Qin Tiexin looked into Duan Xuan's eyes. Her eyes did not dodge.
"If you follow me, you will miss a lot of fortuitous opportunity." He said, "True Person Iron Bone's double hammers are at least Spirit Artifact level. Those elders cave abode may also have pills and Cultivation Method."
"It's okay." Duan Xuan stared straight at Qin Tiexin, "I've found what I want."
Qin Tiexin didn't persuade him any more. He kicked away the marked gravel on the ground and leaned against the broken wall and closed his eyes.
In the early morning of the next day, the sky was gray and the two of them continued walking northwest.
When they rounded the southern foot of the elder mountain peak, three Stone-Scaled Lizard jumped out from the gravel slope, but their cultivation level was no more than Peak of Qi Refining. Qin Tiexin knocked over two of them with two swords. Duan Xuan used a whip to wrap up the hind legs of the third one and threw it into the air. The long sword followed and pierced its eye socket. The two of them didn't even stop, they collected the lizard corpse and continued on their way.
The further you go to the northwest, the sparser the ruins become. The buildings along the way no longer have the pattern of high-walled halls, but are replaced by the remains of some low stone houses with rougher stone walls, which look like places where outer disciples or servants live. Going further forward, there are even fewer stone houses, leaving only bare gravel slopes and low bushes.
Two hours later, Qin Tiexin stopped.
This place is close to the northwest edge of the entire ruins. Not far away, you can see the remaining halo of the mountain sealing formation slowly flowing in the air.
In front of them is an open flat land, the terrain is slightly sunken, surrounded by mountains on three sides, like a shallow stone bowl. On the edge of the flat ground stands a crooked stone gate, with a broken stone plaque across the lintel. Most of the writing on it has been weathered, and only three vague inscriptions can still be read:
Mystic Bone Mausoleum.
Behind the stone gate is a piece of dark land, like some kind of special soil. The space in the cemetery is huge, at least a hundred feet in diameter. There are no buildings or altars inside. There are only low earth bags scattered on the black land, and there are a few collapsed stone houses in the corners.
Qin Tiexin stood in front of the stone gate and took a look deep into the cemetery. Most of the area was a flat open space. There were no monks who came to hunt for treasures around, and there was not even a trace of Demon Beast.
He soon figured out the reason: among the monks in the world of cultivation, life and death were unpredictable. Those who retreated to Qi Deviation, those who were defeated and died in battles, those who went deep into dangerous places and never came out again, most of them had no bones left.
Most of the mausoleums in the Zhengdao Sect are buried in cenotaphs, which contain only a few relics of the monks during their lifetimes as a memorial to their friends. A place like Mystic Bone Mausoleum is a worthless place in the eyes of any treasure-hunting monk. There is no Spirit Stone, no Law Artifact, no Cultivation Method, just a piece of black soil.
Precisely because no one came, it was extremely quiet here.
Qin Tiexin found a flat open space, inserted Edgeless on the ground beside him, squatted down, and inserted his hands into the black soil. The soil was soft and dry, and there was almost no resistance when digging with his fingers. He did not use a shovel, but just dug out the soil in handfuls with his hands. The black soil fell rustling between his fingers, and he patted the pit wall tightly and flat.
The pit was dug to a depth of three feet, and Qin Tiexin pulled out the first white skeleton from Storage Bag. The skeleton was intact, with both palms touching the ground, and there was a trace of healing from an old wound on the shoulder blades.
Qin Tiexin placed the skeleton flat on the bottom of the pit, and then filled it back with handfuls of soil. The black soil fell on the white bones, covering the skeleton layer by layer from shallow to deep. After filling it, he gently patted the loose soil with the palm of his hand.
Duan Xuan handed over a wooden board from the side, which she cut from a dead tree trunk with her sword. Qin Tiexin took the wooden board and inserted it into the black soil in front of the tomb.
He carved two words on the wooden board with his finger.
Zhao Shi.
Qin Tiexin stood up and stood in front of the wooden sign for a moment. He had read this name from the remnants of the bones when he was collecting the remains - Body Tempering Eighth Layer, who had been in the Iron Spine Sect for three years and was an outer disciple. He lowered his head to the wooden sign and turned to walk to the next location.
Duan Xuan stood next to him and followed the rhythm of Qin Tiexin. When Qin Tiexin dug the hole, she chipped the board; Qin Tiexin placed the remains and she handed the board over.
Zhou Tie, Wang Li, Li Xing
The names were engraved on wooden plaques one by one. The sound of the wooden boards being inserted into the black soil was very soft, but each piece inserted was like hammering a nail into this cemetery that had been empty for too long.
A pit, a bone, a wooden sign, and a name.
One. Ten. One hundred.
Three hours later.
Qin Tiexin placed the last skeleton - the skeleton of the deputy sect master Zhou Jun - flatly on the bottom of the pit. This skeleton was thicker than all the previous ones, and the arm bones of both arms were covered with fine bone spurs, which were traces of Body Refining's five hundred and sixty years of career.
