novelraw Chapter 85 : Realm Spirit
Chapter 85 : Realm Spirit
Riding seahorses, how cool!
"Let's race to see who gets there first!" Tantai Ming, not playing by the rules, launched a sneak attack. Before the others could react, he grabbed a sea beast and charged off recklessly.
Chu Sang, not to be outdone, immediately took a nearby sea beast. Cheating came naturally to her as the king of cheaters. She promptly stuck an acceleration talisman on the sea beast. Human and beast shot out like a cannonball, overtaking the howling Tantai Ming in the blink of an eye.
"Hey, you two, slow down!" Wen Renyue was both amused and exasperated by these two firecrackers. Be careful riding beasts underwater!
She hurriedly took a seahorse and followed, worried the two might accidentally crash into something.
Ling Yu smiled and shook his head at the three who left in such a hurry. He lowered his eyes and thought for a moment. Perhaps disliking his robes being torn by passing thorns, a wisp of black energy quietly emerged from his fingertips, injecting into a restless, hard-to-control sea beast. The next moment, the sea beast miraculously calmed down, lowering its body. It carried him, slowly following the group.
"Woohoo~" This speed was faster than driving at 200 km/h. It was incredibly thrilling and fun.
Chu Sang's hands, tightly gripping the reins, went numb from the water current's impact. The proud sea beast naturally didn't want to submit to a human cultivator. Since she mounted it, it had been frantically swaying left and right, trying to throw her off. Finding this useless, the sea beast became even more furious and embarrassed, charging straight towards a stone wall ahead!
Chu Sang narrowed her eyes. She tightened her grip on the reins and pulled back hard, making a sudden brake and drift, perfectly avoiding the obstacle.
Sea beast: ??!
What's with this person?!
"Hey hey hey, forgot to mention, I'm a lightning car god, you know."
The sea beast was about to die of anger.
After some back and forth, they finally reached their destination.
This place looked like an altar ruin abandoned on the seabed, covering a large area and towering several hundred feet. At the very top, one could vaguely sense a mysterious power, making one's heart yearn for it.
Chu Sang arrived first, with Tantai Ming closely following. Shortly after, Wen Renyue jumped off her sea beast and swam over.
Ling Yu unhurriedly brought up the rear.
Compared to the other three who looked like they had returned from a lost battle after high-speed beast riding, their clothes torn by various thorns and sea rocks, hair in a terrible mess, only he looked no different from when they came. The red butterfly knot tying his long hair at the ends hadn't even a single hair out of place.
"We've arrived."
As soon as Chu Sang released the reins, the sea beast was overjoyed and disappeared in a flash.
The four swam to the top of the altar. Sure enough, they saw a huge demon bone floating on the flat surface of a giant stone, surrounded by a faint glow.
"What kind of demon beast's bone is this? One piece is almost as big as me. How large must the original demon beast have been?" Tantai Ming scratched his head, making an inexperienced exclamation.
Wen Renyue also couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath, saying softly, "Although I dare not be so arrogant as to say I know all the demon beasts in the world, I'm pretty sure about eight or nine out of ten. Demon beasts are generally much larger than humans, but this is the first time I've seen a demon beast's bone this big. I really can't think of what kind of demon beast it could be."
In the original story, the defeat of the previous Demon Emperor's lineage was briefly mentioned in one sentence. Chu Sang really didn't know what Third Senior Brother's original form was. Being treacherous and cunning, could it be a slippery snake?
The urgent matter now was to take this demon bone away first.
Just as she was about to take the demon bone, a formation suddenly lit up! It bounced her back several meters. Ling Yu quickly steadied her, barely stabilizing her form.
"There's actually a formation set here. No wonder no one has been able to take it away." Chu Sang rubbed her chin, looking thoughtful.
When that young lord of the demon race first appeared, he was already injured. He must have come to this place earlier. The injuries on his body should have been left here... It seems this place is more dangerous than they imagined.
This formation was considerably more troublesome than ordinary protective formations. If it were her from before, she might not have been able to break it.
The Lingqing Sect's library had a vast array of books, but they were too diverse. With everything from mental techniques, sword arts, pill dao, talisman techniques, tool refinement, body cultivation, and so on, this led to breadth but not depth. For more profound formations, there were very few related jade slips or books.
Fortunately, she had previously learned from the Eight Trigrams Sect. As the most orthodox major sect in talisman and formation techniques in the current cultivation world, they didn't disappoint.
