Chapter 242: Clues

……

Minghuang, as pitch-black and cold as ever, without a trace of light or warmth to be seen.

After leaving the Feng clan with the Old Witch Master, Xu Chen did not stop traveling from place to place.

With the Old Witch Master, a guide well-versed in the Underworld, Xu Chen truly felt his life had some hope; although after a month of searching, he still had not found any clues, they had already scoured an area of tens of thousands of miles and, along the way, had unexpectedly found several more gathering places of the Nether Human Race.

These places were all locations the Old Witch Master had visited before falling into slumber, but two of them had already vanished into thin air, transformed into nests for Nether Beasts, while the remaining few were sparsely populated—the smallest having only twenty or thirty people, and the largest only a hundred or so—with conditions even worse than the Feng clan.

Regarding the extinct tribes, Xu Chen did not pass up the chance to investigate; he joined forces with the Old Witch Master to break into the hidden rock caves underground, kill the Nether Beasts within, search for information left behind in the Ancestral Temple, and scavenge every useful item, such as Divine Blood Paste, God Crystals, Blood God Grass, and blue crystals.

Although he did not know if he would ever be able to escape, no one ever complained about having too many treasures.

As for the items from the God Blood Pool, they were themselves excellent treasures for Xu Chen's cultivation; if he could bring them all out, they would naturally be even more precious, so the more, the better.

Although the Old Witch Master had no need for these things, under Xu Chen's reminder, it also collected some God Crystals and attempted to integrate them into its body to strengthen its Divine Pattern Battle Techniques.

However, because the Nether Human Race possessed no refining techniques, this attempt did not succeed, but both held onto a glimmer of hope; while searching for a way out, Xu Chen taught some mortal cultivation techniques to the Old Witch Master, hoping that one day it would succeed in pioneering a new method of advancement.

As for the existing human tribes, because no one was born with clan patterns and they were unable to awaken Divine Pattern Battle Techniques, their strength grew weaker with each generation, and their living environment naturally became increasingly harsh; when the two appeared, these tribes were overjoyed and treated them with the hospitality reserved for ancestral deities, hoping the Old Witch Master could help guide them to a path of survival.

The Old Witch Master was willing but lacked the power, and Xu Chen had no interest in it.

As they traveled to more places and gathered more information, he became increasingly anxious.

This was because most of the news the Old Witch Master had previously mentioned regarding potential ways out was related to the powerful figures of these tribes from several generations ago, but as these experts had one after another fallen into slumber, completely decayed and died, or even perished in the mouths of Nether Beasts or gone missing, the clues broke off wherever they went, and almost no useful leads were found.

On this day, the two found a tribe the Old Witch Master had never visited before.

This tribe was relatively powerful in Minghuang, with over three hundred people, and it even had a rather formidable figure whose strength was comparable to the Old Witch Master's before it fell into slumber; however, this person had also been eroded by Blood Poison to the point of having only one breath left, with blood patterns covering their entire body, reaching the point where they would soon die from the poison if they did not fall into slumber.

When this dying expert saw the Feng clan pattern on the Old Witch Master's forehead, they wept with joy and excitement, leading the entire tribe to kneel and express their willingness to submit to the Feng clan, hoping the Old Witch Master could lead their tribe to live with the Feng clan.

However, Xu Chen gave them an even bigger surprise, stating that he could help him recover his clan pattern and perhaps even activate Divine Pattern Battle Techniques, causing the entire tribe to erupt in excitement.

In the brief conversation that followed, the two were pleasantly surprised; this expert said that when he was young, he had searched a lost Ancient City and had fallen into a complex Di Gong within it, where he saw a remnant stone tablet from the ancient era that might contain clues to leaving Minghuang.

Thus, Xu Chen stayed behind and spent nearly half a month completely transforming the old man named Tu Jiu, not only successfully restoring his Tu clan pattern but even activating over a dozen Divine Pattern Battle Techniques.

Facing Xu Chen's miraculous abilities, the entire Tu clan knelt and worshipped him as a true god for a long time.

Once everything was prepared, Tu Jiu led Xu Chen and the Old Witch Master to set off for that Ancient City.

The three searched back and forth in the pitch-black Minghuang for a long time, and after scouring an area of tens of thousands of miles, they finally found the lost Ancient City.

This was a massive structure clearly distinct from the cities of mortals in the mundane world; according to Xu Chen's current Divine Sense range, he felt he could not see the end of it, with a diameter of over two hundred miles, where one could see broken walls and ruins built of pitch-black boulders everywhere; however, because it had been abandoned for so long and was eroded by Underworld Qi and destroyed by Nether Beasts, only faintly recognizable traces remained, and most of it was buried deep in the pitch-black, cold gravel and soil.

"Could this be a city built by the ancient human race?"

Standing above the city, Xu Chen felt the scale of this lost and annihilated massive city, and his state of mind wavered, as if he could see the scene of the ancient human race thriving and flourishing here in the past.

The Old Witch Master was also filled with emotion, sighing: "This is the largest ancestral ruin I have ever seen in Minghuang; I had only heard that there were many massive ancient cities left behind by the ancestors of the Nine Clans in Minghuang Di Jie, but I had never seen one."

