Ancient Passage.
In this gigantic Ancient Passage, if a human was to look all around, he would feel really small and insignificant.
The end of the passage couldn’t be seen, and its height was endlessly high. On the walls of this Ancient Passage, one could see caves that were as spacious as the Championship Stadium on its walls. No one knew what they were used for. Every few meters apart, there would be crystal stones embedded on the walls that slightly emitted light, illuminating the Ancient Passage. The Ancient Passage was humongous, and its path was uneven. Sometimes, there would be high ground, and sometimes there would be low grounds caused by the giant stones that lasted continuously without end.
The Ancient Passage was also not a straight path, having frequent left and right turns like the body of a snake.
The thing that made Yue Yang become alert was that the Ancient Passage’s walls were decorated with carvings everywhere.
“Everyone, wait a moment. Let’s look at these carvings…” Yue Yang had a sudden thought. Maybe these carvings on the wall were clues to something. He quickly gestured at the four girls to stop.
Those sculptures looked very similar to the sculptures that Yue Yang had seen in the Rear Halls of the Twelve Zodiac Temples in Tong Tian Tower. However, they were much bigger. Almost every God or Deity Sculptures were several metres or even hundreds of metres high.
Different kinds of mysterious Runic Circles and symbols decorated the walls, as if they were stars in the skies.
They faintly looked like they were interconnected to each other.
However, they formed an extremely confusing puzzle that was difficult to make out distinctly, leaving others with a deja-vu feeling.
Some parts of the walls were also carved with different types of beasts, most of them were beasts that did not exist in the Soaring Dragon Continent. Even the sisters, Wu Xia and Wu Hen, who possessed the richest knowledge couldn’t recognise these beasts.
There were also humans carved on the walls, but in comparison, they were only as big as a grain of rice. Those humans looked puny and weak, they could even be described as insignificant. Yue Yang also discovered that there were carvings of the Eastern Goblin Tribe members fighting a great battle against other tribes on the wall. As they walked a little further up, Yue Yang saw a Fiery Golden Eyes Beast, a Valiant Bear, Plum Leopards and the other Eastern Goblin Tribe members massacring a legion of Demons from the Demon Abyss. These Demon Legions couldn’t be compared to those Demon Legions in the Soaring Dragon Continent. Further up, Yue Yang saw something that shocked him. In front, the most distinct engraving was a carving of a Golden Winged Great Peng spreading its wings that were ten thousands of miles wide. It was so majestic and gigantic that the Demon Legion from the Demon Abyss were as puny as ants at its feet.
(Shiro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peng_(mythology))
“If the Emperor that the Fiery Golden Eyes Beast and the others are talking about is this Golden Winged Great Peng, we are really going to be in deep trouble this time!”
Yue Yang was a guy from another world. Although there were no legends about the Golden Winged Great Peng in the Soaring Dragon Continent, he had read a lot of books in his previous lives, so he knew the might of a Golden Winged Great Peng. Based on mythologies, this Golden Winged Great Peng was not an ordinary figure. It was a terrifying existence who possessed a wingspan of more than 3,360,000 li, and ate at least a Dragon King and five hundred smaller dragons every single day.
In , this Golden Winged Great Peng was revealed to be the Buddha’s Godmother in the end. It was a super strong BOSS who could defeat Sun Wu Kong with ordinary Kung Fu skills.
(Shiro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Journey_to_the_West_characters#Demons_at_Lion_Camel_Ridge)
In , it was written that there was a fish in the Northern Ocean called Kun. Kun was humongous, its body was at least thousands of lis big. It then evolved into a bird, and was called a Peng. Peng’s back spanned over thousands of lis wide. When it flew, its wings looked like it could cover up the whole earth.
(Shiro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book))
It was also said that the Peng resided in the south, in a place that could only be reached by travelling three thousand lis of water and flying ninety thousand lis of height.
When Yue Yang told the girls about it, although he only said that the Golden Winged Great Peng ate five hundred dragons, he had already thoroughly scared the four girls stiff. He did not even mention about the Buddha and Sun Wu Kong,
Princess Qian Qian’s reaction was to proclaim her disbelief, “That’s impossible! How could a bird have a wingspan of 3,360,000 lis? Where would it fly to then, the sky wouldn’t even be enough for it! Furthermore, it couldn’t have eaten five hundred dragons everyday. Even if it could eat five hundred dragons, there’s not enough dragons in this world for it to eat, wouldn’t it die from hunger then! Little liar, you are just trying to scare us, aren’t you? I don’t believe you!”
