Inside the underground palace, silence finally reigned.
The swordsmen gazed at the hammer in Li Jianxian’s hand, then glancing at the ‘pork bun’ not far away, their taut nerves loosened just a bit.
Ah, this damned sense of security.
“Did you take down this man-faced bat, old man Li?”
Li Mo scrutinized the swordsmen for a moment, noticing that most of them only had messy breaths and slightly pale faces.
Only Bai Jinghong looked entirely green, bl**d seeping from his chest, giving off a rather tragic vibe.
“A little out of… yue~~”
Bai Jinghong stood up, slightly raising his chin, unwilling to lose his cool swordsman demeanor. But his act of being ‘cool’ quickly turned into a chore, as he doubled over and vomited a rainbow.
He even managed to let out his bile.
After he finished heaving, he straightened up, tears and snot all over his face. He clearly could barely stand yet still managed to say with a nonchalant tone:
“Just a little effort, that’s all.”
Li Mo: “……”
As long as his mouth remained tough, it wasn’t a big deal. As long as he wasn’t hard all over, it should be fine.
He took out some detox pills and healing ointment from the system space and distributed them to the swordsmen:
“First take the Seven-Pattern Detox Pill, then apply the Hundred Flowers Essence Ointment both internally and externally.”
Cao Mu, on the other hand, tucked away the pills Li Mo had handed him. He wasn’t too seriously injured and poisoned anyway, so why not save a little for later?
What a lavish guy… This life-saving pill was being passed around like candy!
“What about the elders?”
“This underground palace has a maze. We got separated from the elders.”
Wu Chushu looked at the medicine bottle, glancing at Li Mo and Ying Bing, feeling a mix of emotions.
When they met again, he was already ranked fourth on the Qianlong List.
There they were, a crowd of them in a sorry state, while Li Mo looked like he’d just taken a leisurely stroll.
The difference between people can sometimes be greater than the difference between a human and a dog.
“Caught showing off again, and now…”
“What are you mumbling about, old Wu?” Li Mo asked, confused.
“Thank you for the pill!!”
“Thank you is enough, why are you shouting so loud….”
Li Mo knocked on his ear.
“Brother Li, what are these?”
“Grave-guarding beasts. They’re nourished by the spiritual energy and yin qi of the underground.”
As Li Mo explained, he couldn’t help but recall the earlier scene.
Another black beast, huh.
And… how did it recognize Ice Chunk?
Just as he was pondering this, a voice called from not far away:
“Quick, come over! There’s a new discovery!”
“I’ll go take a look.” Li Mo said to the Hengyun Swordsmen and led Ice Chunk toward Tian Miao.
Bai Jinghong, Wu Chushu, and Cao Mu watched their bright figures as they walked away, and the surrounding darkness suddenly felt even more profound.
They glanced at each other, swallowing nervously.
When Li Mo was around, it felt like they had an invisible wing shielding them.
Now, poof—it was gone.
“Shall we… go take a look, too?” Cao Mu suggested.
Bai Jinghong lifted his chin: “I, Bai Jinghong, cannot fall behind! Let’s go!”
Wu Chushu scratched his nose: “I’ve always had a keen interest in archaeology, curious to see what they’ve found.”
Cao Mu was speechless: “Don’t dawdle; they’re nearly out of sight.”
Thus, the swordsmen followed on their heels, matching their steps.
Finally, they reached the end of the underground palace, where rows of bookshelves stood, some already decayed and collapsed. The ground was thick with ashes, likely the result of pages blown away by the wind, as it was clear none of the shelves contained a single intact book.
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“This place is like a library.”
“Yeah.”
Ying Bing nodded lightly, a bit regretful.
At last, she spotted Tian Miao standing before a gigantic mural.
In the mural, the nine celestial beings descended to earth were depicted alongside their followers in battle against a horde of dreadful creatures.
Those beings looked like mountains, with one enormous bull standing, covered in black scales, snorting out winds and thunder.
Some were made of fierce winds, with heads resembling lions, leaving trails of black sand in their wake.
There were also bizarre creatures, dark red scales, slithering for thousands upon tens of thousands of miles, casting everything into darkness, with only their opening eyes bringing back the sunlight.
But that sun was ominous and bl**d-red.
“Are these… real?”
Wu Chushu couldn’t help but gasp, unable to fathom it.
Bai Jinghong, Cao Mu, and the other swordsmen looked utterly bewildered; this was beyond their worldview.
Even if it were the Monster Clan, they…
“From my understanding, the content above should be thus…”
Tian Miao regained her composure, explaining excitedly.
“It is said that in ancient times, the human race was incredibly frail, while various primordial beings governed the world. The powerful among them were akin to gods and demons.”
“The divine will we’re observing was initially revered by humans for its might; they imitated and learned from it to evolve.”
Li Mo nodded. Even to this day, the form of martial arts still flows widely among humans.
It was later that Taoism and swordsmanship emerged, likely because the primordial beings had long disappeared, leaving humanity to grasp the essence of heaven and earth themselves.
“So, the Nine Heavens killed the gods and demons?”
“Primordial beings cannot be killed.”
Tian Miao shook her head, “They have already merged with the ‘Way.’ As long as the ‘Way’ exists in the world, they are eternal and unkillable; it’s just that when they are reborn, they might not be the same as before.”
What she meant was that even if you killed a dragon representing wind and rain, the wind and rain would remain, and a new dragon would still be born, but it wouldn’t be the same one as before.
This room in the underground palace had quite a few murals. They moved forward, following the light, and saw more new content.
“These must be records of the primordial beings being temporarily vanquished.”
In the mural, humans began to multiply.
Under the guidance of the Nine Heavens and their followers, people prayed earnestly to the heavens, thus new primordial beings were born.
But this time it was noteworthy that they lacked their previous ferocity and became totems for humanity!
“Power of all beings!”
Four words popped into Li Mo’s mind.
“The power of all beings was initially used by the Nine Heavens to control the primordial beings, which is similar to the shackles of the Way?”
Ying Bing squinted her icy mirror-like eyes, stealing a glance at Li Mo.
The two shared a silent understanding.
“Those priests who led humans to pray to the heavens, or some of them, might be the ancestors of the Huanmo Sect?”
So it turns out the Huanmo Sect’s ancestral god was indeed one of the Nine Heavens deities, or at least several of them.
Dream God…
He could traverse the dreams of all living beings, undoubtedly playing a vital role in all this.
The entire Hengyun Sword City crew was left speechless.
Who would have thought that the now notorious Huanmo Sect had such origins?
No wonder it has thrived to this day, resisted by the Da Yu Dynasty, yet still remains active.
Turns out the skinny camel is still bigger than a horse!
Rumble, rumble—
Suddenly, the entire underground palace shook once more, the noise earth-shattering.
