Of the three people at the other doors, one was a teenager. He looked to be no more than fourteen or fifteen years old. His facial features were delicate, even pretty. He had long hair bound with a ribbon, and when he looked at Xu Qing and Erniu, he smiled, revealing pearly white teeth. He seemed pure and innocent, without a trace of malice or evil in him.
Next to him was a huge black silkworm that was larger than he was. It was covered with waving tentacles that made it look unusually malevolent. Coming out of the silkworm’s mouth was a strand of black silk that was connected to one of the Grand Emperor treasures by the immortal’s corpse. It looked like a jade bottle. The silk was pulled taut. Apparently, the treasure was resisting the silk, and yet, was slowly being pulled away.
In another direction, seated beyond another of the open doors, was a young woman. She was exquisitely beautiful, with eyebrows like crescent moons, a long straight nose, and cherry-red lips. However, there was something very cold about her, including her gaze. She wore palace attire, a voluminous gown with wide sleeves that made her seem aloof and out of touch with reality.[1]
The arrival of Xu Qing and Erniu on the scene caused her to frown slightly. However, she quickly looked away from them and focused on an octagonal mirror floating in front of her. The mirror was currently facing the crypt and pulling everything there inside of it as a reflection. That included the immortal’s corpse, as well as all the legacies, authorities, and treasures surrounding it. The woman was currently inserting her hand into the mirror to take something. Unfortunately, it was a difficult task that she had not yet succeeded at.
The third party was a young man. He wore a green scholar’s robe, and had his hair bound atop his head with a simple hairpin. He seemed calm and collected, with an erudite air about him. He was very thin, like a bamboo stalk, and had attractive facial features and sparkling eyes. Of the three, he paid the least attention to Xu Qing and Erniu. His gaze flitted over them briefly, no more.
He was fully focused on a burning stick of incense in front of him. The incense was about as thick as a finger, and it was bright red. As it burned, it sent out puffs of smoke. The scholar would then blow on the smoke, sending it into the crypt toward the legacy seals.
It was a very strange smoke. As it continued to blow into the crypt, some of the legacy seals flickered with increasing intensity, as if they were becoming alive. They even seemed to be growing tiny limbs. And then they began to form ranks and slowly start walking toward the young man.
When Xu Qing and Erniu saw all of this, various thoughts ran through their heads. After extorting that Imperial Sovereign earlier, they had begun to speculate about the identities of the others who had come into Netherflame’s secluded meditation facilities.
After laying eyes on these people, Xu Qing realized that their speculations were correct. They’re all Imperial Sovereigns in disguise! As for this crypt, it’s full of danger and the unknown. The Imperial Sovereigns from the western Devilbirds are obviously being very careful. What’s more, you can tell... that none of them want to actually go inside the crypt. That’s why they’re using different ways of extracting the good fortune!
Furthermore... the fact that they’re all here goes to show that they all knew about this crypt and were ready to come here! Erniu came to the same conclusion as Xu Qing. The two of them exchanged a glance and could see the serious look in the other’s eyes. After all, there was no denying the fact that they were the weakest people in the group. If even one of these people chose to attack them, they would have to take the situation very seriously.
Thankfully, we have a wonderful family backing us up.... Erniu looked over his shoulder with a fawning look, then gritted his teeth. “Little Junior Brother, we can’t worry about blowing our cover now. Our disguises are already gone. They’ve probably already guessed who we really are. And therefore, we—”
“We need to go for broke!” Xu Qing finished, speaking in a voice so decisive it could sever nails and chop iron .
Erniu’s eyes burned with a crazy look. At the same time, both of them shoved hard on the stone door. They held nothing back. Rumbling sounds echoed out as the stone door slowly opened.
Not even Imperial Sovereigns were willing to enter this crypt. And though Xu Qing and Erniu were both a bit crazy, there was a big difference between acting crazy and acting suicidal. At the very least... things hadn’t reached the point where they would need to act suicidal. Therefore, after opening the door, they looked around the crypt and all the skeletons. At that point, they made a joint decision.
Gray mist appeared in Erniu’s eyes. Mist also began to pour off Xu Qing’s carving knife of fate. Their power merged, and they sent it into the crypt.
In the blink of an eye, the eyes of one particular skeleton began to glow. And then, it shakily lurched onto all fours and started crawling toward the altar and the immortal’s corpse. At first, it moved in a rather wobbly fashion. But soon enough, it was moving more smoothly and with greater speed.
If Xu Qing and Erniu had tried this back when they first got this power of death, they would never have been able to exercise such control. It would have been too difficult. But after all of their work gathering food for the family of heads, they had so much practice that their level of control had reached the point of perfection.
Before long, the skeleton reached the altar and managed to hop up onto it. There, it slammed into one of the Grand Emperor treasures that resembled a shield. It slammed into it in a way that would hopefully send it flying toward Xu Qing and Erniu. Instead, the moment it made impact, the treasure sent out a force of rejection that ripped the skeleton into shreds.
The treasure didn’t budge an inch. The other three people at the other doors didn’t bother looking at what was happening.
Xu Qing and Erniu looked on with glittering eyes. Next... about eight skeletons rushed toward the altar, where they slammed into the shield. Some popping sounds rang out as the skeletons turned into ashes. Next, a few dozen skeletons rose up. Then came over a hundred.
