Mysterious Dried-Corpse Elder

Night fell, and the bustling Holy Lion City gradually quieted down. Only a few of the city's nighttime entertainment venues remained brightly lit.

Ye Qianqian lay on a comfortable bed, tossing and turning restlessly. She felt that everything was far too peaceful, giving her an uneasy feeling.

The elders often said that the moment before a storm was always exceptionally calm. Thus, she abruptly rose and uneasily walked out of the room.

She looked up at the sky. That strange soul fluctuation still covered the heavens above, as though the power was growing denser and denser.

"No, I have to get to the bottom of this."

She called Wang Ba over and had him use the Soul Hall's soul secret technique to take her in search of the source of the fluctuation.

The two of them followed the source, flying all the way into the depths of the Lion Underworld Sect.

"Wang Ba, use your secret technique to find the exact location of this power's source."

"Okay." Wang Ba circulated the soul secret technique and searched constantly above the Lion Underworld Sect.

"Found it. It should be right below us." At that moment, Wang Ba suddenly stopped and pointed at a building below.

Ye Qianqian looked down and saw that the building was an ornate pavilion with carved beams and painted rafters. More than a dozen teams of people guarded it inside and out. Each group of guards was led by a Dou Emperor or Dou Zong, making the place seem extraordinarily mysterious.

"Let's go down and take a look."

The two transformed into streaks of light. Taking advantage of the cover of night and the gap between guard shifts, they suddenly charged into the pavilion.

After entering, they discovered that it was completely empty. Not even a trace of the tables and chairs that should have been there remained.

Ye Qianqian walked around casually for a while but found no mechanism or hidden passage nearby. Yet that soul fluctuation was clearly coming from this very place!

Suddenly, one of her feet seemed to step onto a hollow section of the floor. A hollow sound came from beneath her foot. She hurriedly crouched down and lightly tapped the floor with her hand.

"Knock, knock, knock."

The floor continued to emit hollow sounds.

"So there really is an underground passage here!" Ye Qianqian chuckled to herself. Why was every shady place involved in some dirty business underground? The Soul Hall was like this, and so was this place.

She flipped up the floorboard, revealing a stone staircase leading underground. Countless lit torches stood on both sides of the stairs, illuminating the passage brilliantly.

The two slowly descended the steps. The farther they went, the longer the stone staircase seemed to become. After who knew how long, they felt as though they were about to reach the depths of the earth.

That strange soul fluctuation also grew stronger and stronger. They should have been nearing its source.

At last, the stone stairs reached their end. Before them lay a vast, boundless underground world.

This underground world was pitch-black. Strange auras drifted from within, instilling people with a fear of the darkness.

Ye Qianqian was somewhat afraid to move forward, worried that she would become lost in this world without daylight.

"Senior, there's an inscription over there."

Wang Ba suddenly spotted an inscription on the left, not far ahead. It was a huge monument ten meters tall and seven meters wide. The entire stele was pitch-black, and no one knew what material it had been made from. It radiated an ancient power of time.

Several lines of golden, glowing verse were written upon it, drawing Ye Qianqian's attention.

A thousand ages pass in the snap of a finger,

The vicissitudes of change unfold before our eyes,

Time flies like a shuttle and spares no one,

While we calmly watch old and new faces part.

The verses on the stele expressed a lament for the passage of time, as though an ancient mighty being with an incredibly long lifespan had watched helplessly as the people around him slowly grew old.

Curious, Ye Qianqian reached out and touched the stele, only to discover that her lifespan and soul were pouring wildly out of her body, being swallowed by the mysterious monument. Frightened, she hurriedly pulled her hand back.

"Senior, you... you..."

"Me? What happened to me?" Ye Qianqian found it strange that Wang Ba was staring at her with his mouth agape and pointing at her. Suddenly, she looked down at her body.

"What the heck? Why did I grow taller?"

Her body had originally looked only five or six years old, but after the stele absorbed her lifespan and soul, she instantly became a seven-year-old child.

"What... what happened?" Ye Qianqian asked in disbelief.

"Heh heh, this is the Years Stele. The power within the inscription just extracted some of your years. You little girl are quite lucky. When I first encountered it, I was caught off guard, and it nearly drained my entire lifespan."

An elderly man with completely white hair and a withered, emaciated body appeared silently before Ye Qianqian and Wang Ba like a dried corpse, scaring the souls out of them.

"Who are you?" Seeing that the old man was extraordinarily mysterious and his strength terrifying beyond measure, Wang Ba hurriedly drew the Zanpakuto from his back and became fully alert.

"Who I am isn't important. Once you die by my hand, I'll tell you." A trace of killing intent flashed through the white-haired elder's eyes. He clearly did not want the secrets here to become public.

Suddenly, the Dou Qi throughout his body burst forth like a dam releasing a flood. Waves of aura surged violently.

"Second-Turn Dou Venerate!!!"

Ye Qianqian's heart jolted. This old man was actually a Second-Turn Dou Venerate. Could he be the guardian of this underground space?

