“Master, why are you sealing the main hall’s door? Many senior brothers haven’t returned yet!” A disciple next to Master Ou could not help but say as he saw the doors and windows being completely sealed with a wave of Ou Zi’s hand.
“There’s no time. The strange entities have already spread throughout the mountain gate. At this point, if they haven’t returned, given the cultivation levels of the disciples in the mountain, they are already unlikely to be alive. If it weren’t for the protective formation, this hall wouldn’t be able to shelter us.” Responding calmly to the disciples present, Ou Zi turned his gaze towards the door: “From now on, any disciple outside can no longer be considered human.”
As if to validate his words, at that moment, the hall’s door seemed to receive a violent impact, producing an unsettling noise.
“Master!! Open the door! Master!! Don’t shut us out!” Accompanied by the loud impacts, the voices of former disciples of the sect began to emerge from behind the hall’s door.
“The door isn’t locked. If you were truly human, you could naturally push it open and come in.” In response to such voices, Ou Zi only answered calmly.
Hearing Ou Zi’s words, Xu Xuan then noticed that all the doors and windows of the hall were actually not locked. A normal person could push it open with ease. However, what surprised Xu Xuan was that the senior brothers outside were desperately banging on the door, and even though the door wasn’t locked, it seemed they couldn’t open it no matter how hard they tried.
Before long, not only did the door, but also the window positions began to produce violent banging sounds.
“Xu Xuan, Xu Xuan, open the window!! It’s me, Chen Qing!! I’m not dead! Please help, save me, those things are coming!! They want to kill me! Really, I’m Chen Qing, remember when you borrowed money from me to buy wine? I don’t need the money, just let me in!!”
At that moment, a familiar voice rang in Xu Xuan’s ears from a nearby window.
“Damn it! Here it comes again!!” Hearing this voice, Xu Xuan instinctively looked towards the window but did not approach it, instead taking a step back unconsciously.
There was no choice; after all, he had encountered similar oddities when activating the formation before. Even though they had turned into monsters, they still spoke the words of the living.
“Let the living come in.” In the end, Xu Xuan mimicked his master’s tone and threw a remark towards the outside. The response was brief silence followed by even more violent banging sounds.
“What on earth are we encountering? Master?” At this moment, one of the disciples beside Ou Zi spoke up.
“Can’t you tell? The Blood Moon hangs high, the mist engulfs all. Demons and spirits have mutated. We are encountering the Mist Realm.”
“!!!”
The instant everyone heard Ou Zi mention the Mist Realm, everyone present fell into shock. After all, nearly everyone had been warned by sect members when descending the mountain to eliminate demons that if they encountered the Mist Realm or saw an area shrouded in mist that lingered for too long, they must immediately distance themselves.
“Master! Didn’t the Mist Realm only move fifty years ago? Why has it suddenly moved again?!” The leading disciple could not help but ask upon hearing Ou Zi’s words.
Upon hearing this answer, Xu Xuan’s heart trembled! After all, he had heard tales of the Mist Realm since childhood.
Legend has it that the Mist Realm is a world enveloped in mist. Once you enter it, it’s as if you’ve entered another bizarre world! It is filled with powerful demons and spirits. Many years ago, Qi Practitioners united with numerous experts to attempt to enter the Mist Realm and destroy the oddities within, hoping to make it disappear completely, but almost all of them returned empty-handed, and seemingly they paid quite a price.
Moreover, what’s more terrifying is that almost every place that the Mist Realm passes through ultimately becomes a strange aberration; areas that have been enveloped by the Mist Realm often give birth to powerful demons and spirits.
But fortunately, the Mist Realm typically moves once every few hundred years. It is said the last time it moved was decades ago, at the time of the last ruler of the Great Zhou’s death, when all of Huaxia fell into chaos once again.
This was also one of the reasons why everyone present was shocked; after all, no one had expected the Mist Realm to move again in just a few decades, and even more coincidentally, it had moved right above them this time…
“Human hearts have gone astray; in this chaotic world, what unusual events will they not encounter?” Ou Zi maintained his calm expression: “However, since we’ve encountered the Mist Realm, it seems your Master Ye and those disciples who descended the mountain are not unjustly dead.”
As Ou Zi finished speaking, a flash of azure light momentarily swept by the door and outside the window.
With the flash of azure light, Xu Xuan and the others finally saw the shadows of those disciples banging on the door outside. They turned out to be a group of headless figures. The headless forms flashed past. The next moment, the area in front of the door fell silent.
“That light… is Longyuan. It seems the eight divine swords protecting the mountain have begun to slay demons and eliminate evil. It’s good I won’t have to go out and meet the creatures of the Mist Realm.” Saying this, Ou Zi drew the long sword from his back.
“Master, we’ll accompany you to slay demons and eliminate evil!!” At this moment, several disciples stepped forward to say.
