Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“It’s rather strange. Since this is the place where Chaos trained himself, and it is apparently heavily guarded, it is impossible that any animal could have broken into the room. Who was it that left the terrifying claw marks exactly?”

The enormous claw marks made the exploration team even more vigilant. It took them more than two hours for them to examine all four walls.

In the meantime, they sent two messengers back to the ground for communication and were reinforced by another ten tough soldiers of the Nether World Watch, who brought even more artifacts, magical equipment, and surveying tools with them.

Then, they marched toward the center of the tomb of Chaos.

Without the wall to guide them, they were caught in a black ocean after only ten meters. Every other direction was covered in the black fog that was not dispersing at all. The only thing that could be seen were the ripples that were spreading out on the water that was up to their knees.

Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!

All the soldiers of the Nether World Watch activated the demon cores that were embedded in their bodies. Demonic energy, electric arcs, and flames were vaguely flowing inside the demon cores.

“Be careful. We’re only two hundred meters away from the monolithic object at the center. There are no obstructions in front of us. Stay in a line and march forward at the lowest speed. Do not leave anybody behind!”

Swirl was an expert in mental attacks. The powder that was released from her body spread out like colorful airwaves. Everybody felt relatively relaxed.

At that moment…

Huala! Huala!

Weird noises suddenly echoed inside the water!

“There’s something in the water!”

Along with an exclamation, dozens of mysterious, black shadows sprang out of the water and darted toward everybody like bolts of lightning!

They turned out to be the blood-sucking flying swords that Li Yao had met before!

The flying swords seemed to have never sucked any real blood in the past forty thousand years. Their veins were withered, out of shape, and dangled down from the body of the flying swords like dried earthworms.

It was exactly because of their hunger for blood that they were shrieking and attacking so furiously!

“Stop them!”

Swirl snapped her fingers. Dozens of streams of powder spurted out of her fingertips and turned into colorful rainbows in midair. From moving through the air at a high speed, the friction caused them to burst into flames!

The colorful flames interweaved into an impregnable web that went toward the incoming flying swords and trapped them!

The other soldiers of the Nether World Watch all showed their own skills, too. They slightly opened their fully-enclosed protective suits, revealing the demon cores on their bodies.

The demon cores were triggered, forming shields of spiritual energy and long sabers of flames near them. They slashed the blood-sucking flying swords with the hundreds of blade auras!

The blood-sucking flying swords, after forty thousand years of hibernation, were already running low on energy. Under the attack of the soldiers of the Nether World Watch, they all broke apart and fell back to the water helplessly.

Hissing sounds echoed within the water, as if it were boiling.

But one of the captives of the Blade of Chaos left the battle formation in panic and was scratched by one of the broken blood-sucking flying swords. A shallow wound was cut open on his arm.

The blood-sucking flying sword crawled into the body of the captive like a parasite. Very soon, half of the body was already dried up.

However, before the blood-sucking flying sword darted out again, dozens of blade auras had already arrived overwhelmingly, slashing both the captive and the sword into pieces!

“It appears that your God Chaos rather cares about you!” Swirl mocked.

But another abrupt change already took place. In the water near everybody, a few giants that looked like iron towers suddenly sat straight. Under the searchlights, they appeared to be metal puppets that were made of bronze and carved with dense spiritual stripes on their bodies!

The puppet giants had been shattered, their upper halves were separated from their lower halves, and they were soaked deep inside the water. That was why they had not been detected earlier.

Even without their lower halves, they were still more than two meters tall, and their arms were almost ten meters long when stretched out. Countless weapons and pieces of magical equipment were hidden inside their cylindric, black arms.

The puppet giants were driven by the crystals that were embedded to their chests and their joints. They had probably been woken up from the hibernation state because they sensed the scent of living creatures just like the blood-sucking flying sword did.

They were roaring deeply and twisting their rusted joints hard. Opening their coldly blinking hands, they lunged toward the soldiers of the Nether World Watch.

“Don’t panic. Attack their crystals!” Swirl bellowed quickly. The speed of her fingers increased significantly, transforming the powder into dancing butterflies that danced around the puppet giants and eventually stopped on the shining crystals.

The powder butterflies leaked into the crystals immediately. The shining crystals seemed to have been mixed with a lot of impurities and lost their brilliance, turning dirty and obscure.

The broken puppet giants stopped functioning again. The last hollow sigh echoed inside their body that had almost been fully corroded.

The other few puppet giants were cut into pieces by the soldiers of the Nether World Watch, too.

Except for one heavily wounded soldier, most of the teammates were safe and sound.

After examining the multiple kinds of magical equipment hidden in the body of the puppet giants, Swirl concluded, “Those beast puppets do not look like designated guards. They are more like… servants and acolytes of Chaos.”

