Chapter 202: Arctic Array, Ancient Corpse!

Hmm?

At this moment, it was not just E'erjia and the others who were trembling in body and soul, nearly stopping their breathing in terror.

Even Lu Yuan, who was flying at high speed in the high altitude, saw the ship with thick black smoke billowing from its chimney at the first instance; he immediately raised an eyebrow, changed direction, and flew toward it.

The distance of ten or twenty li was nothing more than a few blinks of an eye for him. When he descended above the ship, the Rizhao Army soldiers on and below the deck were still in a state of panic and utter loss of composure.

As for E'erjia and the others, it was too late to hide in the cabin; they could only quickly mingle with the other Rizhao Army soldiers on the deck, hoping to fish in troubled waters.

The one who reacted the fastest was the supply ship's commander, Tongdao Daye. When he clearly saw the figure, as if an Immortal or a god, descending above his head, there was no longer any shred of luck in his heart. He immediately felt his face twitch as he prostrated on the ground and shouted in Chinese:

"A subject of a lesser nation pays respects to the Immortal of Shenzhou!"

Under his lead, the Rizhao Army soldiers on the deck, whether out of fear or hatred, all knelt on one knee to show reverence.

Not surprised that the other party recognized him, Lu Yuan looked down at them with a playful expression:

"It is freezing here, tens of thousands of miles away from the Sunlight Country. What are you doing running all the way here?"

Tongdao Daye's heart tightened. Maintaining his posture of extreme respect, he replied:

"Reporting to the Immortal, this is out of a need for scientific research. The Arctic Ice Plain has existed since the ancient era; it contains the secrets of the changes in Heaven and Earth. Ever since it was discovered, it has become a puzzle that many nations have wanted to solve. It is not just the Shenluo People and the Sha'e, but the Sunlight Country actually began research and exploration here more than a dozen years ago, and it has never been interrupted."

"Oh?"

Lu Yuan's figure drifted down slowly, smiling yet not smiling:

"I heard that your Sunlight Country is currently suffering from a famine, and many people cannot even afford to eat. You actually have the spare capacity to come to the Extreme North to conduct research? I suspect there is some hidden agenda in this, isn't there?"

Tongdao Daye's heart gave a violent jolt, cold sweat streaming down his back. He said with slight panic:

"The Immortal has misunderstood. We came here indeed..."

Before he could finish, Lu Yuan could not be bothered with idle talk. He reached out, and a Qi appeared out of thin air around him, grabbing Tongdao Daye like a hawk catching a chick and bringing him to the front, while a ghostly light bloomed in his eyes:

"What is your true purpose in coming here to explore?"

Under the cultivation of Refining Essence into Qi at the perfection stage, the effect of the Nightmare Prayer Technique was much stronger than before. In less than a second, Tongdao Daye's mind was completely controlled, and he replied with a dull gaze:

"We learned a secret from the Jin Clan of the New Nation. It is said that the tribal ancestors of the ancient era fought a great war against the Ancient Qi Practitioner in the Extreme North, severing the Heavenly Ladder and causing them to go extinct. We guessed that the Extreme North might hold traces of the great war or even methods to deal with Immortals, so..."

It's over!

Tongdao Daye revealed everything he knew in an instant, and not far away, E'erjia and the others, who were mingling among the Rizhao Army soldiers, felt their livers and gallbladders split, as if they had fallen into an ice cellar.

In extreme terror, they gritted their teeth and dragged their weak legs, wanting to hide toward the back. However, Lu Yuan had already discovered their small movements and swept his indifferent gaze over from afar:

"Remnants of the Jin Clan... it's you few, isn't it?"

No one resisted, no one ran. At this moment, like ants facing a divine dragon, E'erjia and the others could not withstand that fear and pressure at all, and their legs went soft as they collapsed to the ground.

Lu Yuan reached out again, grabbed them all to the front, and directly used the Nightmare Prayer Technique to control the leader, E'erjia, interrogating him:

"What is your name, what is your status, and how did you know that the Extreme North holds secrets?"

Although E'erjia was at the Six Realms Embracing Dan cultivation, his will was considered tenacious, but in front of Lu Yuan, he barely resisted for one breath before being controlled, and he answered honestly:

"My name is E'erjia, formerly a Prince of the Great Jin. Because of my outstanding talent, I was taken as a disciple by Ennahaidu and practiced in the Ancestral Land temple for years. Later..."

He told everything, from his identity to the contents of the murals in the Yunluo Kingdom, and how he first contacted the Sunlight Country and then united with the Shenluo to explore the Extreme North.

