Divine Oracle Stele
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The cold light from the luminous pearl in the stone chamber fell on Xue Beng's face, making his thin features stand out even more. The moment Nan Feng put away the Heaven Dou Immortal Master token and placed it into the Tower Spirit Space, Old Huai's voice rang in his mind, carrying an unusual solemnity.
"Wait. The reliefs on the stone wall... I recognize those patterns."
Nan Feng's hand froze in mid-air. He looked again at the bas-reliefs on the four walls of the stone chamber. Under the cold white glow of the luminous pearl, the carvings were deeply and shallowly embedded in the stone walls. The outline of the Nine-Layer Tower was depicted on each of the four walls. Each Nine-Layer Tower had the same number of stories but was carved in a different way. The one on the east side had a nine-story pagoda standing upright with a halo at the top. The one on the south side had a leaning pagoda with eight cracks at the bottom spreading outwards. The one on the west side had interlaced stories, as if the pagoda was rotating and twisting. The one on the north side was the simplest, with only nine horizontal lines overlapping, the top horizontal line extending into countless fine lines.
"The east side depicts the Pagoda God at its peak," Old Huai's voice trembled slightly. "The south side shows the pagoda when it shattered. The west side shows its Samsara... and the north side, that side shows the nine stories combined."
Nan Feng walked to the north wall and touched the nine horizontal lines with his fingertips. The dark gold patterns in the tower suddenly lit up the moment his fingertips touched the stone wall. A bluish-gold light surged from his palm into the engravings, and the nine horizontal lines lit up one by one, progressing layer by layer from bottom to top. When the top horizontal line lit up, a muffled vibration came from deep within the stone wall, as if some mechanism that had been dormant for too long had begun to operate.
"There's nothing behind this wall," Nan Feng said softly.
Xue Beng turned around from beside the stone table, watching the resonance between the light in Nan Feng's palm and the carvings on the stone wall, a fleeting emotion flashed in his eyes. He didn't speak, but walked to the stone wall, took out an ancient bronze key from his waist, and inserted it into a tiny groove in the lower right corner of the north wall.
The stone wall split open silently. A deeper passage appeared before the two of them. The stone walls on both sides of the passage were covered with densely packed characters—characters that Nan Feng had never seen before. The strokes were square and ancient, and dark golden light flowed faintly in each engraving.
"The deepest part of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's secret passage." Xue Beng's voice echoed through the passage. "This passage has been sealed since my great-grandfather's generation. Only those of direct royal blood can open the outermost stone door. But the seal inside—" He looked at Nan Feng, "Requires Primordial World Power."
Nan Feng stepped into the passage. The Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light, and the distribution of Spiritual Power throughout the passage was clearly visible—the dark golden light spots on the stone walls converged into thin lines, extending from the entrance of the passage all the way to the end, finally condensing in the stone chamber at the end of the passage. The concentration of Spiritual Power in that stone chamber was more than ten times higher than that in the secret passage, as if all the light spots were flowing in that direction.
At the end of the passage was a circular stone chamber. The chamber's dome was extremely high, at least five zhang (approximately 10 meters) high, and in the center of the dome was a fist-sized dark golden crystal, within which flowed light patterns that were exactly the same as the star patterns on the Nan Feng Tower. In the very center of the chamber stood a stone tablet—about the height of a person, entirely black as ink, yet its surface shimmered with dark golden runes, the arrangement of which was almost identical to the patterns on the tower's surface.
The front of the stone tablet was carved with a relief of Nine-Layer Tower. Unlike the four walls outside the secret passage, the Nine-Layer Tower on this stone tablet was fully open— Nine-Layer Tower doors were wide open, and the surface of the pagoda showed no rust or cracks. Each door had a different rune carved inside. Nan Feng counted them, and he only recognized three of the nine runes, which he had seen on the pagoda before—the first rune, Mountain Suppression, the fourth, Return to Origin, and the fifth, Space-Time. The other six runes were blurry and indistinct, as if they had been deliberately erased by some force.
