stabilized their aura, shaken off the rainwater, and were heading toward the stone hall.
The stone hall was simply too evident amidst the monotonous scenery of the mountaintop. The duo discovered the building immediately and sped over.
Shaken upon seeing Caroline and Elder Wei, Qianye woke up from his reverie. Time was of the essence at this moment! Qianye stopped thinking and pounced toward the stone table. There, he found a dark-silver pipe made of some unknown metal. He was overcome by an odd feeling the moment he laid eyes on the item—it felt as though the pipe had nodded at him.
This metal pipe felt like a living being to Qianye, something with its own life and spirit.
The rod emitted a faint glow that formed a barrier of light over the table. The situation at the moment was urgent. No matter what this thing was used for, it was Qianye’s only chance at survival. All he could hope for was that the object left behind by the Pointer Monarch would be just as powerful as the giant gate and Heartseeker Path.
Qianye reached out to grab the pipe. The moment his fingers touched the light barrier, it immediately rippled like water and dispersed briefly. The ripples of light fused into Qianye’s body as naturally as flowing water, giving him no chance to resist. Neither the dark golden blood energy nor his venus dawn could block the waves of luminescence.
As the light waves entered his body, Qianye was embraced by an inexplicable comfort, almost as though he were soaking in warm water. His blood energy and daybreak origin power rose sharply, soon reaching their peak state. Qianye was astonished at how this light could replenish both aspects of his power at the same time. In terms of origin power attribute, the dark golden blood energy and Venus Dawn stood at the extremes of dark and light. They were completely different in nature.
Allowing Qianye to recover to his peak state proved that the amount of energy contained within these ripples was terrifying. It was definitely not as gentle as it seemed on the surface. Qianye was fine only because he had obtained the Pointer Monarch’s permission. It wasn’t hard to imagine that an intruder without the monarch’s permission would suffer a powerful backlash, probably not even leaving ashes behind.
A consciousness traveled from the metallic pipe into Qianye’s mind as he took ahold of it. In the blink of an eye, he came to understand the origin and use of this object.