Chapter 1474: Great Fortune and Great Luck (Third Update)
"Truly worthy of an old hand!"
Thúc Quân couldn't help but praise: "With that move of yours, we can be assured of no worries behind us. But I'm also an old hand—we just need to walk the path we've walked before, and we can retreat with our lives intact!"
Ngụy Tùy Phong said: "Let's hope so."
"What do you mean 'let's hope so'? Crow's mouth! Great fortune and great luck!"
Thúc Quân laughed heartily, stepping forward first into the ancestral court's Ngọc Kinh thành.
Ngụy Tùy Phong followed behind him, his heart filled with extreme tension. He looked around and saw that this ancestral court's Ngọc Kinh thành was very different from the Ngọc Kinh thành of the Heavenly Court.
The ancestral court's Ngọc Kinh thành was quite dilapidated. Aside from the vast Dao aura that had surged out when the seal was just broken, there was also a strange aura of death. He keenly sensed that under the influence of this aura, the Dao laws he cultivated were actually showing signs of collapsing and disintegrating!
This was the aura of withering Dao—his own Dao laws were continuously breaking down, slowly losing the power of Dao techniques and divine abilities!
He also felt his physical body and primordial spirit being invaded. Originally, his lifespan was as eternal as heaven and earth, but now he actually felt that his lifespan had an end. Every extra moment he lingered in this divine city, his life was shortened by one day.
As they went deeper into this divine city, the speed at which his lifespan drained was still accelerating!
Whoosh—
A gust of hot wind blew over, stirring several skulls on the ground. Thúc Quân's expression changed slightly. He hastily pulled Ngụy Tùy Phong along in a quick dash, arriving beneath a withered ancient tree where they stopped, nervously staring at that gust of hot wind.
The hot wind rolled the skulls past with a howl, and one skull rolled to the base of the tree with a clattering sound.
Strangely enough, standing beneath this withered tree, they couldn't feel the hot wind blowing past at all.
Ngụy Tùy Phong reached out his hand, about to feel this wind, when suddenly Thúc Quân slapped his hand heavily, knocking it down.
"This wind must not be touched!"
Thúc Quân was extremely nervous, his voice hoarse: "I call it the hot death wind. If you touch it, even your primordial spirit will burn to ashes!"
Ngụy Tùy Phong's heart leaped, and he quickly asked: "How powerful is this hot death wind?"
"Back then, our Creator race brought many experts and ancient gods to explore this place. The first time we encountered this wind, aside from those who hid beneath the trees and survived, everyone else died."
Thúc Quân took out a large hammer and smashed it fiercely at that skull. The skull should have been a Creator's skull. When it came beneath the tree, it suddenly grew limbs and a skeletal frame, making creaking sounds, and then was smashed to pieces by Thúc Quân's hammer.
"It's complete annihilation of form and spirit."
Thúc Quân let out a breath, waved his hand to toss the broken bones away, and said calmly: "Not even a trace of divine consciousness remained. Even the ancient gods' Dao turned to ashes."
Ngụy Tùy Phong looked at the broken bones on the ground, a puzzled expression on his face.
Thúc Quân said: "It was influenced by the tree behind us. This tree should be the Dao tree that Mục Thiên Tôn once spoke of, also called the World Tree. The Great Black Wood is a World Tree. Although this tree is dead, its residual might remains, standing guard here to block the hot death wind. However, this tree absolutely must not be touched. Back then when we fled beneath the tree, some people who touched it changed."
His expression turned strange: "They became different people—or perhaps they couldn't be called people anymore. They even killed several of our experts..."
"What an inauspicious place..." Ngụy Tùy Phong shivered several times and tightened his collar.
After the hot death wind passed, they left this withered tree. Ngụy Tùy Phong looked around and saw that the ancestral court's Ngọc Kinh thành was filled with broken palaces and collapsed buildings everywhere. Even the Dao patterns on these palace structures had been worn away until only blurry, indistinct lines remained.