Yue Yang shook his hands, “”Actually, it’s not those kind of gold-ranked dragons or Black Dragons, those overgrown lizards. It ate those types of Python Dragon Kings who could grow up to thousand li long. Legends said that the Golden Winged Great Peng’s daily menu was one Python Dragon King as the main dish and five hundred small dragons as snack.”
Princess Qian Qian’s smile disappeared when she heard that as she said, “That’s even more impossible!”
“It’s big beyond compare, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it is as big as he had exaggerated it to be.” The mysterious beauty Wu Xia mediated between Yue Yang and Princess Qian Qian.
“If the Fiery Golden Eyes Beast’s Emperor is that Golden Winged Great Peng, how can we fight it?” When Luo Hua City Mistress saw the gigantic engraving on the walls, her heart sunk a little. In this picture, the Golden Winged Great Peng’s wings were hundreds of meters wide, while the Demon Kings and Lich Kings were only a few meters tall and a Demon Marshall was a person’s height. If this illustration was based on a real-life scale, if Yue Yang and the four girls really came to the Eastern Goblin Tribe’s domain in order to see this Golden Winged Great Peng, they wouldn’t even be fit to be the food remains stuck in between its teeth.
“We definitely wouldn’t be able to defeat it right now. Heck, we might not even be able to escape from it.” Yue Yang was really sweating hard. Even Sun Wu Kong couldn’t defeat it, how could he possibly defeat the Golden Winged Great Peng!
“Then what should we do?” Luo Hua City Mistress also sweated. They had pursued them to the Ancient Passage now, must they return back with tails in between their legs?
“Kings should fight against other kings and generals against generals. Since we belonged to lesser soldiers category, we should defeat the opponents lesser soldiers.” Yue Yang comforted them and said, “Furthermore, there are different types of Golden Winged Great Pengs. There are other Golden Winged birds, such as Andaja (birth from an egg), Jarayuja (birth from a womb), Samsvedaja (birth from moisture) and Upapaduka (birth from evolution). Andaja will eat egg-laying dragons, Jarayuja will eat both egg-laying and birthing dragons, and Samsvedaja will eat egg-laying, birthing dragons and dragons that came from water. As for Upapaduka, it will eat whatever it could find, it had no diet restriction! The biggest one would be the Golden Winged Great Peng, who had a wingspan of 3,360,000 li. However, the smallest Golden Winged Bird’s wingspan might not even be 336 m wide…”
(Shiro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%81ti_(Buddhism)#Forms_of_birth)
“We still couldn’t possibly defeat a 336 wing-spanned bird!” Princess Qian Qian laughed as she shook her hand.
Bai Yun Fei’s Gold Dragon which was Gold-ranked Level 7 was already terrifying enough with its wing span of over 20 metres. If they met a Golden Winged Great Peng with a wingspan of 336 meters, what could they possibly do?
They did not even need to fight, as long as it flapped its wings, it could probably blow a whole army away!
Luo Hua City Mistress became even more curious as she listened to Yue Yang’s stories. She asked, “I know birth from an egg and birth from a womb, but what is birth from moisture and birth from evolution?”
Yue Yang put on his nerdy glasses and started to preach, “The concept of birth from moisture originated from a cause-and-effect philosophy. Due to the presence of water, a new life has formed. This includes different types of insect-types lives such as maggots. As for birth from evolution, hmm… It meant something like gaining some kind of new powers that you had never have before, or maybe experiencing a change in your mental state, turning into another person or thing… Of course, this is not an accurate explanation, but it’s more or less like that.”
When he said this, a thought suddenly flashed across his mind.
He remembered the big loli in his Dream Realm, who was created by the Sword Goddess’s condensed Sword Qi. Does she count as ‘birth from evolution’?
If the big loli in his Dream Realm was an existence that was born from evolution, the highest form of birth, then who is the Heavenly Sword Goddess who created her? Was she a little Creator? When he thought about it again, she was the Flying Sword that he had stolen from that Old Daoist Priest. Then, what kind of an extraordinary existence was that Old Daoist Priest?
