Escape from Mars

Ye Fan and Pang Bo called over several classmates as well, then followed Jiang Yun in running toward the Five-Colored Altar.

The others, who had only just come to their senses behind them, saw only Pang Bo's retreating figure dragging the bronze plaque from the Great Leiyin Temple, sparks flying all the way.

Although they did not know whether Jiang Yun was right, after what he had said when they first arrived on Mars, and after seeing the Heavenly Palace Ruins and the Great Leiyin Temple, some people felt that he might truly be right.

They too raced toward the Five-Colored Altar. Rumors spread quickly, and before long, everyone was running toward the Five-Colored Altar together.

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

Jiang Yun charged ahead with his head down, taking out the intact string of prayer beads as he ran. He wore the beads on his left hand and gripped the Vajra Pestle in his right.

Although Jiang Yun had been the first to run, Ye Fan caught up to him in no time and ran shoulder to shoulder with him. He even had the leisure to chat with Jiang Yun, clearly not using his full strength.

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, but even in a mortal body, it was still a freakish physique.

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

Jiang Yun was not surprised by 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 possessed a Sacred Physique, Jiang Yun did not have much confidence in safely breaking through to the Four Extremes Realm. It was better to be cautious; he was not suited to a life of clawing for survival from death and narrowly escaping death time and again.

With the panel, a life with a Dao companion, children, and a warm bed was far more comfortable.

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

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

However, a hazy glow surrounded the Five-Colored Altar. Specks of faint light gathered from every direction and sank beneath the stone base, as if accumulating energy for the next stop.

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

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

"Something attacked me on the way here, but the light emitted by the bronze bell blocked it."

The speaker was a refined-looking male student holding a damaged bronze bell. At this moment, he was enveloped in Golden Divine Flame, as though wearing golden battle armor.

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

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

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

A silence fell over the people on the altar. Faced with real death, they gradually understood just how cruel the path they had stepped onto was. Having been born in peaceful times, they were seeing the fragility of mortals for the first time.

"The people who died were all those who didn't find ancient artifacts in the temple."

A careful student noticed this fact.

Those who had not found any artifacts in the temple immediately felt lingering fear and looked gratefully at Jiang Yun.

If he had not warned them and allowed them to dawdle, who knew how many more 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 dwelling, lies not some pure land or holy place, but many peerless demons. On the first level is the Crocodile Ancestor, a Primordial Divine Crocodile with boundless magical power, ultimately subdued by the Buddha."

"You're saying that many peerless demons were suppressed beneath the Great Leiyin Temple, a sacred site of the Buddhist Sect?"

"When I traveled to XZ, old Tibetan people who believed in Buddhism did indeed say so."

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

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

Bang!

Suddenly, a cracking sound rang out. The light curtain protecting the Five-Colored Altar was pierced open at one point, and something burrowed inside. Everyone looked in that direction.

A streak of black light 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 and thousands of bolts of lightning suddenly erupted from his body, electric arcs dancing around him as though the Thunder God had descended!

All of 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. It was covered in jet-black scales.

The sound 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 valiant, he charged forward while swinging the bronze plaque from the Great Leiyin Temple.

"You killed four of my classmates. Go die!"

Pang Bo's entire body was enveloped in the dazzling light emitted by the bronze plaque. His imposing might was like that of an enraged war god.

The bronze plaque trembled, Buddhist chants shook the heavens, and a rumbling sound erupted as it instantly flattened the Little Divine Crocodile against the ground.

Before anyone could inspect it closely,

a crackling sound came from outside. Thousands upon thousands of Little Divine Crocodiles appeared beyond the Five-Colored Altar, forcefully trying to burrow inside.

They were densely packed, as though 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 ruins of the Great Leiyin Temple more than a thousand meters away, a terrifying tremor erupted at the same time. Those blood-red eyes, as large as lanterns, rose several hundred meters higher. It was clearly 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 heavy, solid texture of metal, as if cast from refined divine gold forged a hundred times.

The space around it was twisted. Amid the hazy light, the eight trigrams—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 and thousands of times, undergoing complex permutations and combinations, but they never lit up at the same time. In the end, they slowly dimmed again. The enormous Taiji Bagua Diagram trembled, showing signs 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 simply was not enough energy at present.

Even a fantasy world had to follow the law of conservation of energy, and killing the Little Crocodiles could replenish the altar's energy.

Jiang Yun, Ye Fan, and Pang Bo organized some of the classmates without ancient artifacts to enter the Bronze Coffin, while the group who possessed Buddhist artifacts guarded its entrance.

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

Rustling sounds came from outside the Five-Colored Altar. A dense, black mass of countless Divine Crocodiles gathered there, rapidly piercing through the light curtain and charging onto the Five-Colored Altar.

The Crocodile Ancestor was commanding these little crocodiles. This was the second time in its long life that it had seen the Copper Coffin.

It had suffered at the hands of the Copper Coffin before and escaped with its life only after a near-death ordeal. Thus, this time, it sent its descendants ahead to probe the danger.

Everyone was instantly surrounded by countless Little Divine Crocodiles. All of them swung their Buddhist artifacts with all their strength. Divine light flickered, radiance dazzled, lightning danced, and gathered together, they swiftly killed thousands of Little Crocodiles.

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

They fought desperately again and killed several hundred more Little Divine Crocodiles. Yet they were ultimately mortals with limited stamina and were already struggling to continue. One student accidentally let go of his Buddhist artifact and, in an instant, was devoured completely by the Little Crocodiles.

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

The eight trigram symbols shone simultaneously, 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 passage leading to an unknown destination. Its interior was pitch-black.

"Go, retreat into the Copper Coffin."

Seeing the Starry Sky Ancient Road open once more, Jiang Yun had no mind to continue fighting and prepared to retreat.

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

Jiang Yun felt that leaving these Little Crocodiles here would be wasteful, so he took off his clothes and wrapped up some of their corpses. He also secretly collected over a thousand Little Crocodile corpses directly into 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 gathered a bundle as well before retreating into the Bronze Coffin.

Inside the Bronze Coffin, those holding Buddhist artifacts blocked the entrance, waiting for the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin to move onward. When they had arrived, they had hoped that the Bronze Coffin would open sooner. Now, everyone prayed for it to close quickly.

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

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

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

Someone wept softly in the darkness, while others trembled. Still, the outcome was good. Twenty-six people had survived, while only five had been left on Mars forever.

Only after a long while did the Copper Coffin quiet down. Everyone was exhausted and mentally drained, and they all fell into a drowsy sleep.

Jiang Yun was also exhausted after all that turmoil. Too much had happened today.

But the result was good. Looking at the abundant collection in Source Space filled him with waves of reassurance.

One Quasi-Emperor Forbidden Artifact 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-like Divine Jade, still hanging from the branches and looking exceptionally beautiful.

Over a thousand Little Divine Crocodile corpses.

One complete string of Buddhist prayer beads. After entering the Bronze Coffin, Jiang Yun had stored the beads in Source Space to prevent the Bronze Coffin from absorbing their Divine Essence.

However, the Bodhi Ancient Tree Shedding was too large. The branches of the ancient tree nearly filled the entire Source Space.

These things were Jiang Yun's foundation for cultivating in the Big Dipper in the future.