Chapter 107: Betrayal (1/2)
Yuchi Hanxing left with the remaining eight hundred thousand and some soldiers. Lu Yun knew that their numbers would be replenished soon.
“Talk,” Lu Yun declared to the giant willow and the juba. “What’s the deal with this place?”
The otherkind cultivators within the Skandha Range had scattered and returned to their homes. They were called otherkind because they were nonhuman lifeforms that walked the path of cultivation, but hadn’t materialized a new form yet. They weren’t monster spirits, but cultivators on their way to becoming one. They possessed the intelligence of regular human beings, unlike simpleminded monsters. [1]
“What place?” The juba and willow exchanged a befuddled glance.
Lu Yun frowned. “I mean the ancient tomb on this site.”
“There’s a tomb here?” yelped the juba. It moved its giant head around, attempting to find traces of said tomb.
Lu Yun started. “You didn’t know?” He’d thought the otherkind and the sentient desolate willow must’ve been put here to guard the great tomb.
Ah, that’s right. If I didn’t identify the feng shui layout and know there was a willow tree here, I wouldn’t have deduced that there’s a Skandha Extinction Tomb at the site. There’s probably no one in this world who can see through to the true nature of this place.
The willow spirit didn’t know why it was here, either. To it, it was merely a tree blessed with the fortune to grow here and become a cultivator. As for the juba, it’d escaped to the Skandha Range after the fall of the North Sea water spirits. Under the faction’s protection, it survived and became its strategist.
Neither of the two knew why the Skandha Range existed.
“Let’s take a look. Qing Han, Aoxue.” Lu Yun waved his two companions over and made his way further into the Skandha Range.
The juba fell into step behind them like their personal guard. Other than the otherkind cultivators, there were many other dangers within the Skandha Range: poisons, traps, venomous creatures… any of which could easily kill an immortal. Without the guidance of a local, even Lu Yun would lose his way.
Finally, they came to a stop after fording a giant swamp. Sitting before them was an enormous hill; before it rose a cliff about the same height, bringing to mind the image of a tombstone.
“Those two have entered already.” Lu Yun frowned, staring at the tomb qi that was only now scattering from the peak of the hill. The cloud of qi was just starting to lose its form, and some of it still remained in the tomb. That told him the two men had only just entered.
In long-sealed tombs, especially ancient ones, energy from the dead and the darkness of yin would combine to form a kind of tomb qi that would dissipate as soon as it encountered living things. A tomb raider could use that to tell if a tomb had already been excavated.
Lu Yun had previously encountered the Exalted Immortal Sect in Yuying’s tomb, yet the tomb qi had remained intact because those men had been in the tomb for centuries. They also practiced a special method to merge their presence with the tomb. The energy he’d observed had actually come from the Exalted Immortal Sect, and not Yuying’s remains.
When it came to this particular sect, the patriarch of House Ge had disappeared after being possessed by one of their members. If Lu Yun’s speculation was right, he would see the man after four months, on the day of the governor’s re-election.
“Those two idiots entered with an earthbending technique. Aren’t they worried that they’ll be buried underneath it forever?” A trace of mockery flashed through Lu Yun’s face when he looked at the undisturbed earth around the tomb. “Follow my instructions and dig a hole here, Old Turtle.”
A thieves’ tunnel was the safest and most practical way to enter a tomb, both on Earth and in the world of immortals.
“Is there really a tomb here?” The juba wasn’t convinced. Though the hill and cliff were something, they still didn’t look like a tomb.