At the same time that the black heart began preparing to expand its sphere of influence and gather more of the foreign power in the place where its arm had landed, Xuan Hao found yet another strange structure hidden away on the Main Star Peak.
The structure was nothing like anything he had ever seen before, and the material of the structure itself made it invisible to his divine sense. If not for the fact that he happened to land in the small, forested area it was hidden due to a rather peculiar demon beast catching his interest, he might not have found it in the first place.
Inspecting the structure that weaved together into some sort of strange-looking tree, Xuan Hao soon realized that there wasn't anything hidden inside or around the strange tree. The only thing of interest he found was the remnant of what should have been incense sticks.
"Is it perhaps a shrine of some sort? Is it perhaps related to the people who lived on the Main star Peak before the Star Peaks were shattered?" Not able to think of anything else, Xuan Hao could not help feeling curious about the people who had once lived on the Main Star Peak.
Other than the old temple with the demonic cultivator, the pagoda at the center of the Main Star Peak that the winged lion had been guarding and a few other ruins, he had not really managed to find a lot of things left behind. The overall state of the Main Star Peak was empty and desolate, with nothing more than a few demon beasts and forested areas sprinkled around the almost flat mountain peak.
No, the reason why there aren't much left behind of the people who once lived here, should be due to the person in control of the blue divine energy…
Narrowing his eyes as he realized this, Xuan Hao could not help thinking back to the large number of rocks filled with blue divine energy on the Second Star Peak and the large rock filled to the brim with blue divine energy on the Main Star Peak.
The large gathering of smaller rocks filled with divine energy was already scary enough if it was used for an attack… But the blue divine energy gathered together in the large rock on the Main Star Peak was far scarier. Even the colossal construct under the control of the black heart was nowhere near the same level of the power contained inside that rock.
Maybe even if the construct managed to recover, it might not be able to resist the terrifying blue divine power inside that rock…
Even the presence of the rock alone was enough to keep the chaotic qi outside from entering the area around the peak and ensured that even someone without cultivation would be able to move around without any problem.
Faced with a power like that, it was rather obvious that the people originally living on the Main Star Peak had no chance to resist and were thoroughly annihilated as a result. Leaving only a few traces of their existence behind!
"I wonder just who the owner of the blue divine energy is… And what happened back then to cause the destruction of this place." Muttering this to himself as he gazed over towards the strange tree in the middle of the small, forested area, Xuan Hao did not stay around for long before leaving after not finding anything of us around the strange tree.
However, instead of returning to the Star Shattering Sect like he had planned to do after finishing his exploration of the Main Star Peak, Xuan Hao instead decided to go through some of the locations that he had already been to in the past.
Intending to try and see if he could find anything similar to the strange tree that could not be seen through his divine sense.
Whoosh~
Like this, Xuan Hao ended up searching through some of the different locations he had already been to in the past. However, due to the fact that he was not using his divine sense to search, it also meant that the speed at which he could search the Main Star Peak had reduced by several orders of magnitude.
If he could search through the entire Main Star Peak in a little over a week in the past, now he would have to spent at least a few years- maybe even a decade before he could search the entire Main Star Peak without his divine sense… And that was also considering that he didn't use any time on resting and instead used all available time searching through the Main Star Peak.
Of course, even with all of this, there was always a chance that he might miss something because of how large the peak of the Main Star Peak was.
Luckily for Xuan Hao, it did not take more than a few days of searching before Xuan Hao managed to find another structure like the strange tree.
Thump!
"Another strange looking tree… Looks like there are indeed other structures that are invisible to divine sense." Landing in front of what looked like a replica of the strange tree structure from earlier, Xuan Hao did not show any disappointment on his face. Instead, a faint smile appeared on his lips after seeing the strange tree.
The reason for the smile was simple, the appearance of another structure that he couldn't see through his divine sense had confirmed his earlier suspicion about there being more structure like the strange tree hidden on the Main star Peak.
Although it was a replica of the same thing, it still carried some uniqueness to it, as instead of remnants left behind by incense, there were instead several bones and skulls lined up around the strange tree. Making it clear to anyone passing by that a sacrifice of some sort had been made to the strange-looking tree structure. Confirming that the strange tree was indeed some kind of shrine of sorts.
As for what kind of god the strange tree represented, he had no idea. Maybe it was not even a god, but something different. After all, the sculptures of gods that he had seen so far were humanoid and would at most have a few unique characteristics, like wings, horns, tails, or something along that line. None of them being in the shape of a demon beast, let alone a tree…
Of course, this could just be because the gods of the past had died out or disappeared after the cataclysm that had taken place in the ancient era and no longer existed in the Ewaria continent. Maybe outside the continent, non-human gods would be more common.
Not to mention this, one would also have to consider the fact that the only race found on the Ewaria continent was the human race!
Even if the demon beasts did have a bit of control over the continent, the territory that they controlled was negligible when compared to the human race. Not to mention, demon beasts was not a single race, but a gathering of all sorts of different races…
Thinking about all of this, Xuan Hao could not help shaking his head. Whether or not the sculpture of the strange tree really represented some sort of ancient god that had once existed in the world didn't matter.
After all, it was nothing more than a slowly decaying structure that would no longer be remembered for what it had once represented. The only thing that was left in Xuan Hao's eyes was nothing more than a strange structure that happened to be invisible to his divine sense.
"Is this perhaps what will happen to the Star Shattering Sect in the future…?" Not able to stop himself from muttering this to himself as he turned to look back in the direction of the Star Shattering Sect, Xuan Hao felt a strange sense of melancholy as he looked back at the strange tree that seemed to have started an extremely slow process of decay.
Even if it could survive for the next thousand years, what about ten thousand years? A Hundred thousand years? One million years? No matter how durable it seemed, it would inevitably disappear in the long river of time.
The Star Shattering Sect was starting to enter period of rapid growth and would soon cement itself as the most powerful sect inside the Sky Empire… But Xuan Hao could not help wondering about something after seeing the strange tree.
How long would the Star Shattering Sect last? Would he be capable of continuing to support the sect and help it grow stronger, or would he end up reaching a bottleneck at some point that he would not be able to overcome, doomed to remain stuck as the river of time slowly erased him from history like it had done the strange tree….
Whoosh~
As Xuan Hao was standing in front of the strange tree with a helpless expression on his face, a gentle mist began to flow out from the strange tree, slowly moving towards his body.