Chapter 299: The Strange Thing
"Judging by what those two white bats said, quite a few great shamans from the Loulan Golden Palace have entered the Nether Valley these past few days. We should be on our guard."
Qin Mu's expression turned grave as he opened a small opening in the Gluttony Pouch on his back, ready to summon his sword at any moment should trouble arise.
"Chief, those two fellows just now were very strong."
Long Qilin walked forward, dodging the large boulders floating in the air, and said, "Those two weren't weaker than me, and they were extremely ancient."
Qin Mu looked around cautiously, then said in a deep voice, "They should be divine seeds—descendants of gods and demons. Saying they're not weaker than you is you bragging. Pick either one of those white bats, and all ten of you combined still couldn't beat it. Their aura is too powerful."
Long Qilin was rather unconvinced and muttered resentfully, "That's because I'm still young. If I were fully grown, ten of them together couldn't beat me. I'm very useful!"
Qin Mu ignored this dragon qilin who had already grown as round as a ball yet still loved to brag, and pondered, "Strange. How can there be white bats in the Great Ruins? Could they be descendants of the Bat God from before the cataclysm? Do gods and demons from before the disaster still have surviving offspring?"
In some temples within the Great Ruins, statues of the Bat God were enshrined. The Bat God meant the God of Fortune, one who bestowed blessings upon people.
He had once seen a stone statue of the Bat God in Xianglong City—a bat head on a human body, with fleshy wings and membranes growing from its armpits. Its appearance was somewhat similar to those two white bats, though the white bats seemed more primitive, while the Bat God, apart from its head and fleshy wings, looked more human in other respects.
If those two white bats were descendants of the Fortune God from before the cataclysm, then shouldn't there be descendants of other gods and demons elsewhere in the Great Ruins?
But Qin Mu had lived in the Great Ruins for so many years—why had he never seen more descendants of gods and demons?
"Fat Dragon, where did you live before you met the Ancestral Master?" Qin Mu suddenly remembered something and asked.
"The Great Ruins."
Long Qilin recalled the past with nostalgia and said, "Not long after I was born, my mother disappeared. I was starving, dizzy and about to die of hunger, when I met the Ancestral Master. Seeing how extraordinarily handsome he was, I was lured away by a single spirit pill from him. One misstep led to eternal regret."
Qin Mu laughed helplessly: "It was clearly the Ancestral Master who saw you starving pitifully and gave you a spirit pill, and then you latched onto him, shamelessly following him and refusing to leave, so much that he couldn't shake you off! But speaking of which, Fat Dragon, you're also a divine seed, right? Could the divine races from before the Great Ruins cataclysm have become the strange beasts of today's Great Ruins?"
His expression turned strange. Before the Great Ruins, it must have been an incomparably prosperous and flourishing era—gods and humans living together, gods living among mortals, and the descendants of gods also living here. Then the great cataclysm occurred, causing gods to vanish completely, while the descendants of gods increasingly transformed toward beast forms.
This speculation was shocking to the world, but it wasn't impossible.
Ahead, the cliffs on both sides of the canyon were covered in dense forests. The forest growing on the sheer cliffs gave one a rather absurd feeling, while the floating rocks in the air indicated that the geomagnetic primordial force here was twisted.
Suddenly, Qin Mu felt movement from within the Gluttony Pouch. His heart stirred, and he opened the pouch. The Carefree Sword inside was vibrating gently, emitting a crisp sword cry.
Qin Mu extended his primordial qi deep into the Gluttony Pouch and took out the sword.
He had originally planned to use the Carefree Sword as the mother sword and refine it into a sword pellet, so he hadn't fitted it with a scabbard. Now holding the Carefree Sword in his hand, he found it somewhat inconvenient, so he pointed with his finger. The Carefree Sword flew up and sliced off a branch from an ancient tree.
"What hard wood!"
Qin Mu cut off a section of the branch and tried to split it with threads of primordial qi, but found it difficult to cut through. He couldn't help but marvel—the quality of this wood was comparable to dark iron.
He urged the Carefree Sword to carve it, quickly fashioning a wooden scabbard. He inserted the Carefree Sword into the scabbard. The sword still vibrated slightly, but it was no longer so conspicuous.
"It seems that sixteen years ago, what fell from the sky wasn't just the broken Carefree Sword and divine gold, but other things as well—and this thing resonates with the Carefree Sword!" he thought to himself.
The people of the Loulan Golden Palace had already entered the Nether Valley. Would they find that thing before him?
