Chapter 378 - 158: A Village in the Mountains, a Spacetime Fluctuation, the Man from the Future, Chen Shaoyou
Tucked away in the mountains, there was a small village.
The small village was backed by a mountain range, with a great river rushing before it. Upon closer inspection, one would discover that the entire village was actually built atop a tree stump of unimaginable size!
Sunlight, as brilliant as flowing fire, lit up the sky.
Voices drifted from the small village, where tall, burly men were up early for their morning training.
Men who had been on night watch yawned as they returned to rest, while a host of children ran gleefully through the village, playing.
But whether it was the men at their morning training, the men returning from their watch, or the mischievous children chasing chickens and catching sparrows, none dared to go near a particular wooden house in the village that looked utterly ordinary.
This wooden house was not large, and it stood right at the center of the stump’s patterns.
All the surrounding wooden houses were built at a distance, a clear sign of the high status its owner held in the village.
Ten suns hung in the sky, bathing the land in brilliant light. For thousands of miles, there wasn’t a single cloud, and the sunlight was incredibly intense.
But inside the wooden house, it was dim and gloomy.
An oil lamp was the only source of light within.
The light revealed an old man clad in gray animal hides, his hair disheveled. He was alone, circling a miniature altar that stood about as tall as a man.
He danced and gestured wildly, chanting a strange, ancient song.
The chant sounded desolate and ancient, yet it was bizarrely contained, never leaving the confines of the room.
As the old man continued his shouts and incantations, a red glow gradually emanated from the altar, completely enveloping the upper half of an unknown Fierce Beast’s corpse that lay upon it.
Seeing this, the old man’s dance grew more frantic and his shouts grew louder.
HUMMM!
A moment later, the red light suddenly flared before vanishing.
The old man first staggered back two steps in horror, then lunged forward again, throwing himself onto the altar with a look of pure elation.
The upper half of the Fierce Beast’s corpse had vanished. In its place...
...was a mysterious skull. It was a pure, silvery-white, flecked with gold. Two wisps of eerie green fire flickered within its eye sockets, and its jaw chattered with a constant clicking sound.
...
’So that’s the Jin Yun Great World?’
In the Da Yu Capital City, atop the God-Sealing Platform, Su Bai slowly opened his eyes, lost in thought.
Of course, it was impossible for him to enter the Jin Yun Great World right now. The wisp of his Divine Thoughts he had sent there was severed almost instantaneously upon arrival.
Still, it had been long enough for him to perceive a few things.
Unfortunately, deducing the exact world coordinates of the Jin Yun Great World from that single wisp of Divine Thoughts would likely take hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Although it was just a fleeting glimpse, he could vaguely sense that the world’s Spiritual Qi Level was likely very high.
’I wonder what kind of Divine Techniques the Great Power who created this altar possessed.’ Su Bai clutched the small altar in his palm, a sense of awe washing over him.
This Exchange Altar could swap treasures, Cultivation Techniques, and Divine Techniques between two worlds.
And yet, a marvel like this had been casually left behind in this world by the mysterious Great Power who created it, as if it were nothing more than trash.
It was easy to imagine that this mysterious Great Power was not only immensely wealthy and influential but must also possess unimaginable Great Divine Techniques.
’A mysterious Great Power...’
Su Bai stored the Exchange Altar away, a complex feeling stirring within him.
Although the experiment seemed to have yielded no immediate results, that wasn’t actually the case.
The experiment had confirmed that some of his ideas were, in fact, viable.
At the very least, it was possible to send a wisp of his Divine Thoughts through the exchange to obtain the coordinates of other worlds.
For Su Bai, who possessed the Purification Tripod, this was of immeasurable value.
And in truth, world coordinates were extremely precious.
This was evident from the fact that the mysterious Great Power had intentionally left this Exchange Altar behind to act as a world anchor.
And it seemed he might be able to use this Exchange Altar, and by extension the Purification Tripod, to acquire all the world coordinates that the mysterious Great Power had collected over countless years.
The potential payoff was staggering.
...
WHOOSH!
Gusts of ghostly wind howled across the endless Netherworld Land, carrying an aura of desolation and decay.
This was the Netherworld, also known as the Yin Department.
It contained nearly ninety percent of all the Yin Sha Resentment Qi in existence, making it the most Yin-aligned place in the world.
It was a paradise coveted by countless monsters and demons, and a place of dread and revulsion for countless mortals.
Within the howling, ghostly winds, the massive forms of Demon Ghosts could be faintly seen roaming the wilderness, slaughtering and battling one another.
The scene was one of utter chaos.
In the Netherworld, every flower, every tree, every blade of grass, every stone—even the mountains and the land itself—could be considered a Demon Ghost.
And at the center of this boundless land stood a great city, shrouded in a ghostly mist.
VMM!
At a certain moment, a pair of icy gazes pierced through the ghostly mist. Like two Celestial Swords, they slashed across the sky and vanished into the distant heavens.
AHHH!!
The instant those gazes flared, the entire Netherworld erupted. Innumerable Demon Ghosts let out hysterical wails of terror as they scattered and fled in a mad panic.
’Hm?! What does He intend to do?’
Within the Netherworld Capital, a voice as clear and cold as snow echoed softly.
Venerable Bai You sat cross-legged atop the city wall, carrying a silent man in black upon his broad back. Deep within his gaze, scenes from the mortal realm seemed to be reflected.