Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan saw with his own two eyes a wisp of white smoke fly out of the xun and circle Zhu Erniang’s monster immortal molt twice.

It was an illusory figure, seemingly a tiny spider no larger than half a finger. Strangely enough, it had wings on its back that fluttered like a bee’s, while all eight of its legs hugged a small, round, flat white bundle.

When they had been planning, the eyeball spider had explained this to him. It told him that the bundle was called a soul cocoon.

Zhu Erniang’s molt was not merely an empty shell. It had soft internal tissue, even some muscle, a small portion of organs, and several dozen egg sacs.

The spider eggs still retained vitality. He Lingchuan had seen Zhu Erniang’s army of burrow spiders before, so he knew her spider eggs could give rise to all kinds of descendants.

But that alone was still nowhere near enough to unleash the full power of her monster immortal body.

The soul cocoon sealed inside the xun contained a portion of Zhu Erniang’s main consciousness. After entering the molt, it would immediately activate the spider eggs—not to produce offspring, but to make them grow more internal organs, muscles, glands, and soft tissue the molt required.

To put it plainly, the spider eggs would become the flesh and blood used to fill the molt, allowing Zhu Erniang to control it more easily.

He Lingchuan could understand this unfathomable immortal technique when it was explained to him, but he still could not fully comprehend it. “So, to put it simply, this is like an external incarnation or clone?”

“You can think of it that way.”

At this moment, the molt stood steady as a mountain, with streaks of golden light occasionally flashing over its surface. Runes were engraved on the eight glass pillars, and they flickered with the same golden light.

He Lingchuan could tell at a glance that there were at least several restrictions placed upon the molt, preventing outsiders from approaching or moving it.

If he rashly tried to touch it, his fate would probably not be much better than when he had slammed into the glass dome earlier.

As for how exactly these restrictions worked and how they could be broken, he had no clue at all.

The heavenly gods’ protection over this array eye truly came in layer after layer. They had even tampered with the molt itself.

He Lingchuan had already done everything he could. What remained was beyond his power. Now it was all up to Zhu Erniang herself.

Just as He Lingchuan was worrying that the little spider would be unable to approach the molt, the molt’s chelicerae suddenly opened on their own.

Compared to the spider’s body, its mouthparts could truly be called dainty.

But to the tiny winged spider, they were a cavernous opening.

It accelerated and flew over. The molt also suddenly darted forward and swallowed the tiny spider whole.

Cold sweat ran down He Lingchuan’s back as he watched. This molt had been empty for years, yet now it could act on its own. The only explanation was that its connection to Zhu Erniang was simply too deep.

In those few breaths, the stone man could no longer withstand the storm of attacks outside and was forced to collapse into rubble.

With it gone, He Lingchuan had to take over himself.

He used the heavy shield to block the hole, bracing it hard with his shoulder while driving strength through his waist and legs in a Thousand-Jin Anchor[1].

The attacks from outside immediately landed on the shield.

With the two sides pressing against each other, they fell into a brief stalemate.

Fortunately, the hole was small, so the number of enemies who could even get an attack through was limited. They also had to avoid accidentally touching the lightning pool.

They had barely held on for a few breaths when Juju’s avatar suddenly shouted a warning, “Get away from the glass dome, now, now!”

The ice covering the glass dome was rapidly receding. The white frost grew thinner and thinner, showing that the frost talisman’s effect was disappearing.

The array eye had a steady, continuous supply of energy. Even a frost talisman said to be capable of freezing half a mountain peak could only freeze it for a short while.

He Lingchuan did not dare delay and took several large steps back.

Without the mirror shield blocking the opening, enemies immediately squeezed through the hole.

First, the lamp spirit slipped through the gap and lunged straight at He Lingchuan’s face.

Two glass creatures also leaped in, their backs struck by two arrows from their own side.

A guard followed right behind them.

But at that very moment, the frost talisman’s effect vanished. The ice melted completely, and liquid glass flowed down, completely repairing the gap.

