Volume 1, Chapter 116 – The Sleeping Corpse

The cultivators from the various factions behind him exchanged uneasy glances, their earlier clamor instantly dying away.

Indeed, no one was stopping them. They simply did not dare go in.

But the entrance to the great hall was pitch-black, concealing untold dangers. Members of Yaochi Immortal Palace had already entered, yet there had still been no sign of them…

Who could guarantee it was safe inside?

For a time, the two sides settled into a strange stalemate.

Liu Ruyan said nothing more. She closed her eyes again and resumed meditating.

Ye Ling’er, meanwhile, kept a wary eye on the other factions, her grip tightening slightly around her twin Nether Moon blades.

She knew her Senior Sister was yielding ground to seize the advantage.

If these people truly threw caution to the wind and charged inside, they could scout the way for them.

If fear held them back, the standoff could continue until Third Senior Sister and the others emerged.

Either way, the initiative remained in their hands.

Time passed, second by second.

The entrance to the great hall remained dark and silent, like a colossal maw capable of swallowing everything.

Gu Luoli and the others had been inside for more than two hours!

No signal had come from within, nor had there been any sounds of battle or other unusual activity.

This ominous silence was even more unnerving than a fierce battle.

At last, someone else lost patience.

This time, it was a handful of cultivators who appeared to be independent cultivators. Most were around the middle stage of Foundation Establishment.

Their eyes burned with hunger for opportunity, along with the vicious resolve of desperate men with nothing to lose.

“Damn it! Fortune favors the bold! We’ll get jack shit waiting out here!”

“If the people from Yaochi Immortal Palace dare go in, why shouldn’t we? Let’s go!”

“Exactly! We’ll go together! Even if it’s dangerous, what the hell do we have to fear with so many of us?”

The independent cultivators egged one another on, summoned their artifacts, and cautiously crept toward the entrance.

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Their actions were like a drop of water hitting boiling oil, instantly shattering the deadlock!

“Follow them!”

“We’re going too!”

“We can’t let them beat us to it!”

One after another, several hundred more cultivators succumbed to their greed and followed.

They converged into a stream of people, pouring eagerly yet warily toward the pitch-black doors.

Lu Chen and Ling Chen exchanged a glance. Finally, Lu Chen gritted his teeth and said to his fellow disciples from the Flowing Cloud Sword Sect,

“We’re going in too! Proceed carefully and keep your distance!”

At Lu Chen’s command, several dozen Flowing Cloud Sword Sect disciples drew their swords and followed the others through the doors.

Their actions lit the fuse.

“Disciples of Lingxu Sacred Land, follow me inside!”

The graceful-looking male cultivator leading the Lingxu Sacred Land disciples gave a low command and led his fellow disciples steadily forward.

“Opportunity is right before us! How can Tianyuan Sacred Land fall behind? Charge in! Watch each other’s backs!”

A burly Tianyuan Sacred Land disciple built like an iron tower bellowed.

The body cultivators behind him answered in unison and strode inside.

“Disciples of the Wondrous Sound Pavilion, form up and follow me inside.”

A beautiful woman from the Wondrous Sound Pavilion waved one slender hand.

The women behind her took out their artifacts and followed close behind.

Mubai and Su Wan’er of Qingyun Sacred Land exchanged a glance.

“Junior Sister Wan’er, take half our fellow disciples and remain outside as support. I’ll lead a team in.”

Mubai spoke solemnly, his eyes filled with determination.

“Senior Brother, be careful.”

Su Wan’er nodded and stayed behind with some of the disciples.

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Afterward, the cultivators of Hundred Beasts Mountain entered with their spirit beasts. Though the surviving disciples of Ten Thousand Poisons Ridge and the Xuanming Sect were still shaken, they refused to fall behind.

Together with teams from other second-rate sects and cultivation clans, they flooded into the ruined palace complex like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.

In just one hour, the area outside the entrance had grown considerably emptier.

Only Yaochi Immortal Palace, Qingyun Sacred Land, and a few exceptionally cautious minor sects remained outside to watch and wait.

Ye Ling’er stared at the doors that had swallowed thousands of cultivators like the maw of some gigantic beast. Her palms were beginning to sweat.

“Second Senior Sister, Third Senior Sister and the others have been inside for so long… Shouldn’t we also…?”

She could not help asking in a low voice.

Liu Ruyan looked toward the shadowy entrance and gently shook her head.

“There’s no hurry. Luoli hasn’t sent a distress signal, which means the situation inside remains under control. At the very least, they’re safe for now.”

She paused, her tone turning grave as she sent a voice transmission to Ye Ling’er and the nearby disciples.

“With all these people scrambling to get inside, they can clear some of the dangers from Junior Sister Gu’s path.”

“This great hall gives me a very bad feeling. It is by no means a safe place.”

“Our best course is to wait here patiently and be ready to support Luoli when she emerges.”

