novellhall Chapter 1641 - 832: Astonishing News (Part 2)
Chapter 1641 - 832: Astonishing News (Part 2)
It was Li Yan!
His clothes were in tatters all over, with many wounds clawed open by sharp fangs or jagged rocks, and his face was slightly pale.
His wet hair clung to his cheeks, dripping water bead by bead.
Thud!
Like throwing a piece of cargo, he hurled a woman in strange witch’s clothes, also soaked through and unconscious, heavily onto the deck.
That woman was precisely the Witch among the Sea Demon Group, Yakimaru!
Her face was as white as paper, only a sliver of life left in her.
"Watch her closely... she’s the Sea Demon Group’s witch... interrogate her carefully."
Li Yan pointed at Yakimaru on the ground, then fished an item out from his breast.
The instant he produced it, even though it was wrapped in wet cloth, a gentle yet vast strange fluctuation spread out at once, dispersing the irritability brought by the surrounding sea wind.
He didn’t even look at it, directly tossing it toward the Guard Captain.
The Guard Captain caught it on reflex; it felt heavy and icy cold in his hand.
His hand trembled as he carefully lifted a corner of the wet cloth—instantly, a soft yet brilliant radiance, as if condensed from moonlight and starlight, spilled forth, illuminating his eyes widened in shock, and also lighting up several other faces around him, all written with the same disbelief!
"Sea... Sea Stabilizing Night! It’s the Sea Stabilizing Night Pearl!"
The Guard Captain’s roar of ecstasy carried a choking sob.
"We found it! We really found it!"
"Young Hero Li, mighty!"
"Heaven bless Great Xuan! Heaven bless His Highness!"
The emotions suppressed for so long erupted like a volcano.
Sailors, soldiers, even the Prince Mansion guards couldn’t help but raise their arms and cheer, the wave of sound almost lifting the rigging off the Sea Suppression.
Sha Lifei and the others exchanged a glance, and also let out a breath of relief.
Yet Li Yan, at the very center of the cheering, only revealed a tired smile, then waved his hand, his voice hoarse: "I’m dead tired, let me sleep first, then we’ll talk..."
Nobody dared disturb him, and the Guard Captain hurriedly gave the order to head back.
......
Thump!
The heavy cabin door shut behind him, cutting off the noise outside.
Li Yan didn’t say a word and collapsed straight into sleep.
This time he wasn’t heavily wounded, but he had burned through a lot.
The Daluo Dharma Body could restore injuries, but the overdrawn energy still needed to recover.
Unknowingly, several hours passed.
Li Yan slowly opened his eyes. In the cramped cabin, only the dull sound of waves lapping against the hull and the faint crackle of the oil-lamp wick burning remained.
He wasn’t in a hurry to get up, just stared blankly at the low beams above his head, their wood stained dark where water had seeped in, recalling what he’d seen in the Immortal Mountain Secret Realm.
Perhaps out of taboo toward the Heavenly Rules, after that Marshal Wen revealed his identity, he likewise didn’t speak, but led him into the depths of the Immortal Mountain Cave Heaven.
The scene inside left Li Yan utterly stunned.
The depths of that Secret Realm were not, as he had imagined, where the entrance to some Cave Heaven Blessed Land lay.
The central space was broader even than the giant turtle’s belly, and even more shattered. The vault above was shrouded beneath a constantly surging, sagging mass of leaden-gray clouds, so thick they seemed almost within reach.
The leaden-gray clouds were not still; they were whirling madly.
A gigantic vortex of dark clouds occupied the center of his vision, its core unfathomably deep. Along the vortex’s edge, serpents of lightning twisted in violent fury, thunder roared and bellowed, making the entire Secret Realm space tremble faintly.
From that twisted vortex-cave, strands, wisps, sheets... of pitch-black smoke, thick as ink, were continuously spilling out.
These black smokes were not dead things. They coiled, gathered, and scattered along the edge of the vortex, like living creatures, emitting wave after wave of shrill screeches.
At times they condensed into warped shadows with no fixed form, and at times they turned into faces that were crystal-clear yet ferocious and terrifying:
Some bared fangs, some bled from all seven orifices, all filled with madness.
"Monsters of the Daluo Law Realm..."
Li Yan’s brows knit slightly. He had seen these things before.
They counted as one type of Yin Bureau assignment; he had even captured two of them.
These things were born in the deep, shadowed corners of the Daluo Law Realm, essentially the negative projection of collective human consciousness, severed from any binding of a belief system, pure aggregates of "malice" and "chaos."
The Heavenly Court and the Yin Bureau both had many Immortal Gods and troops suppressing them.
Sometimes they would find the thin, weak seams between the Dharma Realm and the real world, and slip into the Human World like fish that had slipped through the net.
