At the mountain's highest peak, Xu Mutang stood before the grand front doors of the rear palace hall. Littered at his feet lay over a dozen mangled corpses of imperial guards. Since entering the palace complex, the obstacles in his path had steadily multiplied.
Fortunately, just like the horned serpents earlier, these guards were merely physical husks possessed by spiritual entities. Their strength amounted to little, failing to hold him back for long.
"Yet compared to the earlier structures, this rear hall is remarkably sturdy," he noted. Under the illumination of countless everlasting lamps flanking the hall, not the slightest sign of decay could be seen. The glazed roof tiles had hardly faded; at most, much of the painted gold lacquer on the pillars and walls had peeled away.
This had to be the most vital area of the entire secret depository—a fact made obvious by the heavy layers of guards here alone. If anything critical was hidden within, it was surely kept here.
The great hall doors were closed at present. Before them stood two desiccated skeletons dressed in the robes of palace attendants. Xu Mutang raised his long whip. With an infusion of jin, the pliable whip went rigid in an instant, its tip coalescing with spiritual radiance. With a single thrust, the once-sturdy doors violently blasted apart into a floor of splinters and wood shavings.
Drawing the long whip back and coiling it around his hand, he strode inside. Hanging from above hung a massive cloth curtain that blocked the entire line of sight, adorned with vivid designs depicting the valiant exploits of a general charging through battle formations and slaying enemy commanders.
That this thing had endured to the present day while retaining its vibrant hues without the least sign of rot showed it was indeed a treasure. Yet he possessed not the slightest interest in it. Annoyed that it obscured his view, he reached out and tore it down in a single pull.
Tough as it was, it did not rip even under his forceful tug; instead, it dropped down in one piece, bringing a cloud of dust along with it.
Looking toward the center of the hall, he found its arrangement differed from what he had envisioned. Flanking both sides were rows of everlasting flames shining bright as day, backed by vivid murals illustrating divine beings riding dragons into the sky.
In the center sat a long table, behind which a figure sat upright. The figure wore a demonic visor mask and was clad in the armor of a Grand General Supporting the State. His physique was magnificent and towering, reaching roughly three meters in height even while seated. Planted beside him was a long coiled-snake hammer with a slightly pointed tip.
Xu Mutang stared ahead, secretly startled. That suit of armor—could this be... Yuwen Yuanqi?
According to the records, Yuwen Yuanqi's dismembered remains had been recovered and pieced together by Emperor Ying. On the surface, it seemed Emperor Ying needed him alive for a single day to obtain "living flesh." In truth, based on the research of expert committees, Emperor Ying had likely been egged on by that Wuwei Xuanshi. He had intended to temporarily discard his own flesh and project his spirit into this body, then ingest the "immortal pill" refined for him by Wuwei Xuanshi to ascend to immortality, thereby using this body to evade calamity.
Yet no one knew what had transpired afterward. Perhaps a mishap had occurred during his cultivation of Xuan arts, culminating in Emperor Ying being struck atop the head by heavenly lightning and perishing. A young emperor was hastily enthroned, while this assembled body was placed into this secret depository in accordance with the late emperor's decree.
His brow twitched. He studied the physique for a few moments, noting that it showed no movement and bore no signs of an attached spiritual entity. Even so, he approached with great caution. An empty husk would be manageable; the real concern was whether it had mutated into a yaogui. If so, handling it would prove troublesome.
Though various legends and romances exaggerated the man's martial might, there was no doubt he had attained the realm of the Longevity View, perhaps even a realm higher...
After observing for a while, his gaze suddenly settled upon the table. A stick of ten-thousand-year incense burned there to this day, curling with wisps of blue smoke. Below it rested a domed-lid lacquer box, entirely black, with intricate cloud-and-thunder motifs outlined in gold thread along its surface, as well as a painting of immortals imparting the arts.
At a glance, it clearly belonged to the Xuan Sect.
To be placed here with such solemnity meant it was likely tied to that affair. He could not help wondering: could this box contain that very "immortal pill"?
At that thought, heat surged through his chest. Stepping forward, he reached out to take the pitch-black box. But just as he was about to touch it, he furrowed his brow, and his movement abruptly halted.
He was a man who could fairly be called prudent. Maintaining constant vigilance toward the unknown, he never touched anything whose nature was unclear. Yet just now, he had reached for this thing without so much as a second thought. Something was definitely wrong.
The moment this thought surfaced, whispers of chanting and incantations reached his ears—sounds he had failed to register only moments before.
He instantly retracted his hand and stepped back several paces, casting a wary eye around him. Peals of laughter echoed through the hall, followed by the figures of heavenly maidens on the surrounding murals coming to life. They drifted and danced around him, their ribbons and flowing sleeves fluttering as waves of exotic fragrance wafted through the air.
Recognizing at once that something was amiss—he must have fallen under some form of mental influence—he swiftly produced a capsule and swallowed it.
Closing his eyes for an instant, he reopened them, only for his pupils to constrict. The walls on both flanks had long since crumbled. Crawling out from within on all fours were pitch-black, demonic creatures that had already crept right up to his flanks. Some had already seized the hem of his clothes. Their upturned heads bore faces with nothing but gaping holes where features should be. Yet within the illusory scene, what he saw were seductive, enchanting divine maidens pressing close.
