Chapter 538: Fantasy
Chapter 538: Chapter 538: Fantasy
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Coffins tumbled from the Flying Ship, slamming into the ground and gouging out shallow pits.
Red-skinned fiends approached. Their faces impassive, they lifted the coffins and walked away with heavy, plodding steps.
As the fiends approached, Bai Mo took their measure.
Their cultivation wasn’t high, but the sheer vitality radiating from their bulging muscles and thick tendons was so palpable it almost felt like a physical blow to the face.
"How strange."
Bai Mo sighed.
"To think such creatures exist in the world."
Their cultivation was low—the most exceptional among them only at the Foundation Establishment level—yet their raw strength was probably enough to beat a physically weaker Core Formation cultivator to death.
The steward in blue came to his side, and the two began walking shoulder to shoulder.
"Are you surprised by the strength of those brutes, Junior Brother?"
"No need to make a fuss. If they weren’t like this, they wouldn’t be worthy of being called ’fiends.’"
They walked toward the entrance of the tomb.
Nearby, Cultivators of every sort came and went. Their figures practically blanketed Five Elements Ridge, all of them serving as support staff for this great ritual.
The disciples from the Battle Hall did not accompany Bai Mo and the steward; they disembarked the Flying Ship and headed in a different direction.
’They must have other duties to attend to.’
The two of them passed through the crowd and arrived before the tomb entrance, where they were suddenly enveloped by a lingering chill.
Bai Mo looked up at the sky, as if sensing something.
At some point, a patch of dark clouds had drifted over, obscuring the sun.
The sun, which had been blazing just moments before, now felt distant, its light and heat cut off.
The steward in blue said, "The tomb’s master has awakened. To ascend and become a Divine Being, he must first shed his deathly yin form."
The state of a Divine Being is one of neither life nor death—it is exceedingly profound.
They walked through the open stone gates and were met with the dense presence of human activity.
The once-gloomy tomb passages were now illuminated by Longevity Lamps. Disciples of the Array Dao were pressed against the walls, inspecting them inch by inch.
After walking a ways, Bai Mo saw Zhu Tong.
The Array Dao master was followed by disciples from the Foreign Affairs Hall, all of them nervously modifying the Arrays carved into the wall.
The Array inscribed on the wall was drawn with some kind of pigment invisible to the naked eye.
But when Bai Mo swept his Divine Thought over it, he could perceive the complex, sprawling patterns.
Zhu Tong’s head was beaded with sweat. When he saw Bai Mo, he offered only a hurried nod.
The foreheads of the Foreign Affairs Hall disciples behind him were likewise drenched in sweat, and they would occasionally urge him on.
A moment after passing them, Bai Mo heard a suppressed shout from behind.
"Who drew this garbage Array!? Which goddamn mountain peak produced this genius..."
Ignoring the scattered mistakes and ongoing repairs, Bai Mo remained confident in the great ritual as he arrived in the tomb chamber, its four walls covered with reliefs and murals.
Shang Wunian of Divine Dao Mountain, dressed in a red robe, stood in the chamber with several elders. His eyes were closed, his expression perfectly serene.
The elders were burly and bearded, looking much like men from Broken Blade Peak, yet they carried the distinct aura of master craftsmen.
’Broken Blade Peak could never produce men like these.’
A power that felt ready to explode at any moment lay dormant within these elders, filling one with a profound sense of security.
’If the great ritual were to go wrong, the person responsible would probably be made into a human lantern.’
Before these great Cultivators rested a massive coffin, still caked with dirt.
Three incense sticks, each taller than a man, were planted in front of it, thick plumes of fragrant smoke billowing upwards.
Disciples from Divine Dao Mountain moved about the chamber, placing censers in every corner and lighting more incense until the fragrance in the air became almost suffocating.
"The hour has arrived!"
A voice cried out from outside.
Bai Mo waited quietly for a moment before seeing disciples of Divine Dao Mountain produce low tables and arrange them in two columns.
Everyone in the tomb chamber was given one.