“You all stay behind; if you go out, you’ll only hinder me.” Ou Zi merely swept a glance at the disciples present, then turned to walk towards the cauldron that was burning in the hall.
Just then, it was as if a loud noise erupted above. The entire hall began to shake.
The previously tightly sealed doors and windows of the room were suddenly blown open by the formation.
At this moment, Xu Xuan truly saw the scene outside. Through the window, he could clearly see a blood-red light piercing through the mist. That was the light that should have come from the moon, and at this moment, everyone finally fearfully noticed the large numbers of grotesque, deformed male figures swirling around the perimeter of the hall in the mist, constantly writhing. They seemed to want to approach and enter the hall, but upon making contact with the light inside the hall, they all halted, as if the hall’s light held the power to destroy them.
And just behind those twisted monsters, within the depths of the mist, Xu Xuan saw a scene that would be etched into his memory for a lifetime. It was the shadow of a massive humanoid creature at least a thousand meters tall.
Though humanoid, it was clear to see that where the head should be, it seemed as if two palms were propping something up.
At another spot outside the window, Xu Xuan saw what looked like the massive shadow of a two-headed flying dragon, but the second head was at the tail. Moreover, judging from the profiles of the two heads, they looked more like two human heads no matter how one looked at it.
At that moment, a beam of light surrounded that monster, and without a doubt, those lights were the divine swords protecting the mountain.
And just as Ou Zi was bowing before the large cauldron in the center of the hall, everyone noticed that one arm of the giant humanoid shadow, which seemed to be as tall as a mountain, was raised. Then, in the terrified gaze of everyone, that enormous shadow brought its hand crashing down towards the hall.
In an instant, the shadow nearly enveloped the entire hall.
A loud crash echoed once more above everyone’s heads. This time, cracks appeared on the pillars supporting the hall, and a significant amount of tiles fell from above.
At this moment, Xu Xuan truly understood just how powerful the protective formation of their Sword Hall was. Facing an attack that resembled a hand the size of a small mountain coming down, the hall hadn’t collapsed even after two strikes.
However, now was obviously not the time to think about this; Xu Xuan and the other senior brothers almost simultaneously turned their gazes towards Ou Zi, who was bowing before the cauldron. In response to the recent tremor, Ou Zi showed no reaction whatsoever.
“Disciples of the Sword Hall later generations, please summon the Sword Ancestor from the mountain!!” As Ou Zi’s words fell, before everyone, the long sword that was constantly being scorched in the cauldron began to emit a faint red glow.
With the release of the glow, a towering aura began to emanate from the hall, spreading outwards. The mist surrounding the hall was even directly dispersed considerably, and those monsters within the mist retreated as the mist dissipated.
Until they fled back into the mist.
As for the numerous people in the hall, they felt a terrifying aura mixed with an unsettling sense of murderous intent, a chilling sensation that pervaded their bodies.
In truth, that feeling was precisely the so-called killing intent.
The traces left by years in the cauldron began to slowly fade away, replaced by a feeling akin to rebirth. Even the ancient symbols finally revealed themselves on the sword body.
What was fortunate was that the meanings those two symbols conveyed had a legacy in this era. Xu Xuan had also just so happened to see them in the bamboo slips.
‘Chiyou!’
Indeed, the symbols on the sword represented Chiyou, the ancient war god of Huaxia.
At that moment, the enormous shadow that resembled a mountain was preparing to bring its hand down once more. But this time, before its hand could fall, it was cut off by a blood-red sword light…
Immediately following that, a blood-red beam struck the monster’s chest. That terrifying creature that seemed the size of a small mountain actually fell straight back. Just then, Ou Zi rose, wielding the long sword in his hand, and charged out of the hall, but as he left, with a casual wave of his hand, the doors and windows of the hall were once again sealed tightly.
“Everyone, hold the hall! Wait for my return.” With Ou Zi’s final words, he disappeared into the mist.
Finally, only the numerous disciples left inside the room nervously guarded the surrounding doors and windows. Meanwhile, the long swords in everyone’s hands were gradually unsheathed. Only Xu Xuan held a broken sword.
Looking at the broken sword in his hand, for the first time, Xu Xuan felt that time was moving incredibly slowly.
The atmosphere in the hall was particularly oppressive at that moment. After all, outside was filled with countless monsters. It was uncertain when the banging and thumping sounds would return to everyone’s ears once more.
Among it, there were even curses directed specifically at certain individuals.
“Hahaha! You’re all finished!! Your master is already dead!!”
“Run away! If you break through, maybe you’ll have a chance to live.”
“Yeah, yeah! Well, your master isn’t dead; in fact, he has already abandoned you to run down the mountain.”
“How about this, why don’t you all turn on each other? We promise we won’t harm the last person who survives among you…”
…
These kinds of words, which disturbed the mind and were difficult to discern as true or false, continuously emanated from outside.
