Chapter 1652: Opening the Seventh Epoch
After a moment, Qin Mu spat out the Chaos Stone. He had originally thought that the Chaos Stone must contain Chaos Qi, recalling that when he first discovered Taiyi's Chaos mineral vein, he had found Chaos Qi stored within the Chaos Stones.
But when he had taken out Taiyi's eggshell, the entire Chaos mineral vein had collapsed, the Chaos Stones had shattered, and the Chaos Qi had dispersed and overflowed, transforming into the Chaos Sea of the Ancestral Court.
From this, it could be seen that the hardness of Chaos Stone was not particularly high; it was merely that the frigid winds of the Ultimate Void could not dissolve it.
Therefore, he had believed that this obelisk carved from Chaos Stone must also contain Chaos Qi. However, after swallowing it, he discovered that there was not a trace of Chaos Qi within the stone!
The Chaos Qi inside had already been taken away by someone!
"I gnawed on a rock for nothing... The words on the obelisk were written by the Eldest Young Master of the Miluo Palace using Hongmeng runes, forming a Hongmeng Dao language used to suppress enemies."
Standing beneath the stele, Qin Mu pondered, "Judging from this sentence of Hongmeng Dao language, the Eldest Young Master's mastery of Hongmeng runes is extremely high. He can be considered the foremost beneath the master of the Miluo Palace. How could the seal and prohibition he left behind be broken?"
Judging from the door panel and obelisk that had flown out of the forbidden zone, part of the seal should have been breached.
With such extraordinary skill, the seal left by the Eldest Young Master must have been extremely difficult to break. The power of the Ultimate Void alone should not have been enough to cause his seal to show signs of collapse. So who had caused the seal to be broken?
"Chaos Stone is very hard to find. The amount of stone needed to create this single obelisk is already an unimaginable number. And according to Lan Yutian, he saw countless obelisks within that doorway. Where did the Eldest Young Master find the materials for all these obelisks?"
His expression turned somewhat strange as he guessed the source of the Chaos Stone.
There was only one place with so much Chaos Stone: the Chaos mineral vein in the Ancestral Court that could give birth to Taiyi!
But one Chaos mineral vein could not refine so many obelisks. Several veins would be needed to accomplish this. In other words, the Eldest Young Master of the Miluo Palace might have searched the Chaos mineral veins of several universes to suppress this "enemy of the Miluo Palace"!
Qin Mu thought for a moment and tried to put the obelisk into his divine storage.
The Spirit Embryo Divine Storage was located at the center of his brow, but the obelisk was too long. When Qin Mu placed it inside, he found that the tip of the stele would pierce through his brow and stick out, making it look like a sharp horn growing from his forehead.
Helpless, he had to give up.
"Brother Yu said this abandoned land has many strange things. Since I can't take the obelisk, maybe I can find some other treasures here!"
A gleam of excitement shone in his eyes. Abandoning the obelisk, he "stood" on the door panel and flew deeper into the abandoned land.
Before long, Qin Mu stopped the door panel and looked ahead with surprise and uncertainty. In the void ahead, a massive head suddenly emerged!
That head was unimaginably huge. It had already grown flesh but no skin. It was flying through this abandoned land, opening its enormous mouth to devour the treasures discarded here!
The head was swallowing a tattered book. The book shone with golden light, flipping its pages on its own. Golden characters flew out of the book and imprinted themselves on the head, causing its flesh to fly and scatter!
However, it was clear that the tattered book was no match for the strange head, which swallowed it in one gulp!
The flesh on the strange head then writhed and regrew, becoming a bit more complete.
Suddenly, the strange head noticed him and eagerly flew over.
Qin Mu's expression tensed. He stood the door panel upright and immediately grabbed his greatsword.
The strange head came rushing with a roar. Qin Mu held his breath and concentrated. Just then, a frigid wind blew a broken ship, which crashed with a rumble into the strange head charging at Qin Mu!
The broken ship's cross-section was covered in sharp wooden splinters, which pierced through the strange head's flesh, hanging it on the ship.
The broken ship flew past in front of Qin Mu, and he immediately saw a white skeleton hanging on the ship. That skeleton was the Dao bone of an Ascender, which had not been dissolved by the Ultimate Void, but it was nailed to the ship.
The strange head let out a silent roar, struggling to break free from the ship.
Qin Mu then saw the white skeleton nailed to the ship raise one of its bony arms. The arm grew longer and longer, grabbing the strange head's face and tearing off a piece of flesh!
The bony arm retracted and pressed the flesh onto its own body. The flesh stuck to its bones and immediately spread like countless tentacles, crawling and growing.
The skeleton reached out again to tear more flesh from the strange head's face. The strange head was furious and struggled fiercely, finally breaking free from the broken ship. It immediately rolled onto the deck and charged at the skeleton nailed to the ship's wall.
The skeleton, pinned there and unable to escape, still stood like an inviolable emperor, every move radiating supreme authority!
But being nailed down, it couldn't exert much power. The strange head rolled back and forth on the ship, dodging its attacks, then suddenly slammed hard into the skeleton!
The broken ship shook violently from the impact. The strange head pulled back and slammed into the skeleton again, even harder this time!
Suddenly, the ship's cabin was smashed open by its charge. As the door swung open, six or seven white skeletons rushed out from the cabin and pounced on the strange head!
Qin Mu was stunned. Those white skeletons were all Dao bones of Ascenders. They rushed forward without hesitation, tearing strips of flesh from the strange head's face and sticking them onto themselves!
Soon, the strange head's flesh was completely stripped away!