Finally, they reached the end of the canyon. The view suddenly opened up before them. Qin Mu didn't rush to enter the valley but warily looked around. At the end of the canyon, on both sides, stood two colossal stone statues carved along the mountain ridges, as tall as the mountains themselves.
The two statues wore solemn, dignified, and sacred expressions, their gazes deep, each standing with a sword in hand.
The sound of rushing water came—waterfalls flowing down from the statues' shoulders. The waterfalls were powerful, a thousand-zhang cascade plunging down, landing between the statues' hands, flowing down along the swords, and converging into rivers.
Two rivers flowed from beneath the statues' feet, forming a twin-dragon configuration through the forest, then disappearing in the center of the valley.
These two statues had bat heads on human bodies—they were the Bat Gods.
"Two Bat Gods guarding the Nether Valley? What is the relationship between these two Bat God statues and those two white bats from earlier?"
Qin Mu gazed into the distance, his heart startled: "Could these two rivers be flowing underground? Azure Sky Divine Eye, open!"
Another layer of heaven appeared in his pupils. Qin Mu looked toward where the two rivers disappeared and frowned. His vision seemed blocked by something, unable to see clearly.
"Cinnabar Sky Divine Eye, open!"
Qin Mu surged his primordial qi, forming the Cinnabar Sky divine eye rune array in both eyes. A ring of cinnabar-colored patterns appeared in his pupils, with the emerald-green Azure Sky Divine Eye inside that, then the cyan-colored Cyan Sky Divine Eye within, then the white-light Divine Sky Divine Eye further in, with the pupil at the center.
The Nine Heavens Eye-Opening Technique that Blind had taught him—he had already mastered it, though with his current cultivation, he could only open up to the Cinnabar Sky, and it was very draining. He rarely used it casually.
Under normal circumstances, the Cyan Sky Divine Eye was sufficient, and there was no need to activate the Azure Sky and Cinnabar Sky divine eyes.
However, even with the Cinnabar Sky Divine Eye, he couldn't see clearly what was at the place where the two rivers disappeared.
"Huh..."
Qin Mu's heart trembled slightly as he saw several corpses in the forest ahead. They were corpses of great shamans from the Loulan Golden Palace. These corpses were not far apart, but strangely, some looked lifelike, as if they had just died, while others had rotted down to bones, yet their clothes remained intact.
As his gaze extended deeper into the forest, he saw more corpses. Clearly, these people had met with misfortune immediately upon entering the forest and died unnatural deaths!
He looked with his Cinnabar Sky Divine Eye and suddenly saw something moving at extreme speed beside the corpses, vanishing in an instant. Then his divine eye seemed to suffer a violent impact, and the layers of his divine eye closed rapidly!
Qin Mu's mind was also struck dizzy and groggy. It seemed countless shrill voices were screaming and shrieking in his head, nearly tearing his soul apart!
Fortunately, he had already cultivated his primordial spirit and managed to withstand this attack.
But what exactly had attacked him, he hadn't seen clearly.
"Immeasurable, immeasurable, Maha immeasurable!"
The shrill screams in Qin Mu's mind grew louder and louder. He decisively activated the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra. Buddha light radiated from his entire body, and behind his head appeared the gods and Buddhas of the Six Heavens, all chanting in unison. The Buddha's voice lingered in the air, and the bizarre screams assaulting his soul were refined away.
The soil beneath his feet suddenly sizzled, emitting a puff of green smoke, and a foul stench rose from the earth. Qin Mu reached both hands forward and made a virtual embracing gesture. With a thunderous boom, his primordial qi transformed into a bodhi tree descending from the sky, lush and verdant, crashing down upon the ground ahead. Countless branches, along with the trunk, struck the earth, roots and tendrils flying wildly as they burrowed into the ground.
A miserable cry came from beneath the earth, and then the ground ahead of Qin Mu churned as if something was fleeing rapidly through the soil. When it passed by a large tree, the tree was shaken violently by whatever was underground.
"Even my Bodhi Whispers divine ability can't kill this thing?"
Qin Mu let out a low shout. Suddenly, his entire body became like jade—his skin translucent and crystalline, like fine jade. Behind him, a bodhi tree faintly appeared, making him look like a bull-headed Buddha attaining enlightenment beneath a tree.
At the Great Thunderclap Temple, he had only obtained the Dharma of the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra, not the divine abilities. But with the Dharma, he could deduce divine abilities on his own.
The divine abilities of the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra were actually encompassed within the Twenty Heavens of the Mahayana Sutra. The Thunderclap Eight Forms was one of them, belonging to the level of Shakradeva's divine abilities—already the highest tier, second only to the Mahabrahma divine abilities.
