Rise of Humanity

by <unknown>

  "The pool I came out from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land! The seals there were loosened! That is exactly where and how he could have entered without getting noticed!"

  Zhong Yue's eyes lit up, but a series of doubts rushed into his mind after as he couldn't believe it. He shook his head and said, "The devil souls and the pseudo beast gods are incredibly strong. Did he really fight his way to the giant heart and break through the flesh walls and reach to the Saint Spirit? Furthermore, a matured Saint Spirit is strong like a god, how did he take it away?"

  Xin Huo was also puzzled, and he couldn't think of any reasonable explanations to the questions.

  The existence of the Saint Spirit underneath Swords Gate was a secret only known to a handful of people; of the whole Swords Gate, probably only Zhong Yue and the now departed old headmaster knew about it.

  Then there was Tian Myriad Mother and Feng Wuji.

  All in all, only a few knew about it, and none of them were clear about the Saint Spirit. Someone knew of the Saint Spirit's maturity date, came precisely in time and took it away without anyone knowing a thing at all — this was utterly absurd for one to believe.

  "Weird, this is so strange … But the Saint Spirit has been taken away, what use do this altar and lotus have any more?" Zhong Yue said in disappointment.

  Xin Huo then replied laughingly, "Then you are making a huge mistake here. If it were me, I would rather have the lotus than the Saint Spirit. The Saint Spirit is nurtured by the spirit of the gods, thousands of celestial gods and thousands of demon gods were killed just for this one Saint Spirit. Just imagine the hatred and resentment these gods had before their deaths, their curses alone are strong enough to kill even a god! Although the Saint Spirit is strong, the curses, hatreds, and resentments of the gods lurked in it. It is very hard to be cleansed, and even an ordinary Qi Practitioner would die by just going closer to it! While this lotus is the embryo that nurtured the Saint Spirit, although it is not as strong, it is free of the negative elements, unlike the Saint Spirit. This lotus can be described as a saint herb and also a divine weapon!"

  “Saint herb and divine weapon?”

  Zhong Yue startled, Xin Huo did say before that the Saint Spirit contained too much hatred, he was warned to keep a distance away from the Saint Spirit, but Xin Huo's statement that the lotus was a saint herb and a divine weapon was utterly incomprehensible to him.

  "Back in the black mountain, the immature Saint Spirit controlled the lotus to hunt after you, the lotus roots nearly penetrated through the void, considering it as a divine weapon is definitely alright, isn't it?"

  Xin Huo smiled proudly, "But this saint weapon's biggest use is not to be used in a fight, it's to be eaten! Not you, but your Yuan Shen! This efficacy of this huge tonic will definitely enhance your body until your blood even starts rushing out!"

  Zhong Yue was shocked, he said, “Blood rushing out from my body? Xin Huo, is there any hatreds and resentments of the gods in this lotus?”

  “I’m only just describing how strong the efficacy of this saint herb is, don’t you be afraid so easily!”

  Xin Huo quickly explained, "It's definitely not something common with if it were a saint herb that enhanced the Yuan Shen. Of course, its medicinal efficacy must be unimaginably strong! If you want to cultivate the【Mystic Duplication Technique】quicker, cloning a second and third inner core, and then a second and third Yuan Shen ... This saint herb will come in super handy! Or otherwise, you will have to be like Feng Wuji, spending tens of years to cultivate the【Mystic Duplication Technique】 successfully!"

  "Are you sure about the absence of the gods' hatreds and resentments?" Zhong Yue was hesitant, and he asked with obvious diffidence.

  “None at all, definitely no!”

  Xin Huo assured him, he patted on his tiny chest and said, “Don’t worry, even if there is any, it will be so trivial that it is literally negligible, you will not be affected!”

  Zhong Yue didn't fully trust Xin Huo's words, after all, Xin Huo had proven that he could be completely unreliable at times, this was even more so for the times he was especially certain of what he thought the outcome would be. However, the【Mystic Duplication Technique】was nonetheless very alluring to him. Having a second and third inner core and Yuan Shen was incredibly attractive and was worth the risk.

