Chapter 299: Strange Things
"From what those two white bats said, quite a few great shamans from Loulan's Golden Palace have come to the Nether Valley in recent days. I must be on guard."
Qin Mu's expression grew solemn as he opened the glutton sack on his back a crack, ready to summon his sword at a moment's notice.
"Chief, those two just now were very strong."
Long Qilin walked forward, avoiding the large boulders floating in the air, and said, "Those two are no weaker than me, and they're extremely ancient."
Qin Mu glanced around and said in a deep voice, "They should be divine seeds, descendants of gods and demons. Saying they're no weaker than you is just you bragging. Pick either one of those white bats, and ten of you together couldn't beat them. Their aura is too strong."
Long Qilin was rather unconvinced and said grumpily, "That's because I'm still young. If I were fully grown, ten of them couldn't beat me. I'm very useful!"
Qin Mu ignored the dragon qilin, who had already turned into a fat ball and was still bragging, and pondered, "Strange, how can there be white bats in the Great Ruins? Could they be descendants of the Bat God from before the Cataclysm? Did the gods and demons from before the disaster leave behind offspring?"
In some temples within the Great Ruins, there were statues of the Bat God. The Bat God meant the God of Fortune, who bestowed blessings upon people.
He had seen a stone statue of the Bat God in Xianglong City. It had a bat's head on a human body, with fleshy wings and membranes sprouting from its armpits. Its appearance was somewhat similar to those two white bats, except those two white bats seemed more primitive, while the Bat God, aside from its head and fleshy wings, looked more like a human.
If those two white bats were descendants of the God of Fortune from before the Cataclysm, then shouldn't there be other descendants of gods and demons in other parts of the Great Ruins?
But Qin Mu had lived in the Great Ruins for so many years—why hadn't he seen more descendants of gods and demons?
"Fatty Long, where did you live before you met the Patriarch?" Qin Mu suddenly recalled something and asked.
"The Great Ruins."
Long Qilin recalled the past, filled with nostalgia, and said, "Not long after I was born, my mother disappeared. I was so dizzy with hunger I was about to starve to death when I met the Patriarch. Seeing how extraordinarily handsome he was, I was lured away by a single spirit pill of his. One misstep led to eternal regret."
Qin Mu found it both amusing and exasperating: "It was clearly the Patriarch who saw you starving pitifully and gave you a spirit pill, and then you latched onto him, shamelessly following him and refusing to leave, making it impossible for him to shake you off! But speaking of which, Fatty Long, you're also considered a divine seed, right? Could the divine race from before the Cataclysm in the Great Ruins have turned into the current strange beasts of the Great Ruins?"
His expression turned strange. Before the Great Ruins, it must have been an extremely prosperous and flourishing era, with gods and humans living together, mingling among mortals, and the descendants of gods also living here. Then the Great Cataclysm occurred, causing the gods to vanish completely, and the descendants of gods increasingly transformed into strange beast forms.
This guess was shocking, but it wasn't impossible.
Ahead, the cliffs on both sides of the canyon were covered in dense forests. The forest growing on the precipices gave an extremely absurd feeling, while the floating boulders in the air indicated that the geomagnetic primal power here was distorted.
Suddenly, Qin Mu felt movement from the glutton sack. His heart stirred, and he opened the sack. The Carefree Sword inside was gently vibrating, emitting a crisp sword hum.
Qin Mu extended his primal qi deep into the glutton sack and took out the sword.
He had originally planned to use the Carefree Sword as the mother sword to refine into a sword pellet, so he hadn't fitted it with a scabbard. Now holding the Carefree Sword in his hand felt somewhat inconvenient, so he pointed with his finger, and the Carefree Sword flew up to cut off a branch from an ancient tree.
"What hard wood!"
Qin Mu cut off a section of the branch and tried to slice through it with a strand of primal qi, but couldn't cut it. He couldn't help but exclaim in surprise—the wood's quality was comparable to dark iron.
He urged the Carefree Sword to shave it down, quickly making a wooden scabbard, and inserted the Carefree Sword into it. The sword was still vibrating slightly, but it was no longer so conspicuous.
"It seems that sixteen years ago, more than just the broken Carefree Sword and divine gold fell from the sky. There were other things too, and this thing resonates with the Carefree Sword!" he thought to himself.