The arrays originally on the glass dome also activated at the same time!

One of the guards had only climbed halfway through the hole, with his head inside and his legs still outside, when the liquid glass poured down. He screamed in agony, and in the next instant, he was cut in two at the waist!

It was an extremely painful death, as he did not die at once, but even survived long enough to roll around and wail on the ground.

The other guards could not help but shudder at the sight.

With the glass dome restored, it instead isolated them outside. That was good. Now the people inside could not get out, and the people outside could not get in.

Unless the Chief Cloud Envoy personally came, no one else could open this dome.

Moreover, the immensely powerful lightning pool had now become an obstacle to them.

For the moment, He Lingchuan had only three enemies to deal with: two glass aberrant creatures that pounced on him in the blink of an eye, and the lamp spirit, which insidiously circled behind him, preparing to coordinate with its companions in front.

He Lingchuan did not fear the glass creatures. If ordinary blades had struck them, they would have recovered at once, but unfortunately, they had encountered Fleeting Life. This saber was capable of cutting even formless enemies, making it the perfect killer for aberrant creatures like them, which had no fixed shape.

On the other hand, he was wary of the lamp spirit.

The lamp spirit Bai Ziqi had controlled earlier had left a deep impression on him.

Juju warned him, “Behind you!”

Before the array eye was broken, it could not attack, so it could only serve as He Lingchuan’s little radar.

But just then, an unfamiliar voice rang out, “Close your eyes. Don’t look back!”

Juju was greatly startled. “What is that?”

Aside from the young man and a spider smaller than a fingernail, is there a third living thing here?

He Lingchuan cut open one glass creature with a single slash and closed his eyes as instructed.

Because the moment he heard the voice, he recognized who it belonged to.

Zhu Erniang!

At this moment, He Lingchuan felt her voice sounded even more beautiful than that of a celestial maiden from the heavens!

He exposed his back to the lamp spirit. Naturally, the creature would not stand on ceremony. It made a sharp turn and pounced.

Just as it was about to crash into He Lingchuan, an intense beam of light suddenly burst from behind him!

The light was so strong that it was as if the blazing sun had gathered all of its light rays and compressed them into a single narrow beam. The guards outside the glass dome who faced it directly suddenly saw nothing but pure, endless white. They could not make anything out.

The entire array eye seemed to have been shoved beneath the sun.

Even with his back to the light source and his eyes shut tight, He Lingchuan could feel the brightness pressing against his eyelids.

Within that powerful light, the lamp spirit was like ice and snow flung onto a charcoal furnace, silently disintegrating.

Fortunately, the strong light flashed for only a brief instant.

When He Lingchuan opened his eyes once again, everything inside the glass dome had returned to normal, but the guards outside were rolling all over the ground, hands clamped over their eyes as they screamed in pain.

The strong light was not fatal, but it had blinded them.

He Lingchuan turned his head and happened to see Zhu Erniang’s molt move.

At some unknown point, one of the glass pillars had been broken loose and was still hanging from her leg. Cracking sounds came from all over her body, like joints being stretched.

After all, this molt had not moved in a very, very long time.

“Lady Two, you’re finally awake!” He Lingchuan almost wanted to burst into grateful tears.

He saw golden light still flashing over the giant spider’s body. The restrictions laid down by the gods had not yet failed.

“Pick up the lamp on the ground.” Zhu Erniang’s voice did not come from the molt. Instead, it was delivered through the eyeball spider, sounding right beside He Lingchuan’s ear. “A powerful enemy is coming!”

He Lingchuan did not dare to be careless. Sure enough, he saw a small glass lamp lying beside one of her legs and quickly scooped it up.

This seemed to be the precious lamp that had originally shone upon the monster immortal molt’s abdominal star map. It could shine through the spider monster’s thick abdomen and project the pattern outward, leaving no doubt about its penetrating power.

This is definitely something good. I’d better quickly put it away.

At that moment, the remaining seven glass pillars shone with golden light, as if they intended to pin the spider immortal in place forcefully.