Below the relief was a line of text. Those words were also ancient characters that Nan Feng had never seen before, but the Primordial World Imprint on the depths of his soul trembled slightly, directly conveying the meaning of those words to him.
"When the Tower Master returns, the Divine Realm will crumble. When the Primordial World reappears, all realms will be restored to their rightful place. Cultivators will emerge, and God King can subdue them."
The moment Nan Feng uttered the words, the entire stone chamber trembled violently. The light patterns in the dark golden crystal of the dome swirled wildly, all the runes on the surface of the stone tablet lit up, and the nine runes in the Nine-Layer Tower relief simultaneously emitted a beam of dark golden light, which converged on Nan Feng's forehead.
Old Huai's voice exploded in my mind, filled with excitement and trembling that had been suppressed for too long. "The oracle of the Pagoda God! This is the oracle inscribed by the master before his fall! He foresaw your arrival—he foresaw that the inheritor of the Primordial World would return with his pagoda!"
Nan Feng stood before the stone tablet, the dark golden light on his forehead continuously infusing the Primordial World Imprint, and the cyan-gold light deep within his soul was rapidly expanding. He sensed a dormant power within the stone tablet being awakened by his Primordial World Power; that power was more ancient than Soul Power and purer than Divine Power, carrying a primordial quality reminiscent of the beginning of chaos.
"The Primordial World Power..." Nan Feng whispered.
"Yes." Old Huai's voice gradually calmed down from its initial excitement, becoming exceptionally solemn, "Primordial World Power —that shattered ancient world's origin. You are the last inheritor of the Primordial World."
Xue Beng stood at the entrance of the stone chamber, silently watching the dark golden light emanating from the stone tablet intertwine with the light pattern on Nan Feng's forehead. Complex emotions surged in his eyes, but in the end, he only asked one question, "What does the writing on this stone tablet mean?"
Nan Feng was silent for a moment, then turned to look at Xue Beng. He had completely understood the inscription on the stone tablet; the Primordial World Imprint had etched the meaning of each of the twenty characters into his soul—more direct than any interpretation.
"It means," Nan Feng said, "That I don't cultivate the path of Soul Master, nor the path of a god. I cultivate a path higher than that of a god: Immortal Cultivation."
Xue Beng's pupils contracted slightly. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing. As a prince who had survived the infighting within the royal family, he knew better than anyone that knowing too much wasn't necessarily a good thing. He simply nodded, pulled the bronze key from its groove, and stepped back to the entrance of the passage. "I'll wait for you outside."
The Xue Beng disappeared around the corner of the passage. Only the Nan Feng and the stone tablet remained in the stone chamber.
Old Huai emerged from the Tower Spirit Space, his semi-transparent figure standing before the stone tablet, his blurry old face exceptionally clear in the dark golden light. He reached out and gently stroked the Nine-Layer Tower relief on the stone tablet, his fingers tracing the runes one by one.
"When our master left his Primordial World homeland, he came to the Douluo Plane." Old Huai's voice was soft, as if afraid of disturbing something. "He found the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and planted the Soul-Suppressing Azure Lotus beside the spring. Then he sat before this stone tablet—at that time, this stone tablet was still by Dragon God Lake —and carved these words."
Nan Feng watched the Old Huai's retreating figure. "He knew I would come."
"He knew someone would come." Old Huai turned around, his semi-transparent face bearing an expression Nan Feng had never seen before—a mixture of crying and laughing. "But he didn't know it would be you. The Primordial Origin is scattered across countless planes, Douluo Plane is merely one fragment. When he carved these words, he thought—one day, someone will bring the Primordial Origin to this tower. That will be the day the Tower Master returns."
Nan Feng placed his hand on the stone tablet. Primordial World Power surged from his palm into the tablet, completely awakening the dormant power within it. Dark golden light spread from the tablet's surface to the entire stone chamber, from the chamber to the passage, and from the passage to the four bas-relief stone walls outside the secret passage. The entire secret passage of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family trembled, and all the dark golden light spots in the stone walls lit up, converging into a river of light that flowed from the depths of the passage, ultimately pouring into Nan Feng's Tower Spirit Space.