Damn, that Old Daoist Priest might just be an extraordinary figure who liked to play the part of a weak person, purposely disguising himself as a poor Old Daoist Priest to trick him.
When Yue Yang thought of this, he suddenly felt like he was cheated.
Could it be that the Old Daoist Priest had sent him to the Soaring Dragon Continent so that he could clean up the Old Daoist Priest’s mess?
That damned old geezer, he made a mess out of this place and ended up making him clean up the mess… Yue Yang immediately felt angry. Fortunately the Old Daoist Priest wasn’t here, otherwise, he would probably beat that Old Daoist Priest without mercy. He really have never seen such an irresponsible deity before!
“What’s wrong with you?” Luo Hua City Mistress hurriedly patted Yue Yang’s shoulders when she saw him turning quiet for a long time without reaction, “Did you think of something?”
“Nothing!” Yue Yang hurriedly switched the topic. “The Golden Winged Great Peng is an extremely strong boss that is supposed to be our opponent in the future when we have levelled up. We shouldn’t be meeting it right now… However, any Eastern Goblin Tribe member is a terrifying monster, like that Fiery Golden Eyes Beast and Flying Tiger, most of them were actually other people’s mount, an extremely low form of existence. It would be alright if we met these people, we will definitely get a headache if we met their masters. Hope that they won’t have masters forever! Just now, I think I heard a wind blowing sound. Let’s just chase after them first and think about this later.”
“I heard that there are a lot of terrifying monsters in the Ancient Passage who had never seen daylight. We must be more careful.” the sickly beauty Wu Hen who had been silent all along suddenly reminded them.
“There shouldn’t be. Although the passage is big, there is no food here. If there is no food, I think those creatures must have died from hunger!” Princess Qian Qian was more concerned about the current situation, she felt that it was impossible for monsters to exist in the Ancient Passage.
Yue Yang and the four girls walked forward through the various engravings and the gigantic windings of the passage. They ran for a few miles on the uneven road.
Suddenly, Princess Qian Qian who had sharp sense due to her [Six Records] Inherent Skill gestured at the others to stop.
Her nose twitched as she said, “There’s a very strong reek of blood in front!”
Very quickly, Yue Yang, Wu Xia and the others smelt it too. From far, the smell of fresh blood drifted towards them. Yue Yang and the four girls walked quietly nearer to the source, and to their surprise, they discovered the younger Mei Hua Brother who was lying in his own pool of blood. At this time, the younger Mei Hua Brother had already reverted to his original appearance. Yue Yang and the four girls were deeply shocked with the sight. Although they were delayed because they were viewing the paintings in the walls, not even 10 minutes have passed in total. Who could kill this younger Mei Hua Brother who was so strong and powerful so quickly, within ten minutes?
Furhtermore, the kill was silent without sound.
Could it be that it was the terrifying monsters in the Ancient Passage who had never seen daylight before?
Luo Hua City Mistress was not scared of terrifying monsters, but she was kind of scared by ghosts and spirits, those kinds of incorporeal beings. She was also scared of the darkness.
Thinking that this Plum Leopard had died in a strange way, she couldn’t help thinking that this was the doing of some ghosts. She held onto Yue Yang’s arms tight, as if she wanted his protection. Seeing this side of her really made Yue Yang laugh secretly. This Luo Hua girl wasn’t afraid of anything usually, turns out she was afraid of the dark…
In the future he would definitely bring her to a place so dark she couldn’t see her fingers. He would probably be lucky then.
Princess Qian Qian didn’t care about ghosts at all, she even dared to go towards the Plum Leopard’s corpse to find out about its cause of death.
When she returned, she shook her head towards Yue Yang, showing that she couldn’t find it out.
Yue Yang had Level 4 [Divine VIsion], so he knew about the truth. He laughed, “Your Highness, it’s okay if we don’t find out its cause of death. It’s fine as long as we can find our people. Would you like your servant to tell you something? Ahem, if your highness have a small reward for this servant, this servant would definitely report everything to you without hiding anything!”
“Don’t mind this princess with a bad temper. She is a tigress, so you better not provoke her too much. Furhtermore, you are my personal bodyguard, if you have something to report, you should report to me!” Luo Hua City Mistress liked to make Princess Qian Qian feel jealous, she laughed out loud.
“He should have died from internal injuries. The younger Mei Hua Brother had returned to its original form, but there was no injuries on his body. His enemy should have used some kind of method to cause a serious internal injury in his body.” Wu Xia tried to guess.
