Chapter 629: The Dark Heart of the Earth
"Teacher Woodcutter once said that some places on Senior Brother's maps are extremely dangerous, places he himself wouldn't dare set foot in lightly. Could this divine city of Tai Ming Tian be one of those dangerous places?"
Qin Mu's eyes flickered as he pondered back and forth. In the end, he decided not to enter the divine city but to go around it from the side.
As he walked past the city, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a figure and quickly stopped in his tracks.
"Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha!"
Qin Mu almost cried out in surprise. He saw another Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha—or rather, the Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha from the Kai Huang era!
Back then, Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha wasn't yet a Buddha but a deity in the form of a handsome young man. He had no halo behind his head, wore no monastic robes, and didn't go barefoot.
He wore gilded boots with wings that soared through the clouds, and a suit of gleaming golden armor. At that time, Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha was not a Buddha but a powerful and high-ranking deity!
Qin Mu stood stunned.
Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha wasn't alone; he was accompanying several important figures as they walked toward the divine city.
Qin Mu's heart pounded wildly. As if possessed, he followed them. The figures paid him no attention, and even the divine beings and demons standing guard in the city seemed unable to see him.
Puzzled, Qin Mu suddenly heard footsteps and quickly turned around. A group of skeletal monsters was tiptoeing behind him, sneaking along with their heads tucked in.
Qin Mu chuckled to himself: "These undead are sneaking around so ridiculously... Wait, no—these skeletons are mimicking my walking. So the one sneaking around is..."
His face flushed slightly, but he continued tiptoeing forward. He reached out to tug at Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha's clothes but grabbed nothing.
His hand passed through the hem of the Buddha's robe without touching anything solid.
Startled, Qin Mu waved his hand again. This time, his hand passed straight through Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha's body—still nothing!
"This divine city and all the gods and demons in it—none of them are real!"
Qin Mu's expression went blank. Could this be an echo of history?
But an echo of history occurs when the form and voice of a powerful being are imprinted in space, only appearing when triggered. The images of weaker beings cannot be etched into time and space.
Yet here was an entire divine city, filled with ordinary people—clearly not an echo of history.
And the fact that he couldn't touch the people or gods in the city meant he hadn't traveled back in time either.
So what was this divine city all about?
Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha walked and talked with the others. Judging by his demeanor, these people were likely extraordinary beings, probably of even higher status than himself.
Qin Mu wanted to circle around to the front to see their faces. When he got there, he froze.
Their faces were completely blank—no eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, as if a sheet of paper were pasted over them!
The skeletons also circled around to the front, and their jaws dropped off in shock.
Whoosh—
Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha and the others passed right through Qin Mu's body. He felt nothing pass through him.
He reached out to grab them but caught nothing.
The skeletons scrambled around frantically, searching for their jaws on the ground. When the figures passed through them as well, the skeletons trembled and lay prostrate on the ground, too scared to move.
One skeleton, whose remnant soul seemed relatively intact, whimpered in a crying voice: "Ghost..."
Qin Mu walked past the skeletons and caught up with the figures, thinking to himself: "Now the skeletons aren't mimicking me—I didn't get scared and fall to the ground."
Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha was speaking softly with the others, his voice so faint it was almost inaudible.
Gradually, though, the voices grew louder and clearer. Qin Mu listened closely. The faceless figure in the center, who seemed to hold the highest status, said: "...Before our era, there were several others. I once explored the ruins of those eras, trying to trace the origin of our enemies, to see who our true foe really is. I also went to You Du and consulted Tu Bo, then met with Tian Gong, who was monitoring the movements of billions of stars. I visited many of the innate gods of the celestial constellations as well. Interestingly, I found some useful things. Perhaps our enemy is not what we imagined. The Heavenly Court..."
Qin Mu leaned in to listen, but the voice grew faint again.
"Plan for victory before considering defeat, Shakti. I need you to do something for me: gather all the skilled craftsmen in the world to build a place where we can retreat and preserve our strength even after defeat, waiting for a chance to rise again. On my search for the secrets of the Heavenly Court, I found a wondrous place..."
The voice grew softer and softer until it was completely inaudible.
Qin Mu followed them forward, but the sound grew fainter, and soon he could hear nothing at all.
Moreover, the further he went, the blurrier and more indistinct Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha and the others became. When they entered a mansion and passed through the gate, with deities on either side closing the doors, their figures suddenly vanished!
Qin Mu stood stunned. He followed the figures into the mansion, but as the doors closed, they disappeared right before his eyes.
