txolops Chapter 699 Jade Slip! Yuan Lingzi of the Great Yu Dynasty!
Chapter 699 Jade Slip! Yuan Lingzi of the Great Yu Dynasty!
The light was extremely faint, like a firefly struggling to light itself in endless darkness.
Upon closer inspection, the color of the light was not gold, blue, or white, but a pure, absolute deep red.
It was as red as blood, yet deeper than blood.
The red light slowly spread in the darkness, forming a small dot between his eyebrows!
Looking closely, there seem to be other dots around that small dot!
Then, those eyes, which had been closed for who knows how many years, opened a crack.
The light shining through the gap was exactly the same as the vertical mark between the eyebrows, blood red and deep.
There was no anger or murderous intent in his eyes, only a sense of vicissitude accumulated over countless years.
It was as if a creature that had been asleep for countless ages had finally been awakened by a familiar aura at this moment.
His gaze pierced through the darkness, through layers of ruins and spatial rifts, and landed on the riverbed.
It landed on the golden bowl that was devouring the innate water source.
He stared at it for a long time.
The chains rattled slightly as his gaze moved, a sound that was exceptionally clear in the absolute darkness.
But he didn't struggle; he just watched quietly.
After a long while, an extremely hoarse and deep voice rang out from the darkness.
"The Emperor...it's him..."
After uttering those three words, the red light in the vertical mark between his eyebrows flickered slightly before returning to silence.
Those eyes slowly closed, as if everything that had just happened was just an illusion.
In the darkness, the chains fell silent once more. Only the sealing runes on the nine iron chains continued to flicker with a faint blood-red light, like nine eternally burning stars.
Chen Fan was completely unaware of all this.
He sat cross-legged on a stone slab half-buried in the sand by the riverbed, his mind focused intently on the changes in the golden bowl.
A cicada flew out from his sleeve and landed on his shoulder. Its dark golden compound eyes curiously surveyed the magnificent scene before it, and the pure black tentacles beside its mouthparts trembled slightly, emitting a very faint but excited buzzing sound.
It seemed to sense the immense life force contained within the innate water source, which was the ultimate nourishment for the Soul-Devouring Gu.
The Black Soul Banner was planted in the ground beside him, its surface fluttering in the spiritual power emanating from the innate water source, and a million souls emitting low hisses within it.
The water elemental power of the innate water source is also a great tonic for the soul. Under the pull of the soul array, those remnant souls greedily absorbed the water elemental energy diffused in the air, and the blood light on the banner surface became even more intense than usual.
The devouring of the golden bowl continues.
The water level of the underground river is dropping at a visible rate, from being level with the bank at the beginning to now exposing the dark golden sand at the bottom of the riverbed.
The star patterns on the stone pillars on both sides of the riverbed grew brighter and brighter. Under the light of the golden bowl, the ancient star patterns seemed to come alive, and the lines connecting the stars kept flashing, as if they were conveying some ancient message.
Chen Fan stood up from the stone slab, shifted his gaze from the golden bowl, and began to carefully examine the surrounding environment of the riverbed.
It will take some time for the Golden Bowl to absorb the innate water source. During this period, he cannot leave or enter the Golden Bowl space.
Instead of waiting idly, we might as well take this opportunity to explore this ancient underground space.
Previously, the golden bowl carried him at high speed, and he only had time to quickly glance at the ruins along the way, without having time to examine them in detail.
Standing on this riverbed now, the ruins isolated by spatial rifts are within reach, perhaps hiding some useful clues.
Chen Fan walked slowly along the edge of the riverbed, avoiding the spatial cracks of varying sizes.
The Fixed Word Technique allowed his divine sense to perceive far beyond those of others of the same level. Those spatial rifts were as clear in his sea of consciousness as ink marks on white paper, and the shape, size, and position of each one were immediately apparent.
He bypassed a crack several feet wide, passed between two boulders half-buried in the sand, and arrived at a relatively flat sandy area.
Numerous fragments of artifacts are scattered across the sandy ground here.
There were broken jade slips, rusted metal fragments, several spirit stones whose original appearance was no longer recognizable, and several bones of unknown beasts.
Chen Fan crouched down and carefully searched through the fragments with his divine sense. Most of the jade slips were completely shattered, turning to dust as soon as his divine sense entered them.
The metal fragments had rusted away completely, crumbling into pieces at the slightest touch. The spiritual energy within the spirit stone had long since dissipated, leaving only empty, grayish-white shells.
Just as he was about to get up, his fingers accidentally touched a fragment of a jade slip that was half-buried in the sand.
The fragment was only the size of a thumb, with jagged edges, as if it had been forcibly broken off.
However, unlike the jade slips around it that had completely lost their vitality, this fragment still retained a very faint trace of divine consciousness.
The fluctuation was extremely subtle. If Chen Fan hadn't cultivated the Fixed Word Technique, which gave him a far superior perception of aura compared to others of the same level, he probably wouldn't have been able to detect it at all.
He dug the fragment out of the sand and carefully probed it with his divine sense. The restrictions inside the fragment were already dilapidated, with only a last, extremely rudimentary seal clinging to life.
Chen Fan used the Fixed Word Technique to dissect the structure of the seal in his sea of consciousness and discovered that it was a restriction method he had never seen before.
The sealing array patterns are unlike any other restriction system found in any cultivation kingdom on Tiannan Star, but they bear some resemblance to the star map array patterns on the stone pillars on both sides of the riverbed.
However, this seal was so weak that it could not withstand any impact.
Instead of forcibly breaking the seal, he used the Fixed Word Technique to stabilize the last trace of spiritual energy structure of the seal, and then gently pushed it with extremely subtle spiritual energy, following the natural direction of the array patterns.
The seal shattered silently.
The information from the fragments flooded into his mind like a burst dam.
That was a dying message etched in one's divine consciousness.
The engraver's divine sense was extremely powerful. Even after countless millennia of erosion, the residual fluctuations of his divine sense still caused Chen Fan's sea of consciousness to tremble slightly.
The Great Perfection of the Divine Transformation!
No, it's even stronger than a typical Nascent Soul Great Perfection cultivator, and only a hair's breadth away from the Half-Step Void Refinement stage.
The last words were transmitted directly through the spirit, without sound, only thought.
The thought was old and weary, carrying a calm that could only be calmed after a long period of despair.
"My name is Yuan Lingzi, an inner sect elder of the Tian Sheng Sect in the Great Yu Empire. I am a Nascent Soul cultivator at the Great Perfection stage. In the year 73,215 of the Star Calendar, I encountered a spatial turbulence in the Misty Starry Sky region and was swept into this place. At that time, I still had ambition, believing that with my own cultivation, I could find a way out and return to my homeland. However, the spatial laws here are extremely chaotic, spatial rifts are everywhere, and there are many things even more terrifying than spatial rifts. I have been trapped here for three thousand years, my lifespan has been exhausted, and I still have not been able to find a way out. If anyone later obtains this jade slip, it will be a matter of fate with me. I have no other requests, I only hope that the person who comes after me can bring my remains back to the Great Yu Empire and bury them in the back mountain of the Tian Sheng Sect. As a reward, I will give you all the things I left behind in my life. Although they may be damaged by the erosion of time, it is better than nothing. Whoever you are, I thank you in advance."
The thought abruptly ended there.