Chapter 1922: The Mysterious Ifrit Statue!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
w.a.n.g Chong slightly frowned. He began to examine his surroundings and found even more oddities.
In fact, w.a.n.g Chong was surrounded by the corpses of otherworldly invaders, as well as the skeletons of humans. There were also many yellow insects swiftly traveling across the ground. They had sharp mandibles, and even the edges of their flat carapaces were as sharp as blades.
These were Apocalypse Bugs!
w.a.n.g Chong was extremely familiar with these insects that crawled out from the bodies of otherworldly invaders when they died. Apocalypse Bugs were extremely aggressive, and when they were first discovered, humans had been extremely panicked. But after going through many gruesome battles, w.a.n.g Chong regarded them like any other bug.
Thwack! An Apocalypse Bug charged at w.a.n.g Chong and was instantly crushed. The other Apocalypse Bugs instantly shrieked and clicked before scattering in fear.
The Apocalypse Bugs were extremely sensitive to danger, and it was one of their special traits to determine someone’s strength by their attacks.
w.a.n.g Chong quickly turned his attention away from the Apocalypse Bugs. He was in a very large s.p.a.ce around which were scattered strange formations, or perhaps altars. Almost every altar was occupied by the body of an otherworldly invader that had been chained to the altar.
w.a.n.g Chong suddenly realized what this was.
“This is a laboratory! These altars were used to imprison and a.n.a.lyze the otherworldly invaders. Those humans on the ground were the researchers!”
But this only increased w.a.n.g Chong’s questions.
Where had these otherworldly invaders come from?
The calamity had yet to take place, so how had they appeared here?
Moreover, what was this underground cavern? Why was it located in the far west, and what was its connection to the otherworldly invaders?
Everything was shrouded in a cloud of mystery, and w.a.n.g Chong grew more confused the more he saw.
Regardless, he had never in his wildest dreams expected this.
Crack!
Suddenly, there was a light crack from beneath his feet, and w.a.n.g Chong instantly froze.
He had stepped on the skeleton of a human, one of those who had been researching the otherworldly invaders. But a moment later, w.a.n.g Chong spotted an object on the skeleton’s waist and paled.
Whoos.h.!.+
w.a.n.g Chong waved his hand, causing that token to fly into his hand.
Ancient letters had been inscribed on one side, and on the other side was… a true dragon!
A true dragon of the eastern world!
A true dragon that should have never appeared in the west!!!
And the words on the other side were clearly similar to the words of the oracle bone inscriptions!
Neither of these were things of the western world!
“What in the world is going on here?!!”
w.a.n.g Chong stood there in a daze. That waist token had dealt him an unprecedented blow.
The east and the west, an ancient civilization, and the otherworldly invaders—all of these things had intersected in this place. This place concealed far too many mysteries.
Countless thoughts pa.s.sed through w.a.n.g Chong’s mind, and he felt like he understood both everything and nothing.
As he continued to explore, w.a.n.g Chong found something else.
It was a giant metal sword, ten-some meters tall!
Ancient words had been deeply inscribed into the surface of the sword.
And inside the sword, w.a.n.g Chong sensed an immense energy.
w.a.n.g Chong walked over and placed his hand on the sword, swiftly using the ability of the ‘Riddle of Destiny’ to read the words.
‘Tomb of the Landeshunger World!
‘To the light of the future:
‘This is a land of hope!’
w.a.n.g Chong pensively frowned in front of the sword.
It was not strange for a civilization to leave behind ruins, its own mark on the world. There was the country that had left its records beneath the Sa.s.sanid Dynasty, and also the ruins of the Kegang Empire. But these altars described themselves as ‘civilization’ or ’empire’. Rarely did they use the term ‘world’.
And there seemed to be a deeper meaning behind the words ‘land of hope’.
w.a.n.g Chong walked past the sword and continued forward.
“Master, bad news! There’s a powerful pressure here, an energy that is extremely suppressive to me!” the Nightmare Beast called out, its voice panicked and uneasy.
w.a.n.g Chong suddenly stopped and took a step back, carefully examining what was in front of him.
He immediately discovered that the floor had changed. Small and wriggling characters had been inscribed all across its surface.
There were rings and rings of these inscriptions, converging on a center. They created an immense circular formation.