After listening, Lu Yuan could not help but smile:

"I was wondering how you found out; so that's how it is. Then, have you discovered anything during this time?"

E'erjia shook his head blankly:

"No. We have been continuously exploring routes for these three months. So far, we have not yet entered the central area of the Extreme North, nor have we discovered any special traces..."

Lu Yuan immediately lost interest and shook his head slightly, then casually flicked out several fine strands of Sword Qi, instantly piercing the throats of E'erjia and the other five.

Although these people were like ants in his eyes and not worth paying attention to, since they had bumped into his hands, they could only blame their own bad luck.

The corpses of E'erjia and the others fell to the ground instantly. Before the blood could stain the deck, it froze into ice. The other Rizhao Army soldiers on the ship were terrified, their legs trembling and their minds in chaos.

However, Lu Yuan did not start a massacre; instead, he instructed Tongdao Daye:

"I am requisitioning this ship. You are not allowed to leave without my permission. Also, bring out the maps you have explored during this time."

"Besides that, send a message to the Shenluo People. I want both sides to continue the exploration and report the situation in a timely manner. Whoever can discover the traces of the ancient great war first will be spared."

"And for the side that finds nothing, all the masterminds involved, whether it is your Prime Minister or the new Emperor, or the Pope of the Shenluo People, will receive the most severe punishment. Do you understand?"

After saying this, he lifted the Nightmare Prayer Technique from the other party.

After regaining consciousness, Tongdao Daye, realizing that the matter had been exposed, was terrified, his teeth chattering:

"I, I understand..."

"Arrange a place for me to rest on the ship."

The sky had already darkened. Lu Yuan did not intend to explore immediately. He ordered Tongdao Daye to prepare the best room for him on the ship and then went inside to rest, leaving a ship full of terrified Rizhao Army soldiers looking at each other.

The reason he did not start a massacre and kept this ship and the people was mainly because the Extreme North was vast, with a total area likely nearly half the size of Shenzhou. Even if he were to explore in this freezing world, he did not know how long it would take. It was necessary to keep the Rizhao warship as a place to stay and rest.

Moreover, there is strength in numbers. It would be a waste not to use the manpower of these two countries; perhaps it could even greatly speed up the exploration. Just as he thought.

While he was in the cabin resting, Tongdao Daye immediately sent messages to his country and the Shenluo side via the ship's telegraph.

Learning that the plot had been exposed and that Lu Yuan had appeared in the Extreme North, both sides were in an uproar that night, and panic spread.

Especially when the news reached Saint Peter, the dignified Pope was greatly panicked. He immediately boarded a domestic warship and rushed to the Extreme North, wanting to personally carry a rod on his back to ask for forgiveness and plead for mercy from Lu Yuan.

As for the Prime Minister of the Sunlight Country, Guan Ye Yixin, it was even more so. In his panic and despair, he also immediately boarded a ship to rush to the Extreme North, even carrying a dagger with him, prepared to commit ritual suicide to apologize with his death in the worst-case scenario, in exchange for forgiveness.

As both sides panicked and rushed over, the night passed just like that.

The next day, just as the sky was brightening, Lu Yuan walked out from the deck, and under the fearful gazes of the Rizhao Army officers, he stepped on the wind and rose into the high sky, rushing toward the central area of the Extreme North.

Although the tomb wall inscriptions in the Human Emperor's tomb did not specify exactly where the war with the Qi Refiners took place in the Extreme North, judging from the fact that the Shenluo and Sunlight sides had explored the periphery for three months with nothing to show for it, the place where the great war occurred was highly likely in the central area of the Extreme North.

Crossing thousands of miles to enter the center of the Extreme North was a huge, almost impossible challenge for any country or powerful expert in the world today, but for Lu Yuan, it was effortless.

Wrapped in the clear light of Dharma Power, neither the extreme cold temperature nor the fierce, blade-like gale could penetrate his body at all. Comparing with the map drawn by the Rizhao people, he sped through the ice and snow. In less than half an hour, he had crossed the outer area that they had spent three months exploring and entered the inner area of the ice plain.

After entering this area, the temperature was several degrees colder than the periphery. The sky and the earth were frozen for eternity, and there was no sign of any living thing. The air exhaled would quickly turn into ice mist in the air; the bitter cold was like an icy hell.

"Strange, the average temperature in the Arctic in winter on Earth is only -20°C to -40°C, and the warm months can even reach about -10°C, but here it is probably already close to minus one hundred degrees. Why is the Arctic of this world so bitterly cold?"

"Is it due to the different environments of the two, or is it caused by some other reason?"

Lu Yuan's gaze was burning, his interest growing ever more intense, and he immediately accelerated his speed to rush toward the center of the ice field.

