Roar!
Xuan Hao dodged to the side as a giant paw filled with razor sharp claws barely missed him as he swung his sword down on the attacker, cutting off the attacking demon beasts head cleanly without any form of struggle.
"It seems like I'm getting closer…" Ignoring the dead demon beast lying beside him, Xuan Hao instead focused on the path before him becoming more visible as he travelled deeper into the ancient forest. Ensuring him that he had picked the right direction to follow.
Other than that, a few demon beasts around the earlier stages of the Nascent Soul Realm also came out from time to time and blocked him, but they were swiftly dealt with as Xuan Hao continued following the path.
The ancient trees quickly passed by as Xuan Hao moved through the ancient forest, listening to the surrounding roars and howls of demon beasts as they engaged in deadly fights with each other.
"This should be the end of the path…" After traveling for another half hour, Xuan Hao was already far away from the border and felt a little doubtful as he looked at the place where the path had stopped.
A gorge stretching far into the distance had appeared in front of him, a small river ran through it as it spit the ancient forest in half as the ancient trees barely managed to hide it from any prying eyes with their wide tree crowns.
Looking down, Xuan Hao managed to spot a small platform close to the bottom of the gorge with an entrance leading into the side of gorge. The path also seemed to lead down towards the platform as Xuan Hao also discovered a pair of stone steps etched into the side of the gorge leading all the way down towards the platform.
Following it, Xuan Hao soon found himself at the bottom of the gorge as he looked towards the entrance leading into what he could only assume to be a cave.
Checking out the platform with his divine sense, Xuan Hao did not sense anything weird about it or anything and decided to make his way inside the cave entrance. Maybe the small palace that the treasure hunter talked about had already completely disappeared from history. Only leaving behind the platform in the side of the gorge.
Xuan Hao felt that this was a possibility as quite a few demon beasts roamed around this area, and it could have been destroyed when the demon beasts had clashed in the past and end up slowly getting washed away in the river below over a long period of time.
In the end, the platform that the small palace once stood would be the only thing remaining…
Entering the entrance in the side of the gorge, Xuan Hao was shocked to see several crystals in the side of the cave walls lighting up the interior as Xuan Hao observed the inside of the cave and was once again shocked after he managed to fully observe the sheer size of the underground cave.
In front of him, Xuan Hao saw a small palace standing quietly surrounded by a giant chasm with only a simple hanging bridge connecting the small palace with the entrance to the cave.
Walking up to the chasm surrounding the small palace, Xuan Hao leaned forward as he tried to find out how deep the chasm was with his divine sense. Only to end up disappointed as his divine sense did not manage to reach the bottom of the chasm, even when stretching it as much as possible.
The reason for this was not so much that the chasm was too deep, but more because Xuan Hao felt his divine sense being suppressed the further down into the chasm his divine sense travelled.
The feeling of suppression on his divine sense was not something Xuan Hao was used to, and he felt a bit weird after discovering it, while also feeling curious as to what restricted his divine sense from peering further into the chasm below…
"No use thinking about it…" Shaking his head as he turned his attention away from the chasm, Xuan Hao walked over to the hanging bridge barely hanging in there and made his way over towards the small palace.
Remaining cautious in case any demon beast had made the small underground palace their home or any formation were in place to deal with any intruders.
But his worry was for nothing as Xuan Hao made it to the other side of the chasm without anything happening to him in the process. No demon beast or formation to block his path…
Xuan Hao felt that it was all a little too easy, but just shrugged his shoulders and entered the small palace in search of the ancient artifact mentioned by the treasure hunter.
The small palace was almost completely empty with no elaborate decorations or other precious objects.
Instead, the palace only had a single hallway leading to the main hall along with a few other rooms on the side with nothing inside them.
It almost seemed like everything inside the small palace had already been taken away with nothing remaining.
"Hah… Looks like I might be too late…" This caused Xuan Hao to sigh in defeat as he thought someone else might have found the small palace before him.
Feeling depressed thinking about the fact that someone else might have beaten him to it, Xuan Hao made his way into the main hall of the palace without expecting there to be anything left inside.
"This is…!"
…
Rumble~
The sound of a large creature moving could be heard from the chasm surrounding the underground palace, as a pair of eyes slowly sprung open and stared directly up at the underground palace filled with an undeniable killing intent.
And before long, the creature slowly began moving up from the chasm and towards the underground palace where Xuan Hao was currently at. Completely unaware of the fact that a certain demon beast had already targeted him just after being unsealed!