Chapter 630: The Head in the Vat
From the dome of this dark cavern to the light below, the distance was incredibly long. Qin Mu fell continuously, and even he began to feel a creeping dread. His falling speed increased rapidly. If he couldn't use his divine abilities to slow his descent, he would surely be smashed into a pulp!
He tried to activate his divine abilities, but as soon as his primal energy formed a runic seal, the runes immediately scattered and failed to take shape.
This underground space possessed a strange power that interfered with the operation of his techniques and divine abilities. Qin Mu quickly discovered that this interference was an intrusion upon his thoughts. Whenever he tried to use a divine ability, an inexplicable force would disrupt his thinking, preventing him from executing it.
"A mental divine ability?"
Qin Mu was surprised. Although such abilities were rare, the Great Development Heavenly Demon Scripture and some demonic techniques contained records of this kind of divine ability. They were often used in illusionary attacks, generating divine abilities through powerful mental fluctuations to assault the opponent's brain, trapping them in an illusion and making them unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.
Normally, one could use their own divine abilities to break the illusion, perceive the truth, and kill the opponent.
However, the mental divine ability in this dark underground space was far more sophisticated. It directly attacked his thinking, preventing him from using any divine abilities, and thus he couldn't break the opponent's mental technique.
"Mental divine abilities are a direction worth studying. I'll definitely talk to the National Teacher about this later and see if we can cultivate some scholars proficient in mental techniques. If they were to go to the battlefield, unleashing a mental divine ability to prevent the enemy from using their powers would be like slaughtering chickens and dogs... Bah! Why am I thinking about this? Right now, I'm about to be smashed into mud!"
Unable to concentrate his spirit, Qin Mu relied on his immensely powerful physical body. He immediately began to run in mid-air, trying to use his incredible speed to walk on the air itself.
Then he discovered another peculiarity: the air here was thin, and the further he fell, the thinner it became. Even running his legs like wheels, he couldn't gain any traction.
Just then, he saw a star in the darkness. It was only the size of a bushel basket, probably a single Star Sand.
"Senior Brother's Star Sand! He really did come here!"
Qin Mu's heart leaped with joy. He landed on the bushel-sized Star Sand, which was pressed down and fell rapidly. However, the Star Sand contained a strange power that resisted the bizarre force field of this place. After falling for a while, its momentum gradually slowed, and it even began to bounce back up.
Qin Mu immediately crouched, then sprang with all his might, landing on another Star Sand. He leaped and bounded like a flying star, stepping across dozens of Star Sands, and quickly approached the source of the light at the planet's core.
The light came from a platform floating in the darkness. It had steps on all four sides, wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, floating alone in the center of the darkness like a suspended altar.
Qin Mu landed on the altar and looked back. He saw specks of Star Sand floating in the darkness. The Founding Master had clearly found this place and set up an array. This meant that whatever was on this altar was something the Founding Master wanted to leave for the Woodcutter Saint.
"What exactly is it? Senior Brother left two things: the Soul-Severing Mysterious Blade, a human head in a box, and a military tally of unknown age. So what is on this altar..."
He looked towards the center of the altar. There was a stone coffin, made of some unknown material, imprinted with relief patterns that looked like a sealing technique.
The stone coffin was over ten zhang long and two or three zhang wide, very large. It was probably not a coffin for a mortal, but the burial place of a god.
Qin Mu tried to activate the Nine Heavens Eye-Opening Technique, but his divine abilities still wouldn't work. After hesitating for a moment, he had to peel back the golden willow leaf on his forehead and use his third eye to look into the stone coffin.
His eye didn't detect anything unusual, but he vaguely sensed that there was no corpse inside the coffin, only a large vat.
Qin Mu put the golden willow leaf back on his forehead and walked forward.
"A large vat inside a coffin? What's the meaning of this?"
He cautiously touched the stone coffin with his primal energy. There was no reaction. Still not letting his guard down, Qin Mu moved like a nimble cat, rapidly circling the coffin and probing it with strands of primal energy. Still nothing happened.
Only then did he feel reassured. He walked up and tried to open the stone coffin.
