Chapter 395 - 287: Choice
The sheer magnificence of the scene left everyone, who had just been through a terrifying ordeal, gasping in awe. Even the Sword Sect and Sword Emperor experts present, including several old men with graying beards, couldn’t help but widen their eyes and stare in astonishment.
Both Song Mingyue and Shangguan Yutong were dumbstruck. Shangguan Yutong exclaimed, "Gods, this... what kind of world is this? It’s so beautiful! I truly suspect that the world behind this Stone Gate and the one we live in are two completely different worlds!"
"Holy shit... I can’t believe our Qin Family Island has such a wondrous sight. It’s just... it’s just... so beautiful!" Qin Feng couldn’t help but curse, though at that moment, who would care about his swearing?
Everyone stared, dumbstruck.
Behind the Stone Gate lay a passage, about twenty meters wide. It twisted and turned through the pitch-black darkness, rising and falling like a great dragon soaring through the clouds, stretching into the distance with no end in sight.
The passage sloped continuously downward. On both sides, every fifty meters or so, stood two vertical lampposts.
The two lampposts stood opposite each other, their tops emitting a dim, hazy glow in various colors that created a mystical world against the pitch-black backdrop.
The passage was winding, its destination unknown, as if it were endless. Even the Sword Emperor Powerhouses among the group could not see its end.
The magnificent, spectacular sight left them all speechless for a moment.
Then, everyone came to their senses. None of them had ever seen Ancient Ruins like these—not even the members of the great families and sects that were built atop such ruins themselves.
The Gu Family disciple stared at the scene with a mesmerized expression and said, lost in the moment, "To personally, personally o-o-open this kind of... ru-ruin... I can... die with no regrets." But in his excitement, he began stuttering again.
But no one cared about his stutter. Qin Zhaoran couldn’t help but shake his head. He whispered a few words to someone beside him, and that person immediately turned and left. ’At a sight like this,’ he thought, ’I’m sure a few of the old ancestors would be interested in taking a look!’
At that moment, Qin Zhaoran finally made up his mind. ’Anything and everything inside these ruins... can only belong to the Qin Family.’
As Qin Zhaoran thought this, he turned his head and glanced at the members of the other great families and sects, whose eyes glinted with their own ambitions. When he looked away, the depths of his own eyes had turned ice-cold.
The Gu Family disciple took the lead, and despite the solid feel of the ground beneath his feet, he still proceeded slowly and cautiously. Just then, someone pointed into the distance and exclaimed, "Look over there!"
In the distance, several other paths, identical to their own, converged until they merged into a single road that continued its descent.
The most astonishing thing about this entire underground space was that it had been completely hollowed out. What a massive undertaking that must have been!
In most Ancient Ruins, a passage over twenty meters wide and over ten meters high would already be considered an incredible structure. But this... this completely overturned their understanding of Ancient Ruins. This place was more like another world.
The group, now numbering just over a hundred, moved with barely a sound. Faced with such a breathtaking feat of engineering, even the Sword Emperor-level powerhouses felt utterly insignificant.
They believed that if this place could one day be fully excavated, all its secrets uncovered, and then opened to the entire world, it could even accelerate the progress of all society.
No one would believe that the people who built such a place were more primitive than the humans of today.
"Now *this* is a true Ancient Ruin!" someone in the crowd suddenly exclaimed in admiration.
The dim light cast eerie shadows on the faces of the group, each person lost in their own thoughts. Song Mingyue held onto Ling Xiao’s arm and whispered nervously, "Ling Xiao, you’re so knowledgeable. Have you ever seen an Ancient Ruin like this before? It couldn’t be a divine miracle, could it?"
Ling Xiao shook his head. "I haven’t. But the ones who built this place... they were probably just people."
"You mean... a divine miracle?" Shangguan Yutong glanced at Song Mingyue and suddenly asked, then shook her head. "That can’t be, can it? We shouldn’t underestimate the abilities of the people from the Ancient Era. Many records show that it’s no exaggeration to call their architecture and creations divine miracles, even by today’s standards!"
At this, an old man nearby chimed in, "The young lady is right. By today’s standards, the abilities of many people from the Ancient Era were hardly different from those of gods! So it’s not an exaggeration to call this place a divine miracle!"
Ling Xiao, however, was inwardly unimpressed. ’Have any of you ever seen a real god?’ he thought. ’How dare you presume to call this a divine miracle? Who here has ever seen one? Even back in the Cultivation Realm, I never saw a divine miracle. But I *have* seen the pocket dimensions created by Tribulation Crossing Stage Cultivators!’
