Chapter 288

The young girl, whom he had thought was a decoration or a display, suddenly moved. A streak of crimson sword Qi instantly appeared in Wei Yuan's hand, and he almost stabbed out. But when he steadied his gaze, the girl's eyes were tightly closed, and she hadn't moved at all.

At this time, Sun Yu suddenly said, "Everyone, use Dao power to protect your bodies; the resentment here is too heavy and can gradually transform people into Yin spirits."

Wei Yuan hurriedly examined his entire body and indeed discovered that some extremely subtle parts of his physical body had lost sensation without him noticing. Wei Yuan immediately had all the cultivators retreat outside the underground space; only the cultivators from the Grand Beginning Palace had the remaining strength to protect themselves, so they continued to explore.

Sun Yu examined the young boys and girls in the hall and discovered that their physical bodies were still fresh; unlike the little girl, they could be said to be living people. It was just that there was no life force in their bodies, nor were there souls; they were like empty shells.

The group examined several halls nearby, and they were all the same scene, only a few wooden shrines were empty and not filled.

After continuously looking at a dozen or so halls, Wei Yuan walked down a layer. The halls on this layer were much the same as the layer above, with no difference, only the young boys and girls in the wooden shrines seemed to be a bit younger, around twelve or thirteen years old.

Sun Yu examined multiple young boys and girls in succession, and after taking blood on the spot for testing, he finally said, "Same species, same source."

"Are they all brothers and sisters?" Wei Yuan asked.

"Not necessarily, but they are definitely of the same bloodline, very close," Sun Yu said.

Wei Yuan walked down another layer; this was the last layer of halls outside the plaza, and moving forward meant entering the plaza. The style of the halls on this layer was different; they were all built of stone, gloomy and eerie.

Wei Yuan pushed open the palace door and walked in first. As he stepped over the palace door, the scenery before his eyes changed, and a dim room appeared, burning with red candles everywhere. At this time, Wei Yuan was no longer surprised and watched quietly.

On the bed sat a new bride, her wedding attire as red as if dyed in blood. The young groom, also wearing wedding attire, walked in, closed the door, and then came before the bride, preparing to lift the veil.

Wei Yuan felt inexplicably nervous in his heart, always feeling that when the veil was lifted, he would see something that shouldn't appear.

The young groom held the edge of the veil with both hands, then suddenly spat a wisp of faint white Qi from his mouth, hitting the bride between the brows. The bride sat motionless, and her body became stiff.

The young man's movements instantly became lightning-fast; he pushed the bride to the inside of the bed, lowered the bed curtains, and then extinguished the red candles. He took off his wedding attire and fled through the window.

But after he left, the bed curtain suddenly pulled open a corner, and the bride, still wearing the veil, poked her head out, looked in the direction the groom had fled, and then silently lowered the bed curtain again.

The scenery before Wei Yuan's eyes turned into the wilderness. The young man and woman ran and flew all the way, constantly fleeing, getting further and further away from the city behind them.

The scenery changed again, and the quiet little courtyard from the beginning reappeared, only it hadn't been decorated much yet.

The young man now had a short beard, and the woman's brows and eyes had a more mature charm. The two of them were planting flowers and grass together in the courtyard, tidying up the garden scenery. At this time, a child's crying suddenly sounded in the room, and the woman hurriedly got up, not caring that her hands were covered in mud, and ran back to the room.

The young man finished piling the soil for the last flower, then stood up, preparing to go into the room to take a look.

He had just lifted his leg when he suddenly froze in mid-air and slowly turned his head.

The courtyard gate opened without wind, and standing outside the gate was a woman, bald with green pupils, smiling yet not smiling, saying softly, "You have the blood of the ancestor flowing in your body; although the world is vast, you have nowhere to go."

The scenery dissipated, and Wei Yuan returned to reality.

