by Translator: BornToBe; Author: Ordinary Magician (平凡魔术师); Licensed From: 17k
In his many years of experience with Celestials, this was a first. Some strange energy was slowly killing this Celestial in front of him. But even before he completely died, his Heavenly Dao energy was exiting his body.
All his Heavenly Dao energy was stripped away, and a new rank eight Heavenly Dao Fruit appeared in the primal chaos space. But this ancient family expert was still panting crazily.
“It can’t be seen, and it can’t be touched. It should be an illusion formation. As soon as you enter the illusion, the Heavenly Daos judge you to be dead. What a terrifying illusion formation.”
The ancient family expert finally collapsed on the ground, lifeless. Even his spiritual fluctuations slowly faded.
Long Chen’s expression was grave as he looked at the corpse. There was just one more step for him to take. This one step would bring him to a hellish world.
In the end, he took the step. As soon as he did, the world around him changed. Raindrops fell from the sky, landing on his body. A fishy smell hung in the air.
A sea of blood was below his feet, and bones floated within it. Huge corpses formed floating islands in this place.
The wails of countless fiends came from the sky, and a group of human-shaped skeletons attacked Long Chen. They had a pair of bat-like wings and a bone trident in their hands.
Long Chen didn’t dodge. He allowed the bone tridents to stab through his heart.
Pain. Extreme pain. Long Chen could clearly sense the sharp tridents stabbing into his body. He could even feel them stabbing his heart. He noticed all the details down to his fresh blood spurting out.
“This feeling is really realistic. If I didn’t have that fellow as a scapegoat, I might have fallen for it.” Long Chen smiled.
At this moment, more and more of the fiends attacked him. He had no spiritual yuan, no weapons, and no power. He had nothing to depend on.
“So after a person loses their strongest support, they will become afraid and cowardly, like a domineering wild crab that has been stripped of their shell. This means your strongest point is also your weakest point. Whoever designed this illusion formation was quite skilled.”
More and more tridents stabbed through Long Chen’s body. Blood poured out of him. The fiends laughed sinisterly as they saw his blood flow out.
“Scram!”
Long Chen let out a shout, and a terrifying will erupted. That was an unrivaled will that looked down from above the nine heavens. In front of this will, everything else was a joke.
Those fiends all exploded, and the entire world of blood faded away. The world of mist returned.
“If a person’s will wasn’t strong enough, they’d be killed by the formation. But this formation is useless on me.”
With his heart prepared, he continued forward. After a dozen steps, the scenery changed. He entered a world of birdsong and flowers.
Chapter 1423 Finally See That Person Again
The blue sky was empty, and the warm sunlight shone brightly. Green grass covered the ground, extending to the horizon, greedily absorbing the sunlight and the earth’s blessings. A lively mouse curiously stared at Long Chen from its tunnel opening.
There was no slaughter in this world of peace and tranquility. The sunlight shining down on Long Chen gave him an urge to relax and take a nap.
“This is a harbor for people’s hearts, a paradise. Unfortunately, illusions are just illusions. A person can’t live a lifetime in an illusion.”
Long Chen shook his head. With a shout, the scene in front of him vanished again. He continued onward.
After going through two environments, he realized this illusion formation targeted a person’s Dao-heart. It targeted the weakest places in a person’s heart.
On his way forward, he saw several people lying on the ground with content smiles. They looked like happy babies, but their souls had already dissipated. They were dead.
Instead of dying to a fierce slaughter, they had died slowly like frogs being boiled. Long Chen couldn’t help but sigh. Once you fell asleep in that peaceful world, you would never wake up.
The threats you could see weren’t dangerous; it was those you couldn’t see that were truly terrifying.
In this illusion formation, anyone with weak wills would die. Based on those people’s attire, they should have been experts with decent backgrounds. But their wills just weren’t strong enough.
This had nothing to do with a person’s combat power. Many talented geniuses ended up having everything go easy for them in their lifetimes, which meant their wills were rarely tempered.
Only people with powerful hearts that had gone through true tests of life and death would be able to survive this formation.
As he continued forward, Long Chen saw all kinds of illusions. He saw his parents in the Eastern Wasteland together with his little sister.
Unfortunately, these illusions were based on his memories. After so many years, their appearance should have changed. As for Long Xiaoyu, she was still as tiny as ever.
The only thing this formation did to him was make his eyes tear up when he saw his parents and sister. Despite knowing it was an illusion, he couldn’t help it.
He had left the Eastern Wasteland so long ago. He had experienced so much, and he felt weary. When he saw his mother’s warm expression, he suddenly recalled that when he had been bullied, he wouldn’t tell his mother. But his mother would already know about it and tightly hug him, comforting him.
His mother held him once more, comforting him once more.
In front of his lovers, he was a confident and easy-going prince charming.
In front of the Dragonblood Legion, he was an undefeatable battle god.
In front of his fierce enemies, he was a merciless killing god.
However, in front of his mother, he was still that child. There was still a soft spot in his heart, and that particular spot would only be shown when he was in front of his mother.
After a long moment, Long Chen wiped away his tears and steeled his heart. The scene in front of him shattered again. He continued forward. He constantly entered more illusions and repeatedly smashed his way through them. His advancement was rapid.