In the end, several hundred skeletons charged forth, each trying to outdo the other as they slammed into the shield. At long last, the shield moved. As the process went on like that, the shield slowly but surely inched toward Xu Qing and Erniu at the stone door. The progress was slow, but that was only considering the process on its own.
If you compared it to how things were going with the other three parties, it was actually moving quite quickly. As a result, the three Imperial Sovereigns took notice and looked over.
Meanwhile, something else was happening at two of the other doors. The black-robed figure on the other side of one of the stone doors was watching things play out, and he was frowning.
At another door was the empress. Shē had an odd expression on hēr face as shē watched the skeletons slamming into the shield. Then shē saw the look of anticipation on the faces of Xu Qing and Erniu, and shē sighed.
In that matter, time slipped by slowly but surely. Two hours went by.
Two more individuals arrived. The first was the son of the fifth Imperial Sovereign, Lin Kun.
Of course... it wasn’t really Lin Kun. It was a person disguised as Lin Kun. He was actually the fifth Imperial Sovereign of the eastern Devilbirds, who was one of Grand Emperor Netherflame’s apprentices! Upon arriving, he showed no interest in any of the treasures. Instead, he focused on the dao lineaments of authority, which caused his eyes to gleam in anticipation. His method of acquisition was unique. He just sat down cross-legged and exuded fluctuations of the same origin as one of the lineaments. As a result, the dao lineament started inching toward him.
The last to arrive was someone familiar to Xu Qing and Erniu. It was the old man they had clashed with earlier.
Upon arriving, he looked around at the crypt, at all the parties present, and of course, he saw Xu Qing and Erniu. The moment he caught sight of those two, his killing intent raged inside of him. However, after scanning the crypt and noting the stone door where Xu Qing and Erniu stood, he suppressed his killing intent.
There’s no rush. If they somehow manage to make it out of this alive, I’ll definitely track them down and wipe them out of existence!
With a cold snort, he sat down and unleashed his aura of death, which he used like a fishing hook to snag one of the dao lineaments of authority.
This time, another incense stick’s worth of time passed.
Everyone continued on with their differing methods of acquiring their targets. Everyone was making progress, especially Xu Qing and Erniu. The shield was only about 30 meters away from them at this point. The only downside as far as they were concerned was that the huge heads seemed scared of the crypt, and weren’t helping them with gravitational force.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Erniu, licking his lips. “As long as things go on like this, it will only take an incense stick of time before the treasure is ours.”
Unfortunately, whoever had set up this entire situation obviously wanted people to go into the crypt, because that was when something unexpected happened.
Just when everyone was about to succeed in getting what they wanted, one of the previously sealed stone doors suddenly slammed open. Unexpectedly, someone shot out of the door. To the shock of everyone, this newcomer moved with incredible speed as they entered the crypt.
It was an old woman! It was very clearly the same old woman that Patriarch Yun had killed. But here she was.
With the wave of her hand, she sent Imperial Sovereign fluctuations raging out into a tempest. The silk thread snapped. The mirror wobbled out of control. The death aura was severed. The awakening legacies were blocked. The connections to the authority were cut. And it caused Xu Qing and Erniu’s shield to shoot back in the opposite direction. It all happened before anyone could react.
As everyone looked on with glittering eyes, the woman walked up to the immortal’s corpse and sat down cross-legged.
Voice cold, she said, “Since all of you are afraid of taking risks, don’t come in here.”
The old woman closed her eyes and performed a double-handed incantation gesture. Opening her mouth in the direction of the immortal’s corpse, she inhaled deeply. That action caused an intangible connection to spring up between her and the corpse. It was impossible to tell what shocking technique the woman was using. But regardless, the corpse started crumbling. And as the old woman absorbed it, her own aura began to rise dramatically.
She got stronger and stronger. Apparently, she was absorbing Grand Emperor Netherflame’s personhood. And as she inhaled, all of the legacies and authorities trembled and began to shoot toward her, as if she were their master and they wanted to fuse with her.
All of a sudden, all of the Grand Emperor treasures seemed to have spirit automatons that were on the verge of waking up. This dramatic turn of events upset the balance of power!
This was a conspiracy! It didn’t matter who could or couldn’t see what was really going on with the old woman. Everyone knew that if they didn’t do something, the old woman would succeed. And if she got everything in the crypt, then the rest of them would be in great, unpredictable danger. Most importantly, the old woman... was also absorbing the black crystal with Grand Emperor Devilbird’s fate-soul in it!
It was a critical moment, and everyone had grim looks on their faces. As for Lin Kun, a cold look gleamed in his eyes as he shot forward to prevent the old woman from absorbing everything around her. Booms rang out as the two started fighting.
The other Imperial Sovereigns hesitated.
As for Xu Qing and Erniu, they exchanged a glance, then gritted their teeth and unleashed as much gray mist as they could. Countless skeletons in the crypts shivered and woke up. After crawling to their feet, they shot toward the legacies, authorities, and Grand Emperor treasures.
1. There is no one specific fashion that you could point to as being ‘palace attire.’ In real life, fashion changed through the ages. The idea is that this woman would be dressed in the manner of a princess, concubine, or other noble lady who might be found in an imperial palace. Here are a couple examples. ☜