Chapter 841: It's Settled!
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Two and a half minutes bled away into the quiet mist, yet nothing happened.
The ancient pavilion standing at the heart of Baiwu Mountain Valley showed absolutely no signs of movement. It remained as deathly still as it had for the past thousand years, shrouded in an eerie, undisturbed tranquility.
"Brother Shen... is there really someone inside?" Zhong Lingyin asked, her voice a cautious whisper. She had learned from Shen Anyu that this valley had been sealed away for a millennium. If a living, breathing entity still lurked within those rotting wooden walls, she could not even begin to fathom the sheer terror of an existence that had survived for over a thousand years.
Beside her, Liu Ruyan and Murong Jieyu let their tense shoulders drop. When the oppressive silence remained unbroken, they exhaled soft breaths of relief, assuming the coast was clear.
Shen Anyu merely narrowed his eyes. He knew his senses were not playing tricks on him.
Earlier, when he had executed the great Divine Ability, the Two-Aspects Life-Death Mystical Light, to obliterate Xiao Qingtian—the master of Xiao Fan—the entire valley had reacted with a momentary, violent anomaly. Now, standing before this decrepit structure, his instincts flared. An astonishing danger radiated from the pavilion, laced with a deeply hidden, venomous malice.
Something was definitely in there. Whether it could still be called human was another matter entirely.
'There is a threat, but it remains well within acceptable parameters.'
Shen Anyu analyzed the situation with cold precision. His gaze drifted toward a towering stone tablet planted near the pavilion's entrance. The slab was several feet tall, its surface scarred with strange, black characters that resembled writhing tadpoles. The script was violently twisted, far more esoteric and unintelligible than ancient Seal script or oracle bone carvings.
However, possessing the inherited memories of Heavenly Venerable Chen Yuhua, Shen Anyu read the ancient immortal script as easily as his own name.
The inscribed contents brought a sharp gleam of interest to his eyes.
A low, dry chuckle slipped past his lips. He took a deliberate step toward the pavilion. "Since Your Excellency refuses to show yourself, I will dispense with the pleasantries and invite myself in."
"Alas..."
The moment his boots crunched against the gravel, a long, drawn-out sigh drifted from the lightless depths of the ancient pavilion. It sounded as though it had traveled across eternity, heavy with the crushing weight of time and the endless trials of the mortal realm.
"Someone is actually in there?" The blood drained from the faces of Liu Ruyan, Murong Jieyu, and Zhong Lingyin.
An ancient monster who had lived for a thousand years truly existed right in front of them.
Shen Anyu displayed zero surprise. If anything, the arrogant curve of his jaw only sharpened with absolute certainty.
"Young friend, since you have already harvested those Spirit Medicines, why must you disturb this old man's slumber? This is hardly the conduct of a polite guest..." The archaic, raspy voice echoed through the mist once more.
"Are you the master of this place?" Shen Anyu asked, completely ignoring the reprimand.
"Naturally so..."
"Lies."
Before the ancient voice could even finish its grand declaration, Shen Anyu cut him down with a voice like cracking ice.
Ignoring the trembling women huddled behind him, Shen Anyu gestured sharply toward the weathered stone tablet. "This monument clearly records that this valley is a designated sealing ground of the Heavenly Emperor Palace. It states that disciples were stationed here to guard a seal—a seal specifically designed to imprison Qinghong Elder, a Nascent Soul realm cultivator from the Yunhai Sect."
A mocking sneer graced Shen Anyu's handsome features. If he lacked the ability to decipher ancient immortal script, he might have actually fallen for the old phantom's bluff.
This Baiwu Mountain Valley was undeniably the property of the Heavenly Emperor Palace. Given that the ancestors of the Shen family hailed from that very same Palace, by right of inheritance, this entire valley belonged to Shen Anyu.
How dare this decrepit prisoner shamelessly parade himself as the master of the domain?
Shen Anyu quickly pieced the puzzle together. The original disciples assigned to guard the seal had either withered away from old age or had been slaughtered by this very prisoner. Left unchecked, the old man had simply usurped the empty throne, declaring himself the ruler of his own cage.
In the cultivation world, those in the Foundation Establishment realm typically enjoyed a lifespan of three to five cycles—with one cycle equating to sixty years—granting them anywhere from one hundred and eighty to three hundred years of life. This varied based on their cultivation methods, and severe injuries could drastically shave decades off their longevity.
Golden Core realm cultivators boasted a lifespan of ten cycles, reaching up to six hundred years. Those who broke through to the Nascent Soul realm could endure for twenty cycles, living for a staggering twelve hundred years.
A millennium had passed. This sealed Nascent Soul elder was still clinging to life, but his remaining years were undoubtedly burning down to the final embers. That was precisely why the old man had cowered in silence upon sensing Shen Anyu unleash the Two-Aspects Life-Death Mystical Light.
Even knowing that Xiao Qingtian and Xiao Fan were the absolute last surviving remnants of his Yunhai Sect, this so-called elder had not dared to step out and save them.
Or perhaps, he physically could not leave.