“Something’s wrong.” Long Chen suddenly felt that something was off. He looked down and rubbed the ground. “There’s something below.”
He dug a hole in the ground and quickly found a strange bone. He couldn’t tell what bone it was.
It had to be as big as a house. Long Chen pulled fiercely, and the ground suddenly split open. He yanked out the bone and saw that it was connected to another bone.
As he pulled harder, he was shocked to find that it was extremely long. “Just what is this?!”
He pulled and a huge tail appeared. The more he pulled out, the thicker the tail became. It was like he was pulling out a huge bone snake.
BOOM!
Eventually, he pulled out a whole giant skeleton from the ground. It was like a mountain and was probably just as large as the Alldevil monster he had encountered in the Heaven Dragon Flame Region.
He jumped onto its tail and walked toward its head. He saw some beautiful decorative lines on its skull. Suddenly, he felt a burst of drowsiness overtake him, and he fell from the skeleton.
“These lines are strange. I can’t look directly at them.” Long Chen’s heart shook. Just now, as he had run forward, he had looked right at the decorative lines and almost fallen asleep.
He jumped back onto the skeleton, but this time he didn’t look at those lines. He went to the highest point of the skeleton. His heart began to pound.
He finally saw the full appearance of the skeleton. It was similar in shape to a dragon, but it had a huge pair of wings and three heads.
“Is this the legendary Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast?”
Long Chen hastily checked the skull. He saw a large hole on each forehead where a third eye would be.
The Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast was a legendary existence. Or perhaps it shou
ld be called an existence that only existed in myths and stories. They had long since vanished from the Martial Heaven Continent. Nothing was left of them.
In fact, whether or not they even existed was a contentious topic on the Martial Heaven Continent.
Legend was that the Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast was extremely terrifying. Each design on their bodies represented a kind of illusion.
Its three heads represented the heavens, the earth, and mankind. Its nine eyes represented the peak of the Dao.
The Dao went from simple to complicated. The start was one, and the end was nine. Nine represented the peak, and it represented the Dao of all things in heaven and earth.
Legend was that its illusory arts killed people without a trace. In stories, it was said that it was a nightmare beast that would hunt you down while you were dreaming.
When Long Chen had first seen a picture of the Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast, he had also thought it was nonsense. If such a terrifying thing had truly existed in the world, the world would have been destroyed a long time ago.
If it existed, then anyone who slept would be killed. Who would be left alive in this world?
However, now that he personally saw its skeleton, and when he thought of what had just happened to him, he felt a chill.
This Nine-head Three-eye Illusion Spirit Beast had been dead for who knew how many years. Its flesh had long since disappeared, leaving behind just this skeleton.
It had nothing, but it had killed so many people who entered this mist region. Now Long Chen finally believed that some of the myths from the era of legends were true.
He walked toward the top of its eyes, which was like a huge cave to him. As soon as he got close, he felt a burst of pain in his soul.
He hastily retreated, looking at it in shock. This skeleton possessed some kind of energy that rejected him.
“A treasure, an absolute treasure!” Long Chen’s heart blazed. This skeleton might be a perfect gift for Meng Qi.
The Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast was an incredibly rare soul beast. Its illusory arts could be activated with Spiritual Strength, so Meng Qi might even be able to absorb some of its Spiritual Strength.
Long Chen didn’t stand on courtesy. He directly drew the skeleton into the primal chaos space.
Once the Three-head Nine-eye Illusion Spirit Beast was in his primal chaos space, the mist surrounding him slowly faded. The world became clear.
Long Chen saw many figures in this huge space now. When the mist faded, those people were all shocked. But after a moment of shock, they became madmen, charging toward one direction.
There was a huge altar in that place. Surrounding it were nine stone pillars that soared beyond the clouds.
The altar was a hundred miles wide, and two figures were currently fighting on it.
What was drawing everyone’s attention wasn’t their fight. All their attention was focused on a light barrier at the center of the altar.
At the center of the altar was a stone platform. There was a pitch-black saber stabbed into it.
The saber had penetrated deeply into the platform, leaving only a portion of it exposed to the outside. Its hilt had an image of a fiendish face that was sinister and frightening on it.
The blade itself had an image of two black dragons, but with it stabbed into the platform, there was no way to see the full design.
Black mist swirled around the saber, giving off a boundless evil air. It was mighty and domineering, seeming to desire the lives of everything in this world. It was very chilling.
The black saber was constantly quivering, as if it was alive and trying to escape the platform. But some kind of energy was binding it, preventing it from escaping.
Everyone rushed toward the altar frantically. Their goal was that black saber, and the Corrupt experts desired it the most.
However, Long Chen wasn’t looking at the saber. He was drawn to one of the people fighting.
She was a woman wearing a green dress, and her hair was tied up in a high bun. Mist floated around her.
The mist blocked people from seeing her face clearly, but a powerful life aura came from her. She was like the goddess of life.
When Long Chen saw her, his entire body shook. A fierce blaze ignited in his eyes.
“Chu Yao!”