Tu Jiu pointed to the central area of the city and said: "I remember the entrance to the Di Gong was right in the very center, but it is not easy to find; I accidentally fell into it back then."

"Let's go, let's take a look!"

Xu Chen was impatient and turned into a streak of light, heading toward the center of the giant city.

"Roar~"

However, before they could get close to the center of the city, they suddenly heard a deafening roar; they saw black mist churning and the Void trembling as a giant beast resembling a wild ox appeared out of thin air, blocking the three of them.

This giant beast was at least twenty zhang long, had three eyes, and a horn curved forward on the top of its head that flashed with rings of black light, its entire body radiating an incredibly powerful aura.

Xu Chen paused, flipped his hand to take out the Profound Cyan Thunder Fire Pestle, and instantly a mass of cyan lightning began to churn and flicker.

Being able to break through the Void, it was at least a Fourth-Rank Nether Beast.

Although this level of Nether Beast was not rare in Minghuang, it was not something one could encounter at any time; at least on the road to find clues this time, this was only the third one they had encountered.

Of the previous two, one was killed by him and the Old Witch Master working together, and the other was injured and fled.

While it was called working together, the Old Witch Master was actually the main force, while he only assisted from the side, using the Thunder Fire Pestle to harass it.

Although his current strength was not bad and was comparable to a Danyuan Realm cultivator, his cultivation level was still stuck in the middle-to-late stage of the Zhenyuan Realm; facing a Nether Beast that had truly reached the strength of the Spirit Realm, he could only barely protect himself.

However, Nether Beasts, like Demon Beasts, differed from human cultivators primarily in their lack of intelligence; their fighting style relied mainly on their formidable bodies and Soul power that far exceeded cultivators of the same level—especially Nether Beasts, whose terrifying Soul attacks and backlash were almost the weak Achilles' heel of cultivators from the Immortal World.

Even a Spirit Realm Great Cultivator who could suppress Demon Beasts of the same rank had absolutely no advantage when facing a Nether Beast of the same rank.

Nether Beasts were at least one level higher than cultivators of the same realm in terms of Soul strength.

Spirit Realm Great Cultivators had only just begun to cultivate the Primordial Spirit; especially in the Yuan Ying stage, the Primordial Spirit had just taken shape, and its defensive and combat capabilities were weak; facing the powerful Soul impact of a Nether Beast, one could suffer heavy damage if not careful.

However, Xu Chen was a freak; because he had the Blue Light Treasure Bottle, an item that far exceeded the Magic Treasures of mortal cultivators, to protect his Soul, he actually had strong resistance against Nether Beasts.

It was just that his attack power was currently very weak.

With the Third-Tier top-grade Thunder Fire Pestle's Array fully activated, he could only barely break the defense of a Fourth-Rank Nether Beast; furthermore, he could not currently unleash the full power of the Thunder Fire Pestle, so it was impossible to inflict heavy damage.

Additionally, although he knew many Divine Pattern Battle Techniques, they were not activated through bloodline inheritance but supported by the Blue Light Treasure Bottle, and he likewise could not fully unleash the power of the Divine Pattern Battle Techniques; under equal conditions, the Divine Pattern Battle Techniques he released were not even as good as those of Feng Yi and the others, and were even less comparable to the Old Witch Master's, so they could only be treated as flashy tricks with no combat effectiveness.

However, just as Xu Chen took out the Thunder Fire Pestle, a figure rushed past him; it was Tu Jiu.

"Benefactor, rest for a moment; let me deal with it!"

Xu Chen shrugged and retreated several dozen zhang.

"Boom~"

Accompanied by a loud noise, yellow light exploded across the sky, and a phantom of a giant rock a hundred zhang in size fell from the sky, smashing heavily onto the back of the Nether Beast.

"Roar~"

The giant beast's body plummeted under the impact of the boulder; in pain, it let out an angry roar, then a black light sprayed from the horn on its head, expanding in layers like ripples, shattering the boulder in the blink of an eye, and then its four hooves rose into the air as it charged at Tu Jiu.

Driven by the terrifying pressure, the churning black mist all around seemed to be compressed, turning into visible, solid black layers that squeezed in like copper walls and iron barriers under the beast's charge.

The entire world seemed to be pushed by this giant beast.

This was the triggering of a very rare spatial rule.

In other words, this Nether Beast, which resembled a one-horned giant ox, had already reached the level of invoking spatial rules.

And this level of strength, in the mundane world, required one to at least reach the late stage of the True Spirit Realm and begin to touch upon basic spatial rules before it could be exerted.

Moreover, cultivators generally relied on circulating Spirit Qi to use Magic Spells to invoke the rules of heaven and earth, which was vastly different from this kind of rule-driving that relied entirely on savage, formidable Soul power.

In terms of power and range, this primitive and simple application of the rules is even more formidable, though it also consumes a great deal.

Although it is unknown how many times this giant beast can use it, it does not look difficult, and it even seems quite effortless.

Therefore, Xu Chen's expression changed as he continued to retreat rapidly, while the Old Witch Lord blocked the path in front of Xu Chen, a burst of green light exploded from his body, and in an instant, a phantom image of a mountain range several miles long stretched across between the giant beast and the two of them.

(End of this chapter)