The people from Loulan's Golden Palace had already entered the Nether Valley. Would they find that thing before him?
Finally, they reached the end of the canyon. The view suddenly opened up. Qin Mu didn't rush into the valley but warily looked around. At the end of the canyon, on both sides, were two colossal stone statues carved along the mountain ridges, as tall as the mountains themselves.
The two statues had solemn expressions, dignified and sacred, with deep gazes, each standing with a sword in hand.
The sound of rushing water came from waterfalls flowing down from the statues' shoulders. The waterfalls were powerful, cascading a thousand zhang, landing between the statues' hands, flowing down along the swords, and converging into rivers.
Two rivers flowed from beneath the statues' feet, forming a double-dragon formation in the forest, then disappearing in the center of the valley.
These two statues had bat heads on human bodies—they were the Bat God.
"Two Bat Gods guarding the Nether Valley? What is the relationship between these two Bat God statues and those two white bats from earlier?"
Qin Mu looked into the distance and was startled: "Are these two rivers flowing underground? Azure Sky Divine Eye, open!"
An extra layer of heaven appeared in his pupils. Qin Mu looked toward where the two rivers disappeared and frowned. His vision seemed blocked by something, unable to see clearly.
"Cinnabar Sky Divine Eye, open!"
Qin Mu surged his primal qi, forming the Cinnabar Sky divine eye rune array in his eyes. A ring of cinnabar-colored patterns appeared in his pupils, with the emerald-green Azure Sky divine eye inside that, the cyan-colored Cyan Sky divine eye further in, the white light of the Divine Sky divine eye at the center, and the pupil at the very core.
He had learned the Nine Heavens Eye-Opening Technique taught to him by Blind, but with his current cultivation, he could only open up to the Cinnabar Sky, and it consumed a lot of energy, so he rarely used it.
Normally, the Cyan Sky divine eye was sufficient, and there was no need to open the Azure Sky and Cinnabar Sky divine eyes.
However, even with the Cinnabar Sky divine eye, he couldn't see clearly what was at the place where the two rivers disappeared.
"Oh?"
Qin Mu's heart trembled slightly as he saw several corpses in the forest ahead. They were the bodies of great shamans from Loulan's Golden Palace. These corpses weren't far apart, but strangely, some corpses looked lifelike, as if they had just died, while others had rotted down to bones, though their clothes were still intact.
As his gaze penetrated deeper into the forest, he saw more corpses. Clearly, these people had met with misfortune immediately upon entering the forest, dying unnatural deaths!
He looked with the Cinnabar Sky divine eye and suddenly saw something moving rapidly beside a corpse, vanishing in an instant. Then his divine eye seemed to suffer a violent impact, and the layers of his divine eye closed rapidly!
Qin Mu's mind was also dazed by the impact, and countless shrill screams seemed to roar and screech in his head, nearly tearing his soul apart!
Fortunately, he had already cultivated his primordial spirit and managed to withstand the attack.
But he hadn't seen clearly what had attacked him.
"Infinite, infinite, Maha infinite!"
The shrill screams in Qin Mu's head grew louder. He decisively activated the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra, and his body radiated Buddha light. Behind his head, the six heavens of all gods and Buddhas appeared, chanting in unison. The Buddha's voice lingered, refining the eerie screams that were assaulting his soul.
The soil beneath his feet suddenly sizzled, emitting green smoke and a foul stench. Qin Mu reached out with both hands, making a gesture of embracing, and with a thunderous roar, his primal qi transformed into a bodhi tree descending from the sky, lush and green, crashing down onto the ground ahead. Thousands of branches, along with the trunk, struck the earth, with twigs and roots dancing and burrowing into the ground.
A mournful cry came from underground, and then the ground in front of Qin Mu churned as if something was fleeing rapidly through the earth. When it passed under a large tree, the tree shook violently from the thing underground.
"Even my Bodhi Sala divine ability can't kill this thing?"
Qin Mu shouted softly, and suddenly his body became like jade, his skin translucent and clear, with a faint bodhi tree appearing behind him, making him look like a bull-headed Buddha meditating under a tree.
At the Great Thunderclap Temple, he had only obtained the Dharma of the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra, not the divine abilities. But with the Dharma, he could figure out the divine abilities.