The lid was extremely heavy. Using all his strength, he managed to shift it slightly.
Inside the stone coffin was indeed a large vat. Qin Mu looked along the light and saw a head inside the vat. It was a head with four faces, and on top of its pagoda-like bun was also an eye.
This head was soaked in a strange liquid, as if it were still alive. Suddenly, the eye on top of the bun opened, its gaze falling on Qin Mu's face.
Qin Mu was startled. Suddenly, the scenery before his eyes changed. The planet's core, the darkness, the altar, the stone coffin, the head in the vat—all vanished!
He appeared in a magnificent palace. The floor was made of white jade, and pearls served as stars. A faceless man was walking towards him, saying, "Ying Zhao, I need you to do something for the future of our Kai Huang Era."
"As you command, Kai Huang."
"Emperor Shakti has gathered all the world's sorcerers to build Carefree Realm and forge the Ark of the Other Shore. I need you to preserve some foundation for our Kai Huang Era. I am afraid that in the future, those who remain will forget Carefree Realm, and I am also afraid that the enemy will destroy the Ark of the Other Shore. Here are the blueprints for the Ark of the Other Shore. You possess the strongest divine brain. Memorize them."
Qin Mu saw mountains of blueprints. He watched as "he himself" read through them page by page. The diagrams and text on the blueprints were incredibly complex, difficult to remember, but "he" imprinted every single page into his mind without missing a single detail.
"Your Majesty, do we really have no chance of winning?" Qin Mu heard a strange voice.
It was the voice of this god named Ying Zhao.
"No."
The faceless man turned his back to him and shook his head. "Not even a sliver of a chance. The more I learn about the enemy, the more despairing I become. Era after era in history has been destroyed. We too cannot escape annihilation. But there is still hope for the future. By leaving these blueprints, you leave behind hope. In the future, my descendant will come to find you and retrieve these blueprints. He will lead you to Carefree Realm to see me. Then, we will rise again and change the world!"
"Your Majesty..."
The faceless man walked away, leaving him alone. He memorized diligently, taking a very long time to finally commit the incredibly complex blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore to memory.
He destroyed the blueprints. The paper burned for a long time before the flames died out.
When the blueprints were completely consumed, the hall fell into darkness.
From the darkness before Qin Mu's eyes, light emerged, revealing a vast and magnificent battlefield of gods and demons. In the sky and on the ground, powerful gods and demons were locked in fierce combat, slaughtering each other. Countless deities and demons fell, a scene both spectacular and tragic.
Qin Mu watched as the Kai Huang Heavenly Court fell from an immense height. It crashed through layer after layer of heavens, dragging long trails of fire and light, plunging into other worlds.
Qin Mu stared blankly as "he himself" raised a divine sword, then lowered it again. He returned to the divine city, went deep underground, and created a dark space, building an altar.
He used his own spirit to construct a strange mental force field. He prepared a coffin for himself, placing a large vat inside it. The water in the vat was a divine liquid refined from his own spirit and life force, capable of preserving his flesh from decay.
He raised his sword once more.
"Oh, the one who sees this scene..."
Qin Mu heard the strange voice again, muttering to itself: "Are you a descendant of the Qin Clan? Have you come, as Kai Huang commanded, to retrieve the blueprints? I can never repay Kai Huang's grace of knowing me. Your servant offers his head and awaits the Qin Lord to come and take it."
Swoosh—
A flash of sword light. Qin Mu felt an intense pain, then saw "himself" fall into the vat. He looked out and saw the headless body of the god Ying Zhao moving the coffin lid, slowly closing it.
After a while, he heard the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground from the dark planet's core. It was the sound of the god's corpse falling from the altar.
Qin Mu's eyes stung and reddened. He wiped away his tears.
The head in the vat seemed to see him. The head rotated in the vat, and waves of powerful mental energy resonated with Qin Mu's own spirit. Blueprint after blueprint turned into images, firmly imprinting themselves in Qin Mu's mind. The more blueprints there were, the less divine liquid, formed from the head's spirit and life force, remained in the vat.