Above the Dou Venerate realm was not the Dou Saint realm, but a series of special existences from the First Turn to the Ninth Turn. Normally, turn-level Dou Venerates would repeatedly compress the Dou Qi within their bodies by hundreds or thousands of times before breaking through to the next turn. When ordinary Dou Venerates encountered a turn-level existence, they were simply no match for them.

This old man was a genuine turn-level Dou Venerate. His strength completely overwhelmed Ye Qianqian and Wang Ba.

"Senior, what should we do?" Terrified by the old man's strength, Wang Ba's legs went weak and he was left at a loss. He asked Ye Qianqian what they should do.

Ye Qianqian rolled her eyes. What else could they do? Since they could not beat him, they could only run.

The two leaped into the air, retreating more than a hundred meters before moving again and flying at top speed toward the passage's exit.

"Stay right there!"

The dried-corpse elder extended his pale, skeletal hand and grabbed at their backs.

In an instant, the two felt an immense suction force lock their bodies in place. They were dragged backward continuously, and even after exhausting all the Dou Qi in their bodies, they could barely resist the force's tearing pull.

The surrounding space was twisted horribly by the suction force. Whether dust or stones from the staircase, everything was drawn toward the dried-corpse elder.

This was the Shrink Ground to Inch Technique, a power that only First- to Ninth-Revolutions Dou Venerates could possess.

"Attack him together!"

Ye Qianqian knew that this could not continue. With a shout, she and Wang Ba each grabbed a long saber. Their sleeves billowed as their Dou Qi erupted, and they slashed fiercely at the suction force.

"White Bone Saber Song, Emperor's Immortal Deeds!"

"Zangetsu!"

Two saber lights came crashing down. One possessed the might to dominate the ages, while the other was vast and majestic. Carrying the power of heaven and earth and riding the force of the sun and moon, they completely annihilated the suction force.

The dried-corpse elder's eyes gleamed as he watched the two flee in terror. He hurriedly stabilized the fluctuations in his Dou Qi and said resentfully, "Although my cultivation has advanced by leaps and bounds, I haven't fully stabilized my realm yet. Once I break through to the half-Saint realm in a few days, all of you insignificant wretches will be crushed to death by me one by one. Hmph!"

Meanwhile, after Ye Qianqian and Wang Ba escaped from the pavilion, they immediately triggered a great disturbance within the Lion Underworld Sect.

Many of the sect's disciples poured out in full force. They struck copper gongs, called their friends, carried all kinds of weapons, and led the Magic Lion Beasts they raised as they searched the entire city for suspicious individuals.

For a time, all the sect masters of the various sects who had come to participate in the Lion Nether Grand Ceremony were drawn out by the commotion. They led their people out of the guest rooms to investigate.

"Ancestor, you're back!" Yun Shan suddenly saw Ye Qianqian and Wang Ba fly back and hurriedly went forward to greet them.

"Mm!" Ye Qianqian grunted weakly. Her face was pale and drained of color. What had just happened had been too frightening. If the dried-corpse elder had not suddenly stopped for some unknown reason, the two of them would probably have been reduced to bones.

"Ugh!" Wang Ba suddenly dropped to one knee, and a mouthful of blood surged from his throat. Clearly, the old man's power had injured him through the recoil.

Ye Qianqian said, "Wang Ba, you suffered severe injuries. Go back now and tell my senior sister, Kaguya Ji, what happened. Have her hurry here. Things have gotten a little out of hand."

Wang Ba nodded. "Okay. I'll go back and report the news right away."

No sooner had Wang Ba left than She Qingqing returned with a beaming smile.

"Senior, things were exactly as you predicted. I told Shi Yutian that Shi Tian was going to rebel and cause trouble tomorrow. Shi Tian was greatly shocked. To thank me, he even gave me some precious spirit medicines and repeatedly urged the Misty Cloud Sect to help him purge his sect tomorrow."

She Qingqing took several brocade boxes from her Storage Ring. When everyone looked, they saw that these gifts were hardly inferior to those Shi Yutian had given them.

She Qingqing continued, "However, after meeting Shi Tian, I became somewhat puzzled."

"What puzzled you?" Everyone was confused.

She Qingqing said, "I saw Shi Tian's strength years ago. He was unquestionably a Six-Star Dou Venerate. But even if his cultivation had fallen, it shouldn't have fallen all the way to the One-Star Dou Venerate realm, right?

"Moreover, Shi Tian's manner of speaking has changed as well. He used to be incomparably arrogant and conceited, but now he has become a refined and courteous young man. Heh heh!"

Yun Shan nodded beside her. "His cultivation has fallen to the One-Star Dou Venerate realm. How could he not speak courteously? This Shi Tian still has some brains. He knows when to be arrogant and when to endure in silence. But after tomorrow's Lion Nether Grand Ceremony, we'll let the two sides fight like dogs. Then our Misty Cloud Sect can swallow them up by force."

Ye Qianqian shook her head. Because of the dried-corpse elder's appearance, their previous plan had completely fallen through. Who knew what the hell would happen tomorrow?

The moment she thought of that mysterious dried-corpse elder, as well as the contest between Shi Yutian and Shi Tian tomorrow, her head began to ache as though it would split apart.

"What the hell is the Lion Underworld Sect plotting?"