Under the clash of his mental power, the two visions oscillated back and forth—one moment voluptuous goddesses, the next ferocious demons.
He guessed immediately: this was likely an anomaly, and inside this hall, it had probably retained its original potency.
The anomalies encountered outside could not compare to this at all. Such things were completely unreasonable. If your mental strength was insufficient, or if your mind slackened, perceiving any sense of beauty and acknowledging it, these things could worm their way into your body and soul at once.
Even the fire of spirituality might fail to ward it off. Fortunately, he had remained constantly guarded against everything here, preventing an easy intrusion. But continuing like this was another matter. Luckily, he was not without a countermeasure.
Letting out a low shout, his body abruptly expanded. In an instant, he transformed once more into the black-armored divine general from before, with two additional pairs of arms sprouting from his back.
A spiritual visage was the most effective means of shutting out such influences. The moment he manifested this form, a sweep and swat of his arms sent all these creatures flying backward!
At that moment, the phantom illusion shattered, and the appearances of the divine maidens vanished along with it. Yet the peals of laughter still lingered in his ears. The creatures had not been halted either; hurled away, they seemed completely unharmed, continuing to crawl toward him.
With his mind now much clearer, he realized something within the hall was feeding this condition, and his gaze snapped onto the "ten-thousand-year incense"!
With a flick of his wrist and a thought conveyed, mutated tissue rapidly sprouted across his supple whip, swiftly thickening into a rigid baton-whip suited to his enlarged stature. Stepping forward, he whipped out toward the burning incense. Snap! Under his exquisite control, the long incense stick was extinguished instantly, leaving everything else untouched.
The moment the incense went out, the demonic creatures vanished in unison. Absolute silence settled over the grand hall. As if enduring a thousand years of time in a single breath, the once-vibrant murals dimmed and faded rapidly, turning charred and blackened.
Xu Mutang felt a brief moment of relief, yet immediately sensed something was amiss. Looking forward, his heart gave a sudden leap.
Wisps of golden smoke now billowed from the burly figure behind the desk. One hand rose, grasping the coiled-snake golden hammer beside him. Amidst the scraping clatter of armor plates, he slowly rose from his seat as scattered golden flecks drifted downward.
Already towering, once fully upright, he stood scarcely shorter than Xu Mutang's current Visage of the Aberrant.
Xu Mutang retreated with utmost caution. Had this thing suddenly stirred because the ten-thousand-year incense had been put out?
Was that incense meant to suppress Yuwen Yuanqi? But there was no time left for speculation.
The figure before him was a peerless general of his era. Even if the martial artists of the old era were far fewer than those of the new, and their various techniques were not as widely disseminated or popularized as today...
...those who stood at the absolute pinnacle throughout the ages differed little from one another, for they all represented the peak attainable by mortal form. Furthermore, the imperial clans of the old era were distinct from common men; they were hardly considered true humans anymore, making them perhaps all the more terrifying.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, the figure stepped across the long table. Drawing his long arm back, he brought the heavy hammer smashing down from above toward Xu Mutang, golden flames instantly blazing around it.
A cluster of cold cyan light flared across Xu Mutang's whip as he met the blow without backing down. As the two weapons collided, fire of spirituality sprayed out in all directions and eroded against each other. Though he held his ground firmly, the sheer, tremendous force behind the blow caused his feet to sink.
At that instant, the ground shook violently. With a deafening boom, an enormous horned serpent smashed through the opposite wall and charged at him. Bound up in the clash and unable to dodge in time, Xu Mutang seized its single horn with his free hand, but was still pushed relentlessly backward.
The horned serpent rammed him straight through the wall on the other side. After surging outward some distance, it flipped its head upward, tossing his body into midair.
Xu Mutang flipped in the air and landed firmly on the ground with a dull thud. Looking up, he saw the burly figure leap atop the horned serpent, planting his feet upon its neck. As the horned serpent raised its head and reared its upper body, the general was hoisted high aloft, the long hammer in his grasp slowly rising to point straight at Xu Mutang.
Xu Mutang let out a cold snort, the aura of cold cyan around him burning noticeably thicker than before. Yet to his surprise, this horned serpent was not a withered, rotten skeleton like the previous ones; instead, it was brimming with flesh and blood, its scales gleaming with a dark silver luster as threads of silver fire flickered across them.
The horned serpent drew its spine back, then swooped forward in a dive.
Xu Mutang did not meet it head-on this time, dodging aside. But as the horned serpent surged past, the burly figure swung his long hammer in a vicious horizontal sweep toward him.
Having shifted his center of gravity to evade, Xu Mutang raised his whip to parry. Amidst splashing flames of light, the crushing force behind the strike knocked him off balance. Before he could regain his footing, the serpent's tail lashed out violently from behind, swatting him through the air.
Before he could hit the ground, the horned serpent coiled its body and bounded upward under the glow of myriad flames. A claw clamped down on his torso in midair, dragging him downward in a savage plunge to slam him violently into the earth. With a thunderous BOOM, the entire mountain peak shook and trembled.
Chapter 961