  The lotus is within grasp, just as long as the seal charm is taken down, I will be able to consume it. I wonder how far a saint herb can propel my Yuan Shen? His heart palpitated at the prospect of finding.

  When passing by the precipice, Zhong Yue looked down and found the flesh meat was distinctly reduced, some of the ancient totem patterns on the mountain body that were once covered by the flesh were now visible. And looking at it now spurred a wave of sorrow to engulf his heart.

  These flesh meats have dwindled considerably, meaning that Elder Feng Shouzhu exterminated a significant number of the devil souls and pseudo beast gods, I wonder if he is still alive….

  Once Feng Shouzhu entered the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, he would have to face unceasing barrages of attacks from the devil souls and pseudo beast gods. Feng Shouzhu would have to go all out in order to survive in this relentless blood war, and the only time he could rest would be in the afterlife.

  Nineteen days since his entrance into the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was a length of time that not even the Feng Shouzhu in his prime days could withstand, let alone the old and withered Feng Shouzhu?

  Twenty days ago, that man went into the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, reached to the underground of Swords Gate and took away the Saint Spirit, while Elder Feng Shouzhu entered the Devil Soul Forbidden Land nineteen days ago.

  His eyes lit up, and his breath quickened, If that man had stayed longer, Elder Feng might have met with him before … But even if so, Elder Feng is probably dead by now … Would there be any possibility that Elder Feng might still be alive?

  Zhong Yue stood on the side of the precipice, he held still for a few moments and suddenly, he gritted his teeth, He summoned an inner hall disciple and handed over the headmaster's jade seal to him, tasking the disciple to deliver the jade seal to the headmaster in the golden summit. He then walked to the edge of the precipice.

  “Xin Huo, let’s enter the Devil Soul Forbidden Land again!”

  Zhong Yue then leaped down from the high precipice, plummeting through the layers of seals above the precipice before descending into the abyss once more.

  “Ha! I've never thought that there will be so many interesting things here in the Ancestral Star. I originally thought that this was such a boring place that not even a bird would bother to take a shit here!" Xin Huo happily said as he stood on Zhong Yue's head.

  Chapter 322: The Aroused Devil Soul |

  Underneath Swords Gate, Zhong Yue was threading his way carefully toward the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. He had been here before, but even so, he didn’t dare let his guard down.

  The Devil Soul Forbidden Land was extremely dangerous. The last time he was here, he had found the devil souls gathering a substantial degree of power in attempt to break through the seals. However, the devil souls were not alerted by his unwelcome arrival, and it was only the corpse demons and evil eyes that had amalgamated together into a pseudo beast god which almost killed him on the spot.

  The pseudo beast god’s skeletal frame was from the mount of a god that died here. The mounts here were in fact gods of the monster races, but at that point of time, the monster races were at the bottom of the power pyramid, not much better than humans. Even if the monsters became gods themselves, they could only still serve as mounts to other higher-class gods; the monster races had an appallingly low and humble status.

  Even worse, some of the superior gods would actually serve the monster gods’ inner cores as delicacies to their guests during meals. At some point in time, the greatest hero of the monster races, the Monster Sovereign, rose high and led the monsters on a revolt against the gods. The action successfully lifted the monste
r races to a higher status.

  In this Devil Soul Forbidden Land, there was only one pseudo beast god that had hunted after Zhong Yue. From the numbers of the gods’ coffins in here, with the norm of one god with one mount, there would be around two thousand monster gods! Adding in the celestial and demon gods, there would be around over four or even five thousand gods right in this Devil Soul Forbidden Land!

  These gods were the exact reason why the headmasters of Swords Gate had to enter the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. The power these devil souls had gathered had to be attended to, their extrication from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land prevented, and the destruction of Swords Gate and the Great Wilderness could be halted.