The Bodhi Whispers divine ability belonged to the Bodhi Tree Heaven—counting from the top down, it was the Fourteenth Heaven; from the bottom up, it was the Seventh Heaven.
Although the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra wasn't Qin Mu's primary cultivation method, he was quick to grasp related concepts, and his comprehension of the Mahayana Sutra hadn't lagged behind.
What he was now displaying was the Bodhi Jade Buddha True Body, using Buddha nature to suppress the strange thing underground and prevent it from getting close. However, he was simultaneously activating the Blazing Fire Marquis True Art, so he maintained his ox-headed, human-bodied deified state, flames blazing all around him, wisps of fire floating beside him, looking somewhat incongruous.
The strange thing underground came and went in an instant, extremely swift. What was even stranger was that Qin Mu felt the thing sometimes dispersed and sometimes condensed, sometimes even burrowing into trees, and even into those corpses.
"What exactly is this thing?"
Just then, two auras rapidly approached from behind. The Carefree Sword at Qin Mu's back let out a resonant cry and flew out of its scabbard, transforming into the Cloud Sword Form, rapidly spinning around him to protect his body.
Those two auras, however, bypassed him and flew past on both sides—it was the two large white bats.
The two white bats separated, flying to the two colossal statues on either side of the canyon, hanging upside down by their feet inside the nostrils of the divine statues. One of the white bats giggled: "This stupid ox doesn't know that a large force is coming from behind—several hundred experts have entered!"
"Hush!"
From the nostril of the other statue, the other white bat complained: "Why are you reminding him?"
"A large force? Several hundred experts?"
Qin Mu's heart tightened. It definitely wasn't the Yan Kang Kingdom's army that was coming. The defense forces at Qingmen Pass were barely sufficient for defense; they couldn't spare more troops to enter the Nether Valley!
"It's the Man Di Kingdom's army!"
Qin Mu didn't hesitate any longer. He immediately walked into the forest, heading toward the center of the Nether Valley.
Clashing with the Man Di Kingdom's main force would absolutely be seeking death. The soldiers of the Man Di Kingdom were wild and domineering by nature, and their armies coordinated well, supported by military formations. When Qin Mu had accompanied Sacrificial Wine Ba Shan to the Loulan Golden Palace, he had encountered the grassland's army—extremely powerful. Eight hundred men could contend against an existence at Ba Shan's sect-master level.
Judging by what those two white bats meant, the Man Di Kingdom had sent several hundred experts. Qin Mu could only temporarily avoid their sharp edge.
"The stupid ox is going to die!"
The two bats in the statues chorused: "Fall, fall!"
Qin Mu's body was wreathed in Buddha light, protecting himself and Long Qilin, yet he still didn't fall.
The two white bats were astonished. Suddenly, one of them flew out from the statue's nostril, grabbed a branch with its claws, and hung upside down in front of Qin Mu, puzzled: "Why don't those things attack you?"
Qin Mu looked up and asked, "Fellow Daoist, what is that thing underground?"
The white bat was about to answer when it suddenly flew up silently, heading back toward the nostril of the Bat God statue. Several hundred Man Di Kingdom soldiers and dozens of golden-glowing great shamans and shaman kings walked out of the canyon, arriving at the entrance of the Nether Valley, their ranks neatly arrayed.
"Prince Ban Gongcuo, please!"
A shaman king bowed. Ban Gongcuo slowly walked out from behind, his gaze sharp as lightning, sweeping across the Nether Valley. Then he saw Qin Mu on Long Qilin's back. He was momentarily startled, then revealed a knowing smile.
"Chief Qin, long time no see?"
His still somewhat youthful voice came, yet it was extremely loud, displaying his profound and mighty cultivation.
Qin Mu's heart trembled upon hearing this voice: "His cultivation speed is even faster than mine! When we clashed outside the capital, although we both entered the Six Harmonies realm, his cultivation wasn't as deep as mine at that time. But now he's caught up to me!"
"Indeed, no trouble."
Qin Mu laughed heartily: "I'm doing quite well! The little prince seems to be doing well too. I was worried those few slashes of mine might have chopped you to death underground. Seeing that you're still alive, I can rest easy."
Ban Gongcuo smiled slightly: "The Chief was fine before, but now that may not be the case."
"Prince, there are two bat monsters up above." A shaman king looked up at the Bat God statues and said.
Ban Gongcuo said casually, "Kill them."