Some would silently take Possession of mortals, learn and mimic human behavior, lurking to commit evil. But most were like frenzied wild beasts.
Once they possessed a host, in an instant they could drive that host completely insane, turning them into a monster that knew only slaughter and destruction, bereft of all reason.
The scene before his eyes was by no means one or two fiends slipping through; it was clearly a tide of fiends of terrifying scale, attempting to break through the spatial barrier as a swarm!
They were drawn to the cave at the center of the vortex, like sharks catching the scent of blood, madly ramming that fragile membrane between realms.
On the other side of the vortex cave, without a doubt, was the "Daluo Law Realm" formed from the collective consciousness of humanity—bizarre, gaudy, and hiding endless peril!
How could these things... have gathered here?
Could it be that this Immortal Mountain Secret Realm had actually become a springboard for Dharma Realm fiends to assault the Human World?
Thoughts whirled through Li Yan’s mind, and cold sweat seeped from the palm gripping the Duan Chen Blade.
Just as his mind was in turmoil, shaken by the scene before him, the Wen Lingguan beside him, condensed entirely from pure Thunder Fire Gang Sha, moved.
He slowly raised his arm and pointed forward.
There was no spell or incantation.
On the far side of the vortex, the winds and clouds of the Daluo Law Realm changed color in an instant.
It was as if an invisible giant hand was stirring the firmament of the Dharma Realm; the heavy clouds were brutally torn apart and scattered. In their place surged a boiling, seething sea of Thunder Fire clouds.
"Boom——!!!"
Countless peals of deafening Thunder exploded in the Dharma Realm at the exact same instant!
Even the Immortal Mountain cave itself shook without cease, as innumerable bolts of Thunder blasted with unerring precision into the mass of black fiend-smoke trying to break through the barrier.
The sight was both spectacular and tragic.
Those masses of black fiend-smoke that a heartbeat ago were still baring fangs, howling, and crazedly battering the barrier, upon coming into contact with Thunder Fire, were like snow splashed with boiling soup—before they could even scream, they sizzled and hissed, rapidly dissolving and disintegrating.
They turned into wisps of pale smoke, and in the end were completely annihilated into nothingness.
Li Yan’s mind swayed as he watched; this was a realm utterly beyond what Human World Cultivators could ever reach.
However, when the surging Thunder Fire burned the last wisp of black smoke to ash, revealing the Dharma Realm sky behind it, temporarily cleared and somewhat "lucent," the sight that truly made Li Yan feel his whole body go ice-cold, as if plunged into an ice cave, appeared.
Beyond those Thunder Fire clouds, deep in the dim, obscure firmament of the Dharma Realm, it was not empty.
Several figures were standing there in utter stillness.
Their bodies were tall, far beyond any mortal, clad in ancient-style high caps and grand robes that shimmered with flowing radiance, their forms shrouded in seven-colored immortal light.
They had not taken part in the battle, and seemed utterly indifferent even to Marshal Wen’s world-shaking Thunder Fire might; they simply hovered there in the high sky of the Dharma Realm, coldly watching.
Facing Marshal Wen, they did not show the slightest hint of reverence or retreat!
Their gaze was one of apathy taken to its extreme, devoid of any emotion, containing only pure, icy scrutiny.
After only a few breaths, as if their observation was complete, or perhaps feeling this place held no further value, those few figures wreathed in seven-colored immortal light began to fade, their traces vanishing utterly.
Immediately after, Marshal Wen slowly turned his head.
Through the layers of leaping Thunder Fire, Li Yan saw a pair of eyes.
They were eyes like those of a clay or wooden Divine Statue in a temple!
Vast, majestic, archaic, as though they had endured the vicissitudes of ten thousand ages.
In those Divine eyes, Li Yan did not see the crushing oppression of Divine might like a prison, but a deep, indescribable pity.
And... helplessness.
That complex look struck Li Yan’s heart like a heavy hammer.
A terrifying conjecture sprouted like a poisonous vine breaking through the soil, spreading through his mind:
Judging by the appearance of those "Immortal Gods," they were clearly conducting an experiment.
And their power and influence were such that even Marshal Wen could do nothing about them.
Could it be... a large-scale clandestine descent to the Lower Realm?!
The moment this thought arose, combined with that helpless gaze of Marshal Wen from before, Li Yan instantly felt chilled to the core.
If those "Immortal Gods" truly succeeded in descending upon the Human World on a large scale...
And then recalling all the intelligence from before.
So this was Jianmu’s scheme all along!
This was no longer the "reformation of the Human Dao" he had worried about before—the rise and fall of some dynasty, the ascent of some Sect.
This would be...
"A Great Calamity of Heaven and Earth!"