Chapter 245: Stone Tablet

Xu Chen's face twitched violently as he watched.

This Nether Beast had reached at least the Fourth-Rank, similar in strength to the flying lizard that he, Feng Yi, and two others had spent an entire day working together to kill, perhaps even stronger; yet, facing Tu Jiu, a super powerhouse who had activated a Divine Pattern Battle Technique, it already had little power to resist.

It was a case of a rogue meeting a shrew—one thing subduing another.

This terrifying Nether Beast, which even a Spirit Realm Great Cultivator in the Mortal World would hardly dare claim victory over easily, was completely no match for a Nether Human Race expert.

It is evident that after adapting to life in the Minghuang, the strength of the Soul evolved by the human race is no weaker than any Nether Beast of the same rank.

And once a Nether Beast loses its innate advantage, its combat effectiveness is greatly diminished, possessing no power to crush the human race at all.

It is just a pity that the human race is, after all, an alien race; while their experts are indeed formidable, their growth is extremely slow. Experts of the level of Tu Jiu and the Old Witch Master are now as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, whereas Fourth-Rank Nether Beasts are everywhere.

Soon, Tu Jiu retracted his Divine Pattern Battle Technique, grabbed a pitch-black Soul Bead a full foot in diameter, and ran over excitedly to claim credit.

"Benefactor, it has been finished off, without the slightest effort!"

Xu Chen curled his lip, put away the Soul Bead, and asked, "Do you still remember the way?"

Tu Jiu nodded hurriedly and said, "I know, I know. Keep going straight from that passage on the left, and there will be many stone chambers. After passing through the stone chamber area, you will see a cliff, and the stone tablet is right there in the cliff."

Xu Chen released his Divine Sense to look around and discovered that there was a passage on each of the four sides of the stone hall, all identical in size and incomparably deep. His Divine Sense could not probe very far, so he asked with some doubt, "Could it be that there are no stone tablets in the other passages?"

Tu Jiu shook his head and said, "Except for the passage on the left, the other directions have all collapsed and are blocked. Only this one road can be taken. After I fell in here, I searched them all carefully one by one."

Xu Chen understood then, and the three of them left the huge stone hall and headed toward a passage on the left that was over ten zhang high.

The passage was very high, wide, and long. Although all three had powerful strength, this place might still hide formidable Nether Beasts, so the three were very cautious. Tu Jiu was in the lead, Xu Chen in the middle, and the Old Witch Master brought up the rear. The three released their Divine Sense to observe while moving forward rapidly.

After walking forward for about two quarters of an hour, huge stone chambers began to appear on both sides.

Some of the stone doors to these chambers were closed, but most were already wide open. Many stone chambers had even collapsed, and the entire passage was littered with scattered rubble. One could even see large impact craters or deep, long marks gouged out by sharp claws on the stone walls on both sides.

Xu Chen watched with fear and trepidation.

The Nether Beasts must have invaded through a Teleportation Array or some other entrance, causing this Di Gong buried deep underground to suffer an unprecedented attack.

Although countless years had passed and one could no longer see any corpses left by the human race or remains of Nether Beasts, through the traces left behind, one could still see how fierce and tragic the battle had been.

The stone chambers were identical in size, about twenty zhang in length and width. Inside, there was only a square pool. The surrounding walls and the pool itself were densely covered with various Ancient Rune lines. After entering a few of them to observe carefully, Xu Chen reached a conclusion.

If his guess was correct, this place should be the Creation Pool established by the human race back then.

Because the Ancient Rune lines around these huge pools were very similar to the God Blood Pool of the human tribes, only much larger in scale.

"These should be the Creation Pools from your tribe's legends, right?" Xu Chen stood in one of the stone chambers and asked via voice transmission.

The Old Witch Master and Tu Jiu nodded together with solemn expressions.

"With so many Creation Pools, I really don't know how powerful the human race was back then, but it's a pity they still failed!" Xu Chen was full of emotion and sighed endlessly.

The Old Witch Master was silent for a long time before saying, "Because too much time has passed, many inheritances have been severed, and we don't know the truth of what happened back then either. I have heard that deep in the Underworld, there are super demons with formidable strength, whose power is comparable to gods; they could destroy the world with a single breath. Although the human ancestors were also very powerful, they could only contend with the Nether Beasts."

Tu Jiu added from the side, "Actually, it is said that the Nether Beasts in the Minghuang are the weakest. The truly powerful Nether Beasts are all over in the Underworld, and one must cross the Underworld River to see them."

Xu Chen nodded and said, "I fell into the Underworld River from the Mortal World and then dropped down here. The Underworld River is in the sky, which is very strange and completely different from the Mortal World."

Tu Jiu shook his head and said, "Benefactor is mistaken. The Underworld River is not in the sky, and the Minghuang is not at the bottom of the river. It is said that the Mortal World and the Underworld are two inverted worlds, tightly connected together, with a thick Earth Barrier in between. If you really fell into the Underworld River, then you didn't fall down, but fell up."

Xu Chen was stunned for a long time and said, "Are you saying that the Minghuang we are currently in is actually connected to the Mortal World, and we are all standing on the ground upside down?"

