Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 921: Full-Blooded Fardark

As Lan Yao spoke, Feng Lintao looked at Xu Qing.

Though Xu Qing had astonishing battle prowess, these were two Smoldering Gods looking at him. Most relevant of all, the Captain was still their captive. And now his legs were twitching again.... No matter how he looked at it, he was in a passive position.

Without speaking a word, Xu Qing moved into the lead position, flying past Lan Yao and heading deeper into the pit. The Grand Darkheaven Armor glittered brightly, and his godly fleshly body power surged. The antemage armor covered him, and the nine lamps circled around him. With his long hair and green robe, Xu Qing seemed extraordinary in every way. What was more, the wave of his hand summoned a host of ghost-face centipedes, which moved ahead of him into the depths of the pit.

When Lan Yao saw that, her eyes glittered. As for Feng Lintao, he looked at the centipedes, his gaze stony. In the end, he didn’t say anything.

And thus, Xu Qing led the other two down into the pit. He didn’t move slowly, nor did he hold back like before. In fact, he moved at about the same speed as Feng Lintao and Lan Yao. Perhaps Xu Qing just got lucky, or perhaps the actions of the eight-colored peacock had a threatening effect, as they didn’t encounter any resistance. Yet again, enough time passed for an incense stick to burn. At that point, they reached the bottom of the pit.

Astonishingly, there was a cave there. It was smaller than the cave above, and there were fewer buildings. In fact, there were only nine towers. They were in very good shape, with ancient symbols covering them. It was easy to imagine how those symbols must have glowed brightly in the past. The nine towers were also arrayed into a warding spell. However, because of the passage of so many years, and the invasion of mutagen, they seemed dormant.

Though there weren’t many buildings here, there were far more withered roots than above. They were everywhere, even on the ground and walls. The area above the towers was full of roots as well.

Xu Qing’s arrival seemed to bring with it an outside aura, and as a result, the tranquility of this location was altered, and strange transformations began.

The first to be affected were the roots, which crumbled into ash. The ash didn’t dissipate into nothing. Instead, as Xu Qing watched, it converged into a host of dark and swarthy children. They appeared to be no more than five or six years old, and there were hundreds of them. As they appeared, they lay on what roots hadn’t collapsed, and stared at Xu Qing with pitch black eyes and looks of hunger and avarice.

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered coldly as whistling sounds grew louder behind him due to the arrival of Lan Yao and Feng Lintao. The other two scanned the area visually and quickly noticed the gruish children. They did nothing.

Xu Qing was well aware that it was his turn to handle the situation. As a native of the Revered Ancient mainland, Xu Qing knew exactly where these children came from. At a glance, he could tell that they... were spirits of the dead who had been affected by mutagen and turned into grues. Grues like this might be difficult, if not impossible, for other people to deal with. But Xu Qing had killed too many things like this to count. And the easiest way to deal with them was Little Shadow.

That said, though he had relied on Little Shadow recently, that had only been the shadow’s possession abilities. Neither Feng Lintao nor Lan Yao knew any other details about what it could do. At the moment, Xu Qing didn’t want to reveal anything further to them. Therefore, he didn’t use Little Shadow. What was more, he sent out the ghost-face centipedes to defend himself from any potential sneak attacks launched by Feng Lintao or Lan Yao.

Having accomplished those things, he thought back to the look of greed in Feng Lintao’s eyes earlier, and the glances he had exchanged with Lan Yao.

Although I don’t want to reveal too much about the shadow’s abilities now... there are still some things it might be able to do....

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With such thoughts in mind, Xu Qing stepped forward. As for the dark children on the withered branches, they suddenly opened their mouths, unleashed piercing cries that could shake the soul, and then lunged toward Xu Qing.

Just before they arrived, Xu Qing sent soul threads exploding out. In the blink of an eye, more than 10,000,000 stabbed forth. They moved with incredible speed, and were astoundingly piercing.

Every gruish child they reached stopped in midair. They had been pierced by the soul threads. Because of the soul threads connecting all of them, they were like a dark sea fixed in place in midair.

When Feng Lintao and Lan Yao saw all of that, their eyes glittered.

The soul threads had created something almost like the web of a spider, with Xu Qing in the middle and hundreds of dark, gruish children around him, unmoving.

Suddenly, the surrounding walls began to tremble, and the gruish children collapsed into black streams of energy. After, the 10,000,000 soul threads shrank back into Xu Qing.

Xu Qing’s expression remained the same as ever as he stood to the side to make way. Looking at Feng Lintao, he said, “Your turn.”

Feng Lintao looked back at him and said, “Those soul threads are very strange. What are they made of?”

Xu Qing didn’t answer the question. Instead, he asked one. “Fellow Daoist Feng, those five feathers of yours are very strange. What are they made of?”

Feng Lintao frowned. “You think I would tell you?”

