Chapter 344 - 173: Opportunity (2)
Except for these seven characters, the stele’s body is smooth, square, and without other characteristics.
Chu Xuan pondered for a moment and asked, "Earlier you said, the Seven Kills Stele hasn’t been completely unsealed yet? What do you mean?"
Qin Mengyao replied without hesitation, "It’s just as it sounds. This time I came to this ancient battlefield because it directed me here to gather some killing and blood energy accumulated over the years."
"Actually, it initially wanted me to start a catastrophe in the human realm. It can influence the fortunes of human dynasties, incite wars and chaos, and when the fighting starts, endless killing and blood energy would naturally roll in."
"Moreover, once the killing begins in the mortal world, it would in turn affect the cultivation world, coupled with the ’disasters and mutations of heaven and earth’, the scale of slaughter will snowball larger and larger..."
"But I don’t want to commit such acts of indiscriminate slaughter. It couldn’t convince me otherwise, so it had to guide me to this ancient battlefield to collect."
"Even though the ’quantity’ here is small, the ’quality’ is relatively high. After all, it’s left by ancient gods and demons, far beyond these mortals and cultivators now."
Chu Xuan listened with a secret shiver. Such a treacherous thing should be completely sealed. How could it wander around with the senior sister?
He said seriously, "Senior sister, you can’t be swayed by this thing. It tells you to collect, and you just collect?"
Seeing the junior brother’s nervous expression, Qin Mengyao instead smiled sweetly, "I told you, I’m the master of the Seven Kills Stele."
"I am the killing star born from celestial destiny at the end times, to achieve the final immortal position with killing before the collapse of the human realm."
"This stele is the key to my path, and will be of great use in the future. You needn’t worry, I know what I’m doing."
As she spoke, Qin Mengyao opened her mouth to breathe in, continuing to nurture the Seven Kills Stele within her Dantian.
Chu Xuan’s brow furrowed, "What killing star, what immortal position? Who told you these things? This stele?"
"More or less, once I subdued it, the understanding emerged within me."
Qin Mengyao seemed unwilling to delve further into this topic, simply saying:
"You don’t need to worry that I’ll create any brutal and bloody incidents. Besides, once this stele is fully awakened, the world’s killing energy will naturally flock to it, regardless of whether I killed or not. It shouldn’t delay the big matter."
"What big matter?" Chu Xuan pursued.
Qin Mengyao, however, shook her head and stayed silent, only saying, "This stele emerged from celestial destiny. Without me, someone else would have discovered it."
"No need to persuade me, even if you kill me, a new killing star will emerge."
Perhaps it would be you... She silently swallowed these words.
Chu Xuan thought for a moment and didn’t insist, only feeling that the Seven Kills Stele surpassed the level of so-called ’Immortal Artifacts’. It could easily provoke a realm-killing disaster, even affecting human fortunes. It wasn’t too much to call it a ’Innate Supreme Treasure’.
He even suspected whether all this was the handiwork of some big figures in the heavens, knowing that the human realm had problems long ago, they couldn’t remain indifferent...
While talking, the two finally landed at the bottom of the cliff, hidden beneath the white mist was a seemingly unimpressive underground river.
The water was light blue, with some aquatic grass growing within but no other creatures.
Even if ordinary cultivators ventured deep here, they wouldn’t find anything unusual.
Qin Mengyao, however, pointed below, "We should cross this water surface to reach below. Let’s now..."
Her words were interrupted when she surprisingly noticed a bit of faint light emerging from the depths of the water beneath.
Soon, luminous silver fish swam out of the water, about the size of a pinky finger, their bodies half-transparent, clearly showing every bone inside them.
These small fish clustered around a fully-grown silver-scaled flying fish, leaping out of the water and swimming in the air.
Chu Xuan, upon seeing this fish with a bone like white jade and long gray whiskers on both sides of its gills, revealed a look of astonishment, "Is it you?!"
The old fish’s eyes showed human-like colors, nodding to Chu Xuan, "Benefactor, long time no see."
Its voice sounded ancient, like a hundred-year-old person, but actually was at least a thousand years old.
Years ago, Chu Xuan was brought by Ji Mingyu to fish at Broken Sword Mountain, and she luckily caught this old fish and gave it to the disciple, saying that eating it could prolong life by three hundred years.
However, seeing it had gained human-like intelligence, Chu Xuan felt pity and released it.
Later, the old fish repaid the favor, and the Divine Command was something it deliberately tied to Chu Xuan’s fishing rod for him to catch.
"Twenty-six years have passed, benefactor, you’ve finally returned. It seems my opportunity has arrived, how about I take you two down?"
Chu Xuan looked at it with a peculiar expression, "Opportunity? What opportunity?"
Qin Mengyao also looked on with interest, but her gaze clearly showed she wanted to eat the fish, not to mention the terrifying killing energy about her made the old fish fear.
"It’s like this, benefactor, when you saved me years ago, didn’t you say a sentence: ’You, ah, since you don’t want to die, why so foolish? Still biting the hook.’"
"There is, of course, a reason for this. At the time, I sensed in the dark that my chance to transform into human shape and advance further had come, so I risked my life to bite the hook."
"After being caught, the reality was completely different from what I expected, I was almost given to you to eat by that noble lady..."
The old fish recounted the story earnestly, turning out to be a prehistoric alien species, despite living over a thousand years and gaining intelligence, it hadn’t transformed and remained stuck at the third realm for hundreds of years.
The previous risk to bite the hook was meant to break through, fortunately, Chu Xuan was kind-hearted, or it would have become a dish.
Once released, the old fish breathed a sigh of relief but also guessed its opportunity might lay in Chu Xuan, hence gifting him the precious Divine Command.
The old fish knew its value but couldn’t use it, just keeping it was useless, might as well gift it for a favor.
Chu Xuan laughed, "You are quite clever."
"Forgiveness, forgiveness," the old fish nodded repeatedly.
Chu Xuan waved his hand, "No need for forgiveness, that Divine Command indeed was of great help to me."
"Regarding your transformation opportunity, I have no clue for now, let’s follow you down to see."
The old fish nodded, dared not mention Qin Mengyao, and led its kind underwater without a word.
Chu Xuan and Qin Mengyao each performed a Water Avoidance Technique and followed it down.
The river wasn’t deep, it should reach the bottom soon, but following the old fish, the two found themselves swimming deeper, with increasing darkness ahead.
Finally, after breaking through an invisible barrier, they suddenly exited the water into a whole new world.
The first thing catching their eyes was a grey sky, and a desolation, bloody, rusty smell permeated the air.
Looking around, they saw huge carcasses, broken weapons, a devastated ground, along with numerous ragged flags, and still burning various flames, spirit waters, lightning...
Time seemed frozen in that moment years ago, the entire battlefield giving a feeling of deathly stillness.
It was quiet here, occasionally small silver-scaled flying fish could be seen, following some strange ’course’, abruptly up and down, left and right, passing through the ancient battlefield, also spots of white phosphorescence quietly burning on the corpses.
Entering this place, Qin Mengyao showed an excited expression, deeply inhaling, "This place suits me well."
Chu Xuan was more cautious, while holding her hand, he surveyed the surroundings.
"This place is dangerous, not a place for conversation, esteemed guests, please follow me."
The old fish spoke carefully, leading the way ahead, "Please make sure not to deviate from the safe course explored by my kind, otherwise, unknown dangers may be triggered."