txolops Chapter 707 The Land of Dead Souls! The Black Soul Banner!
Chapter 707 The Land of Dead Souls! The Black Soul Banner!
Secondly, there are several magical artifacts.
Three completely black demonic swords, each engraved with intricate demonic patterns, are all at the late-stage Nascent Soul level. Although they are worn, their quality is still relatively good.
A demon banner made from the hide of an unknown animal is embroidered with a three-headed, six-armed demon statue at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage. However, most of the demonic energy on the banner has dissipated, and it needs to be refined again to restore its full power.
There is also a set of twelve flying needles made from the bones of a demon whale, which are also at the late Nascent Soul stage and are relatively well preserved.
Besides the magical artifacts, there were also some miscellaneous items in the storage bag.
The jade slips contained mostly cultivation methods of the Heavenly Demon Path and insights gained by the former life of the Scattered Demon Master. Chen Fan glanced at them briefly and then put them away.
One of the jade slips caught Chen Fan's attention.
The jade slip did not contain any cultivation techniques, but rather a fragmented star map. The star map depicted a star system that Chen Fan had never seen before, marking the locations of more than a dozen cultivation kingdoms, with the Great Qin Empire prominently listed, though it occupied only a tiny corner at the edge of the star map.
This star map is far larger than the map of Tiannan Star, covering several star regions. Although it is incomplete, it is of considerable reference value for Chen Fan when he leaves Tiannan Star to go to Da Qin or even Da Yu.
With a quick thought, he finished taking inventory of the Scattered Demon Master's storage bag and sorted out the useful items.
Spirit stones and magic crystals were stored separately, and several late-stage Nascent Soul level demonic swords and flying needles were stored in a storage ring for later use. The Nascent Soul level Great Perfection Heavenly Demon Banner was sealed separately by Chen Fan after he added two layers of restrictions with the Fixed Word Technique!
After all, with his current cultivation level, he is not yet able to fully control a demonic artifact at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage. Forcing its use would only result in a backlash.
As for the star map jade slip, he placed it together with Yuan Lingzi's map jade slip.
After doing all this, Chen Fan stood up and continued walking deeper into the underground ditch.
After walking for about an hour along the route on the Yuanlingzi map, the underground channel ahead gradually narrowed and eventually merged into a natural crevice in the rocks.
The crevice was so narrow that only one person could pass sideways, and the stone walls on both sides were covered with countless spatial cracks!
Upon closer inspection, these cracks are extremely small, the widest being no more than the thickness of a finger, and their activity cycle is very stable. As long as you are careful to avoid them, there will be no great danger.
Chen Fan squeezed through the crevice, his robes rustling against the stone walls on either side. Occasionally, the edge of a spatial rift would brush against his protective aura, producing a few soft hissing sounds.
After passing through the crevice in the rocks, the view suddenly opened up before us.
It was an extremely open wasteland.
The scale of the ruins far exceeded any stone palace complex Chen Fan had ever seen before. There were no fewer than a thousand remaining stone pillars, densely distributed across a space of several miles in radius.
The ground was covered with gravel and rubble, with scattered fragments of unknown metals and the remains of spirit stones that had long since died.
What truly caught Chen Fan's attention was the scene in the center of the ruins.
Looking around, the wreckage of dozens of airships lay scattered haphazardly among the rubble.
These flying boats varied in size, with the largest being a hundred feet long and the smallest over ten feet. The hulls were all cast from a dark blue metal that Chen Fan had never seen before, and despite the erosion of countless millennia, they were not completely rusted.
Some airships were broken in half, with scorch marks left at the break points from some terrifying force; others were stuck diagonally in the ground, most of their hulls shattered into pieces, with only the tail section retaining its original shape.
Several other airships were huddled together, as if they had been slammed down from the sky by an invisible hand. On the decks of the airships, one could vaguely see some array patterns that had long since become indistinct. These array patterns were of extremely high quality, and even with Chen Fan's current mastery of array techniques, he could only barely make out a few patterns related to the laws of space.
At the other end of the ruins, several half-collapsed palaces stood crookedly among the rubble. The palaces resembled the ancient stone palaces on both sides of the riverbed, but their style was more rugged and imposing, and the patterns on their surfaces were no longer star charts or arrays, but a writing system that Chen Fan did not recognize at all.
Most of the palace roof has collapsed, and the walls have been blasted open by some enormous force, leaving several huge holes through which one can see a large number of pieces of furniture and artifacts scattered inside the palace.
The layout of the entire ruins was completely random. It was as if the airships and palaces had been sucked from their original locations by some irresistible force and then carelessly left here.
Some landed face up and shattered on the ground, some were stuck at an angle in the rubble with only half of them sticking out, and some landed upside down on the ground, smashing a huge dent in the ground.
Chen Fan stood at the edge of the ruins, using the Fixed Word Technique to extend his divine sense to the extreme, carefully probing all the movements around him.
The memories of the Scattered Demon Master told him that many extremely dangerous beings were hidden in these ruins!
Instead of venturing deeper, he took out Yuan Lingzi's map jade slip and used his divine sense to confirm the route once again.
The first danger zone marked on the map is not far ahead.
It was an area located in the northeast corner of the ruins. Yuan Lingzi drew a circle there with his dark red divine sense imprint, and next to it were a few lines of small text:
This place is filled with the resentment of many lingering souls, and is suspected to be a remnant of an ancient battlefield.
The density of these remnant souls and their resentment is extremely high, forming a natural dead soul land. Ordinary cultivators who step into it will have their minds eroded by the resentment of these remnant souls, resulting in either madness or complete annihilation of their souls.
Yuan Lingzi once tried to detour around the edge of the Land of Dead Souls, but he was almost dragged into it by several extremely powerful remnant souls.
His suggestion, marked on the map, was to take a detour of at least ten miles.
Chen Fan put the jade slip back into his pocket, but found that his feet were unconsciously walking towards that area.
It wasn't that he wanted to go, but rather the Black Soul Banner.
Since stepping into this ruin, the black soul banner stuck on his back has begun to tremble slightly, and the millions of souls on the banner emit a very faint hum, which carries an undisguised desire.
He was all too familiar with this feeling; it was exactly the same as when the Golden Bowl sensed the innate water source!
It should be known that the Land of Dead Souls, where ten thousand souls gather, is a rare and invaluable source of nourishment for the Black Soul Banner.
After walking for a short while, Chen Fan stopped and used the Fixed Word Technique to carefully explore the area ahead.
That land of dead souls was located in a relatively low-lying area in the northeast corner of the ruins, covering an area of several miles in circumference.
While the spatial cracks at the edge of the region are indeed more dense than elsewhere, they are not impassable.
The real trouble comes from those remnant souls!
It is visible to the naked eye that there are no fewer than 100,000 remnant souls here, among which several have extremely powerful auras, at least the remnants of divine souls at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage.
If an ordinary cultivator were to step into it, even one at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage might not be able to escape unscathed!
Chen Fan has the Black Soul Banner in his hand. The Black Soul Banner is specifically designed to counter soul bodies. As long as there is enough soul power to support it, even a remnant soul at the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage can be subdued.
Fortune favors the bold.
After weighing the options for a moment, Chen Fan made his decision.
Then the Black Soul Banner flew out from behind him, growing to a height of three zhang in the wind. Under the pull of the Soul Array, millions of souls on the banner let out a deafening howl. The dark red blood light was even more intense than usual, like a flowing sea of blood.