  Be it celestials, demons or monsters, the scattered souls and lacerated corpses of these gods were filled with the desire to search for their spirits. Because of this desire, a revolt would rise every ten years, and they would billow out to the face of Great Wilderness to consume and siphon the flesh and souls of the living. By doing so, they could slowly strengthen their own powers.

  And if that power they gathered was not taken down, they would break through the Devil Soul Forbidden Land and the Seals of the devil souls and gods’ corpses. This would lead to a catastrophic event, it could even be the advent to the doomsday of this world.

  And in order to prevent that, the headmasters would have to fight with their lives against it!

  Along the way, Zhong Yue had yet to encounter any corpse demons, evil eyes, or any other peculiar creatures of the forbidden land. It seemed like they were slayed by Feng Shouzhu, after all, the corpse demons and the likes were only equivalent to the common Qi Practitioners, they wouldn’t stand a chance in the face of a strong magnate like Feng Shouzhu.

  What was really threatening were the pseudo beast gods formed by these creatures. With the skeletal frame of the monster god as the base and the other creatures as its body tissues, the pseudo beast god could unleash the full power of a mortal body of the monster gods!

  The Devil Soul Forbidden Land buried the celestials, demons and monsters. It could be called a tomb of the gods, but in actual fact, this is actually a Seal, a prison that sealed these gods away in a hemispherical dome.

  Zhong Yue thought back to the things he had seen back in the Devil Soul Forbidden Land in the land of monsters. This whole dome is a Seal that covers thousands of square miles of land. On top of the seal is another sealing dimension, one that contains the spirits of these gods. This sealing dimension is spherical in shape, and independent of the forbidden land. The altar, it will be in another Sealed dimension, a third independent dimension above the spherical-shaped dimension. From Swords Gate to the altar, one would have to go through three layers of Seals that even the scattered souls of these gods couldn’t penetrate, so how did that person reach the altar and steal the Saint Spirit away?

  Feng Wuji’s incarnation, Elder Pu, came from the top of Swords Gate Mountain and reached the dimension of the altar directly, it was a different path taken than the one who stole the Saint Spirit.

  From the experience Zhong Yue had gained in the other forbidden land, there would have to be another guardian like the Monster God Ming King, who was tasked to secure the perimeter of this godly tomb.

  As Monster God Ming King was the guardian of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land underneath Xian Kong Saint City, then there would also be a guardian who had long passed away, whose cultivation base was on par with Monster God Ming King.

  Feng Wuji must have known something even the Swords Gate headmasters didn’t know. He has held the headmaster’s jade seal and found where the dead guardian stayed, and reached the dimension of the altar directly from there. However, he was late by a step, and the Saint Spirit was taken by someone else...

  Enter the dimension of the altar from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was something even Xin Huo couldn’t have done. The last time Xin Huo guided him in escaping from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was because of the loosened Seal, where the restrictive power wasn’t as strong. Breaking through one layer after another from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land… the difficulty was undoubtedly thousands of times harder!

  On his way, Zhong Yue could see recent signs of battle. The battle was so intense that it left behind severe injuries and unerasable marks on the walls of flesh!

  Clearly, Feng Shouzhu had left these signs, but some of them carried a faint sensation of a godly aura. Those would be the doings of a pseudo beast god that broke out into a bloody battle with Feng Shouzhu at this place...

  Glancing around, he couldn’t see the beast god’s skeletal frame. When the pseudo beast god was slain by Feng Shouzhu, the squirming flesh had then gobbled it up. Most likely, the skeletal frame would be sent to the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, where it would be nourished and gather more power before its prowess was restored again.

  Fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster, You Yu Clan Yu Tianya, felt the end of my life, and here I enter the forbidden land with a sword of mine…

  Zhong Yue walked up to the skeletal frame of the fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster. He stared at the words on the ground, and than bowed to the great headmaster before he placed the fourteenth headmaster’s skeleton into his Yuan Shen secret realm.

  Unlike before, where he didn’t have enough strength to roam around in the forbidden land and he didn’t even think he could actually survive, right now he was strong enough to bring back these headmasters to Swords Gate and bury them together with the old headmaster.

