He came before the Dao Platform, glanced at the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform, then raced up the groove before him, heading straight for the very top.
As Shi Qingyun passed those steps, the runes upon them seemed to sense his presence.
They lit up with a faint glow, as though suddenly coming alive, and a dense aura of the Dao spread from them.
Shi Qingyun noticed none of this. His figure flickered several times along the groove before swiftly reaching the top of the platform.
The moment he raised his head, he saw a stone pillar standing at the intersection of four enormous structures.
Calling it a stone pillar was not quite accurate. It was a round altar, seemingly made of both gold and jade, embedded in the platform.
The round altar was densely carved with all manner of strange runes. A single glance left Shi Qingyun dizzy.
An ethereal aura also lingered over it. The slightest attempt to sense it exposed Shi Qingyun to a pressure that transcended his level of existence.
It felt as though an immortal high above had turned his gaze upon Shi Qingyun, making his body tremble uncontrollably.
He let out a muffled groan and hastily withdrew his perception, not daring to probe further.
Slowly calming the divine power that had grown somewhat uncontrollable within him, he stepped toward the round altar.
He cautiously approached its side, only to find that nothing happened.
But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, a ray of light rose beneath his foot as it touched the ground.
An enormous circular formation emerged, centered on the round altar.
The formation was also spreading downward.
Chapter 52: The Formation Appears
Standing on the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform, Shi Qingyun was somewhat bewildered. Why had everything suddenly lit up?
The abrupt change had indeed caught him off guard.
The bright lights flickering before Shi Qingyun shone upon his face, chilling his heart through and through.
In a mere instant, the formation covered the ninth tier and began spreading down toward the steps below.
The lower tiers of the Dao Platform also glimmered faintly, their runes flashing incessantly.
The runes upon the Dao Platform kept changing, linking with one another to form new runes. Before long, they had joined into a single whole, seemingly resonating with the formation.
In the blink of an eye, the entire Ninth-Rank Dao Platform had become one complete formation.
As soon as the formation took shape, layers of restrictions appeared upon it. Shi Qingyun felt the pressure weighing on him slowly recede.
He felt as though another shackle had been placed upon him, but the changes before his eyes occupied all his attention, leaving him little room to consider anything else.
The runes detached from the Dao Platform, swiftly shedding their dark, ancient appearance and becoming dazzlingly golden.
Following the formation, the runes all converged upon the uppermost tier of the Dao Platform.
Shi Qingyun watched the golden runes swarm toward him. Each swam merrily through the air, leaving sharp whistles in its wake.
Shi Qingyun hurriedly darted aside. Even if being struck by one did him no harm, it certainly would not feel pleasant.
Once all the runes had gathered, they instantly appeared at different points across the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform, hovering there.
Their former liveliness vanished as they flickered in midair. The next instant, they descended together and merged into the ninth tier of the Dao Platform.
After the runes merged into it, that tier suddenly turned blood-red, with a metallic sheen.
Shi Qingyun immediately wanted to run down. Standing there felt like standing in a sea of blood, crimson stretching as far as the eye could see. He even seemed to hear the blood sea churning beside his ears.
A bloody stench spread through the air, and beneath his feet came the sensation of stepping on liquid.
Before he could take a step, however, blood-colored runes within the blood sea gathered into streams and poured into the round altar at its center.
As those blood-colored runes flowed in, the Dao patterns upon the altar surged. The next instant, an enormous golden pillar of light shot skyward from the round altar.
It scattered the mist shrouding the rift and pierced the clouds, seemingly linking itself to the heavens.
Shi Yi, who was still fighting, naturally noticed the enormous golden pillar not far away. The Order Divine Chains surging within his eyes slowly settled.
The roiling runes in his eyes also gradually grew still.
He glanced at the people from Primordial Divine Mountain around him and thought, They're lucky.
Then he turned his attention back to the golden pillar.
Upon seeing the golden pillar shoot into the sky, those from Primordial Divine Mountain likewise stopped paying attention to Shi Yi. Several who had wings went pale with fright.
"When the golden pillar rises, all things perish! Get out of here!"
The next instant, those from Primordial Divine Mountain turned into streaks of light and vanished from where they stood, fleeing madly toward the outskirts of the Starfall Mountain Range.
Shi Yi naturally cared nothing for their departure. He had only been tempering his Dao arts and physique. Had he also intended to spread his fame, he would have unleashed the power of his Double Pupils long ago.
How else could he have let them prance around before him for so long? But upon seeing the scene before him,
anger immediately flared within his heart. The situation showed faint signs of slipping beyond his control, which filled him with irritation.
Despite his anger, his hands did not slow. He immediately circulated his divine power and poured it into his eyes.
The next instant, a hue of chaos spread through Shi Yi's Double Pupils, which slowly began rotating within his eyes.
The runes within his Double Pupils linked together, countless densely packed symbols moving in orderly patterns within his eyes as he analyzed and comprehended the golden light before him.
He fixed his gaze upon the golden pillar, the power of his Double Pupils spreading forth to strip things back to their origins and look directly upon their essence.
