Chen Yong stared at the faint, dark Azure Dragon mark on the Primordial Mirror for a moment, his wariness remaining. The gray abyss and the ancient palace at the bottom of the pool that had appeared just now were enough to explain many things. The Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon had long resided in the cold pool, and it was even very likely that it was responsible for protecting, suppressing, or sealing this ancient palace.
Now that the Demon Dragon Annihilation, the Ancient Palace has reappeared, and the Primordial Mirror has left behind remnants of True Annihilation related to it, all of this points to the same true goal of their journey.
Chen Yong quickly reviewed all the instructions left by the clan elders before their departure, then slowly closed his five fingers, and the three-inch bronze mirror reverted to a wisp of ancient light that disappeared into his brow.
He stood up, the gray-black spear returning to his right hand. His gaze swept over the faces of the five people behind him, confirming that they had stabilized their Fate Soul injuries after a short period of rest, before he slowly spoke, "Let's go, let's go down. This ancient temple at the bottom of the pool is our real mission."
The five men all became solemn. No one truly relaxed just because the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon had Annihilation. They each stopped their meditation posture, gripped their divine weapons again, and followed Chen Yong in the same positions where they had been looking out for each other.
Six figures left the Frosty Crystal Cliff and slowly descended along the vast passage that had been completely cleared by the waters of the Nine Nether Pool. On either side, towering black-blue water walls, thousands of feet high, stood silently, their interiors revealing numerous frozen threads of cause and effect and fragmented life marks.
Some of the ancient creatures' blurry outlines even retained the last movement before sinking into the pool. Their eyes, hands, and robes were frozen in the depths of the cold water. When the six people passed among them, not a single afterimage changed, but the oppressive feeling of being stared at by the ages lingered in their hearts.
The further they went, the dimmer the surrounding light became, and the yin chill accumulated in the Nine Nether Cold Pool grew heavier. In the latter half, the six could no longer rely on ordinary senses to confirm their landing point. They could only use their Fate Soul to verify each other's direction, and step by step approach the deepest part of the pool along the gray stone steps that the pool water had given way to.
The Dark Ruins Return Hall was finally fully revealed before their eyes. Upon closer inspection, the six realized that the scale of this ancient palace was even more astonishing than when they had viewed it from above. The entire palace lay horizontally above the abyss at the bottom of the pool, with twelve gray-silver pillars of light piercing vertically from the palace foundation into the deeper darkness, steadily supporting the massive palace structure.
Most surprisingly, despite being submerged in the Nine Nether Cold Pool for countless years, this ancient palace shows no signs of erosion in the normal sense. The walls, built of dark blue ancient stone, are intact, and the nine-layered roof has clear edges. There is no moss, cracks, or peeling between the stone seams, nor any signs of frost erosion that should appear after long exposure to the Nine Nether Cold Water.
The broken ring hanging high in the center of the roof ridge still retains its original form. Although the surface is covered with cracks, the cracks themselves appear extremely ancient, clearly existing long before the ancient palace sank to the bottom of the pool.
The gray vertical pupils on either side of the palace gate, one open and one closed, remained embedded in the dark stone door. Inside the slightly open vertical pupil on the right, a colorless vortex was slowly rotating. As soon as the six people approached within a hundred feet, the vertical pupil turned slightly on its own, as if some ancient will that had been dormant for a long time had regained its senses of the visitors.
Chen Yong immediately stopped, pressed his left hand back, and the five people behind him all stopped. He did not make a move rashly, but stood at the bottom of the 999 gray stone steps and looked up to observe the palace gate. After a moment, the colorless vortex inside the vertical pupil of the right door slowly stopped, and then, two black doors, each tens of feet high, opened inward from the center.
There was no heavy grinding sound, and no dust fell.
When the palace doors opened, there was no sign of age or stagnation at the hinges. The heavy stone doors slowly slid open to the sides, revealing a wide and deep inner corridor. The six people exchanged glances, Chen Yong took the lead in stepping onto the stone steps.
Above the 999 stone steps, the ancient footprints that had only led in and never returned appeared even clearer up close. Some footprints were extremely deep, with the lingering echoes of frozen Fate Soul still visible at their edges; others were so light that they were almost indistinguishable, leaving only a faint outline. Chen Yong did not step on any of the old footprints, each step landing on a blank space, and the five people behind him did the same in unison.
Once the six people had truly crossed the palace gate, the dark stone door behind them did not close on its own but remained open. However, the Nine Nether Cold Pool outside quickly lost all sound and presence, and even the two suspended water walls could no longer be sensed. The interior of the ancient palace was completely isolated from the outside world.
The inner hall corridor was extremely wide, with a headless stone statue standing every hundred feet on both sides. These statues were dressed in ancient battle robes of different styles, with their hands either holding swords, holding seals, or hanging emptily at their sides. No two statues had the same posture.