As Shang Wunian, in his red robe, took his seat, everyone else followed suit.
Bai Mo was assigned a seat near the back, though not at the very end. The steward in blue was just one person away from him.
Zhu Tong hurried in and found his own place. Those without seats discreetly exited the chamber.
Bai Mo took out a cushion woven from fragrant herbs and knelt down to sit. Ah Er curled up at his side, completely inconspicuous.
After a moment’s thought, he took out another one and tossed it to the steward in blue.
The man between them chuckled softly.
"Care to share, brother? Those bastards from the Foreign Affairs Hall... were they really going to make us sit on the bare ground?"
The steward in blue remained unperturbed, merely whispering,
"Go with the flow. Don’t make any sudden moves or say anything rash."
Bai Mo nodded. The man next to him accepted a cushion from Bai Mo and chuckled.
"This brother here is clearly an experienced one..."
He was still talking when he noticed that everyone else was kneeling in silence, so he quickly fell quiet.
Bai Mo had intended to close his eyes and meditate, but under the assault of the thick incense, he drifted into a state of thoughtless emptiness.
Troubling thoughts that had clung to his mind transformed into streams of light, drifting slowly before dissolving into nothing.
Bai Mo felt only comfort.
BOOM!!
He didn’t know how much time had passed in that daze, but a sudden, thunderous crash jolted everyone awake.
Bai Mo whipped his head around to look.
The dozen or so coffins brought from Mi Mountain were now standing upright before the great coffin in the center of the room.
A burly, bear-like elder stood before one of the coffins. With a sharp slap of his rough hand on the lid, the Nascent Soul prisoner held within died instantly, without so much as a grunt.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The elder then strolled from one coffin to the next, striking each lid with his large hands and killing the Nascent Soul cultivators within one by one.
Wisps of soul and blood essence drifted from the cracks in the coffins, flowing into the great coffin in the center of the room.
An indescribable energy began to converge.
Within the great coffin, a divine light began to coalesce and bloom.
Bathed in the divine light, Shang Wunian spoke slowly.
"Metamorphosis is agonizing. Senior, if you can endure this tribulation, you will become a Divine Being, with a lifespan to match the heavens, your voice heard by the celestial thrones."
BAM!
The great coffin suddenly shuddered, and the entire tomb chamber shook in response, as if someone had struck it with all their might from the inside.
"BASTARD!!"
A furious curse erupted from the coffin, followed by a sound that was half-scream, half-bestial roar.
This immense pain was clearly no ordinary thing.
Bai Mo was reminded of the master of that small temple he had seen in Shuofang Country.
’A minor god like that one couldn’t have possibly endured such an agonizing process.’
As if on a precise schedule, disciples began to enter from outside.
They carried trays of Spirit Fruits and fragrant melons, presenting them first before the great coffin and only then serving them at the guests’ tables.
These offerings were no common items, but rare and precious treasures of heaven and earth.
Bai Mo saw the Pills he had personally refined, piled high in a basin and presented before the great coffin—a stack nearly as tall as his forearm.
In contrast, the portion served to the guests was merely a small, palm-sized saucer containing a mix of various Spirit Pills.
The disciples presenting the offerings ignored the commotion from the coffin, their movements as smooth and fluid as flowing water.
Bai Mo glanced at the others from the corner of his eye.
The figures of Shang Wunian and the elders were already becoming obscured by the swirling incense smoke.
The steward in blue, meanwhile, was perfectly composed, his eyes half-closed and utterly still.
The man next to him looked eager to dig in, but noticing that no one else had moved, he forced himself to wait.
Bai Mo waited a moment longer, until a female disciple brought a pot of incredibly fragrant wine to his table.
As she knelt to pour the wine, Bai Mo suddenly fell into a trance.
When he came to his senses, the disciple had transformed into a figure in a flowing silk dress, her robes fluttering gracefully.
Bai Mo stared, stunned. A jolt of alarm shot through him, and he looked toward the mural on the opposite wall.
The woman’s appearance was identical to that of the Divine Maiden in the mural!