By the time the divine liquid in the vat was exhausted, Qin Mu's mind was filled with the blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore.
The god's head was still emitting mental waves, transmitting the remaining blueprints into Qin Mu's mind. The head was visibly rotting. When its spirit was completely drained, only a skull remained, lying silently at the bottom of the vat.
Qin Mu stood silently before the stone coffin for a long time. Suddenly, he said, "You don't owe the Qin Clan anything. It is the Qin Clan that owes you! I cannot let you die without a complete corpse!"
He leaped down from the altar. A strand of primal energy suspended him as he descended into the deep, dark abyss. After a long time, Qin Mu rose back up, carrying a headless skeleton on his back, holding onto the spider-silk-like strand of primal energy.
He returned to the altar, lifted the large vat out of the coffin, and respectfully placed the headless skeleton inside. He then took the skull from the vat and placed it on the skeleton's neck.
Qin Mu closed the stone coffin, kowtowed three times before it, then turned and leaped up, bounding from Star Sand to Star Sand towards the top.
On his final leap, he was still a thousand zhang from the entrance. Qin Mu pointed, and a strand of primal energy shot out a thousand zhang, wrapping around the bone rope hanging at the entrance.
The many skeletons at the entrance quickly climbed up, and after some effort, they pulled him out of this bottomless underground space.
Just as Qin Mu climbed out of the hole, the ground began to tremble. His expression changed. He immediately erupted with primal energy, sweeping up all the surrounding skeletons, forming a Grand Celestial Sphere force field, and ran for his life with the skeletons in tow.
Behind him, the earth collapsed. The ancient divine city, already in ruins, suddenly fell towards the planet's core, the hole growing larger and larger.
Qin Mu pushed his speed to the limit, rushing out of this ancient ruin like the wind. The tremors gradually stopped. He looked back and saw that the divine city ruins had become a deep abyss, burying history.
Qin Mu set the skeletons down, sat on a rock, and gazed into the bottomless abyss, his eyes deep and sorrowful.
A skeleton reached out and touched his head, as if trying to comfort him. Another skeleton came before him, trying to wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes.
Qin Mu's face broke into a smile. He stood up and bowed respectfully to all the skeletons. "I am fine. Thank you, fellow Daoists, for accompanying me all these days. Perhaps in the future, if I do not die, I will return to gather your scattered souls and bring you back to life. We shall meet again!"
He strode away. This time, the skeletons did not follow. Qin Mu looked back and saw the white bones raising their arms, waving at him.
Qin Mu waved back and walked away with large strides.
"Though dead, the chivalrous bones are fragrant, unashamed among the heroes of the world. Kai Huang, my ancestor, far away in Carefree Realm, do you still remember a god named Ying Zhao, who cut off his own head for the sake of a promise? I fear you have forgotten. I will remember for you. A son of the Qin Clan will not betray those who follow him, nor will he forget his own or his ancestors' promises!"
He traveled far across this desolate and barren land, heading straight for the place where the Kai Huang Heavenly Court had fallen. That place, according to the memories of the god Ying Zhao, should be the entrance to the Supreme Heaven or the Great Wasteland.
"I will fulfill your promise for you, so that the fallen heroic spirits may find peace!"
He arrived at a fractured space. Dazzling rays of light surged there, vaguely revealing another world. The rays were fragments of space, extremely dangerous to cross.
Qin Mu took a small box from his Gluttony Bag, leaped into the fractured space. Just as he was about to meet the rays of light, the youth suddenly opened the box. A bloodthirsty, sky-covering ferocious light transformed into two blade beams. With a *crack*, they snipped the rays of light in two!
Before the rays could close again, Qin Mu passed through the space fragments. His body fell sharply. Below, lush mountains and forests stretched endlessly, and the Southern Heavenly Gate stood tall.
Qin Mu was stunned for a moment. Below was not the Supreme Heaven, but the Great Wasteland.
—In the Crippled Elderly Village of the Great Wasteland, the Chicken-Dragon looked stern: "Cluck! Cluck-cluck! Cluck-cluck cluck!"