In the hall before his eyes were four square pools; the pools were dry, and they should have originally been filled with water. Standing in the center of the four square pools was a weird Buddha statue, looking angry, with four arms, each holding a treasure vase, the vase mouths facing the square pools. The Buddha statue was wrapped in naked, beautiful women, poisonous snakes, scorpions, centipedes, etc., all lifelike.

Lying at the bottom of the pools were several skeletons, and there was also a skeleton sprawled by the edge of the pool, looking as if it wanted to crawl out, but its lower body had already disappeared.

The group searched the hall for a moment, but there were no clues, and they didn't know what this place was for. Zhang Sheng looked at the Buddha statue for a while and frowned, saying, "This Buddha statue looks like the inheritance of a secret sect, but it's also a bit different."

"Let's go look elsewhere," Wei Yuan said.

The many halls on this layer were all of this structure with four square pools inside, and many of them contained incomplete and broken skeletons.

Further down was the plaza. Several halls were also built on the edge of the plaza, and in the center of the plaza was a high platform, which required climbing one hundred and eight steps to reach. In the center of the high platform was that hundred-foot lotus pillar. Looking from up close, the monster coiled on the lotus pillar was even more realistic, as if it could break free from the chains at any moment.

The few halls on the edge of the plaza were in a mess, and most of the things had been moved away. Judging by the internal layout, they should have been for alchemy, but one didn't know what kind of elixir was being refined.

There was nothing to see here, so the group continued to walk forward. As soon as he entered the plaza, Wei Yuan felt something strange, as if countless people were staring at him. He immediately stopped and patrolled all around, while simultaneously communicating with the Red Lotus Honglian Puti, wanting to see if he could borrow its aura to enhance his Wisdom Eye supernatural ability.

The Red Lotus Honglian Puti swayed, and it was about to drop leaves again, scaring Wei Yuan into stopping it immediately. He had used one Honglian Puti leaf to treat a fatal wound, and Wei Yuan was already heartbroken; now it was just observing the surroundings, and there was absolutely no need to make such a big fuss.

At this time, Zhang Sheng also said, "Something is wrong here."

Seeing Ji Liuli sacrificed the Nine-Fold Demon-Suppressing Tower. This time, the copper lamps on the Nine-Fold Tower lit up simultaneously, emitting a faint, clear light. Once the clear light appeared, Seeing Ji Liuli also appeared quite strained, and her aura dropped rapidly.

But under the illumination of the clear light, one figure after another began to appear on the plaza; they were strikingly the young boys and girls standing in the wooden shrines!

They were expressionless, all turning their heads to look at the group with eyes that had no pupils.

Such a scene shocked even Zhang Sheng, who said, "These are all souls! No wonder those young boys and girls outside left behind empty shells, yet their bodies still have life force."

Seeing Ji Liuli said, "Their souls were all detained on this plaza. The resentment of tens of thousands of people, the karma of being unable to enter reincarnation, is what made this place a place of absolute Yin. These young boys and girls should not be ordinary people; there should be something special about them." Wei Yuan suddenly felt something and looked toward the high platform, where a circle of altars was set up around the central lotus pillar. Beneath the lotus pillar, the cloth-clad swordsman stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the monster bound on the lotus pillar.

Wei Yuan pointed toward the high platform and said, "The answer might be up there. But be careful."

Seeing Ji Liuli withdrew the clear light of the Demon-Suppressing Tower, turning to emit a gloomy yellow light that blessed the group, then said, "I can only bless you slightly; if the power is too great, it will cause fatal damage to the soul bodies here. They have no physical body protection and are quite fragile; only in this place of absolute Yin can they exist for so long."

The cultivators all had their own means of self-preservation, so they naturally had no objections.

Wei Yuan walked toward the high platform first, and had the group keep a distance from him. The cloth-clad swordsman's origin was unknown, and his attitude was also unclear, but the general outline he inherited could also be turned into a sword that killed a Dharma Form; in other words, if he were unwilling to give the inheritance, he still had the ability to release a killer move.

Wei Yuan climbed the high platform step by step. The cloth-clad swordsman was still looking at the bound monster, saying softly, "This is my wife, Shu Ya."