Among the broken walls and ruins were also chaotic energies, extremely heavy, like small puddles of water. Ngụy Tùy Phong even saw that these chaotic energies had actually frozen!
Just as they passed by, a wisp of white smoke rose from a frozen mass of chaotic energy, like a head whose features couldn't be discerned, breathing a puff of cold air toward them.
Thúc Quân hastily pulled Ngụy Tùy Phong along as they fled for their lives, dodging that cold wind, speaking rapidly: "That's the cold death wind—a cold wind formed by the condensation of chaos. If the cold wind blows on you, everything melts away and turns into void!"
Ngụy Tùy Phong had no choice but to follow him in fleeing. They hadn't run far when Ngụy Tùy Phong suddenly froze in shock. Ahead in the Ngọc Kinh thành, thousands of palaces and ten thousand halls stood in staggered arrangement. Although dilapidated, one could still see the grandeur of those days.
However, in front of all these palaces stood a withered tree!
One dead Dao tree after another!
Hundreds of Dao trees came into his view like this. Ngụy Tùy Phong swallowed hard, his throat dry, his mind completely blank from the shock, devoid of any thought.
Thúc Quân led him in a frantic dash, stopping immediately beneath a withered Dao tree, then turned to look at the cold death wind blowing toward them.
Ngụy Tùy Phong obediently stood by his side, and Thúc Quân said: "Don't touch."
Ngụy Tùy Phong obediently nodded.
Thúc Quân nervously stared at this cold death wind, watching without blinking as he said: "Back then, Bá Dương Thần Vương was our big brother. His divine consciousness cultivation was extremely strong... well, a tiny bit stronger than mine. He mainly relied on Long Hiêu. The two of them joined forces to investigate this cold death wind, and he told us that when this wind blows, all matter melts away, all matter ceases to move, and the particles composing matter continuously split apart until they can no longer split. And when split to the smallest point, the distance between each particle of matter is infinitely far..."
Ngụy Tùy Phong could no longer imagine such a situation.
"This is the void. Even the thirty-fifth layer of void is not as formidable as this void."
Thúc Quân's big head had fluffy hair, and he licked his lips, saying: "Bá Dương and Long Hiêu speculated that above the thirty-five voids there is yet another void, most likely the void blown out by this cold death wind. He called it the ultimate void, speculating that perhaps the cold death wind in this city is a fragment of the ultimate void, and this wind should be blown out by ghosts who died in the ultimate void..."
The void has the ability to voidify. Any living being or matter that steps into the void will be voidified.
The so-called voidification means that when a person steps into the void, their body grows larger and larger, thinner and thinner, gradually transforming from real to a phantom form.
The material particles composing this person continuously stretch apart from each other, endlessly extending, until eventually the entire person becomes countless unrelated particles that vanish into the void.
This situation is voidification.
Tần Mục's third heaven of the Dao realm, where the Great Luo Heaven gathers into a circle, employs the principles of void and divine consciousness—a Dao realm divine ability he comprehended from the knowledge of the Creator race.
Ngụy Tùy Phong stared blankly into the distance.
Thúc Quân stared at the cold death wind, waiting for it to pass. Suddenly Ngụy Tùy Phong tugged at his sleeve. Thúc Quân said: "Wait a little longer. This wind hasn't completely passed yet..."
Ngụy Tùy Phong tugged at his lapel again. Thúc Quân said impatiently: "I told you to wait a moment. If we go out now, we'll run right into the tail of the wind. A light sweep and we're done for..."
Ngụy Tùy Phong couldn't help but say: "Thúc Quân, when you came here last time, did you notice whether there were still living people in the city?"
"What living people? This city is a dead city. Not to mention living people, I haven't even seen a single ghost..."
Thúc Quân turned his head back, and Ngụy Tùy Phong pursed his lips, his voice trembling: "Up ahead... it looks like there's a living person..."