The nine levels of the tower trembled simultaneously. The Mountain Suppression- Suppressing Rune on the first level, the Origin- Return to Origin Rune on the fourth level, and the Space-Time Rune on the fifth level all shone brightly, and the runes on the second and third levels also lit up. The door on the sixth level, which originally had only a thin crack, suddenly split open by one-third under the impact of the dark golden light, and black Power of Return to the Void surged out from the crack, forming the first black annihilation pattern on the surface of the tower.
"The sixth level is one-third open." Old Huai's voice came through the tremors. "Completely opening it requires the Seventh Soul Ring, but one-third is enough for you. The Power of Return to the Void can shatter energy attacks—enemy Soul Skill, domains, and even God Level energy impacts can be partially shattered by the Power of Return to the Void."
Nan Feng sensed the changes in the tower. All Nine-Layer Tower doors responded to varying degrees in the dark golden light—the already opened levels became more stable, the half-open levels continued to open, and the unopened levels developed deeper cracks. The Tower Spirit Space expanded again under the infusion of dark golden light, from 150 cubic meters to 300 cubic meters, and the time flow rate increased from two to one to three to one.
The dark golden light on the stone tablet gradually stabilized after being continuously infused. Nan Feng withdrew his hand, and the stone tablet returned to its original pitch-black state, with only the dark golden runes on its surface still faintly flickering. Beneath the base of the stone tablet, a fist-sized dark golden crystal emerged from the crack in the stone—a smaller version of the crystal in the center of the dome, also flowing with star-patterned light.
"The Tower Soul Stone," the Old Huai said, "Is a crystallized Tower Soul nurtured within the stone tablet. Once integrated into the tower's body, it can further stabilize the Space-Time Power of the fifth level. The master deliberately left it behind—he knew the later inheritor would need it."
Nan Feng stored the Tower Soul Stone into the Tower Spirit Space. As soon as the dark golden crystal entered the tower, the Space-Time Power the fifth floor immediately became more solid, and the time flow rate in the Tower Spirit Space stabilized at three to one. He estimated in his mind that one day outside was equivalent to three days inside the tower. With the time difference he had already accumulated, his cultivation speed of Immortal Dao divine abilities was three times faster than that of ordinary cultivators.
"There's one more thing," Old Huai pointed to the back of the stone tablet.
The Nan Feng bypassed the stone tablet. On the back were three lines of extremely small characters, the ink lighter than the inscription on the front, as if carved with fingertip blood. When the Old Huai saw those characters, its remnant soul trembled violently, and its semi-transparent figure almost disintegrated.
"Master... Master's last message." Old Huai's voice was barely audible. "Before he fell... he engraved these words on the back of the stone tablet. It will only appear after someone in the Tower Spirit Space activates the tablet with Primordial World Power."
Nan Feng looked down. The three lines of words on the back of the stone tablet resonated with his Primordial World Imprint, transforming into meaning. Each word was like a needle piercing the depths of his soul.
The first line reads, "Beyond the Abyss Gate of the Myriad Realms. The tower holds its key, and the immortals seal it."
The second line reads, "My strength is exhausted here; you shall carry on my will. The tower may be mended, but the path to immortality must not be severed."
The third line reads, "The Primordial World will never perish, and there will eventually be a time for its return."
Nan Feng stood before the stone tablet for a long time. The dark golden crystal on the stone chamber's dome slowly rotated above his head, its light soft and constant. The red ribbon on his left wrist swayed gently in the dark golden halo, like a coordinate spanning countless years.
Old Huai stood beside him, the semi-transparent remnant soul now completely stabilized. The wrinkles on his old face had smoothed out considerably, and even his beard seemed neater. He didn't speak again, but quietly looked at the three lines of words on the back of the stone tablet.
"Beyond the Abyss," Nan Feng finally spoke, "the Gate of the Myriad Realms. The Tower is its key, the Immortals its seal."
