Escape from Mars

Ye Fan and Pang Bo also called over several classmates and followed Jiang Yun as they ran toward the Five-Colored Altar.

The people behind them had only just come to their senses when they saw Pang Bo dragging the Bronze Plaque from the Great Leiyin Temple away in a trail of sparks and lightning.

Although they did not know whether Jiang Yun was right, after what they had experienced at the Heavenly Palace Ruins and the Great Leiyin Temple on Mars, some began to think that what he had said upon arriving on Mars might have been true.

They too raced toward the Five-Colored Altar. As the saying went, a rumor became truth after three people repeated it, and before long everyone was running toward the Five-Colored Altar.

A breeze swept past, leaving behind only a mess of footprints and the continuously trembling ruins of the Great Leiyin Temple.

Jiang Yun charged forward with his head down, casually taking out the intact string of prayer beads. He wore the beads on his left wrist and held the Vajra Pestle in his right hand.

Although Jiang Yun had been the first to run ahead, Ye Fan caught up with him before long and ran alongside him. He even had the leisure to chat with Jiang Yun, making it clear that he had not gone all out.

Jiang Yun could not be bothered with him. He was running too fast to speak, unlike that freak of a cousin!

The Ancient Sacred Body had yet to cultivate. Though Ye Fan was still mortal, he was already a freak.

There were probably few ordinary people on Earth who could match his physical fitness. Ye Fan's interest in myths and ancient history was also related to his exceptionally strong body.

Jiang Yun was no stranger to this and had no reason to feel discouraged. After all, the purity of his physique was far inferior to Ye Fan's.

Even if he truly had a Sacred Physique, Jiang Yun was not very confident that he could safely break through to the Four Extremes Realm. It was better to be cautious; he was not suited for a life of seeking survival amid death and narrowly escaping death time and again.

With the panel, a life with a cultivation partner, children, and a warm bed was far more comforting.

After running wildly all the way, they finally reached the Five-Colored Altar.

The nine dragon corpses and the Bronze Coffin lay across the altar, unchanged from when they had left.

Yet the Five-Colored Altar was shrouded in hazy light. Specks of faint radiance were gathering from every direction and sinking beneath its stone base, as if accumulating the energy needed to travel to the next stop.

The dim light barrier in the outer sky was gradually shrinking in range.

After a while, everyone had climbed onto the Five-Colored Altar.

"Something attacked me on the road just now, but the light from the bronze bell blocked it."

The speaker was a scholarly-looking male student holding a damaged bronze bell. Golden Divine Flame now enveloped him, as though he wore golden battle armor.

"I saw two classmates who seemed to have been attacked by something. They fell behind us," a female student said through quiet sobs.

Zhou Yi, Ye Fan, and Lin Jia organized everyone and took a headcount.

They discovered that only twenty-seven people had returned. Four were still missing.

Everyone on the altar fell silent. Faced with real death, they gradually understood just how cruel the path they had embarked upon was. Born in peaceful times, they were seeing the fragility of mortals for the first time.

"The ones who died were all those who failed to find ancient artifacts in the temple."

A careful student noticed this fact.

Those who had found no artifact in the temple were immediately seized by lingering fear and looked at Jiang Yun gratefully.

If he had not reminded them, and they had been allowed to dawdle, who knew how many people would have died?

"The Great Leiyin Temple collapsed. Perhaps the demons suppressed beneath it have broken free."

"I think I know what was suppressed beneath the Great Leiyin Temple..." a female student said in a trembling voice.

"It is said that beneath the Great Leiyin Temple, the Buddha's abode, lies not some pure land or blessed place, but many peerless demons. On the first level was suppressed the Crocodile Ancestor, a Primordial Divine Crocodile with boundless magical power, who was ultimately subdued by the Buddha."

"You're saying that many peerless demons were suppressed beneath the Buddhist holy land of the Great Leiyin Temple?"

"When I traveled to XZ before, old Tibetan locals who believed in Buddhism did say that."

After hearing this, everyone felt a chill run through their bodies. If that was true, the Crocodile Ancestor at the Great Leiyin Temple was probably about to emerge.

At the same time, they did not believe that only one demon had been suppressed beneath the Great Leiyin Temple.

Bang!

A sudden cracking sound rang out. The light screen protecting the Five-Colored Altar was actually pierced, and something drilled through. Everyone turned toward that direction.

A black streak flew with extreme speed toward a female student who had not picked up an ancient artifact. Jiang Yun had been prepared for this.

He swung the Vajra Pestle in his right hand with all his strength. Hundreds upon thousands of bolts of lightning suddenly erupted from his body, electric arcs dancing around him as if a thunder god had descended!

All these phenomena came from that damaged Vajra Pestle.

A crocodile-like creature no thicker than a finger and only ten centimeters long let out a shrill cry, revealing itself. Its body was covered in jet-black scales.

Its cry was shockingly loud, like the howl of a vicious ghost. It made everyone's eardrums buzz and sent chills down their spines.

Pang Bo showed no fear. Fierce and bold, he swung the Bronze Plaque from the Great Leiyin Temple and charged forward.

"You killed four of my classmates! Go to hell!"

Pang Bo's entire body was enveloped in the blinding light emitted by the Bronze Plaque. His imposing presence was that of an enraged war god.

The Bronze Plaque trembled, and Buddhist chants shook the heavens with rumbling echoes. It instantly smashed the Little Divine Crocodile flat against the ground.

Before anyone could examine it closely,

a crackling sound came from outside the Five-Colored Altar. Thousands upon thousands of Little Divine Crocodiles appeared and were forcing their way inside.

They were packed so densely that it was like they had stirred up a monster nest.

Boom!