The heads of the stone statues had all been neatly removed, the cuts smooth and flat, without even a trace of breakage. In the center of each neck was a dull crystal of a different color. As Chen Yong and his group of six passed by, the crystals did not light up, but with each stone statue they passed, they felt the space behind them grow heavier.
The walls on both sides of the corridor also lack murals, instead displaying numerous ancient runes that are disconnected from each other. These runes are not fully connected, as if a vast ancient scripture had been largely removed, leaving only a few incomprehensible fragments.
Further away, a row of ancient, flameless, gray-white lamps hung from the ceiling of the corridor. As the six walked forward, the lamps in front of them would light up on their own, while the lamps behind them would go out one by one, maintaining only enough light for a few hundred feet around them. The woman with the sword looked back several times, but all that remained behind her was a deep darkness. The entrance was still there, but it had been swallowed up by darkness.
Chen Yong didn't stop. He led the five people through the long corridor and past three interconnected side halls. The first side hall was empty, with only broken crystal chips scattered on the floor that had lost their luster. The second hall contained hundreds of empty stone platforms, each with a dent in the center left after something was forcibly taken away.
The third side hall was the most eerie. All four walls were inlaid with ancient mirrors of different sizes, but when the six people passed through, not a single mirror reflected their image. Only after leaving the third side hall did a wide stone staircase finally appear in front of them, leading up to the true central main hall of the entire Dark Ruins Return Hall.
The moment the six people stepped into the main hall, they all stopped in their tracks. The place was far more magnificent than they had imagined from the outside.
The main hall has a high ceiling that is hundreds of feet high. There are no windows on any side, but it is always shrouded in a faint gray-silver light. There are thirty-six giant pillars in the hall, each of which requires more than ten people to hug. The pillars are not carved with patterns, but are wrapped with a gray-white light band composed of countless tiny ancient characters.
The ancient characters are not fixed; they are constantly changing position, sometimes forming rings, sometimes scattering into lines, and sometimes engulfing each other and regenerating. The floor of the main hall is paved with a single piece of dark blue ancient stone.
Extending from the palace gate to its deepest point, there are no gaps between the pieces. Seven huge concentric circles are distributed on it. The first circle is engraved with mountains, rivers and stars, the second circle with the birth and death of the sun and moon, the third circle with the outlines of all races. The further in you go, the fewer the patterns there are. When you reach the seventh circle, there is only a completely blank circle.
Above the central blank circular area, a treasure box floated, and all six people's gazes instantly fell upon it.
The box was only about a foot long and half a foot wide, with an overall narrow hexagonal shape, and it did not have any of the common gold or jade texture. The box body seemed to be formed from an ancient crystal with a dark gray and bluish tint. The surface was not transparent, but occasionally a very faint light would flash through the inside.
The strangest thing is that it has no obvious seams on the lid. The six sides are completely connected to each other, like a whole naturally formed closed crystal, with only a very thin black line in the very center. That line extends from the front of the box to the back, connecting end to end to form a closed seal.
At each of the four corners of the treasure box hangs a small, silver-black ancient ring, about the size of a fingernail. The four rings do not touch the box, but they rotate slowly around it. Each time they rotate once, a string of unrecognizable ancient runes emerges from within the rings. These runes do not dissipate after leaving the rings, but instead form layers of three-dimensional rune trails around the treasure box.
The first layer of runes is close to the box and slowly reverses direction, while the second layer is further away and rotates in the opposite direction. The third layer is the most indistinct, only briefly appearing when it passes through a certain angle. The three layers of runes never collide with each other, yet they always firmly seal the treasure box in the center.
Buzz!!! Just as Chen Yong and his group of six entered the main hall, all the runes around the treasure box paused for a moment. Then, the outermost ancient rune slowly turned towards the six of them.
The rune resembled a closed eye. A moment later, a second, a third, and dozens of other ancient runes began to rotate, all facing the direction where Chen Yong group of six were located.
The five men's expressions changed drastically. Chen Yong raised his left hand, signaling everyone to stop where they were. He did not approach immediately because, at the moment those runes "looked" at them, he clearly felt that the deepest part of his Fate Soul was gently touched by something of uncertain origin.
There was no intrusion, no killing intent, and no oppression; it was just a very brief confirmation. After that, all the runes began to rotate again, and the treasure box remained quietly suspended in the center of the hall. The black line on the surface of the gray-blue box, which closed at both ends, slowly began to glow with a very faint light.
Chen Yong tightened his grip on the spear little by little. They had gone through countless hardships to cross the Nine Nether Cold Pool, slay the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon, True Annihilation Realm · Supreme expert, and then entered the Dark Ruins Return Hall, a place that had never truly been revealed to the outside world.