“If he was uninjured on the outside, why would there be so much blood?” The sickly beauty Wu Hen asked curiously.
“The younger Mei Hua Brother did not return to his former appearance originally, he transformed after he died. His body had a very strong regeneration abilities, so his outer injuries have recovered, but the damage caused by the internal injury that he suffered had stayed. His cause of death was because someone had dug out his Earth Goblin’s Orb, something like a demon’s magic crystal… All Eastern Goblin Tribe members had an Orb within them, similar to how demons have magic crystals. However, their orbs are not inside their skulls, they are inside their abdomen. Without the orb, their body couldn’t survive, and hence they will die.” Yue Yang could see the true cause of the younger Mei Hua Brother’s death with his [Divine Vision].
“Why would their orbs be in their abdomen, the weakest part of their bodies? Wouldn’t it be better to be placed within their skulls that had more protection?” Princess Qian Qian asked, unable to understand.
“It was said that the Eastern Fairy Tribe’s cultivation method is to grow the orb in their abdomen, so maybe the Eastern Goblin Tribe is also the same.” Yue Yang knew a little about cultivation methods, but he felt that he wouldn’t be able to explain it to Princess Qian Qian, he might even confuse her further. Also, he was afraid that if she asked further, he might accidentally divulge his Innate Invisible Sword Qi skill. If that happened, he would really be in trouble. Hence he quickly tried to change the topic, “There might be two murderers who murdered the younger Mei Hua Brother, and the two of them should be Innate Warriors…”
“Did our Da Xia’s and Tian Luo’s Heavenly Imperial Guardians arrived here already?” Princess Qian Qian was delighted when she heard Yue Yang.
“No, maybe the circumstances are way worse than we thought. They could be Innate Rankers from Zi Jin Kingdom or Western Lion Pagoda, Green Summit Sect or Thousand Goblins Sect, or the Demon Palace. I could feel some remnants of Innate Qi inside the younger Mei Hua Brother’s body, and it felt unfamiliar. Furthermore, there’s something really weird about that Innate Qi.” Yue Yang’s expression became serious.
The thing he was most worried of was not the matter of a few Eastern Goblin Tribe’s people invading Soaring Dragon Continent.
It was the mastermind behind the scenes who guided the Eastern Goblin Tribe’s people. He was 90% sure that the masterminds behind were Zi Jin Kingdom, Western Lion Pagoda and Green Summit Sect all working together. They might even collaborated together with Thousand Goblins Sect and Demon Palace. They were aware of the changes in the Soaring Dragon Continent. When the Innate Alliance went to the Tenth Floor of Tong Tian Tower, they immediately ordered some people to the Eastern Goblin Tribe and persuaded them to go to the Soaring Dragon Continent to kidnap Jun Wu You and the Clan Masters of the Four Great Clans. They did not even let the Eastern and Western Sky Kings of Tian Luo Kingdom off. This showed that they were getting somebody else to do the dirty work.
On the other side, they had also prepared to ambush and kill the Eastern Goblin Tribe younger Mei Hua Brother, shifting the blame to the Soaring Dragon Continent’s Innate Rankers.
When the Innate Rankers who protected the Soaring Dragon Continent returned from the Tenth Floor, they would definitely take revenge on the Eastern Goblin Tribe. When the two sides waged a great war, Zi Jin Kingdom, Western Lion Pagoda and the Green Summit Sect could reap the benefits for free.
As for the Thousand Goblin Sect and the the Demon Palace, it’s definitely impossible that they didn’t try to take advantage of this.
They might even attack Zi Jin Kingdom, Western Lion Pagoda and the Green Summit Sect behind their backs when this was all over!
“Our most dreaded worries have come true. The Soaring Dragon Continent will definitely be swept into calamity. Our enemies will definitely come for us!” Wu Xia laid out the facts very calmly, “According to the ten people on the Eastern Goblin Tribe’s list, we can understand a few things. Firstly, we can deduce that this matter has been planned for a long time, but the matter of the Eastern Goblin Tribe invading us was a last minute decision. The reason was because all of the ten names that was listed on the list were all outstanding contestants in the Hundred School Elite Tournament… People like Sister Luo Hua, Sister Wu Hen and myself were not included because the enemies didn’t know about us at all. In an urgent situation, they had rashly chose ten people from the Hundred Schools Elite Tournament. This was also the reason why Bing-er could be chosen. She performed very well during her fight with Feng Qi Sha, so our enemies hiding behind the scenes had chosen her too.”