Most of the magical equipment was not aggressive but designed to dissect, refine, maintain objects, and run experiments.

The episodes did not interrupt their exploration. After a moment of rest, the exploration team continued to move forward while they paid close attention to the water on their way. They did not meet much trouble on the rest of the way. Instead, they collected a lot of debris of jade chips and magical equipment from the water.

Fifteen minutes later, they finally reached the huge ‘coffin’ at the center of the space!

Both the soldiers of the Nether World Watch and the captives of the Blade of Chaos held their breath and aimed their searchlights at the object.

Outside their expectations, what appeared in front of them was not a splendid throne, not a creepy coffin, but a facility that look like a ‘pool’.

The ‘pool’ was made of the purest and most flawless crystals. It was about three meters above the ground and almost ten meters in length and width. Dense, elegant spiritual stripes had been carved on the object, forming what appeared to be an extremely complicated rune array whose purpose nobody was aware of.

Above the ‘pool’, there was a cover that was made of the same material. It was connected to the ‘pool’ with tracks so that the ‘pool’ could be closed with the minimal strength.

After it was closed, the pool and the cover were fully integrated without the tiniest gap.

Around the crystal pool were a lot of huge tanks, some of which were directly linked to the crystal pool while some others were docked to the crystal pool through soft tubes.

After such a long time, the soft tubes made of the stomachs of demon beasts had all decayed.

At first glance, the crystal pool was very similar to the biochemical culture slots that were popular among the demons. But it was purely empty. Except for the transparent liquids, there was absolutely nothing, not even any bones, much less the intact body of Chaos.

“This is rather uncanny. All the evidence suggests that this is the place of Chaos’ death. Why are there no bones at all?” Swirl frowned. “Where will the ‘thing’ that Elder demanded be put if the body does not exist?”

Right then, illuminated by one of the searchlights, Swirl discovered something resembling an agate glimmering inside the crystal pool.

“What is that?”

Swirl was interested and moved closer, observing the item against the edge of the pool.

Right then, a miserable scream echoed behind Swirl. A captive of the Blade of Chaos seemed to have been possessed by a devil, and his wrists and ankles twisted unnaturally as he suddenly jerked up!

…

Out of the bronze gate, Despot had been pacing back and forth anxiously for several hours.

“There’s no need to be nervous, Despot. I’ve asked Swirl to send a messenger back every ten minutes. Everything was still on track ten minutes ago.”

Elder Nether Spring was rather at ease. He was even in the mood of a cup of good tea while he sat and talked with Chu Zhengqing, the specialist of the studies of Chaos.

Right then, a weird shriek suddenly echoed deep below the ground!

The shriek made the color drain from everyone’s face. Despot almost could not wait to jump into the shaft now.

“Wait!” Elder Nether Spring shouted to stop him. “The situation is still unclear. Don’t go inside recklessly!”

Very soon, the weird shriek was clearer and more disordered, like the jibber-jabber of someone crazy who had been scared witless.

A shadow gradually appeared from the shaft.

The horns on Despot’s head were surrounded by dazzling electric arcs again, which spread down along the wall of the shaft.

More than ten searchlights that had been deployed above the shaft were all turned on and shot their brightness downwards, illuminating a shadow who was soaked in blood.

“It’s a captive!”

Despot gritted his teeth, his face extremely ugly.

The protective suit of the captive had been ripped into shreds, and there were wounds all over his body. His entire left arm had been torn away. There was no telling what strength supported him to flee to the ground!

As if being chased by a monster from his worst nightmare, he quickly ran up the wall of the shaft and soon dashed out of the hole, covered in a dense bloody aura. He then fell to the ground, his blood splashing to everywhere!

“Sterilization! Isolation!”

Elder Nether Spring quickly moved backwards.

Pu! Pu! Pu! Pu!

The deep green foam and the stabilizing drugs fully wreathed the captive of the Blade of Chaos who had lost his arm. But inside the foam, the captive was still letting out the most appalled cries.

“Dead! All dead! They’re all dead!”

Despot could not have been more anxious. He stepped forward and shouted loudly, “What exactly happened down there? Speak now!”

“Don’t! Don’t come close!”

The captive of the Blade of Chaos seemed to have lost his mind because of the horror and even failed to recognize Despot and Elder Nether Spring. He wriggled on the ground with foam all over his body and tried to flee outwards, leaving a long trace of blood on the ground.

“Elder, it seems that something bad has happened down there. Let me take a team and check out!”

Despot’s eyes were red in anxiety, and he was breathing heavily.

Elder Nether Spring, on the other hand, sensed that something was wrong. He narrowed his eyes and mumbled, “Wait a moment. Something is not right.”

Right then, a few communication bugs that were hovering above the shaft suddenly vibrated their wings crazily, sending out an earsplitting warning from the depths of the shaft.

” Don’t believe him! ”