Urban Martial Saint

Ye Qing had already turned off the flashlight long ago, so in this darkness, Wen’er and Fu Qingping couldn’t see anything around them either.

Although Ye Qing’s body had been transformed by the three forces of Buddhist and Taoist Magic and demons, allowing him to see in the dark, his vision still wasn’t that clear; at most he could make out rough outlines.

The moment he stepped into this Cave, Ye Qing first checked the surroundings. This Cave covered quite a large area, with an extremely high ceiling; it looked as if half the entire interior of a mountain had been hollowed out. Such a colossal Cave was absolutely not something that could be carved out by human hands; it was definitely a miracle of nature.

Roughly over three hundred meters away from them, there was a door, looking more or less the same as the one they had just come through. No one knew where this door led.

At such a distance, Ye Qing couldn’t see what was behind that door, and he didn’t know whether it was an exit. To be safe, Ye Qing still took out the flashlight he carried, switched it on and shone it over, planning to see what was behind that door.

As soon as the flashlight came on, it immediately lit up everything in front of them. The first thing that entered their sight was a heap of bones. No one knew how many years they had lain there; the skeletons were covered in dust, like ancient corpses that had been stored for hundreds or thousands of years.

Although Wen’er was the daughter of the Headmaster of the Southern Ridge Sect, she was still a girl. Seeing so many bones, she let out a sharp scream and hurriedly took a step back. But as soon as she stepped back, she heard a cracking sound behind her, as if she had stepped on something and snapped it.

Wen’er quickly turned her head, only to see that her foot was pressing down on a cervical vertebra. At the end of that neck bone was a round human skull. The eyeless sockets were pitch-black as they faced her, which frightened Wen’er so much that her whole body went limp. And what she couldn’t stand most was that there were bones like this all around her. Everywhere she looked, the ground was covered with remains. The three of them seemed to be standing in a Pit of Ten Thousand; bones everywhere. Even Ye Qing couldn’t help feeling his scalp prickle.

”What is this place? Why are there so many bones?” Ye Qing couldn’t help saying.

Wen’er backed up to Ye Qing’s side, carefully picking out a spot without any bones to stand on before she finally let out a breath. But looking at the bones all around, her heart was still filled with terror.

”I… I heard my father say that when the ancients built large tombs, they would recruit many people to work on them. And when the tomb was completed, in order to prevent the location of the tomb and the traps inside from being leaked, they would kill everyone and silence them, burying the designers and workers in the tomb as funerary victims!” Wen’er glanced at the bones around them and said in a low voice, ”Could these remains be the workers who built this tomb back then?”

”Is that so?” Ye Qing frowned and said in a low voice, ”That seems unlikely, doesn’t it? This is the tomb of Sage Guiguzi. Sage Guiguzi was the number one Great Saint of the Taoist Sect for thousands of years, a man who attained the Dao. How could he possibly do something so heinous and against heaven?”

Wen’er shrugged and said softly, ”I don’t know about these things either, I only heard my father mention it. As for whether these people were workers or not, I have no idea. But with so many corpses in a tomb, they must be burial sacrifices, right?”

Ye Qing was filled with astonishment. He kept feeling that a Taoist Great Saint like Guiguzi definitely wouldn’t do something so evil and against heaven. But then how to explain all these skeletons? These people died inside the Tomb of Ghost Valley Master—what was their origin?

You had to know, the Tomb of Ghost Valley Master had gone undiscovered for thousands of years. In other words, in all these thousands of years, no one had entered the Tomb of Ghost Valley Master, which also meant these people couldn’t possibly have come in later. Then they must have died here before the tomb was completed. This matter surely had an inseparable connection to Guiguzi, didn’t it?

”These shouldn’t be workers.” Just as Ye Qing was puzzled, Fu Qingping, riding on his back, suddenly spoke.

”Oh?” Ye Qing was surprised and said, ”Grandmaster, how do you know they’re not workers?”

”You can tell just by looking at the bones.” Fu Qingping patted Ye Qing on the shoulder. Ye Qing quickly bent down and squatted, letting Fu Qingping down.

Fu Qingping slowly bent over, reached out and picked up a piece of bone, studied it in his hand, then turned to Ye Qing and said, ”This was a Peak Master.”

”What?” Ye Qing and Wen’er exclaimed at the same time. A Peak Master had died here? That was far too shocking. And most importantly, how could Fu Qingping tell this was a Peak Master?

”Grandmaster, you… you can tell this was a Peak Master?” Ye Qing asked in surprise.

”A Peak Master’s body has already undergone changes; it’s different from an ordinary person, you can still tell them apart.” As Fu Qingping spoke, he picked up another bone from the side and said, ”This one was also a Peak Master!”