Tu Jiu nodded, but soon shook his head and smiled bitterly, "Logically speaking, that is the case, but I don't know the specifics either. However, what Benefactor can be assured of is that our current location is not too far from the Mortal World, because the Minghuang is the place closest to the Mortal World. This is information left by our ancestors, and it absolutely cannot be wrong."

Xu Chen was half-believing, but his mood felt much lighter.

He had been trapped in the Minghuang for several months and had not found any road leading to the Mortal World. But if, according to Tu Jiu's statement, the Minghuang was beneath the Mortal World and not far away, then even if he couldn't find a passage, finding a Nether Rift would surely allow him to return to the Mortal World again.

As for whether they were standing upside down or right-side up, it was actually meaningless, because the mysteries of heaven and earth are infinite, and no one knows what the true structure of the world is like.

In fact, even now, no one can clearly explain what the legend of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths circulating in the Immortal World is really like.

The three continued forward along the long passage, passing countless stone chambers along the way, so densely packed they were impossible to count. According to Xu Chen's judgment, they had walked for at least two hours and passed thousands upon thousands of Creation Pools when the road ahead ended, and a pitch-black cliff appeared, as if the entire world had been torn apart out of thin air right there.

Standing at the end of this broken passage, looking at the pitch-black abyss that resembled the Void before him, Xu Chen couldn't help but feel his heart thumping wildly.

This was clearly not a naturally formed break; it seemed as if it had been severed out of thin air by some powerful and sharp weapon. Space itself had been torn, leaving only an endless pitch-black crack that radiated a terrifying aura.

As soon as his Divine Sense probed slightly into this Void Fault, he felt an intense, irresistible, cold killing intent.

"Benefactor, be careful. The aura of this fault is extremely strange, and there is a very intense killing intent hidden within. Do not easily probe with your Soul; I almost died here back then," Tu Jiu warned with lingering fear.

Xu Chen withdrew his Divine Sense, his face pale as he adjusted his breathing. He silently circulated his cultivation technique for a small cycle to slowly dissolve the cold killing intent that had invaded his body, while asking with extreme dread, "The road is broken here, so where is that stone tablet?"

Tu Jiu pointed to the opposite side of the fault and said, "The stone tablet is right in this cliff. I observed here for a long time before I saw it. As long as the stone tablet appears, the aura of the fault will disappear briefly, and that is when one can take the opportunity to rush across. However, be very careful; your speed must be fast. I was a bit slow back then and was almost dragged into the fault. Although I managed to break free and escape, my Soul suffered heavy damage, and it took a long time to slowly recover."

"This must be a trace left by a great demon from the Underworld. Perhaps this Ancient City was destroyed because of this!" the Old Witch Master said with a terrified expression.

"It must be so!" Tu Jiu nodded.

"Since that's the case, let's stay here and observe, and wait until the stone tablet appears!"

"Good!"

After exchanging a few brief words, the three found a flat place in the passage to sit down and released their Divine Sense to observe the Void Fault carefully.

They didn't know how long this wait would be. When Xu Chen was hungry, he ate Bigu Pills and chewed on some ice. Tu Jiu and the Old Witch Master had even less need for food, occasionally taking a pot of God Blood out of their Space Crystal to drink a few mouthfuls. For the rest of the time, they mostly sat with their eyes half-closed, but in reality, none of them dared to relax at all, keeping their Divine Sense released to observe the changes and movements within the fault carefully.

About ten days later, a faint white light suddenly flashed within the pitch-black Void Fault, and the light and shadow of an ancient, dilapidated stone tablet appeared out of thin air.

"Attention, it's here!" Tu Jiu stood up first.

Xu Chen and the Old Witch Master also stood up almost simultaneously.

Three powerful Divine Senses landed on the light and shadow of the stone tablet with almost no delay between them.

An ancient and desolate aura was released from the stone tablet, and the pitch-black, cold aura of the fault, which was like an abyss, receded rapidly.

In no more than a few breaths, a stone tablet clearly emerged within the pitch-black fault.

There were indeed patterns on the stone tablet, but they were twisted and winding, forming a complex and indistinguishable figure made of dense Ancient Runes. When his Divine Sense landed on it, he felt as if he had fallen into a swamp; for every rune he looked at, his Soul felt as if it were about to be sucked in, pulled, and fused into it.

"Benefactor, hurry!"

Tu Jiu took the first step, a golden light exploded from his body, and he turned into a shooting star as he rushed toward the opposite side of the cliff.

A green light also exploded from the Old Witch Master's body, and he followed closely behind like the wind.

Xu Chen forcibly severed his Divine Sense and took a step forward, turning into an afterimage, and was about to cross the stone tablet in the blink of an eye, but he did not expect that just as he reached above the stone tablet, a blue starlight suddenly erupted from between his brows, turning into an illusory light and shadow of a precious vase, which sprayed out a vortex of starlight, intending to drag the stone tablet into it.

Although the stone tablet was suspended in the Void of the fault line, it remained as motionless as if it had taken root, causing Xu Chen's Cloud Flow Step to be forcibly interrupted in an instant, and his body stiffened to a halt.

However, this pause completely ruined his chance of passing.

The stone tablet trembled slightly within the starlight vortex and unexpectedly began to fade rapidly, turning into an illusory light shadow in the blink of an eye.

Within the Void of the fault line, streaks of extremely terrifying, icy killing intent swept in from all directions.

(End of chapter)