"This situation... it must be a gaze!"
Qin Mu lowered his head in thought, then suddenly looked up, his eyes bright as he slapped his fist into his palm: "It's a gaze! This must be from the Kai Huang era over twenty thousand years ago. Someone in this divine city saw this scene and turned it into a memory! I'm inside that person's memory! Senior Brother and I both walked into the same person's memory! Memory is what the eyes see turned into images in the brain. The person who saw this didn't enter the mansion, so when Imperial Shakti Heavenly Buddha and the others went inside, their figures disappeared..."
He passed through the gate and came outside, scanning the area with his eyes: "He didn't see the faces of those beings, which means their power was too great, and their faces were shrouded by their own divine light, so this person couldn't make them out. That's why the figures in the memory have no faces! So, where was he when he saw this..."
Qin Mu walked back along the path, his gaze sharp as lightning, searching everywhere, thinking: "This person must have had a strange appearance. He might have had multiple heads and faces, able to see both front and back..."
There were many gods and demons in the city, and the streets were crowded with people coming and going. It was hard to determine which deity's memory this was.
This divine city was clearly an extremely important place in Tai Ming Tian, with an unimaginable number of gods and demons. Many of them had cultivated to the level of having a primordial spirit form, so they came in all shapes and sizes.
The four-spirit forms common in the Great Ruins were everywhere here. There were also deities with human heads and serpent bodies, ox heads and human bodies, bird heads and human bodies, human heads and bird bodies—all kinds of bizarre forms. Gods and demons with multiple heads were not uncommon.
Qin Mu looked around. Figures of gods and demons passed through him or beside him, but he couldn't find the one who had seen this scene.
"The entire divine city is basically recreated in this memory. That means this person must have been standing somewhere high up. Only from a high enough vantage point could he take in the whole city and imprint it in his mind..."
Qin Mu suddenly looked up at the watchtower. A deity stood there, also faceless!
Qin Mu soared into the air and quickly reached the high watchtower. He flew around the deity and saw that it had one head with four faces, a vertical eye on its forehead—nine eyes in total—and a topknot shaped like a pagoda, with another eye at the very tip, allowing it to see in all directions!
"It's you! I've fallen into your memory!"
Qin Mu's heart leaped with joy. He strode forward and stepped into the deity's body.
Suddenly, the scenery around him changed rapidly. The divine city collapsed and vanished, and all the gods, demons, and citizens twisted and disappeared.
The group of skeletal monsters that had been lying on the ground trembling suddenly found the city gone, replaced by ruins and piles of white bones. They went mad with fear, running around like headless flies.
Where the watchtower had stood in the city center, there was now a deep, dark hole. Some skeletons lost their footing and tumbled in, letting out long screams as they fell.
Qin Mu also stepped into empty space. Startled, he tried to use his divine abilities to fly up, but he felt a strange force field that neutralized his powers instantly.
His body plummeted rapidly, the sound of rolling stones and the skeletons' screams echoing in his ears. He quickly shot his primal energy in all directions, and finally, one strand hooked onto something, stabilizing him.
He then sent out another strand of primal energy, wrapping around the falling skeleton. With a gentle flick, the skeleton flailed its limbs and flew up, landing outside the deep hole, dazed and confused about what had happened.
The other skeletons gathered around, their jaws clacking silently as if to comfort him.
They all peered down into the hole. Beneath the ruins of the divine city was an enormous hollow world, pitch black, with no telling how deep or wide the hole was.
Qin Mu hung from the strand of primal energy like a tiny insect suspended in the endless darkness.
The skeletons were horrified. They grabbed each other's feet in a chain, trying to form a bone rope to rescue Qin Mu.
Then, something lit up in the darkness. Light shone from far away, but it was too distant for Qin Mu to make out clearly.
He tried to activate his Nine Heavens Eye-Opening Technique, but as soon as he did, his powers scattered, nearly causing his eyes to burst. He quickly abandoned the idea.
"Thank you all!"
Qin Mu retracted his primal energy strand, bringing himself to the top of the dark cave. He hung upside down, his legs braced against the stone wall, and called out loudly: "I'll go down to take a look first! You can pull me back up later!"
At the end of the bone chain, the skeleton shook its head. Suddenly, Qin Mu kicked off with all his strength, shooting toward the light like an arrow from a bow.
In the vast, dark space, the young man seemed to plunge into the dark depths of an ocean, the wind whistling past his ears.
PS, Demon Ape: Votes.
: Monthly? Recommendations?
Demon Ape nods: Want.