Breaking the formation didn't take long. Chu Sang was more cautious this time. After probing the formation and finding no formation within formation, she finally relaxed and reached out to take the demon bone.
Just as she was about to touch the demon bone—
The demon bone suddenly emitted an intense white light, forming a huge underwater vortex. The calm sea suddenly became turbulent, violently churning!
Everything happened too fast. Chu Sang's mind reacted faster than her body. She immediately had Xiao Bai use its domain to envelop her, but she didn't have time to pull in the other three before they were scattered by the raging waves.
This wave caught them off guard... Who was ambushing them?!
Not long after, a middle-aged man in white robes appeared at their previous location. Seeing the demon bone hadn't been stolen, he sighed in relief. Then with a wave of his hand, he took away the three unconscious people.
Chu Sang saw all this, hidden by the domain. Her heart sank. Who was this man who appeared out of nowhere?
Was he the guardian of the demon bone?
That young lord of the demon race must have been injured by him earlier.
This person's strength seemed unfathomable, even more powerful than the Nascent Soul stage cultivators she had encountered before. It would be better to proceed cautiously.
Chu Sang waited until the man left before coming out of the domain. She stuck a concealment talisman on herself and stealthily followed.
⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱
Drip, drip, drip—
The three who had fainted on the ground gradually woke up.
"Hey, where is this? Let us out!" As soon as Tantai Ming woke up, he found himself locked in a cage. He immediately threw a heavy punch at it, but it didn't budge at all.
Unwilling to give up, he stepped back and unleashed a sword intent, only for it to be bounced back the next moment.
"Take it easy. Don't kill us with your sword intent before we even break out of this cage." Wen Renyue had just restrained him when Ling Yu, seemingly extremely averse to being confined, coldly swung his blade.
A crack appeared on the iron cage, but then they suddenly sank down a bit.
Wen Renyue looked up and realized they were suspended in mid-air by a rope. Below the iron cage were hundreds of huge sea beasts, mouths open wide, waiting for their "food" to fall into the trap.
Wen Renyue gripped an iron bar of the cage, pulling hard. Cold sweat appeared on her forehead as she gritted her teeth angrily, "...Who the hell captured us and locked us up here?"
"What do we do now? Are we going to be eaten?" In this brief moment, Tantai Ming had quickly reviewed his seventeen years of life.
An orphan without parents, there wasn't much to reminisce about. He felt even more sorrowful.
Just then, a familiar figure sneaking around appeared in the three's vision. The young man's eyes lit up. He grabbed the two iron bars in front of him, trying hard to stick his head out, "Little Junior Sister?!"
"Shh." Chu Sang gestured for him to keep his voice down. She had just quietly scouted the surroundings with her spirit sense. That man in white had gone somewhere, making this the perfect time to rescue them.
She threw out a boomerang, cutting the iron lock above the cage. As the cage fell, she quickly took out a disc-shaped magical tool that expanded with the wind, catching it. The iron cage landed safely on the ground, all happening in just a few breaths.
There was also a formation on the iron cage.
With her previous experience, Chu Sang quickly broke the formation. The three pitiful beautiful birds in the cage finally regained their freedom.
"Let's run away quickly while we can!" Tantai Ming didn't want to be locked up again.
Chu Sang held him back, shaking her head, "I saw that man take the demon bone. It should be nearby. Let's look for it again."
Wen Renyue was surprised, "Man?"
Chu Sang nodded, "You were unconscious then and didn't see. A man in white robes brought you here. He also took that piece of demon bone... I saw that his cultivation should be above the Nascent Soul stage, possibly even at the Divine Transformation stage."
Divine Transformation stage?!
Even the elders of major sects were only at the Divine Transformation stage. This wasn't an existence they could contend with.
Wen Renyue was on high alert, "Then let's hurry. Try to find that bone before he comes back. Don't let him discover us."
The advantage of having strong spirit sense manifested in finding things. With Xiao Bai's help, they soon discovered a hidden cave nearby.
In the cave, the demon bone floated above a stone platform, emitting a faint glow.
But unlike last time, beneath the demon bone was an unfolded Embroidered Landscape Scroll.
"Don't you feel that the scenes depicted on the scroll look familiar?" Chu Sang said absent-mindedly.
Ling Yu looked intently for a moment, then said gently, "It's the secret realm."
In the past month, they had traveled all over the secret realm, basically touring most of it.
The scenery on this Embroidered Landscape Scroll was indeed a miniature version of the entire secret realm.