Old Huai nodded. "Your ancestor perished while guarding the Gate of the Myriad Realms. The Abyssal Outer Domain has been constantly eroding the boundaries of all realms, and the Tower is the key to sealing it. Your Primordial World Power is the root of the seal. That's why Gu Yuena said your Tower is the key to sealing the Abyss, but your Primordial World Power is the root of the seal."
Nan Feng withdrew his hand from the stone tablet. He turned around, walked out of the stone chamber, through the passage, and returned to the stone chamber with reliefs on all four walls outside the secret passage. Xue Beng was leaning against the stone table, wiping the bronze key with a cloth. Hearing footsteps, he looked up.
"Did you see the stone tablet?" Xue Beng asked.
The Nan Feng nodded.
Xue Beng retrieved the bronze key from his waist and walked up to Nan Feng: "I don't care what's written on the stone tablet. My stance hasn't changed—you help me remove the Spirit Hall's spies in Heaven Dou, and I'll give you access to the treasure vault. Three things, plus the Chaos Stone."
Nan Feng looked into Xue Beng's eyes. In those eyes were ambition, patience, and a sharpness that had been suppressed for too long. Nan Feng knew that Xue Beng wouldn't ask about the stone tablet, just as he wouldn't ask Xue Beng why he was so familiar with the secrets deep within the royal secret passage.
"The seal will be opened in three days," Nan Feng said.
Xue Beng nodded and turned to walk towards the exit of the secret passage. After taking a few steps, he paused. "By the way, I've already spread the word that Chrysanthemum Douluo is hunting you. Starting tomorrow, news of the assassination attempt on the Heaven Dou Immortal Master will spread throughout the continent. If the Spirit Hall doesn't acknowledge it, it will be tantamount to admitting the pursuit failed. Bibi Dong can't afford to lose face like that."
Nan Feng's lips curved slightly.
After the Xue Beng subsided, Nan Feng stood alone in the secret passage. The reliefs on the four walls silently watched him in the cold light of the luminous pearls. Old Huai's voice came from the Tower Spirit Space: "This kid is even more cunning than you."
"He has his ambitions," Nan Feng said. "I have my own path. There's no conflict."
He sat cross-legged in the secret passage, his dragon wings folded and pressed against his spine. The nine lotus seeds of the Soul-Suppressing Azure Lotus in the Tower Spirit Space pulsated steadily, perfectly synchronized with his heartbeat. The Return to Origin Power continuously flowed out from the fourth-level tower door, Space-Time Power of the fifth level circulated smoothly under the stabilization of the Tower Soul Stone. The Power of Return to the Void seeping from the door of the sixth level, which was one-third cracked, formed new black patterns on the surface of the tower.
The level 56 Soul Power remained unchanged at non-multiples of 10, but the liquid Primordial World Power in the dantian was more condensed than before. The rudimentary form of the Golden Core solidified further during the compression. Although it was still far from a true Golden Core, every bit of solidification was a real step forward.
Three days. Nan Feng closed his eyes and immersed himself in cultivation within the Tower Spirit Space. Three days outside, nine days inside the tower. Nine days were enough for him to thoroughly understand the third threshold of the Shrinking the Ground to an Inch Mountain Suppression Art to a higher level, and initially grasp the basic application methods of the Power of Return to the Void.
The red ribbon on her left wrist swayed gently in the cold light of the luminous pearl. Deep within the secret passage, the dark gold runes on the stone tablet flickered faintly in the darkness, as if responding to the star patterns on the Nan Feng Tower. When the Tower Master returns, the Divine Realm will collapse. When the Primordial World reappears, all realms will be restored to their rightful place. When cultivators emerge, God King can suppress them.
The Old Huai retreated back into the immortal tree, its old face nestled among the branches, its eyes quietly closing in the dark golden light. It didn't curse anymore, but only muttered something softly. Nan Feng didn't hear it clearly, but he knew what the Old Huai said.
"Master, he's here."