Chapter 322 - The Aroused Devil Soul (1/2)
Underneath Swords Gate, Zhong Yue was threading his way carefully toward the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. He had been here before, but even so, he didn't dare let his guard down.
The Devil Soul Forbidden Land was extremely dangerous. The last time he was here, he had found the devil souls gathering a substantial degree of power in attempt to break through the seals. However, the devil souls were not alerted by his unwelcome arrival, and it was only the corpse demons and evil eyes that had amalgamated together into a pseudo beast god which almost killed him on the spot.
The pseudo beast god's skeletal frame was from the mount of a god that died here. The mounts here were in fact gods of the monster races, but at that point of time, the monster races were at the bottom of the power pyramid, not much better than humans. Even if the monsters became gods themselves, they could only still serve as mounts to other higher-class gods; the monster races had an appallingly low and humble status.
Even worse, some of the superior gods would actually serve the monster gods' inner cores as delicacies to their guests during meals. At some point in time, the greatest hero of the monster races, the Monster Sovereign, rose high and led the monsters on a revolt against the gods. The action successfully lifted the monster races to a higher status.
In this Devil Soul Forbidden Land, there was only one pseudo beast god that had hunted after Zhong Yue. From the numbers of the gods' coffins in here, with the norm of one god with one mount, there would be around two thousand monster gods! Adding in the celestial and demon gods, there would be around over four or even five thousand gods right in this Devil Soul Forbidden Land!
These gods were the exact reason why the headmasters of Swords Gate had to enter the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. The power these devil souls had gathered had to be attended to, their extrication from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land prevented, and the destruction of Swords Gate and the Great Wilderness could be halted.
Be it celestials, demons or monsters, the scattered souls and lacerated corpses of these gods were filled with the desire to search for their spirits. Because of this desire, a revolt would rise every ten years, and they would billow out to the face of Great Wilderness to consume and siphon the flesh and souls of the living. By doing so, they could slowly strengthen their own powers.
And if that power they gathered was not taken down, they would break through the Devil Soul Forbidden Land and the Seals of the devil souls and gods' corpses. This would lead to a catastrophic event, it could even be the advent to the doomsday of this world.
And in order to prevent that, the headmasters would have to fight with their lives against it!
Along the way, Zhong Yue had yet to encounter any corpse demons, evil eyes, or any other peculiar creatures of the forbidden land. It seemed like they were slayed by Feng Shouzhu, after all, the corpse demons and the likes were only equivalent to the common Qi Practitioners, they wouldn't stand a chance in the face of a strong magnate like Feng Shouzhu.
What was really threatening were the pseudo beast gods formed by these creatures. With the skeletal frame of the monster god as the base and the other creatures as its body tissues, the pseudo beast god could unleash the full power of a mortal body of the monster gods!
The Devil Soul Forbidden Land buried the celestials, demons and monsters. It could be called a tomb of the gods, but in actual fact, this is actually a Seal, a prison that sealed these gods away in a hemispherical dome.
Zhong Yue thought back to the things he had seen back in the Devil Soul Forbidden Land in the land of monsters. This whole dome is a Seal that covers thousands of square miles of land. On top of the seal is another sealing dimension, one that contains the spirits of these gods. This sealing dimension is spherical in shape, and independent of the forbidden land. The altar, it will be in another Sealed dimension, a third independent dimension above the spherical-shaped dimension. From Swords Gate to the altar, one would have to go through three layers of Seals that even the scattered souls of these gods couldn't penetrate, so how did that person reach the altar and steal the Saint Spirit away?
Feng Wuji's incarnation, Elder Pu, came from the top of Swords Gate Mountain and reached the dimension of the altar directly, it was a different path taken than the one who stole the Saint Spirit.
From the experience Zhong Yue had gained in the other forbidden land, there would have to be another guardian like the Monster God Ming King, who was tasked to secure the perimeter of this godly tomb.
As Monster God Ming King was the guardian of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land underneath Xian Kong Saint City, then there would also be a guardian who had long passed away, whose cultivation base was on par with Monster God Ming King.
Feng Wuji must have known something even the Swords Gate headmasters didn't know. He has held the headmaster's jade seal and found where the dead guardian stayed, and reached the dimension of the altar directly from there. However, he was late by a step, and the Saint Spirit was taken by someone else...
Enter the dimension of the altar from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was something even Xin Huo couldn't have done. The last time Xin Huo guided him in escaping from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was because of the loosened Seal, where the restrictive power wasn't as strong. Breaking through one layer after another from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land… the difficulty was undoubtedly thousands of times harder!
On his way, Zhong Yue could see recent signs of battle. The battle was so intense that it left behind severe injuries and unerasable marks on the walls of flesh!
Clearly, Feng Shouzhu had left these signs, but some of them carried a faint sensation of a godly aura. Those would be the doings of a pseudo beast god that broke out into a bloody battle with Feng Shouzhu at this place...
Glancing around, he couldn't see the beast god's skeletal frame. When the pseudo beast god was slain by Feng Shouzhu, the squirming flesh had then gobbled it up. Most likely, the skeletal frame would be sent to the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, where it would be nourished and gather more power before its prowess was restored again.
"Fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster, You Yu Clan Yu Tianya, felt the end of my life, and here I enter the forbidden land with a sword of mine…"
Zhong Yue walked up to the skeletal frame of the fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster. He stared at the words on the ground, and then bowed to the great headmaster before he placed the fourteenth headmaster's skeleton into his Yuan Shen secret realm.
Unlike before, where he didn't have enough strength to roam around in the forbidden land and he didn't even think he could actually survive, right now he was strong enough to bring back these headmasters to Swords Gate and bury them together with the old headmaster.
And now, he would bring them back and let all of Swords Gate, all the Great Wilderness, know the contributions of the Swords Gate headmasters and the prices they had paid for the safety of humankind!
He walked further along, and found more battle scars. They were even more intense than before, even parts of the flesh walls were destroyed, revealing the bloody red mountain body underneath.
The sanguine mountain body was paved with the ancient godly seals. The archaic totem patterns were still glimmering as they worked, unscathed from the battle, continuing their function of a Seal normally.
Can Elder Feng really last until now?
Zhong Yue's heart pounded rapidly. From the battle signs, Feng Shouzhu was ambushed by tens of pseudo beast gods right here!
Although the peculiar creatures that formed the pseudo beast gods' body tissues were weak, when they coalesced together into the pseudo beast gods, they could unleash the power of beast gods' mortal body! They were was incredibly strong, and even Feng Shouzhu would have to pay a hefty price to defeat them!