Chu Sang had seen such situations in books, "It seems this secret realm is indeed a training secret realm left behind by some great sect in the past, artificially created..." She marveled, "To be able to create such a world within a small magical tool landscape scroll, that sect must have been quite prosperous back then, with many talented individuals."
"This landscape scroll is the true body of the secret realm. If we could take the landscape scroll away, we could move the secret realm and place it in a new location." Chu Sang's thieving heart was itching to act.
Just then, with a loud boom, the stone door suddenly closed.
A cold, deep, mature male voice followed, "You actually escaped. You do have some skills."
Oh no.
They've been discovered.
That man had returned at some unknown time. With his hands behind his back, he coldly looked at the four,
His gaze lingered on Chu Sang for a moment, meaningful, "So you're that crafty little girl. You ran away, yet you actually delivered yourself to my doorstep."
"I'm just a pure, harmless little girl. Don't say such unpleasant things." Chu Sang absolutely wouldn't allow her character to be slandered!
The man coldly "hmph"ed twice, his gaze sharp as an eagle's, either mocking or something else, "I've seen your previous performance. You deserve those four words."
"Are you the realm spirit?" Ling Yu looked up and asked. Who else but a realm spirit could observe every movement of all beings in the secret realm?
"You four little thieves trying to steal the demon bone, your brains work quite fast, and you talk a lot." The man at this moment seemed fairly calm, at least not flying into a rage and killing them right away. He belonged to the type that could have a good conversation. "Yes, and no."
Yes... and no?
Is it or isn't it?
"You've seen this landscape scroll. You should have guessed more or less."
"This secret realm isn't a blessed land naturally formed by heaven and earth, but an artificial secret realm. It's a training secret realm created ten thousand years ago by a sect called the Tianqi Sect for its disciples."
The man's eyes revealed reminiscence as he looked at the confused four, seeming to sigh, "You're all cultivators from ten thousand years later. It's understandable that you don't know about the Tianqi Sect. No matter how prosperous a sect was back then, how could it maintain its past glory after ten thousand years of changes..."
"Not to mention that in that great war ten thousand years ago, the Tianqi Sect had already perished."
"I was the last generation Sect Leader of the Tianqi Sect." The man seemed to have not talked to anyone for a long time. He unusually spoke more, "The true form of this secret realm is this Embroidered Landscape Scroll. It's not an ordinary magical tool as you think, but a spatial divine artifact jointly refined by the elders of my Tianqi Sect back then. Besides being a self-contained world, it also has the effect of nourishing souls."
"After that great war, my physical body also perished. A wisp of my primordial spirit escaped and took refuge here, residing for ten thousand years."
"Too much time has passed. I have also merged with this secret realm... To say I'm the realm spirit guarding the secret realm isn't wrong."
Chu Sang sorted out her thoughts and roughly understood. She looked up at him and asked, "Then, Senior, since you're also a cultivator, why is the previous Demon Emperor's demon bone here with you?"
The man smiled and looked at her. This little girl didn't know if he was friend or foe yet, but she was quite smooth calling him 'Senior' repeatedly.
He waved his hand and said, "Alright, I didn't intend to kill you. Since you're descendants of the cultivation world, there's no harm in telling you the truth."
"You should know better than me about the news in the outside world. Twenty years ago, there was turmoil in the demon realm. The current Demon Emperor led rebel troops to force the palace and revolt, ambushing the previous Demon Emperor. The demon realm thus changed hands."
"The previous Demon Emperor also fell in that great war." The man sighed, "The previous Demon Emperor had quite some connection with me, and we had some friendship. Before he died, he entrusted this demon bone to me. I've been guarding this demon bone here ever since, waiting for the person destined to take it to appear."
"It's been twenty years. The destined person still hasn't appeared. Could it be that the old Demon Emperor's family really has no descendants left?" The man was also worried. He wasn't a free bodyguard. He couldn't always be on edge watching out for ill-intentioned people trying to steal the bone, could he?
"......" The four were embarrassed. The destined person was still locked up now, of course they couldn't come out.
Chu Sang, "I am the destined person... sent to retrieve the bone!"
"Hehe, the last person who came to take the bone said the same thing. Guess what happened to him? I directly beat him back to his original form." The man's face immediately turned cold. He sneered, "In these twenty years, I've seen quite a few people like you. Their final fates were each more miserable than the last."
"How can you prove that what you say is true?"