“Ye Kong, Fatty Hai and the others also performed well, so why weren’t they chosen? Furthermore, the Eastern Goblin Tribe had also chosen Prince of Zi Jin, whom they were collaborating with!” Luo Hua City Mistress was trying to solve this mystery.
“It may be because the traitor guiding the Eastern Goblin Tribe to invade the Soaring Dragon Continent was not only Zi Jin Kingdom and Western Lion Pagoda, the Thousand Goblin Sect and Demon Palace were also involved. Hence the Eastern Goblin Tribe might have changed the list at the last minute. Another point is that Ye Kong, Fatty Hai and the others don’t have any roots, they don’t have any Great Clans or other powers supporting them from behind. Killing them are useless, there would be no one who would take revenge for them!” Wu Xia’s fingers drummed at her book as she quietly deduced, “Maybe, when Ye Kong and Fatty Hai escaped, Zi Jin Kingdom and the Western Lion Pagoda warriors are waiting outside to kill them in the midst of chaos… Of course they wouldn’t do it so obviously, they might even disguise themselves as Eastern Goblin Tribe members or demons from the Demon Abyss… With the Vice Principal there, they would probably not be able to act so brazenly, because the Vice Principal is a master in Dimension Teleportation. If he couldn’t win, he could escape easily with no problem. Even if a group of Innate Rankers fought him altogether, they wouldn’t be able to kill him so easily.”
“Actually, we are in a graver danger. Those Zi Jin Kingdom and Western Lion Pagoda warriors will definitely come to the Ancient Passage. They will kill Feng Qi Sha, Yan Po Jun and the others to incite the Innate Alliance Ranker’s wrath and also kill the Plum Leopard, Valiant Bears, Flying Tiger and Fiery Golden Eyes Beast, then shift the blame to the Soaring Dragon Continent. Their purpose is to drive a wedge between us, so that we will wage a war between us…Other than saving all those people held captive, we must also take note of our safety. That’s because our names are all probably under their wanted list…” The sickly beauty Wu Hen was also very smart, she could think very far ahead with the facts laid before her eyes.
“…” Yue Yang knew that the problems in the Soaring Dragon Continent couldn’t be solved by him alone. Division, waging wars and all those stuff, Yue Yang really couldn’t care at all, but he hated when someone turned him into a pawn the most.
His own strength might not be able to change much.
But Yue Yang was sure that no matter if he saw enemies from Zi Jin Kingdom, Western Lion Pagoda, Green Summit Sect, Thousand Goblin Sect or Demon Palace, he would kill them all. Yue Yang hated it when he became other’s prey.
Forget about those people who wanted to kill him, he would even kill those who have any ideas for his family!
Yue Yang didn’t change his expression at all on the outside, but his heart was extremely furious.
Magical-looking Ancient Runes started surfacing on his skin, forming countless different-looking, revolving runic circles. Yue Yang discovered that he had not lifted the limiter on his Innate Strength yet, but he seemed to have a strength that was as powerful as Innate strength returning to his body. After he overused his Innate powers to kill Tu Cheng, when Yue Yang recovered, he could feel that his powers were being suppressed… Until now. The fury in his heart had completely break down that wall. The invisible shackles on his body shattered into pieces like glass.
Yue Yang’s true, magnificently powerful strength slowly exude out.
Furthermore, after being suppressed, the saved-up power burst forth even more strongly and intense.
“Go slowly, don’t rush it. Lifting the limiter on Innate Strength must be a gradual process…” Wu Xia who didn’t care about Yue Yang usually warned him this time, telling him to take control of his mind so that he didn’t lose control.
“I’m fine, everyone go and hide. Someone is coming here, and he is very fast.” After Yue Yang recovered his true strength, his senses were way sharper than Princess Qian Qian’s.
Just as Yue Yang and the four girls hid inside a cave a few hundred metres away, two bright golden light suddenly appeared, shooting through the Ancient Passage towards them.
The bright golden light was extremely radiant, almost blinding.
In the end, the two golden light stopped in mid-air, right above the Plum Leopard, younger Mei Hua Brother’s body.