As the people in the secret were all panicking and trying to rush out before the secret realm fully collapsed, Xuan Hao was making his way through the secret passage. Following closely behind the blue feather as it floated in front of him leading him deeper into the underground part of the palace.
The passage that he was walking through shook violently as Xuan Hao wished that the blue feather could fly a little faster, as he worried that the ceiling would come crashing down at him if it took too long!
Crack~
The worry was not unfounded as several cracks was beginning to spread along the underground passage as Xuan Hao tried his best to remain calm.
"This is!" Coming to the end of the passage, the blue feather suddenly stopped, and Xuan Hao quickly grabbed it and put it back into his interspatial ring before inspecting the room that was at the end of the underground passage. Trying his best to look for anything that might be able to help him activate the original entrance of the secret realm and get out.
The room itself was bigger than he had first expected, but it was still as empty as most of the other places inside of the ancient palace complex.
The only difference compared to the rest of the places inside the palace complex, was the fact that the place looked like it had been recently used.
Thinking about this, Xuan Hao looked over on the bedsheets that were all crumbled up and thrown to the corner of the room and at the small table located in the other corner of the room with a few papers on it.
A small light was emitted from a lamp beside the papers on the table as Xuan Hao wondered about whether there was still someone left inside of the palace complex other than the ancient tree.
"Hm… Weapons…?" Looking over the papers on the table, Xuan Hao immediately recognised the drawings on the paper to be blueprints for different kinds of weapons and other weird artifacts.
Rustle~
As Xuan Hao was looking over the different papers on the table, he suddenly heard a sound of something moving from beneath the bed and prepared himself for the worst as he cautiously approached.
Earlier, he had not felt anything when he entered the room in the first place and the place was more than small enough for it to be covered by his entire pseudo sword domain…
Xuan Hao could not help but be reminded of the time he got thrown into the underground part of the secret realm by a certain ancient tree…
Whoosh~
Moving towards the bed in the room and moving it to the side, Xuan Hao momentarily stopped.
"Another secret entrance…" Staring at the trapdoor under the bed, Xuan Hao cautiously opened it and stared down into the darkness.
"Someone else was indeed living here!" While he was not certain before, Xuan Hao managed to feel the presence of something living after opening the secret entrance and became certain that there had indeed been someone living in the room before he showed up and they most likely fled through the secret path after feeling him approaching!
Rumble~
The surroundings shook violently as Xuan Hao saw the passage, he came from getting closer and closer to collapsing as several cracks began to spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Glancing around the room, Xuan Hao did not see anything that would be able to help him open the original entrance of the secret realm and escape…
"Hah… I hope there is a way out of the secret realm down there…" Sighing to himself as he looked at the passage behind him began collapsing, Xuan Hao decided to follow whoever lived in the room before he showed up.
After all, he doubted that they would enter the secret path under the bed if there was no way out with the secret realm beginning to collapse…
Thinking about this, Xuan Hao thought that it might have been possible that the person did not flee when he showed up, but instead ran away after feeling the imminent collapse of the secret realm…
Whoosh~
Entering the secret path, Xuan Hao did not forget to store away the different blueprints that were scattered on the table before closing the trapdoor.
Crash!
Moving deeper into the secret path, Xuan Hao heard the room behind him collapse as he let out a sigh.
No matter what, there was no way back now…
All he could do was hope that he had made the right decision.
…
At the same time outside of the ancient palace complex, the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng along with General Liu and Zhang all decided to enter the ancient palace complex.
The time it would take for them to reach the entrance of the secret realm would take too long, unless they waited for the earth to crack apart enough for them to fly out of the underground world.
But before that happened, they would still have some time to explore the ancient palace complex and uncover what was hidden inside.
After all, the secret realm belonged to 'that' sect in the past and there would surely be something precious inside!
The sect in question could be considered the strongest sect to have ever existed and even the empires of today was nowhere near the same strength as the now forgotten sect!
The Sky Empire's Imperial Teacher and the Onyx Empire's Ancestor Bi Sheng decided to work together precisely because they knew that the things inside a secret realm left behind by the sect would be more than enough to cause Soul Ascension Realm Experts to fight over it!
This was an opportunity for both of them to finally breakthrough the last stage of the Domain Lord Realm and enter the Soul Ascension Realm!
At that time, they could truly be considered to have reached the peak of the Ewaria Continent!
No matter what kind of feud both empires had with each other, the Imperial Teacher and Ancestor Bi Sheng would be more than willing to let this go as they worked together to obtain a chance to reach an even greater hight!
Of course, their past friendship also contributed to how easily they managed to work together…
General Liu and General Zhang on the other hand did not have any sort of past friendship… On the contrary, they had clashed on the borders with each other quite a few times and only worked together because their elders told them to do so…
"This should be one of the legendary realm cities from the past…" Looking at the countless palaces spread around the ancient realm city, the Imperial Teacher emotionally muttered this to himself as he was lost in thought.
"Realm cities…?" Hearing the mutterings of the Imperial Teacher beside him, General Liu tilted his head to the side and asked with a questioning look on his face as he looked at the surrounding palaces. Clearly, he did not know as much about the ancient sect from the past as the Imperial Teacher did.
"The realm cities are places where the cultivators from that sect would go when they needed a place to quietly relax or enter seclusion for an extended period of time, they were called realm cities because most of them were located inside different secret realms…" Walking over from the side as he also looked at the surrounding palaces, Ancestor Bi Sheng explained this.
"Indeed, they would construct an entire secret realm just to have a place away from the world to quietly cultivate in peace… Even then, entering a realm city and getting a palace was not easy. The minimum requirement would be for one to reach the Domain Lord Realm…" Continuing the explanation where Ancestor Bi Sheng Stopped, the Imperial Teacher could not help but let out a sigh of amazement.
The palaces in the ancient realm city alone were more than one thousand! And this was just for one realm city!
The Imperial Teacher could not even begin to fathom how strong the ancient sect truly was back then…
And to think such a terrifyingly strong sect ended up getting destroyed!
Just from the giant realm destruction formation, the Imperial could easily see how brutal the war back then had been…
The Imperial Teacher did not know much about what had truly happened in the past, but he could easily imagine how world shaking the war had been!
Boom!
A large piece of rock fell from the ceiling and crashed into a nearby palace, quickly bringing the Imperial Teacher back.
"According to what I know, the entrance to the secret realm should be located in the main palace of the realm city. The one we entered was most likely an artificial entrance used by the invading force in the past! The main storeroom should also be located there!" Calling out to the others, the Imperial Teacher flew in the direction of the main palace.
The others did not wait behind after hearing what the Imperial Teacher said as they quickly followed behind him. Not noticing an almost invisible mist floating a few meters above them as it followed closely behind the group of four.
…
As more and more of the underground part of the secret realm collapsed, the giant lizard demon beast could no longer stand still as it narrowly dodged the rocks falling towards it from above.
Roar!
Boom!
Letting out a loud roar as it dodged another rock, the giant lizard demon beast looked up and spotted a giant ancient tree falling down towards it.
When did trees start falling from above?
Jumping to the side, the giant lizard demon beast discovered that a crack had formed in the ceiling and the sky above could be seen!𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞
ROAR!
Letting out an excited roar upon seeing a way out of the collapsing underground world, the giant lizard demon beast used all its strength to climb onto a nearby pillar connected to the ceiling and make its way through the crack in the ceiling.