Shen Anyu's eyes glinted with calculation. The seventh-grade Golden Core array surrounding the area, the Yin Wind Spirit Devouring Array, was no trivial barrier to cross.
This old man's physical and spiritual condition had to be abysmal. Forget maintaining the catastrophic power of a Nascent Soul realm master; he likely lacked even the strength of a Golden Core cultivator at this point.
As for why the Heavenly Emperor Palace had chosen to seal him rather than execute him?
The answer lay in the tablet. The Palace had been siphoning the blood essence of this hostile sect's powerhouse to continuously nourish a set of Dao-grade magical treasures. However, after the Palace withdrew from the secular world, the harvesting process had been abandoned and forgotten.
Magical tools corresponded to the Qi Refining realm. Spirit artifacts aligned with the Foundation Establishment realm. Treasure artifacts matched the Golden Core realm. And Dao Artifacts were the exclusive domain of the Nascent Soul realm.
'A Dao-grade magical treasure left behind by the Heavenly Emperor Palace. That makes it mine.'
The realization crystallized in his mind. Shen Anyu shot a commanding glance at Liu Ruyan, Zhong Lingyin, and Murong Jieyu, signaling them to fall back. He then turned his attention back to the rotting pavilion.
"Qinghong," Shen Anyu called out, his tone dripping with casual cruelty. "Yesterday, you sat in your cage and watched me butcher Xiao Qingtian. It must have been agonizing for you to just watch, wasn't it?"
Boom!
Realizing his grand deception had been thoroughly dismantled and his pride trampled upon, Qinghong Elder erupted into a violent frenzy.
"You arrogant junior! You court death!"
Rumble!
The sky violently changed color. Thick, suffocating dark clouds swallowed the firmament, layering over the valley like the herald of the apocalypse.
Deep within the pavilion, a catastrophic aura breached the surface, swelling outward like an ancient, primordial beast waking from a thousand-year slumber.
The sheer pressure was apocalyptic, bearing down as though the heavens themselves were collapsing. The solid ground of the valley fractured inch by inch. The ancient pavilion exploded into a storm of splintered wood and dust as a colossal palm, radiating a blinding blue light, manifested in the air and slammed downward toward Shen Anyu and his companions.
Before the azure palm even made contact, the crushing atmospheric pressure stole the breath from the three women. Liu Ruyan, Murong Jieyu, and Zhong Lingyin turned ashen, their eyes rolling back as their knees buckled.
Murong Jieyu and Zhong Lingyin were merely at the Grandmaster level, making them utterly defenseless. Yet even Liu Ruyan, a formidable Heavenly Human, found her bones groaning under the terrifying weight of the attack.
'Even a sunken ship still has three pounds of iron.'
Shen Anyu let out a quiet sigh. Moving with blinding speed, he swept his arms out. He hoisted Zhong Lingyin onto his left shoulder and Liu Ruyan onto his right, securing them with effortless strength. Simultaneously, his hands clamped firmly around Murong Jieyu's slender waist. His figure blurred into a streak of kinetic energy, tearing through the heavy air as he rapidly retreated.
A fraction of a second after Shen Anyu vacated the space, the glowing blue palm struck the earth.
The ground detonated. Shattered rock and pulverized soil blasted into the sky, choking the air with a thick curtain of dust. When the shockwave settled, a massive palm print—over twenty meters wide and nearly eight meters deep—was permanently branded into the bedrock.
Had that strike connected with human flesh, the victims would have been instantly liquefied, leaving not a single fragment of bone behind.
Terrified out of their minds, Zhong Lingyin and Liu Ruyan shrieked, their arms wrapping desperately around Shen Anyu's head to anchor themselves.
The First Young Master suddenly found his face entirely submerged in the soft, yielding curves of the two women. Their panicked embrace clamped over his mouth and nose, cutting off his oxygen and leaving him struggling to draw a breath amidst the overwhelming scent of their perfume.
To complicate matters, Murong Jieyu was equally paralyzed by fear. She clung to Shen Anyu's torso like a frightened koala, wrapping both her arms and legs tightly around him.
Shen Anyu delivered a firm, warning pat to her soft rear, silently demanding that she loosen her death grip and not push her luck.
"Hmph. Junior, do you really think you can escape?"
The voice of the Yunhai Sect's Qinghong Elder was absolute zero. Since this insolent brat had discovered his true identity and his weakened state, he had to be silenced. If word reached the current generation of the Heavenly Emperor Palace, the old man knew he would be utterly defenseless against a full-scale retrieval team.
The colossal blue palm rose and fell in rapid succession, hammering the earth and unleashing violent tremors that threatened to tear the valley apart.
Yet Shen Anyu moved like a phantom. He weaved through the devastating strikes with leisurely precision, carrying the dead weight of Liu Ruyan, Zhong Lingyin, and Murong Jieyu all the way to the outer perimeter of the valley.
Only when they crossed the boundary line did the massive blue palm finally cease its relentless pursuit, hovering impotently in the distance.
'Heh. Just as I calculated. That old fossil cannot step a single inch outside his cage.'
A dark, playful smirk curved Shen Anyu's lips.
Since the old man was leashed to the pavilion, the prey was officially cornered.
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