After nearly two hours of high-speed flight, he estimated that he had flown for a full seven or eight thousand li.

This was already the central region of the polar zone, where the terrifying, howling winds—bitterly cold enough to freeze an ordinary person to death—raged across Heaven and Earth; he saw a vast expanse of white in the sky, while the earth was frozen for ten thousand li, with thick snow cover and endless glaciers connecting into a cold scene of the end of all things.

The most bizarre thing was that he felt the earth ahead gradually taking on a slightly distorted, ghostly blue color, with brilliant, ghostly light piercing through the ice field like a slowly flowing celestial river, forming an incomparably magnificent and shocking scene; at the same time, a sense of extreme cold from an ancient, frozen age filled Heaven and Earth, as if it would freeze a person's very soul.

Protected by his Dharma Power, Lu Yuan did not care about the cold that could instantly freeze a lake solid, but instead focused all his attention on the distorted, rippling ghostly blue color in the sky:

"What is this, an aurora?"

"No, that's not right."

The Sprout Sensing Technique did not send any warning of danger, and amidst his suspicion, he flew forward, immediately seeing more clearly that the celestial river-like ghostly lights were scattering more densely, actually forming a light storm at the highest point of the sky that resembled a black hole's event horizon, and the existence of this light storm seemed to distort the space in this area, creating an incomparably grotesque and surreal feeling!

"This aura..."

Now, he was still at least several dozen zhang away from the light storm, but his Sprout Sensing Technique suddenly sent waves of crisis and warning, as if being too close would bring some kind of danger.

Lu Yuan immediately stopped, and after just a brief perception, he felt an unusual aura from those patches of distorted light storm:

"These light storms don't seem to be light, but distorted, shattered space...?"

After all, as he possessed the Pot Heaven Art capable of opening up space, he recognized after careful identification that these light storms appeared to be space collapse zones formed by space being thoroughly shredded by some kind of power.

The light storm looked beautiful, but if one were close, they might be directly twisted into a pretzel by the power within!

And without a doubt, this was inevitably the result caused by the ancient Human Emperor Qi sealing Heaven and Earth and cutting off the passage to the Upper Realm.

From this, Lu Yuan finally confirmed that the wall inscriptions in the tomb chamber of the Human Emperor's cenotaph were not fabrications; in the ancient era, there truly existed a Ladder to Heaven, and there also existed another world of immortal cultivation where Qi Refiners roamed!

Lu Yuan's heart surged, and he circled the massive light storm to observe it, then flew up to an altitude of several thousand to nearly ten thousand meters, finally discovering that within a radius of several dozen li around the light storm, there were five ice mountains faintly forming a huge and strange formation!

Clearly, the ancient Human Emperor Qi had in all likelihood used these five ice mountains as the eyes of the formation to set up some kind of great array, ultimately achieving the feat of sealing Heaven and Earth.

Lu Yuan immediately flew to the five ice mountains to investigate, but found that after nearly ten thousand years, the ice mountains were covered by a huge layer of ice of unknown thickness, making it impossible to discern the mysteries hidden within.

He thought for a moment, and instead of using force to break the ice layer, he flew around the area to conduct a carpet-like search.

Because according to the tomb wall inscriptions, the ancient Human Emperor Qi had led at least thousands of ancestors to wage a great war here against the Qi Refiners, and for some reason, most of their corpses were never collected or buried, basically perishing in this frozen land, so he would inevitably be able to find many traces.

And it was just as Lu Yuan had thought.

Although seven thousand years of vicissitudes had passed and the glaciers of the Extreme North had layered and thickened to cover all traces, there were individual places where the glaciers had collapsed and changed the terrain, allowing him to quickly discover three corpses frozen within a glacier.

The three corpses were all frozen in the same glacier; two of them were wearing extremely primitive outer garments made of some kind of animal fur, one was empty-handed, and the other was holding a Bronze Short Spear, and their limbs were not only severed but covered in various shocking wounds, appearing as if they had been struck by lightning or scorched by fire, looking exceptionally tragic.

Clearly, these two corpses were in all likelihood from the ancestors of the ancient era.

As for the other corpse he found, it was completely different from the first two; although the head of the corpse had completely disappeared, the person was wearing a rather impressive Dharma Robe, embroidered with exquisite patterns, with belt accessories and the like all perfectly complete.

At the same time, by their side was a broken, circular disk of unknown material also frozen in the ice layer, which seemed to be some kind of Dharma Artifact.

And this corpse, it went without saying, was inevitably one of those ancient Qi Refiners from the so-called Upper Realm!