Chapter 55: A Black Egg?
Standing atop the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform, Shi Qingyun stared at the golden light before him, somewhat at a loss.
He felt things were developing beyond anything he had anticipated. Even atop the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform, he could hear waves of rumbling from outside it.
The shaking from the Dao Platform beneath him left him afraid to move a muscle, lest he touch something else and trigger another unpredictable change.
He waited where he stood. Only when the Dao Platform gradually steadied did the taut string in his heart loosen a little.
He looked toward the altar, where something seemed to be sending ripples through the space above it.
Shi Qingyun gritted his teeth and slowly approached the pillar of light radiating a sacred aura, carefully watching the strange glowing lines beneath his feet and avoiding them.
He walked slowly to the circular altar. Suddenly, the runes upon it darted about, as though playing with Shi Qingyun.
They drew Shi Qingyun's gaze, and he immediately saw that all the runes upon it were emitting a mysterious glow.
Their light fell across his face, and he realized it no longer brought the oppressive sensation he had felt before.
Instead, it felt warm, easing his tension despite himself.
The mysterious radiance of those runes made him want to reach out and touch them. Their light was so sacred, so bright.
It seemed that merely holding it in his hand would grant him eternity, making him immortal and indestructible, enduring through the ages.
Just as he was about to reach out, his body gave an involuntary shiver, and clarity swiftly returned to Shi Qingyun's hazy eyes.
He suppressed the jumbled thoughts in his mind and instantly came to his senses, immediately withdrawing the hand he had extended halfway.
Then he promptly averted his gaze and even retreated several steps.
Shi Qingyun felt a flicker of anger. He had nearly fallen for it again, and in the very same place. Danger truly lurked everywhere here.
He muttered inwardly:
Why is this thing getting stranger and stranger?
He forced himself not to look at the mysterious runes on the circular altar and instead tried to see what lay on top of it.
Shi Qingyun lightly pushed off the ground, and his body shot upward. Divine power surged through him as he tried to suspend himself in midair and investigate.
But the runes shrouding the Dao Platform flickered slightly in the air. The next moment, with a smack, his body was plastered against the ground.
The glowing runes beneath him shone upon his somewhat bewildered face.
Does this place suppress divine power, too? He hurriedly scrambled up, without even taking time to brush the dust off himself.
He swiftly circulated the mighty divine power within his body, only to feel it catching and dragging.
He immediately turned his attention inward and discovered that whenever his divine power surged, countless golden runes emerged.
Countless runes locked his meridians, firmly suppressing his divine power, as though a dam had been built inside him to block its surging flow.
He tried again. Sure enough, he could no longer manifest his Cave Heaven either. Chains resembling divine gold and emerald jade had sealed it.
They prevented it from manifesting in the outside world. Panic welled up in him. In a place this dangerous, being unable to use his divine power meant he could only wait for death if danger struck.
But the next moment, his heart steadied somewhat. Although he could no longer use divine power, his Qi-Blood Power still worked. At least he was not completely defenseless.
Although he had failed to hover, that brief leap had let him see clearly.
Apart from the golden light soaring into the sky, there was nothing atop the circular altar. He could not help feeling disappointed.
He even wondered whether his senses had been mistaken earlier.
But just as Shi Qingyun began doubting his judgment, a violent spatial fluctuation came from above the altar.
He hurriedly turned his gaze toward it, a keen gleam flashing in his eyes.
Within the golden light, space cracked slightly. The next moment, an object surrounded by countless runes slowly emerged from the fissure.
The rune-wrapped object slowly floated into the center of the golden light, bobbing there as it bathed in the radiance.
The instant Shi Qingyun saw the object bobbing within the golden light, delight welled up in his heart.
Wrapped in densely packed runes, the object hovered slowly above the circular altar, radiating a sacred, peaceful aura.
The moment it appeared, it became the center of the entire space, and the surrounding formations stalled for an instant.
The runes surrounding it slowly merged into the object, while the golden light enveloping it gradually receded.
And Shi Qingyun's expression slowly shifted from delighted anticipation to speechless bewilderment.
"Is that a black egg?"
He could not help speaking aloud as he looked at the object above the circular altar.
Moreover, Shi Qingyun saw a dense aura of death coiling around the black egg.
As though answering Shi Qingyun, the black egg released waves of mysterious fluctuations, accompanied by a strange cry.
The cry no longer held its earlier sorrow. Though still faint, it carried a trace of joy and a fierce will to survive.
As the fluctuations from the black egg silently spread, the entire Secret Realm suddenly grew restless.
The formation shrouding the Starfall Mountain Range spun rapidly into operation, and the chains within the Dao Imprints lashed about even faster.
Swathes of Ferocious Beasts fell beneath its sweeping blows, instantly turning into piles of white bones.
Outside the Starfall Mountain Range.
Within the Blood Pools Shi Qingyun had visited earlier, pitch-black, bloody runes flashing with red light emerged from the void.
Those runes instantly formed a formation, flickering beneath the Blood Pools.