Suddenly, the Five-Colored Altar shook again. Ancient five-colored runes appeared in the sky, shining like stars. The Taiji Bagua Diagram was about to emerge—an omen that the Starry Sky Ancient Road was opening.

At the same time, a terrifying tremor came from the ruins of the Great Leiyin Temple over a thousand meters away. Those lantern-like blood-red eyes rose several hundred meters. Clearly, it was breaking free of the underground palace's restraints and bursting through the surface.

The Taiji Bagua Diagram in the sky had already taken shape. It possessed the solid, weighty texture of metal, as if forged from refined divine gold tempered a hundred times.

The space around it twisted. Amid the hazy light, the eight trigram symbols corresponding to Qian, Kun, Xun, Dui, Gen, Zhen, Li, and Kan lit up one after another, as though a mysterious and ancient gateway was about to open.

The eight trigram symbols flashed hundreds upon thousands of times, undergoing complex permutations, yet they never lit up simultaneously. In the end, they slowly dimmed again. The enormous Taiji Bagua Diagram trembled, seeming on the verge of collapsing.

"How could this happen..." someone cried out in despair and tears.

Jiang Yun understood that the Starry Sky Ancient Road required energy to open, and there was currently not enough.

Even a fantasy world had to obey the law of conservation of energy. Killing the Little Crocodiles could replenish the altar's energy.

Jiang Yun, Ye Fan, and Pang Bo organized several classmates without ancient artifacts to enter the Bronze Coffin. Then the group holding Buddhist artifacts guarded the entrance of the Bronze Coffin.

At this life-or-death moment, everyone followed their arrangements. The few who objected were suppressed by the three of them, and their ancient artifacts were handed over to classmates willing to fight.

A rustling sound came from outside the Five-Colored Altar. Countless Divine Crocodiles gathered there in a dense black mass, quickly breaking through the light screen and rushing onto the Five-Colored Altar.

The Crocodile Ancestor was commanding these little crocodiles. This was the second time in his long life that he had seen the Bronze Coffin.

He had suffered at the Bronze Coffin's hands before and barely escaped with his life. Thus, this time, he had sent his descendants first to test it.

In an instant, everyone was surrounded by innumerable Little Divine Crocodiles. They desperately swung their Buddhist artifacts, divine light flashing, radiance blazing, lightning dancing. Gathering together, they quickly killed thousands of Little Crocodiles.

"Kill them! The more we kill, the better! These Divine Crocodiles are descendants of a peerless demon. Divine blood flows through them by nature, and they contain divine power. The altar can convert them into the mysterious energy needed by the Taiji Bagua Diagram."

They fought with all their strength again and killed several hundred more Little Divine Crocodiles. But they were mortals after all, with limited stamina, and they were already struggling to continue. One student accidentally lost hold of his Buddhist artifact and was instantly devoured completely by the Little Crocodiles.

At that moment, the Taiji Bagua Diagram in the sky finally formed completely. It had been completed by the divine power contained in the Divine Crocodiles' blood.

The eight trigram symbols shone at once, emitting dazzling light as the Starry Sky Gate reappeared.

Boom!

With a dull tremor, the Taiji Bagua Diagram opened completely like a gateway, revealing a mysterious and enormous passageway. No one knew where it led; inside was nothing but pitch-black darkness.

"Go, retreat into the Bronze Coffin."

Seeing the Starry Sky Ancient Road open again, Jiang Yun no longer had the heart to fight and prepared to withdraw.

The altar was littered with Little Crocodile corpses. They had killed at least two thousand of them.

Jiang Yun felt it would be wasteful to leave the Little Crocodiles behind. He took off his clothes and wrapped up some of the corpses, while secretly storing over a thousand Little Crocodile corpses directly in Source Space.

Anyone unaware of the truth would have thought the altar had absorbed all the Little Crocodile corpses!

Ye Fan and Pang Bo each packed up a bundle as well before retreating into the Bronze Coffin.

Inside the Bronze Coffin, those holding Buddhist artifacts blocked the entrance, waiting for Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin to depart. On the way here, they had hoped the Bronze Coffin would open sooner. Now, everyone prayed for it to close quickly.

They would rather drift through the cold, dark universe aboard the Bronze Coffin than remain on Mars and face those cruel, ferocious demons.

Next, the Divine Crocodiles tried to stop Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin from leaving, only to be heavily injured by it after it absorbed the power of the Buddhist artifacts. Six damaged Buddhist artifacts were directly reduced to dust, while the others lost much of their spirituality.

But at last, the Bronze Coffin closed and set out upon the Starry Sky Ancient Road. Everyone let out a long breath of relief.

Someone wept softly in the darkness, and someone trembled uncontrollably. Still, the outcome was good. Twenty-six people had survived; only five had been left behind on Mars forever.

Only after a long while did calm return to the Bronze Coffin. Everyone was exhausted and mentally drained, and they all fell into a dazed sleep.

After all this turmoil, Jiang Yun was exhausted as well. Too much had happened today.

Still, the result was good. Looking at the abundant collection in Source Space brought him waves of reassurance.

One Quasi-Emperor Forbidden Artifact, the Bronze Buddha Statue, and one Stone Temple Forbidden Artifact.

One Bodhi Ancient Tree Shedding, along with six green Bodhi Tree leaves. Each leaf was crystal-clear and shone with green light like jade divine gemstones, still hanging from the branches and looking exceptionally beautiful.

Over a thousand Little Divine Crocodile corpses.

One complete Buddhist prayer bead artifact. After entering the Bronze Coffin, Jiang Yun had stored the prayer beads in Source Space to prevent the Bronze Coffin from drawing out their Divine Essence.

However, the Bodhi Ancient Tree Shedding was too large. Its branches nearly filled the entire Source Space.

These things were Jiang Yun's capital for future cultivation in the Big Dipper.