’These so-called pocket dimensions are personal spaces created by individuals with immense Magical Power. The greater their Magical Power, the larger the space they can create! It’s even said that Mahayana Stage Cultivators can sustain living creatures inside their pocket dimensions, just like a real world!’
’An underground structure like this, while magnificent, is still just a structure left behind by humans. I can tell that much.’
’And it might not have even been built underground! The entire complex is enveloped in a barrier, just like it’s being protected by an Array.’
However, this was a discovery Ling Xiao had no intention of sharing. The Canglan Continent had Alchemists, Martial Artists, and, in the Ancient Era, Mages who could harness the elements of heaven and earth to unleash tremendous power. What it didn’t have, however, were Array Masters. Therefore, Ling Xiao didn’t know how the barrier on these ruins had come to be. His guess was that many powerful individuals had joined forces to create it, allowing the structure to survive for millennia after sinking underground without being buried, thus preserving its original form.
These roads seemed to have been built to follow the island’s topography, rising and falling, twisting and turning. Ling Xiao, however, believed that the roads had actually been constructed *after* the Ancient Ruins sank underground.
’For that reason, I have to admire the people who built this place,’ Ling Xiao thought. ’Without immense power, how could anyone have constructed such a magnificent structure!’
’The people of the Ancient Era were truly great.’
Walking was, of course, no issue for this group of powerful individuals. After they had walked for some time, they looked back at the entrance and could only see a faint, white pinprick of light.
The Gu Family disciple had not discovered any problems along the path, so he said to Qin Zhaoran, "Patriarch Qin, this road should be safe now. Following the pattern so far, there shouldn’t be any more..."
It was as if the god of misfortune was hovering over the Gu Family disciple’s head that day. He should have kept his mouth shut; the words had barely left his lips when a faint tremor suddenly ran through the ground beneath their feet.
It was like a rolling thunderclap approaching from deep underground, only to detonate right beneath their feet!
The moment they heard the muffled thunder, everyone went on high alert. They never expected it to erupt right beneath them. The Gu Family disciple’s expression had just begun to change when Qin Zhaoran snatched him up like a baby chick and leaped into the air.
Of all the people remaining, the weakest was likely Shangguan Yutong, who stood beside Ling Xiao. Everyone else possessed the strength of at least a Third Rank Demon Sword Master.
Many were even experts at the Sword Sect and Sword Emperor levels.
Shouting in alarm, they all leaped into the air, treading on the void. They watched in horror as the road beneath them shattered, cracks spreading out like a spiderweb. Then, the pieces began to plummet into the depths below. What was even more terrifying was that, even after a long moment, they still couldn’t hear the slightest sound of the debris hitting anything.
In other words, beneath them was an impossibly deep abyss.
Ling Xiao held onto Shangguan Yutong. Frowning slightly, he glanced at the all-consuming darkness below them and suddenly began to descend into it.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Song Mingyue followed Ling Xiao down.
The people still hovering in the air stared in disbelief at the descending trio. Some even assumed they were too weak to stay airborne and were simply falling to their doom.
Meanwhile, the road continued to crumble. Qin Zhaoran tightened his grip on the Gu Family disciple and shouted in a low voice, "Hurry! We have to outrun the collapse!" With that, his body flickered and he shot forward.
The others hesitated for a moment before speeding off after Qin Zhaoran as well. After all this time, there was still no sound from below. Gods only knew how deep that abyss was.
’Those three must be insane to head down there!’ they thought.
Qin Zhaoran and his group were extremely powerful, and the road wasn’t collapsing that quickly. They soon outpaced the destruction and continued onward. After a while, they stopped and looked back. The collapse had ceased, but a section of road several miles long had completely vanished into the abyss.
"Those three... they’re probably dead," said the Gu Family disciple, still shaken after being set down. "Not hearing the debris fall doesn’t necessarily mean the abyss is infinitely deep. There’s another possibility—there could be traps down there!"
Qin Zhaoran replied with a cold expression, "That was their choice. No one forced them. Let’s move."
The Qin Family experts and the members of the other great families fell in line behind Qin Zhaoran, silently continuing on their way.
Ling Xiao, with Shangguan Yutong and Song Mingyue in tow, descended for the time it would take to drink a cup of tea, yet they still hadn’t reached the bottom. The darkness before them was as black as ink, making it impossible to see.
Having reached Golden Core Great Success, Ling Xiao’s eyes were as sharp as lightning, allowing him to see clearly in the dark. As they descended rapidly, he suddenly said, "We’re almost at the bottom. Ming Yue, grab my hand!"
Song Mingyue gave her hand to Ling Xiao. With her strength as a Sixth Rank Demon Sword Master, she could also just barely make out her surroundings. In the gloom, she could vaguely see the massive chunks of road, shattered beyond recognition and piled up below.