Holding the heavy metal disc in his palm, Zhang Yuanqing led his teammates across the exhibition hall to the bronze doors. He summoned the Ghost Bride, Bai Lan, and used his telekinesis to slot the metal disc into the groove.
*Click!*
The sound of internal mechanisms springing into place echoed from within the bronze doors. The two leaves swung slightly open, revealing a finger-wide gap.
"The doors are open!" Qingzhu said with delight, before letting out a self-deprecating chuckle. "This Saint-stage killing trial feels even harder than an S-rank dungeon. Fu Qingyang and Divine General Silver Moon were in the mid-year one, so I didn't dare participate. In the second half of the year, Yuanshi Tianzun returned to the Spirit Realm, and the evil faction lost several peak Saints. Then the New York County faction war at the end of the year wiped out more than half of the peak Saints across the world.
"I came here just to try my luck—taking a gamble to turn a bicycle into a motorcycle, hoping dog-shit luck might strike. Now I don't harbor any hopes. Getting out alive will be enough."
Given his combat prowess and abilities, he should have died on the museum's second floor.
Surviving this far was entirely thanks to how formidable his teammates were; he was essentially riding their coattails.
Glomming onto a teammate like Yuanshi Tianzun was indeed fantastic. If this had been an Extraordinary-stage killing trial, he might have shamelessly begged for help to secure a promotion slot.
However, the quota for Dominators was far too small—only three. Even with the two major districts merged, there were only six slots, and there was no way one would ever fall to him.
Therefore, Qingzhu's sole wish now was to return alive.
*What are you thinking? No matter how many peak Saints die, as long as they aren't all wiped out, it'll never be your turn. Without ninety percent experience and several top-tier items, don't even dream of it!* Zhang Yuanqing said, "We've wasted too much time on the second floor. Let's head upstairs."
Just then, the voice of the clay mask drifted from behind:
"Young man, wait a moment!"
Zhang Yuanqing glanced back, surprised. "Hey, don't you only answer when spoken to? Nobody said a word to you. Why are you trying to seek attention?"
He didn't particularly care for this artifact. If not for it, the requirements to clear the second floor wouldn't have been so convoluted.
"I don't answer every question. That was a lie to trick you," the clay mask replied.
*That statement is the lie!* Zhang Yuanqing asked once more.
Only then did the clay mask provide the true reply: "I suddenly remembered something. It concerns the Three Sovereigns."
Zhang Yuanqing's eyes lit up, and he strode over briskly. Knowing the artifact's nature, he took the initiative to ask, "What information did you remember?"
Ignoring the first false answer, Zhang Yuanqing listened as the clay mask said in a solemn voice:
"Among the Three Sovereigns, only Empress Wa has verifiable historical records. Although Empress Wa had already ascended by my era, legends about her were documented across all the major tribes. They were certainly not baseless fabrications.
"Yet regarding the Heavenly Sovereign and the Earthly Sovereign, not even the Five Emperors could determine their truth. Nonetheless, an ancient legend handed down from antiquity circulated among the major tribes and was regarded as fact."
Pausing, the clay mask shifted its tone, speaking with a graver, more solemn cadence:
"The Heavenly Sovereign split open the heavens, granting the world a past, present, and future. The Earthly Sovereign divided the Five Elements; thus, turbid qi condensed into the earth, and the world came to possess mountains and rivers, along with the naked, the scaled, the furred, the feathered, and the shelled."
Zhang Yuanqing pondered these words carefully, quickly arriving at a conjecture.
*The Earthly Sovereign divided the Five Elements? When subduing the Dual Gods of Wind and Thunder, the Five Alliance Masters seemed to combine... Fuck, could the Earthly Sovereign be an administrator who unites the five major classes into one?*
*Just how powerful would that be?*
*And this damn being was still subordinate to the Sun, Moon, and Stars? Then how terrifying must the Night Walker class be?*
*Is the pinnacle of the Night Walker class the Heavenly Sovereign? From the description, that doesn't sound right.*
*If the Five Elements can merge into a single class, would the Five Alliance Masters fight among themselves? Well, since the Five Alliance Masters can fuse together, it means they already know this secret, so an accident like the Dual Gods of Wind and Thunder shouldn't happen.*
With time pressing, he did not dwell on the matter further. Cutting off his straying thoughts, he asked:
"Anything else you want to say?"
"Nothing!"
"Oh!" Zhang Yuanqing turned and walked away.
The clay mask yelled from behind, "Wait, young man, that was a lie!"
"I know, but I don't want to hear you ramble anymore." Zhang Yuanqing left without a backward glance. He had already wasted too much time on the second floor and could not afford further delay.