He didn’t need to see her face. Just her aura, the closeness he felt with her soul, was enough for him to confirm that this was the person he yearned to see.
With the mist around her, Chu Yao seemed almost illusory, looking like a fairy.
She held a sword in her hand; however, closer examination revealed that it wasn’t a true sword but a sword-shaped leaf. Each time it was swung, it tore through space.
Facing Chu Yao was a large, long-haired man. He was fighting with his fists, and each one of his punches caused the void to explode.
“Scram!”
Just as everyone was about to reach the altar, the large man suddenly roared and smashed his fist at the sky.
Chapter 1424 Sand Energy
BOOM!
The sky exploded, and an endless stream of quicksand flowed out at them.
“This is… a variant of the earth element!”
“He’s the ancient family alliance’s Sha Guangyan! Run!”
Those experts that had been rushing forward so fervently now fled for their lives. When they collided with the quicksand, they were blown back, vomiting blood.
The quicksand possessed some kind of strange power. When it collided with them, divine light appeared, heavily injuring them.
“That saber belongs to me, Sha Guangyan! If anyone dares to touch it, I’ll kill them!” roared the long-haired man.
After he stated his name, everyone retreated. Long Chen surprisingly saw Gui Yan amongst them.
He couldn’t help being shocked. Just what kind of background did Sha Guangyan possess to intimidate this many people with just his name? It had to be known that there were seven rank nine Celestials among them.
The quicksand quickly formed a sea around the altar. It then wrapped up, forming a large ball of sand that blocked people’s sight of the altar.
Without forming any hand seals, he relied on just his Spiritual Strength to create such a defense. Long Chen was startled. This Sha Guangyan was definitely powerful.
With the altar enveloped by sand, the black saber was blocked from sight. Everyone’s attention focused on Chu Yao and Sha Guangyan.
Because of their wild greed, no one noticed a certain outsider amongst them. At this moment, Long Chen wasn’t wearing the Xuantian Dao Sect’s robes. He was wearing black robes, and he wasn’t particularly conspicuous within the crowd.
“Doesn’t that woman come from the Skywood Divine Palace? No one other than people from the Skywood Divine Palace could possess such strong wood spiritual qi.” With Sha Guangyan intimidating them, they didn’t dare to get closer. They began to mutter.
“You’re right, that’s the Skywood Divine Palace’s most outstanding disciple. What was her name? Right, it’s Fairy Chu Yao.” One of the ancient family experts clapped himself on the head in recognition.
“Fairy Chu Yao? The one claimed to be the Skywood Divine Palace’s strongest disciple? Despite possessing an innate wood spirit body, she missed her most optimal cultivation period. But with the full effort of the Skywood Divine Palace, she still soared into the heavens in one go,” said an ancient race expert.
Even the ancient races who didn’t particularly care about the Righteous path were aware of this matter. Chu Yao was like a miracle in the cultivation world.
For someone with an innate wood spirit body to miss her golden cultivation age had made countless people sigh in regret. But then, they heard that the Skywood Divine Palace’s master had spent all the Skywood Divine Elixir stored in the Skywood Divine Palace on Chu Yao. Using this, she made up for Chu Yao’s deficit.
Furthermore, the palace master had sacrificed three thousand years of her longevity
for Chu Yao. A beauty that could topple a nation had transformed into an old crone overnight. That had shaken the Martial Heaven Continent.
That was why everyone thought that Chu Yao was blessed. They also admired the Skywood Divine Palace’s master for her boldness, as well as the way she raised her disciples. So Chu Yao’s name had also spread through the Central Plains.
“Hmph, so what? That Chu Yao will be killed by my Corrupt path or refined into a puppet sooner or later,” said a Corrupt expert coldly.
The Skywood Divine Palace was one of the representative sects of the Righteous path. They were the enemies that the Corrupt path hated the most. In the past Righteous and Corrupt battles, there was always the shadow of the Skywood Divine Palace. The Righteous path depended on their contributions.
So the Corrupt path hated the Skywood Divine Palace to the core. Seeing everyone bewitched by Chu Yao’s beauty and talent provoked that hatred.
“Idiot, don’t forget that the ancient family alliance is allied with the Martial Heaven Alliance. If there weren’t orders from higher-ups, do you think we’d work together with you? Clean your mouth before you speak again,” demanded an expert from the ancient family alliance.
There were experts from the ancient races, the Corrupt path, the ancient family alliance, and other powers. Some of these powers were neutral and didn’t participate in the struggle between the Righteous and Corrupt paths.
However, the ancient family alliance was different. They were allies with the Martial Heaven Alliance. During the Righteous and Corrupt battles, they would occasionally appear and help the Righteous path.
After all, they were also from the human race. Other than that connection, there were many areas in which they shared resources and aligned interests.
Their relationship had become strained once Long Chen had appeared. But this didn’t affect their hostility toward the Corrupt path.
The Corrupt path looked down on the Righteous path’s hypocrisy, while the Righteous path looked down on the Corrupt path’s barbarous, murderous tendencies. Both sides hated the other.
Now that all these powers were gathered in the Spirit World, they were more or less under the rules of the Dark Forest, and they did their best to avoid fighting.