  And now, he would bring them back and let all of Swords Gate, all the Great Wilderness, know the contributions of the Swords Gate headmasters and the prices they had paid for the safety of humankind!

  He walked further along, and found more battle scars. They were even more intense than before, even parts of the flesh walls were destroyed, revealing the bloody red mountain body underneath.

  The sanguine mountain body was paved with the ancient godly seals. The archaic totem patterns were still glimmering as they worked, unscathed from the battle, continuing their function of a Seal normally.

  Did Elder Feng really last until now?

  Zhong Yue’s heart pounded rapidly. From the battle signs, Feng Shouzhu was ambushed by tens of pseudo beast gods right here!

  Although the peculiar creatures that formed the pseudo beast gods’ body tissues were weak, when they coalesced together into the pseudo beast gods, they could unleash the power of beast gods’ mortal body! They were was incredibly strong, and even Feng Shouzhu would have to pay a hefty price to defeat them!

  Zhong Yue continued moving forward. There were dozens of battlefields of the same kind, denoting that Feng Shouzhu had gone through scores of bloody battles without any time to rest, as the battles came one after another unceasingly!

  Zhong Yue’s heart sank. Such a frequent pace of bloody battles with no time to rest, even a magnate in his prime couldn’t last too long, let alone an old man!

  But Feng Shouzhu managed to persist! The battle marks continued down the road, where he had battled through more pseudo beast gods and reduced the power of this forbidden land.

  Along the way, Zhong Yue didn’t see any other creatures, they were all exterminated by Feng Shouzhu. Zhong Yue was also storing away the headmasters’ skeletons into his Yuan Shen secret realm.

  After a long time, Zhong Yue finally reached the heart of this forbidden land, directly below Swords Gate Mountain. In this huge space, countless thick and sturdy blood veins extended through the mountain body and held the huge heart firmly in the center of this space.

  The godly heart was still pounding heavily, but the creatures that were once here were now gone. Even the evil eyes hovering in the air had been reduced in number. There were only hundreds of them floating around now.

  But what was odd to Zhong Yue was that the banners suffused with the godly aura that once floated around in here were also now gone.

  All of a sudden, one of the evil eyes spotted Zhong Yue. It let out a shrill cry and all of the other evil eyes
rushed over like a patch of gloomy clouds.

  They opened their crimson eyes and blasted their death rays at Zhong Yue!

  “Is this all of you that are left?” Zhong Yue raised his head, and when his eyes opened, two bright rays flitted out towards the sky, one auric and one white.

  The two rays of light revolved in a circle and slew all of the evil eyes straightaway. Blood rained from the sky as the evil eyes were instantly bisected.

  The two light rays appeared for only a split second before they flitted back into Zhong Yue’s eyes. All of the evil eyes were killed by the Yin Yang Qi, dead before they could even react.

  If it was before, Zhong Yue would have run as far and as quick as he could from the evil eyes. Now, he was already one of the strongest Qi Practitioners at the Atman Body level, and these evil eyes weren’t an issue to him anymore.

  Furthermore, these evil eyes were the strongest when they attached themselves to the pseudo beast gods. Without them, their prowess was far weaker.

  Zhong Yue glanced around and found nothing. He then looked down, and suddenly tears were flowing down his cheeks as he sighed deeply.

  Right there, thousands of dark black coffins were standing vertically. They were ten thousand feet tall, and beneath them were beast god skeletons piled up like mountains. These were the beast god skeletons Feng Shouzhu had slain and were transported here by the squirming flesh wall.

  In the coffins were the corpses of the gods. The devil souls were the scattered souls of these dead gods.

  In stark contrast to the last time he was here, these coffins were placed in different spots than before. They were now arranged in a circular pattern, forming enveloping circles, as if they were besieging something.

  Zhong Yue shifted his sight to the center of the circles. Right there was a standing skeleton, holding a sword in its hand which kept it from falling.

  Feng Shouzhu has still died from the battles, he couldn’t survive the devil souls.