Within his eyes appeared all the changes that occurred when the golden pillar touched the sky.
Numerous runes swiftly sprang out of the void, while more appeared in the skies throughout the Starfall Mountain Range, as though they had been there all along.
As if receiving a command, the runes rapidly connected with one another.
Before long, an enormous golden formation diagram appeared in the sky above the Starfall Mountain Range, spreading outward from the golden pillar at its center.
Soon, a barrier had risen over the entire Starfall Mountain Range.
From the void, linked Dao Imprints drifted down like rain.
They landed upon the great boulders and towering mountains, swiftly merging into them as though they had always been engraved there.
Patterns also appeared upon those mountains and boulders that resembled sharp swords, shimmering with mysterious light.
They connected with the Dao Imprints that landed upon them, and something seemed to be taking shape at the centers of those imprints.
Traces of sharpness and ponderous weight emanated from the Dao Imprints.
Upon seeing this sudden change, Shi Yi was about to leave when something seemed to occur to him.
He took out a faintly glowing fragment. Within it, a sacred strange beast with a dragon's head, a deer's antlers, and a horse's hooves seemed to be roaring.
Seeing the bone fragment shine ever more brightly as it drew closer to the valley, determination flashed in Shi Yi's eyes, and he charged swiftly toward the rift.
By now, golden light had enveloped the entire Starfall Mountain Range, and the blood-colored radiance released by the runes was growing ever denser.
The primordial aura within that red radiance also grew increasingly powerful, sweeping through the entire mountain range like a tornado.
When that aura brushed over the Ferocious Beasts within the Starfall Mountain Range,
their eyes instantly filled with blood-red light, and waves of bloodlust poured from their bodies.
As though they had found something their hearts had long craved, the Ferocious Beasts went mad in an instant.
Streams of red air billowed from their bodies, and every one of them roared.
The beasts' roars converged, their deafening thunder spreading to every corner of the Starfall Mountain Range.
Those from Primordial Divine Mountain, fleeing swiftly through the void with the aid of Treasure Artifacts, felt a chill shoot straight to their heads at the sight.
They immediately poured in more divine power, desperate to leave as quickly as possible.
But an enormous Ferocious Beast appeared in midair, opening its maw to reveal a mouthful of sharp fangs.
It opened its mouth toward the group and swallowed them in a single gulp. A series of crunches rang out.
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Chapter 53: The Lament of Ten Thousand Beasts
After roaring at the sky, the Ferocious Beasts immediately turned their blood-red eyes upon the other beasts beside them and lunged to bite.
At once, howls and agonized cries rang out amid sprays of blood.
The Ferocious Beasts throughout the Starfall Mountain Range began attacking one another indiscriminately.
Scenes of mutual slaughter erupted everywhere in the Starfall Mountain Range.
Every corner was filled with blood and fire, fallen trees, and shattered mountain rocks. Explosions and roars filled the entire range.
Scraps of flesh and blood stained everything. In an instant, the Starfall Mountain Range became a hell on earth.
Lives fell here like bright stars plummeting from the sky.
Chains also extended from the Dao Imprints upon the towering mountains and enormous boulders, each born within those imprints.
The chains lashed through the air, then precisely pierced one maddened Ferocious Beast after another. In a mere instant, the impaled beasts turned into skeletons and crashed to the ground.
The appearance of those chains made this hell even more eerie and cruel.
Oblivious, the Ferocious Beasts continued tearing into one another, unleashing their innate Precious Techniques and bombarding everything around them at random. Beneath the multicolored assaults of those Precious Techniques, lives were harvested like weeds.
As the Ferocious Beasts fell, specks of blood-colored light rose slowly from their bodies into the sky, where the chains absorbed them.
As those blood-colored motes were drawn out, the Ferocious Beasts became skeletons strewn across the ground.
Throughout the mountain range, blood-red specks the size of rice grains, vast as a sea of mist, could be seen being absorbed by the chains that flailed wildly like bared fangs and brandished claws.
Suddenly, a distant mountain peak began trembling incessantly, and the rocks, trees, flowers, and grasses upon it rapidly lifted from the ground.
Before long, an enormous beast's head buried beneath the earth emerged. Its eyes were like two immense suns, and each blink dislodged showers of dirt and stone.
Its enormous body slowly rose from beneath the earth. Pitch-black scales lay tightly packed together, and its four limbs stood upon the ground like pillars holding up the heavens, supporting its massive frame.
An intensely dangerous might radiated from its entire body, and an ancient, untamed aura poured from it.
It raised its head and roared at the heavens. The earth beneath its feet cracked inch by inch, resembling an enormous spiderweb.
With all four limbs planted on the ground, it seemed tall enough to touch the horizon. As its roar spread far and wide, the Ferocious Beasts slaughtering one another paused for an instant, and strange sounds arose throughout the Starfall Mountain Range.
In a mere instant, a tree and an old ape appeared upon the enormous peaks to either side of the great beast.
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