Qin Tiexin's movements were slower and lighter than before. He adjusted the position of each rib of the deputy master to be symmetrical, put the bones of his hands that were touching the ground together on his chest, and then began to fill in the soil.
The last handful of black soil fell on the grave. Qin Tiexin stood up and took the last wooden board from Duan Xuan. He inserted the wooden board into the soil and carved the words "Zhou Jun" on it.
Five hundred and seventy-eight wooden plaques were arranged in more than twenty rows on the black soil. Each row was straight and each wooden plaque was neat. The color of the wooden plaques ranged from light yellow to dark brown, but the names engraved on them were completely consistent in terms of font size and stroke depth.
Qin Tiexin and Duan Xuan stood side by side in front of the wooden sign, looking at the 578 tombs that suddenly appeared on this black land.
The mausoleum was eerily quiet. The wind blew from the edge of the formation in the northwest direction and passed through the gaps between the wooden plaques, making a very subtle whining sound, as if these wooden plaques were breathing softly for those who could not speak.
Qin Tiexin thought of Meridian Opening Early Stage's Cultivation Method master Fang Yue, of Meridian Opening Middle Stage's deputy sect leader Zhou Jun, and of True Person Iron Bone, the old man who stood on the top of the tower and angered Devil King with an understatement before he died.
Take any one of these people and you can be a core elder if you put them in the Flowing Cloud Sect. But in front of Devil King Ye Cang, they can't even maintain the mountain-protecting formation.
Qin Tiexin took a deep breath, bent down, and made a long bow to the densely packed wooden signs in front of him. Duan Xuan followed him and bent down, his movements were slower than him, but the bend was just as deep.
After straightening up, Qin Tiexin took out Wind-Rending Dagger from the storage ring. He put the dagger against the palm of his left hand and slashed hard.
The toughness of his skin was much higher than that of ordinary people. Wind-Rending Dagger's blade made a very subtle hiss when it passed across his palm. Qin Tiexin's expression did not change, he turned his palm downwards and his fingers were slightly spread. Dark red and almost black blood gushes out from the wound in his palm, and fell drop by drop on the black soil in front of the tomb.
Duan Xuan pulled out his dagger, Qin Tiexin stretched out his right hand and held down her wrist.
"This matter has nothing to do with you."
Duan Xuan glanced at him and put the dagger back into its sheath without insisting.
Qin Tiexin took Wind-Rending Dagger back into the sheath, and clenched Bleeding's fist with his left hand, and did not release it until the wound began to close on its own.
He faced the wooden sign in front of him and said silently in his heart, "This revenge has been recorded. If I succeed in my cultivation in the future, I will definitely step into Central Heaven Great Region to avenge everyone."
Swear by blood.
Duan Xuan took out a clean cloth strip from Storage Bag, pulled it over Qin Tiexin's left hand, wrapped the wound twice, and tied a knot in the palm of his hand. The wound had basically healed, and there was only a little blood on the strip.
The two of them did not look back and walked side by side towards the outside of Mystic Bone Mausoleum.
"Let's go." Qin Tiexin said, "There is still more than a day, so we can't waste it."
Behind them, under the black soil stained with Qin Tiexin's blood.
The blood did not spread along the soil. It seemed to be pulled by some force and seeped down rapidly in one direction. It passed through layers of black soil, through the gravel layer, through the rock plate as hard as iron, and through the depth of the entire cemetery foundation. It could not stop, the direction was clear, and the speed became faster and faster. It penetrated to the very depths of the underground, to the depths that even the underground palace square had not touched, and the traction force suddenly sucked it in.
That's an arm bone.
It is not entirely correct to say that it is an arm bone. It is more than five feet long, longer than the entire length of a normal adult man's arm. Every phalanx from the shoulder joint to the fingertips is completely preserved, but there is not a trace of flesh and blood left on the surface. The skin is like dehydrated old bark and is tightly attached to the bones, so tight that even the lines of blood vessels are clearly visible.
The entire arm is like a piece of dry firewood, buried under this black soil for who knows how many years. It has no spiritual power fluctuations, no vitality, no temperature, and is as silent as a fossil. Even the most sensitive detector type Law Artifact may not be able to sense its existence.
But at the moment when Qin Tiexin's blood seeped into the arm bone, a tendon deep in the arm bounced very slightly.
Immediately afterwards, the layer of skin on the surface of the arm bone that was tightly attached to the bone began to tremble slightly, and fine gray-brown powder fell from the surface of the skin, revealing the densely packed runes underneath.
Each rune is as small as corn, engraved layer by layer on every inch of the arm bone, without any gaps from beginning to end. The runes were originally dim, but after absorbing those few drops of blood, the outermost circle of runes began to glow with a very faint dark golden halo.
A very low muffled sound came from inside the arm.
Plop.
Plop.
The runes on the arm bones were lit up one by one starting from the fingertips, as if something that had been sleeping for more than two hundred years was awakening layer by layer.
Then, a voice came from deep in the arm.
The voice was hoarse and weak, as if there was thousands of years of dust stuck in the throat, and every word was roughened.
"Who... awakened... me?"