First, the third floor was the final trial, where all the surviving peak Saints would gather. Yin Ji, Jiang Ju, and Xiahou Aotian were all there; a massive battle could erupt at any moment—or might have already begun.
Getting there sooner would help ensure his allies' safety.
Second, this dungeon contained artifacts; subduing them increased one's foundations. The longer he dragged his feet, the stronger his enemies would become.
By this point, Huang Taiji and Qingzhu had already pushed open the heavy bronze doors. Beyond lay a flight of stairs that seemed to stretch on without end, and all five were waiting for him.
After regrouping with his teammates, the party of six walked through the bronze doors and ascended the stairs, venturing farther and farther until they vanished from sight.
The bronze doors slowly closed, and the second-floor exhibition hall returned to tranquil silence.
Wisps of black smoke rose from the clay mask, condensing above the display case into the ethereal silhouette of an old man clad in animal skins.
The old man bowed low and prostrated himself, uttering a cry that only a Night Walker could hear: "My thanks to the Lord of Taiyin for his mercy."
***
In the Spirit Realm world.
Five imperial avatars presided over the four quarters, stabilizing the order of the Spirit Realm and freezing the chaotic "dungeon stars" in place to keep them from being swallowed by Taiyin.
The immense black moon exerted a tremendous gravitational pull, yet it could no longer affect the dungeons.
Deep within the black moon, which seemed capable of devouring even light itself, a pair of colossal eyes opened, followed by the laughter of Ling Tuo:
"Cut off the path of those who follow? Looking across all the Night Walkers under heaven, those capable of becoming the Lord of the Sun are few and far between. Had the Demon Lord not died, there would be three. With his death, there are only us, father and son.
"Why would I need to cut off the path of those who follow? Father, you can calculate everything under heaven, but you will never calculate what is in my mind."
Starlight waxed and waned, but the Taiyi Sect Master offered no reply. Instead, the Red Emperor to the south let out a rumbling roar:
"Spare the drivel, Ling Tuo! If you want a stalemate with us, then so be it. This old man will grind it out with you until the end of time! Or we can set a time and throw down in the real world—fuck your mother!"
Ling Tuo snorted coldly. "A crude brute like you is unworthy of speaking to me."
He then chuckled softly. "Father, do you know which Spirit Realm dungeon the Xiaoyao Organization entered back then, and what secret they discovered?"
The Taiyi Sect Master's ethereal, majestic voice sounded: "You once told me you saw the ultimate secret of the Spirit Realm."
Ling Tuo's voice issued from Taiyin:
"We entered a minor dungeon where there were no quests and no danger. Hidden there was an item—one of the core pillars sustaining the operation of the Spirit Realm.
"Back then, I was too young. Seeing merely the tip of the iceberg, I assumed I understood the whole. Even so, that object influenced half my life; it cemented my resolve to pursue the path of Taiyin.
"I have schemed around it for over a decade, all for this very day."
As he spoke, a pillar of black light surged into the sky from an infinitely distant reach of the brilliant river of stars. The five imperial avatars turned their heads to look; it was a geyser of erupting lunar energy.
Its origin was a distant, indistinct dungeon space. The power of the Void class had opened a passage on the dungeon's outer perimeter, and the lunar energy was gushing precisely from that spatial conduit.
Ling Tuo's voice suddenly brimmed with excitement:
"Found it! I found it!"
A figure in black robes wearing a mask emerged from that dungeon, looked from afar toward the colossal celestial body of Taiyin, gave a slight nod, and immediately teleported away, exiting the Spirit Realm world.
Once the black-robed figure departed, Taiyin vanished abruptly, concealing its power and aura.
The Taiyi Sect Master and the Five Alliance Masters realized something dire was underway, but none of them could control or restrain Taiyin, which held sway over secrecy; they could only watch helplessly as it disappeared.
The next instant, at the distant fringes of the star river, the massive celestial black moon reappeared, instantly swallowing that "dungeon star."
Ling Tuo's frantic laughter echoed across the Spirit Realm world:
"Over the past decade and more, I traversed the Spirit Realm countless times, yet I could never find it. Without the core fragment of the Compass of Light, it was impossible to locate unless one commanded the Sun.
"Stirring up the star river today was precisely to churn up the mud and silt so the Spirit Realm could hide it no longer!"
The Military God, beside whose feet a White Tiger crouched, spoke in a clear, resonant, and commanding voice:
"What on earth is it?"
Ling Tuo's laughter grew ever more unbridled. "Open your stat panels, and won't it be plain as day?!"
The Five Alliance Masters instantly opened their stat panels. A second later, the Flame Emperor's roar thundered like lightning:
"Fuck! The Morality Points are gone!"
Chapter 793