A suction force spread slowly from the formation across the surrounding area. In an instant, every sign of life within its reach began to wither.
Streams of vitality were drawn from those living things and drifted slowly into the formation.
The formation seemed faintly connected to the one within the Starfall Mountain Range, channeling all the vitality it absorbed into the mountains.
The same scene unfolded throughout the Secret Realm.
The Secret Realm had looked like an immortal paradise moments before, but in the blink of an eye, everything crumbled to ash and smoke. Ruin and desolation lay everywhere.
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Chapter 56: Devouring All Things to Nourish Itself
Within the Starfall Mountain Range.
White bones piled upon one another. Enormous skeletons lay strewn through the mountains and deep forests, a veritable vision of hell on earth.
Near the outskirts of the Starfall Mountain Range, a heart-stopping battle was unfolding.
Countless densely packed chains rushed relentlessly toward three enormous Ferocious Beasts whose eyes had already turned red, while the beasts struggled beneath them.
After sensing the devouring intent within those chains earlier, all three Ferocious Beasts had begun burning their blood essence in exchange for greater power for a short time.
Waves of blood-red light continually surged from their bodies. Whenever the chains shooting out of the Dao Imprints wrapped around them, they shattered them with bursts of force.
But even though the three Ferocious Beasts were burning their blood essence to resist, they were merely mantises raising their forelegs against a chariot. Their efforts achieved little.
Every time they shattered a few chains, even more coiled toward them from all directions. By now, quite a number had already wrapped around their bodies.
The other ends of those chains remained attached to enormous pillars of mountain rock in the distance, leaving the three Ferocious Beasts unable to escape even if they tried.
As the cornered beasts fought, the surrounding earth looked as though it had been plowed. Black soil mingled with the flesh and blood of Ferocious Beasts that had strayed into the battlefield, turning it blackish red.
As time passed, more and more chains wrapped around them. Worse still, those chains could devour the essence of their flesh and blood.
The three Ferocious Beasts were already forcing themselves to burn blood essence to resist. Under the chains' frenzied devouring, their blood essence rapidly vanished.
Their auras grew weaker and weaker, while the number of chains coiling around them kept increasing.
The old ape was the first to give out. After it roared furiously at the sky, the chains easily shattered the blood-red barrier surrounding it.
Chains surging in from every direction swiftly pierced its body. They instantly pulled taut, slowly lifting the old ape into the air with all four limbs firmly bound.
The other two Ferocious Beasts did not hold out much longer. They fell to the ground one after another and were lifted into the air in the same manner, the essence of their flesh and blood being devoured as well.
Before long, countless interwoven golden and blood-red chains held three long-desiccated skeletons firmly suspended in the air.
Once those chains had drained the last trace of flesh and blood from the three enormous beast carcasses.
They detached themselves one after another, and the enormous skeletons crashed to the ground without their support.
Only three gigantic skeletons and a devastated landscape remained, while the chains had already swiftly returned to the Dao Imprints.
The blood-red color upon the Dao Imprints was so dense it seemed ready to drip. That crimson flowed along the channels around the imprints toward Shi Qingyun.
With the deaths of those three Ferocious Beasts, the Starfall Mountain Range gradually sank into silence.
All the Ferocious Beasts had died, and their corpses had been absorbed by the chains shooting out of the Dao Imprints, leaving only white bones behind.
As far as the eye could see, the entire Starfall Mountain Range looked as though it had been paved with white bones, a vast expanse of bones from every kind of Ferocious Beast.
Outside the Starfall Mountain Range.
If the Starfall Mountain Range was now a mountain range paved with white bones, then the land beyond it was a world paved with yellow sand.
It was equally inhospitable, as though any life entering this world of yellow sand would ultimately become a handful of yellow earth and merge into it.
On the sole surviving patch of green not far from the Starfall Mountain Range, a strange beast brimming with life essence hovered conspicuously above the yellow earth.
Beneath it, dense life essence flowed ceaselessly into its body.
As the life essence poured in, its form became increasingly lifelike, while everywhere it passed turned barren.
Looking around, it had already traveled through the entire Secret Realm and absorbed its life essence. This was the last place remaining.
Slowly, a divine beast took shape, with a lion's tail, horse's hooves, a deerlike body, sturdy limbs, and a pair of wings on its back, its whole body steeped in a dense aura of life.
It stood there proudly, looking so sacred and majestic, without the slightest trace of sin, as though it could make anyone forget that its birth had come from devouring the creatures of the entire Secret Realm.
The next moment, its wings beat and its four limbs stamped heavily upon the air. Carrying the dense life essence surrounding it, it charged toward the Starfall Mountain Range.
When its two pointed horns touched the barrier, it passed through without the slightest resistance.
It raced toward the fissure at tremendous speed.
Atop the Ninth-Rank Dao Platform.
Shi Qingyun watched the essence of heaven and earth pouring down ceaselessly from overhead, feeling somewhat astonished.
The black egg upon the circular altar was emitting a fluctuation, and that fluctuation seemed to resonate with this world.
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