The skeletons, now covered in flesh, were overjoyed. But then a frigid wind blew, and the flesh scattered with the wind.
Silence fell over the broken ship. Neither the strange head nor the skeletons continued fighting. They stood dejectedly on the deck, letting the frigid wind blow over them.
Qin Mu laughed heartily and shook his head, saying, "These fools..."
Suddenly, the strange head and all the skeletons turned to look at him. Sensing trouble, Qin Mu immediately urged the door panel to speed away.
The skeletons and the head on the broken ship became excited. The skeletons quickly climbed the mast, raised the tattered sail, and used the frigid wind to accelerate, chasing after him!
They rubbed their hands together in excitement, clearly intending to tear off Qin Mu's flesh and stick it onto themselves!
Even the skeleton nailed to the ship's wall pounded on it excitedly, urging them to speed up.
Though the ship looked broken, with its tattered sail raised, it moved much faster, relentlessly closing in on the door panel.
One skeleton leaped from the mast, lunging at the door panel with its gaping mouth wide open as if laughing. But in the next moment, Qin Mu's Calamity Sword pierced into its mouth, nailing it with a thud to the broken ship.
Another skeleton flew over, and Qin Mu punched it, sending it hanging on the ship's wooden splinters, flailing its limbs and unable to get down for a moment.
The strange head rolled and leaped out of the broken ship, but Qin Mu immediately swung the door panel and slammed it down hard. The head rolled and tumbled under the ship, getting crushed and rolling several times. By the time it steadied itself, the broken ship and Qin Mu had already flown far away.
On the broken ship, the skeletons worked together to rescue their companions and continued to relentlessly pounce at Qin Mu. With little divine power left, Qin Mu could only rely on his physical strength to fight back, putting him in a very dangerous situation.
These skeletons could not be destroyed even by the Great Calamity of Universal Birth and Death; their hardness was astonishing. If they managed to get a hold of him, he would definitely be torn apart!
Boom!
The door panel suddenly jolted, hitting something unknown. Qin Mu lost his balance and was startled. He immediately urged his Calamity Sword to fly around him, defending against the skeletons' attacks. But on the broken ship, one skeleton quickly turned the tattered sail, making the ship veer sharply to avoid the door panel.
On the broken ship, the skeletons seemed extremely terrified. They scrambled into the cabin and slammed the door shut with a click. The skeleton nailed to the ship's wall pounded on it with its hands and feet, as if begging its companions to rescue it and let it into the cabin.
It wasn't the only one locked out. The skeleton that had turned the sail also slid down the mast, found the cabin door closed, and made a gesture of wailing, kneeling before the door and pounding on it with both hands.
Qin Mu put his hands on his hips and laughed, "Now you know fear, huh?"
He turned around, and the smile froze on his face.
The door panel had crashed into a stretch of ruins. The ruins were filled with broken walls and desolation. It was clear that the skeletons on the broken ship weren't afraid of him—they were afraid of these ruins.
The ruins looked like the remains of the Ancestral Court's Jade Capital City. Qin Mu looked around and saw that while the layout resembled the Jade Capital City, there were fundamental differences.
The core of the Ancestral Court's Jade Capital City was the Miluo Palace and its Seven Halls. The center of the Miluo Palace was the master's Dao Tree, hanging with sixteen Dao Fruits, surrounded by the Seven Halls, then the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls, and further out were the forests formed by Dao Trees and the residences of the Ascenders sheltered by the Miluo Palace.
But this place had a different layout. Though its treasure halls were destroyed, the ruins showed that it had once been prosperous.
"Perhaps the Ascenders here weren't as numerous as those in the Miluo Palace, but this could still be considered a major force comparable to it. Why are the bones of those Ascenders afraid of these ruins?"
Qin Mu steadied himself. The secrets hidden in the abandoned land of the Ultimate Void were more numerous than he had imagined. He wanted to explore this place, but his goal was to find the doorway where the Eldest Young Master had sealed the enemy of the Miluo Palace. Entering here rashly and wasting too much time would be detrimental to the war in Yan Kang.
Just as he was about to leave, a surge of Chaos Qi suddenly emerged from the ruins, vast and boundless, covering them.
Qin Mu's heart stirred. He was lacking Chaos Qi for his cultivation, and this ruin had so much of it. For him, it was a supreme treasure land!
"I'll just go in and collect some Chaos Qi. It shouldn't take too much time!"
Qin Mu shouldered the door panel and walked into the ruins, muttering, "If things look bad, I'll retreat immediately..."
The frigid wind blew toward this area, and the Chaos Qi churned, receding from around him.
These Chaos Qi seemed to have a will of their own. No matter where he went, there was never a trace of Chaos Qi around him.
Qin Mu tried to grab a wisp of Chaos Qi but couldn't hold onto it at all.
He turned to leave, but found the surroundings shrouded in Chaos, disorienting him. The path he had come from was completely obscured!
Qin Mu smiled slightly. His vertical eye on his brow opened, its gaze piercing through the Chaos. As he walked out, he saw an ancient altar built from Chaos Stone.
Qin Mu climbed onto the altar. On it stood only a stone stele, not very tall, with a pair of footprints beside it.
He approached the stele. The words on it were unverifiable, but from the structure of the runes, he could deduce their meaning.
"Heavenly Capital, opening the Seventh Epoch of the universe here... Opening the Seventh Epoch? This is..."
Qin Mu was stunned: "Could it be that the Seventh Epoch universe was artificially created?"
He stepped forward, placing his feet one after the other into those footprints.
Boom!
A sound like the creation of the world exploded in his mind!
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