Zhu Erniang pulled her body inward with all her strength, curling herself into an enormous ball. Then all eight of her legs suddenly shot outward!

With several crisp cracks, five of the remaining seven glass pillars snapped at once!

Their binding power was certainly astonishing, but Zhu Erniang’s molt was the body of an ancient monster immortal. How could it be so easily restrained?

Besides, when the heavenly gods designed these glass pillars, how could they have expected that a quiet, motionless molt would suddenly be able to jump, move, and exert force?

The original purpose of these eight pillars was only to keep the spider molt fixed in place, ensuring that the star map on its abdomen would not shift.

Now that Zhu Erniang had regained control over her monster immortal body, what use could a few mere pillars have? Of course, she would break them for all to see.

The golden restriction around Zhu Erniang finally vanished.

Following the principle of thrift and never wasting resources, He Lingchuan picked up one broken glass pillar and tossed it into his storage ring.

How could something used by the gods in the array eye of the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array be ordinary? The only reason he did not take more was that these things were too large and too heavy. His storage ring could not bear it.

Sigh. After escaping Lingxu, I really need to get myself a larger-capacity storage ring. Returning empty-handed after entering a mountain of treasure is really damn stifling. Heck, I’d even say that the heavens would condemn me for not making good use of the opportunity.

Once he took the little lamp, Zhu Erniang seemed to inhale. The star map on her abdomen rapidly dimmed and, in the blink of an eye, vanished completely.

With that, the most important bridge that the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array used to connect heaven and earth disappeared.

The glass dome suddenly vanished, and the monsters swimming back and forth across the star ring instantly froze in place.

All these arrays and restrictions operated on spirit qi drawn in by the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array.

Now that the array eye of the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array had been lost, its energy source vanished at once.

Even the array eye itself lost its concealment effect and appeared above Kaiyang Peak.

Then He Lingchuan heard Juju’s earth-shaking laughter pour in from every direction.

“I’m free! I’m free again!”

Its voice shook the wilderness and echoed through the mountains.

* * *

The light of the Splendid Mountains and Rivers Diagram suddenly dimmed. Inside Star-Plucking Tower, everyone stared in shock.

How long had it been? The array eye had already been broken? Even though they had stood beside the Mountains and Rivers Diagram and watched the whole thing firsthand from beginning to end, they still found it hard to believe.

How could such a thing happen?

There had been only one visible intruder, and he had not used any earth-shattering divine technique, so how had he managed to break through arrays personally designed by the gods, one after another?

The most absurd thing about all this was that the spider immortal’s molt, which served as the sacred object of the array eye, had suddenly come alive!

Everyone qualified to stand inside Star-Plucking Tower had status and discernment. They could tell at a glance that the intruder had activated the spider molt, though no one knew what method he had used.

This ancient monster immortal’s molt had been stiff and still for more than ten years, and before being placed into the array, it had undergone layer after layer of inspection.

Bai Ziqi said urgently, “The intruder must be connected to the original owner of the immortal molt.”

But the family that had presented the spider molt had been demoted out of the capital long ago. With that being the case, it was incredibly difficult for them to find anyone to clarify the whole matter on such short notice.

“If the immortal molt is treated as an avatar or clone, then it isn’t strange for an ancient greater monster to activate its own clone.” The Chief Cloud Envoy’s face was livid. “Release Chenyuan immediately! We cannot let Juju destroy Star-Plucking Tower! Where is Xiaori[2]?”

A subordinate immediately said, “We still need half an incense stick of time, especially since Chenyuan has yet to be soothed...”

Less than forty-five breaths had passed since the array eye underwent that drastic change. Everything had happened far too suddenly!

“Release it immediately!”

1. This refers to a martial art where the user heavily anchors their center of gravity or their body to the ground. ☜

2. This may or may not be the Xiaoguang from before. The Xiao in both names is the same, while ri and guang aren’t too different, with the former meaning the sun or day and the latter meaning light. ☜