A boom sounded in Wei Yuan's consciousness, and the scenery changed again.

It was still that great hall, still that person high above. But this time, the great hall was exceptionally dim and gloomy, and the light from an unknown source could only illuminate a corner of the hall.

The hall was indescribably cold, making Wei Yuan subconsciously shiver.

Before the high platform of the throne, the woman was firmly grabbed by two tall warriors. She screamed and struggled with all her might, but could not break free. Beside her, an old man held a little girl who was not even two years old in his arms, coaxing her while grabbing her small hand. Suddenly, he exerted force on her hand, and with a "crack," an extremely shrill cry sounded in the hall.

!.

With a "thud," the young man knelt on the ground and said, "Father, I am willing to do anything! Just beg you to let them go! Xinyi is also your flesh and blood!"

The woman, bald with green pupils, appeared and walked step by step toward the young man, her clothes slipping off piece by piece, saying, "As long as we give birth to the child the ancestor needs, they can regain their freedom."

The young man's body trembled slightly, and he was pushed to the ground without resisting.

The scene changed to a dark alley under the night sky.

The woman was holding a five or six-year-old little girl, running for her life, looking back from time to time. But she suddenly fell, and her leg had been pierced by a sharp arrow at some unknown time.

The woman endured the pain, pushed the little girl out, and shouted, "Run! Run!"

The little girl was at a loss, wanting to hide in the woman's arms. The woman was anxious and suddenly slapped her across the face, saying, "No one wants you, get out of here! Roll in that direction!"

The girl was frightened, took a few steps back, and finally ran toward the distance. The woman breathed a sigh of relief, watching the tiny figure go away; as long as she crossed the intersection ahead, she would be out of the great formation, and someone would meet her and take her away from this hellish place.

But the little girl ran back, hugged the woman's arm, and used all her strength to try to drag her away. And at this moment, the woman, bald with green pupils, slowly walked out from the shadows.

The scene changed again; the little girl was lying in the hands of the statue on top of the lotus pillar, already on the verge of death.

Many servants on the plaza were going back and forth, sending infants into the hall to bathe. The alchemy room constantly sent out elixirs, which turned into medicinal soup and were fed to the infants.

At this time, a wisp of thin sword light suddenly shot out from between the brows of an infant, straight up ten feet!

That tall and majestic person appeared, picked up the infant, and laughed loudly, "Born with the Thousand Autumns Sword Body! The secret method is indeed effective, hahahaha! That little wild seed is already useless; humph, if it weren't for her thinning the bloodline, how would I have waited until now?"

He left holding the infant, and the woman, bald with green pupils, slowly raised her hand and pointed toward the lotus pillar.

The many cultivators sitting cross-legged around the lotus pillar attacked together, shooting out true fire and igniting the lotus pillar. The flames rose rapidly, burning toward the top of the pillar.

The woman who had been bound suddenly went crazy, throwing away the several Dharma Form True Persons who were holding her, and rushed toward the lotus pillar, transforming in mid-air and revealing her demon true form.

That tall and majestic person snorted and threw a chain from afar, binding the demon. But the demon transformed from the woman still jumped up with all her might, coiling around the lotus pillar and using her body to block the raging true fire, not letting it spread to the girl on top of the pillar.

The little girl's consciousness was already blurred, and she just kept saying, "... Don't drive me away, don't drive me away..."

The demon was gradually refined into charcoal by the true fire; she never moved, nor did she scream.

A wisp of resentment soared into the sky, making the entire plaza become a bit dimmer.

Vaguely, a sharp and high-pitched voice said, "With this wisp of resentment, this elixir for extending life is worth so much more..."

All light was lost in the young swordsman's eyes, and his head slowly drooped, losing all life force.

Two more sword techniques were added to Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness: the first sword, 【Beginning of a Thousand Autumns】, and the last sword, 【End of Myriad Ages】.

(End of chapter)