“It’s a special seal that seems to be particularly effective on beings without physical bodies,” w.a.n.g Chong coldly a.n.a.lyzed. “Nightmare Beast, return to your core. I’ll take care of the rest!”
w.a.n.g Chong wrapped the Nightmare Beast’s core in Stellar Energy to isolate it.
He continued farther in. Whoos.h.!.+ Curved secret compartments suddenly appeared in front of w.a.n.g Chong, with fiery red light coming from all of them.
Rather than tyrannical, this was an extremely soft energy, but there was something in this energy that w.a.n.g Chong found familiar.
The Ifrit!
The strange red lights did not pose any threat, but they appeared identical to the light of the Ifrit.
w.a.n.g Chong found this place even more bizarre.
What’s going on? This can’t be a coincidence!
Ifrits were ancient existences created from the natural world. It was very unlikely for their origin energies to appear, and w.a.n.g Chong did not believe that this was a coincidence.
As he went farther in, the red lights and the inscriptions began to mix together, getting closer and closer together.
w.a.n.g Chong could sense that these red lights were strewn about this mysterious s.p.a.ce, and they also formed a large circle. The closer to the center of the circle, the more intense was the red light.
w.a.n.g Chong slowed down, and as he sent his mind outward, he was forced to concentrate his mental energy more and more.
The Nightmare Beast had been right. This region had a disruptive effect on Psychic Energy. The stronger one’s Psychic Energy was, the greater the disruption became. Even with w.a.n.g Chong’s strength, he could only maintain a sensory range of ten to twenty meters, which was simply absurd!
Where did this Landeshunger come from? They were able to create such a large-scale formation that can not only suppress beings like the Nightmare Beast, but even a Subtle realm expert like me!
w.a.n.g Chong’s mind was in turmoil.
Subtle realm experts stood at the peak of the martial arts world. Only a handful of people were ever able to reach this level, and almost every one of them was a legend.
It was clear that this civilization was much stronger than the Kegang Empire!
With the questions on his mind growing in number, w.a.n.g Chong pressed forward.
This underground realm was dark, and the only sources of illumination were the soft red lights on the floor.
Buzz!
After some time, w.a.n.g Chong sensed a strange sensation and immediately stopped.
“Ifrit!”
w.a.n.g Chong blinked. Ten-some meters in front of him, a fiery-red Ifrit statue loomed in this dark world.
This Ifrit was made of some unknown crystal and burned with a fiery light. If not for the fact that it had no life signs, he would have taken it for a real Ifrit.
In this gloomy world, the crystal Ifrit statue appeared mysterious and strange.
In a completely different civilization, the Ifrit had appeared once more. But unlike the savage depiction of the Ifrit in the Kegang Empire, the Ifrit here was soft and gentle, and there were subtle differences in their appearances.
w.a.n.g Chong suddenly sensed that this place might conceal the true secret of the Ifrits. Moreover, it might be completely different from the commonly understood truth.
The Ifrit statue contained only pure energy. After examining it for a while, he continued onward.
w.a.n.g Chong felt that there was even more waiting for him, and that he was about to reach the core of the formation.
Buzz!
And after just a few moments, w.a.n.g Chong reached the core, a giant raised metal platform several dozen meters tall.
The metal platform exuded a faint light, and in this light, one could see that countless small characters had been inscribed on the surface, all of them radiating a dark red glow.
The most striking feature of this platform was a giant hammer.
The head of the hammer was gold and translucent, radiating a bright light. As for the handle, it was twenty-some meters long, and crackled with lightning.
This hammer had to weigh more than ten thousand jin, yet it was floating upright in the air, as if it was ready to strike down.
Invisible ripples of energy spread out from the platform. w.a.n.g Chong could tell that limitless energy was contained within.
w.a.n.g Chong walked up the metal steps, and at the top of the platform, he saw a throne. The body on this throne had rotted away long ago, leaving only a white skeleton.
Tap! As w.a.n.g Chong stepped onto the platform, a light ripple of energy swept out. Cras.h.!.+ The skeleton immediately collapsed into a pile of bones.
Has too much time pa.s.sed? Is there no information left? w.a.n.g Chong wondered, but he quickly noticed a metal sphere on the platform.
Just like the hammer suspended above the platform, the metal sphere was also floating. And to w.a.n.g Chong’s astonishment, this metal sphere was essentially the same as the Kegang Empire’s metal sphere, similarly rippling with Psychic Energy.