Ye Qing was shocked once again. A single Peak Master dying here was already shocking enough. Now two sets of bones turned out to be Peak Masters—that was truly astounding. What on earth had happened inside this Tomb of Ghost Valley Master? Why would two Peak Masters die here?

Before Ye Qing’s shock was over, Fu Qingping picked up a third bone and said, ”This was also a Peak Master!”

”So many Peak Masters?” Wen’er couldn’t help crying out, and Ye Qing simply stared wide-eyed. Just in this one area alone they had already found three Peak Masters; with so many bones here, who knew how many Peak Masters were among them.

Fu Qingping did not answer Wen’er’s question. He slowly stood up, and with Ye Qing supporting him, walked as he pointed things out. In just a short while, he picked out the remains of more than thirty Peak Masters. This sight left Ye Qing and Wen’er completely stunned. More than thirty Peak Masters—what kind of number was that!

”Master-Granduncle, th-this many Peak Masters died here… what on earth happened here before?” Ye Qing couldn’t help asking.

Fu Qingping sighed, slowly shook his head, and said, ”Ye Qing, what you’re seeing is only a fragment. This place is far from being as simple as just this many Peak Masters!”

Ye Qing took a deep breath and looked toward the endless expanse of bones in the distance. Right—just in this one patch they had found the remains of more than thirty Peak Masters. With all these skeletons piled together, how many Peak Masters did that make? He simply didn’t dare imagine it. The Peak Masters who died here might even outnumber all the Peak Masters currently in Huaxia added together!

Fu Qingping glanced at Ye Qing and said, ”Do you know why I said this is only a fragment?”

”Master-Granduncle, judging from the numbers you mentioned, I estimate that the Peak Masters who died here are probably no fewer than two hundred!” Ye Qing said in a low voice.

”Two hundred?” Wen’er covered her mouth; she was so shaken she could barely speak.

”Yes, more than two hundred Peak Masters is indeed a terrifying number.” Fu Qingping took a deep breath and said, ”But that’s still not the crucial point!”

Ye Qing and Wen’er widened their eyes and said at the same time, ”Then what is the crucial point?”

Fu Qingping looked at the two of them, pointed at the bones all around, and said, enunciating each word, ”Among these remains, Peak Masters can only be considered the weak ones!”

”What!?” Ye Qing and Wen’er exclaimed together. If Peak Masters were only the weak, then… then what counted as strong? Were there experts here who surpassed the Acme?

Fu Qingping said in a deep voice, ”Aside from the remains of Peak Masters, all the other bones belong to people whose strength was above the Acme. In other words, among the corpses here, the majority are Peak Masters, and the remaining small portion are experts who surpassed the Acme!”

This time, Ye Qing and Wen’er were so shocked they couldn’t even speak. A small portion—how many was that? Looking closely, there were roughly thirty to forty. Which meant that more than two hundred Peak Masters had died here, along with thirty or forty experts who surpassed the Acme. This was far more than just a matter of numbers!

One had to know that in the last two hundred years, only four experts surpassing the Acme were known to have appeared: the Corpse Ghost Dragon, Buddhist Shakya, Taoist Wuji, and The Immortal Lord. These four were already the most supreme figures of this era, beings revered by everyone under heaven. Countless Peak Masters had risked their lives to try to break through the shackles of the Acme and failed, which showed just how difficult it was to become an expert beyond the Acme.

Yet now, in this Cave, there were actually the corpses of thirty to forty experts surpassing the Acme. What kind of concept was that? It meant that at some point, thirty to forty experts beyond the Acme had died right here!

”What kind of place is this, really?” Ye Qing couldn’t help but mutter. The remains of more than two hundred Peak Masters, and thirty to forty experts beyond the Acme, all laid out here. In that case, weren’t the few of them here no different from ants?

”What I want to know is: exactly what era was it that produced so many experts surpassing the Acme!” Fu Qingping said in a low voice. He could be considered the most gifted person in nearly a hundred years, and the one with the greatest hope of breaking through the Acme’s shackles. That was already rare enough, which showed how hard it was to surpass the Acme. But now, in this Cave, to see the remains of thirty or forty experts beyond the Acme in one go—no one could possibly remain calm.

”Could it be that people of later generations died here fighting over the Tomb of Ghost Valley Master?” Wen’er said softly.

”Impossible!” Fu Qingping slowly shook his head and said in a low voice, ”Look carefully—you’ll see all these bones are in this single location. That means they died here in a melee that broke out on the spot. If these were just tomb-robbers from later times coming in, they couldn’t possibly all have chosen to fight right here.”

”That’s true!” Ye Qing nodded and said, ”Besides, for thousands of years, we’ve never heard of anyone who actually entered the Tomb of Ghost Valley Master!”