“I was going to say the same thing in response to you,” Xu Qing said quietly.

Feng Lintao flicked his sleeve, and without another word, led the way onward. Upon reaching the fifth of the towers, he performed an incantation gesture to unleash a secret magic.

Lan Yao flew toward Xu Qing, but didn’t get too close. Making sure to keep her eye on Feng Lintao, she laughingly said, “Fellow Daoist Firedark, those five feathers are collectively called Spirit of the True World. It’s a Smoldering God secret magic, although not all Smoldering Gods have it.”

Up ahead, Feng Lintao barked, “You’re being too talkative, Fellow Daoist Lan!”

Lan Yao’s eyes glittered coldly. “Fellow Daoist Feng, you use the secret magic of Spirit of the True World. Meanwhile, I inherited the legacy of the Devilbirds. I’m not subservient to you. So why does me saying one little thing equate to being too talkative? Watch your wording, Fellow Daoist Feng!”

Feng Lintao snorted but didn’t say anything further. He just kept working on his magic.

Lan Yao, meanwhile, was apparently extremely irritated at him calling her too talkative, and glared at him icily. That said, she didn’t say anything further to Xu Qing.

Xu Qing blinked a few times. Apparently, Lan Yao had actually been treating him with a bit of friendliness. He was just about to continue the conversation on his own when the fifth tower rumbled loudly and emitted bright white light.

The white light erupted from the top of the tower, flowing like water as it surrounded the tower and then moved along the withered roots. Most of the roots didn’t seem affected by the light at all. They just flickered dimly; clearly, they didn’t have any life force in them to stimulate. However, there was one that glittered brightly, then revealed a white thread within it.

As the white thread spread through the root, it attracted the attention of all three cultivators. As they watched, the white thread spread through the root before vanishing. The root apparently still had no life force.

However, Feng Lintao looked very excited. Quickly performing a double-handed incantation gesture, he activated his legacy magic, causing the tower to once again flicker with bright light. After doing that nine times in a row, he lifted his hands and performed some calculations based on where the different bits of light appeared.

The sight of it made Xu Qing come to the conclusion that if Feng Lintao’s story was true, it meant his ancestor had expended a lot of effort to make such thorough preparations. Anyone who wasn’t aware of the secret would definitely have had a very hard time uncovering any of the clues.

As Xu Qing contemplated such things, time passed. Eventually, after making many calculations, Feng Lintao’s eyes lit up and he looked over at a spot on the nearby wall of the cave.

“It’s there!”

He leaped in that direction and pushed his hand against the wall. Loud rumbling sounds echoed out as the wall sank in and cracks appeared. There was nothing there.

Feng Lintao wasn’t deterred. He quickly bit down on the tip of his tongue and spat out some blood. When the blood splashed onto the wall, the depressed spots glowed with red light. Then the dirt on the wall began to disappear, although the process was clearly going to take a long time.

“Fellow Daoist Lan, I’m only a half-blooded Fardark, so the power of my bloodline doesn’t fulfill the requirements set forth by my ancestor. Quickly take out that blood pendant and give it to me! The blood of the species I sacrificed contains remnants of the Fardark bloodline. With 20,000,000 or so sacrificial subjects, it should be enough to stimulate my blood and open the warding spell!”

At long last Xu Qing found out the purpose of the blood sacrifices from earlier. That itself wasn’t a surprise, but it was a surprise to him that Feng Lintao would sacrifice members of his own species. Clearly, the people he had sacrificed counted for little more than livestock to him.

Lan Yao had apparently come to similar conclusions, yet didn’t seem very surprised. She took out the blood pendant, glanced at Feng Lintao, and then began to activate the magic. At the same time she said, “Turns out you’re quite an extraordinary individual, Fellow Daoist Feng. You sacrificed 20,000,000 of your own people! How very decisive. I get the feeling you’re going to rise to great heights in the future.”

Lan Yao was clearly still irritated at how he’d called her talkative, and was being sarcastic.

Meanwhile, the blood pendant rumbled, emitting a blood mist that contained innumerable souls that flew toward Feng Lintao.

In response to Lan Yao’s words, Feng Lintao’s eyes glittered coldly. However, he held back from doing anything. Grabbing the pendant, he sucked the souls into himself. Next, the wings behind him vanished, as did the third eye. As of now, there was no indication at all that he was a Devilbird. In fact, the skin over his entire body wriggled as a second head popped out of his neck. The Fardark species was two-headed!

With that done, Feng Lintao took a deep breath and spat out more blood. When it landed on the earthen wall, the dissolving process which had begun earlier sped up significantly. After a few dozen breaths of time passed, a small passage was visible!

An excited expression appeared on Lan Yao’s face. It was the same with Feng Lintao. Acting in unison, they prepared to rush into the passage. Except... that was when something unexpected happened!