Understanding dawned on Ye Ling’er, calming her somewhat, though she kept her gaze firmly fixed on the entrance.

Meanwhile, inside the ruined palace complex…

The interior was far larger than it appeared from outside, almost as though it formed an independent space of its own.

Towering stone pillars supported a mottled vaulted ceiling, while faded ancient murals could still be faintly seen on the walls.

Some depicted blurred human figures, but the passage of time had eroded them beyond recognition.

The air was thick with an even denser aura of shattered Dao laws, mingled with the smells of scorching and long-sealed dust.

Gu Luoli led twenty disciples of Yaochi Immortal Palace silently through the darkness in a defensive formation.

Golden light flickered within her double pupils, allowing her to clearly “see” the flows of energy and spatial structures imperceptible to ordinary people.

The formations and restrictions within the great hall had long since been ravaged by the passage of time and the devastating heavenly tribulation of years past.

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Yet some surviving nodes and traps still radiated danger.

“Don’t touch the wall on the left. It’s extremely dangerous!”

“There are faint spatial fluctuations behind the stone pillar on the right. They’re highly unstable, so stay away.”

Gu Luoli’s cool, clear voice guided her fellow disciples along a safe route through the silent darkness.

Everyone obeyed without the slightest deviation, placing absolute faith in their Third Senior Sister’s judgment.

Their journey had not been without reward.

In several collapsed side halls and broken corridors, they found a few buried artifacts of fairly high rank, though most of their spiritual essence had been lost.

They also found several perfectly sealed jade bottles. Astonishingly, two ninth-grade medicinal pills lay inside. Although most of their medicinal potency had dissipated, they still possessed immense research value.

Gu Luoli planned to take them back and give them to Elder Yun Miaoyi, hoping they might help her advance her alchemy.

They also discovered several scattered jade slips. Although they recorded only a few earth-rank cultivation techniques, they were undoubtedly priceless treasures to several of the disciples.

Naturally, Gu Luoli did not compete with them for the jade slips. After all, she cultivated the Lingxu Heavenly Eye, a technique surpassing even heaven rank, so ordinary cultivation techniques held little appeal for her.

Though their journey had yielded considerable rewards, the unease in Gu Luoli’s heart continued to grow.

The great hall was too quiet. Unnaturally so.

It was as though every danger lay dormant in places deeper and darker still, waiting for its prey to walk willingly into the trap.

“Senior Sister, I think I hear voices…”

A disciple at the middle stage of Foundation Establishment lowered his voice and pointed behind them.

At his words, golden light swirled within Gu Luoli’s double pupils, allowing her to clearly “see” the indistinct crowd far behind them.

Those people clearly lacked her abilities and repeatedly triggered formation nodes as they advanced.

Distant screams, cries of alarm, and furious curses broke the deathly silence in the depths of the great hall.

“It’s the cultivators who followed us inside… They’ve triggered those hidden restrictions.”

Gu Luoli spoke softly, unsurprised.

Greed always came at a price, especially in an unknown and dangerous place like this.

She neither stopped nor slowed her pace.

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Following the safest route revealed by her double pupils, she continued leading her fellow disciples deeper into the great hall.

The great hall’s internal structure was extraordinarily complex, like a labyrinth.

There were countless branching paths, while many passages had long since been sealed by collapsed boulders or lingering tribulation power.

The aura of shattered Dao laws permeating the air did more than interfere with attempts to probe the surroundings using divine sense.

It also faintly suppressed the circulation of the cultivators’ spiritual power, filling everyone with a crushing sense of oppression.

With the aid of her double pupils, Gu Luoli precisely avoided every lethal trap.

She always managed to find a safe, passable route.

Leading her fellow disciples like nimble fish swimming through darkness, she swiftly passed through corridor after corridor and skirted one side hall after another.

The chaotic sounds from far behind gradually faded into the distance.

After traveling for roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn, the path ahead suddenly opened up.

An enormous great hall, far grander and better preserved than any they had seen before, appeared before them.

The great hall rose several dozen zhang high. Faint patterns of stars could still be seen across its vaulted ceiling.

Most had long since dimmed, but they could still imagine how magnificent the sight must once have been.

Dozens of stone statues in various poses stood along both sides of the great hall.

Some were human-shaped, some resembled beasts, and others possessed strange forms that defied description.

Despite enduring the passage of countless years, they continued to exude a pressure that made the heart tremble.

At the far end of the great hall, atop a raised platform…

A figure sat silently in an ancient stone chair.

It was an elegant-looking middle-aged man dressed in a pale blue-green robe.

His eyes were gently closed, and his hands rested naturally on the armrests of the stone chair.

Not the slightest trace of time’s erosion marred his body. Not even a speck of dust had settled upon him!

It was as though he were merely taking a brief nap and might open his eyes at any moment.