The divine abilities of the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra were actually encompassed in the twenty heavens of the Mahayana Sutra. The Eight Thunderclap Techniques were one of them, belonging to the level of the Sakra Heaven divine abilities, already the highest level, second only to the Great Brahma Heaven divine abilities.
The Bodhi Sala divine ability belonged to the Bodhi Tree Heaven, counting from top to bottom as the fourteenth heaven, and from bottom to top as the seventh heaven.
Although the Tathagata Mahayana Sutra wasn't Qin Mu's main cultivation technique, he had a broad understanding and hadn't neglected his comprehension of the Mahayana Sutra.
Now he was using the Bodhi Jade Buddha True Body to suppress the strange thing underground with Buddha nature, preventing it from getting close. But since he was also simultaneously activating the Blazing Fire Marquis True Art, he maintained the bull-headed, human-bodied divine transformation state, with flames blazing around him and sparks floating nearby, looking somewhat incongruous.
The strange thing underground came and went in a flash, extremely fast, and oddly, Qin Mu felt it sometimes dispersed and sometimes condensed, even burrowing into trees and into those corpses.
"What exactly is it?"
Just then, two auras rapidly approached from behind. The Carefree Sword at Qin Mu's back hummed and flew out of its scabbard, transforming into the Cloud Sword technique, rapidly spinning around him to protect his body.
But the two auras bypassed him, flying past on either side—it was the two large white bats.
These two white bats separated, flying to the two colossal statues on either side of the canyon, hanging upside down in the statues' nostrils. One white bat giggled, "This stupid ox doesn't know that a large force is coming from behind—several hundred experts have entered..."
"Shut up!"
The other white bat, in the other statue's nostril, complained, "Why are you reminding him?"
"A large force? Several hundred experts?"
Qin Mu's heart tightened. The ones coming in definitely weren't the army of Yanguo. Qingmen Pass's troops were barely enough for defense; they couldn't spare more soldiers to enter the Nether Valley!
"It's the army of Mandi Kingdom!"
Qin Mu didn't hesitate any longer. He immediately walked into the forest, heading toward the center of the Nether Valley.
Clashing with the army of Mandi Kingdom would be suicide. The soldiers of Mandi Kingdom were wild and domineering by nature, with excellent coordination among troops, supported by military formations. When Qin Mu followed Banshan Sacrificial Wine to Loulan's Golden Palace, he had encountered the grassland army. They were extremely strong—eight hundred men could contend with a sect leader like Banshan.
From what those two white bats said, Mandi Kingdom had sent several hundred experts. Qin Mu could only avoid their sharp edge for now.
"That stupid ox is going to die!"
The two bats in the statues laughed in unison, "Fall, fall!"
Qin Mu's body was surrounded by Buddha light, protecting himself and Long Qilin, but he still didn't fall.
The two white bats were surprised. Suddenly, one of them flew out of the statue's nostril, grabbed a branch with its claws, and hung upside down in front of Qin Mu, puzzled. "Why aren't those things attacking you?"
Qin Mu looked up and asked, "Fellow Daoist, what are those things underground?"
The white bat was about to answer when it suddenly flew up silently, heading back to the Bat God statue's nostril. Several hundred Mandi Kingdom soldiers and dozens of golden-robed great shamans and shaman kings walked out of the canyon, arriving at the entrance of the Nether Valley in orderly formation.
"Prince Bangongcuo, please!"
A shaman king bowed. Bangongcuo slowly walked out from behind, his gaze sharp as lightning, sweeping over the Nether Valley. Then he saw Qin Mu on Long Qilin's back, paused for a moment, and revealed an amused smile.
"Chief Qin, long time no see?"
His still somewhat youthful voice came, but it was very loud, displaying his profound cultivation.
Qin Mu's heart trembled at the sound: "His cultivation speed is even faster than mine! When we clashed outside the capital, although we both entered the Six Harmonies realm, his cultivation wasn't as deep as mine then, but now he's caught up!"
"Long time no see."
Qin Mu laughed heartily, "Very well indeed! Little Prince, you seem to be doing very well too. I was worried that my few slashes might have killed you underground. Seeing you alive, I can rest easy."
Bangongcuo smiled faintly, "The Chief was fine just now, but now that might not be the case."
"Prince, there are two bat monsters up there." A shaman king looked up at the Bat God statues and said.
Bangongcuo said lightly, "Kill them."