Wei Yuan put the front hall behind him and headed toward the central hall. The central hall was ten zhang tall and only partially collapsed. It was close enough that it was impossible to miss. The front hall and the central hall were five li apart. This distance was nothing to Wei Yuan or Xu Wan’er, but Xu Wenwu groaned incessantly as he climbed the slope.
The entrance of the central hall was still intact, but only half of them. One of the doors had toppled to the ground. His vision darkened abruptly when he set foot inside the main chamber. It was incredibly dark inside, and there were neither candlelight nor lamplight anywhere. He could only rely on the small rays of light peeking through the broken rooftop to see its interior. However, the central peak was blocking the sunlight, so the chamber interior was even darker and gloomy-looking than normal. Everything beyond a certain range was blurry and indistinct.
The air was thick with a damp, putrid stench, yet Wei Yuan detected no signs of living creatures or energy—not even the insects that sward throughout the Shaman realm were present.
There was a statue of a god at the end of the chamber. Only a small portion of it remained intact. Everything above the knees was destroyed with the pieces scattered across the floor. The statue was carved from stone, but not out of a single block. It had been put together using dozens of pieces of stone.
The statue was only slightly over four zhang tall. It wouldn’t be difficult for an immortal to find a block of stone that was over ten zhang long, much less several zhang long. The carving process was only easier. The Swelling Water God Palace had had powerful Avatars as its rulers across multiple generations, so why was their main deity statue so shabby-looking? It should be at least ten zhang tall, right?
There were eight deity statues on both sides of the chamber. They were all about one zhang tall. At the mont, all but one deity statue was intact. The rest were smashed to the point that only the platforms were left behind. The surviving statue was standing at a corner. It was a seductive woman who looked incredibly charming even though she was covered in moss. She reminded him of one of the ladies that was tangled with the giant snake.
Finally, besides the fact that the statues weren’t covered in blood, the chamber looked exactly the sa as the illusory one where he had encountered the woman-in-red.
Suddenly, Wei Yuan sensed sothing and slowly turned around. The next mont, the woman-in-red he was just thinking about walked out of Xu Wan’er’s body and bowed to him, greeting, “Yun Feifei greets you, Senior Brother. May I know your na?”
Wei Yuan returned curtly, “You ask as if you don’t already know.”
By now, the woman-in-red had beco fully solid and looked no different from a real person. Not far away, Xu Wenwu could not tear his eyes away from her.
Despite Wei Yuan’s unfriendly tone, the woman-in-red did not take offense. She explained softly, “I only know that a senior brother from the Palace of Absolute Beginning would show up. I have no idea who you might be.”
“And how do you know that I’m from the Palace of Absolute Beginning?”
“I have my ways, but they are minor and trivial. I shan’t bore you with the details.”
Now that they were face-to-face, Wei Yuan could feel her potent power of incense prayer even more. If he had to guess, she had discovered his background by performing a fortune-telling fueled by her power of incense prayer.
Wei Yuan decided not to beat around the bush and ask directly, “Where is the opportunity?”
“I will hand it over once I’ve reached the Palace of Absolute Beginning and t with the Immortal Lord. It is a matter of critical importance, so forgive for not telling you about it at this ti. All you need to do is to escort to the Palace.”
Wei Yuan frowned a little before asking, “Where are the senior brothers and senior sisters accompanying you? Who are the ones pursuing you, and who do you think I should specifically watch out for?”
“Most of my pursuers are Shamans. The one you need to watch out for is a Great Warlock. He specializes in blood curses, and he is extrely powerful. Recently, I accidentally caught a tinge of his curse and suffered a lot because of it. Moreover, he will detect the mont I venture beyond a thousand li of the Swelling Water God Palace. That is why I dare not leave until you arrive, Senior Brother.”
A Great Warlock of the Shamans was equal to an Avatar Trueman of the humans. No wonder Yun Feifei was forced into hiding despite possessing the strength to injure an Avatar.
“My Senior Brother and Junior Brother are also here. They are the ones who have been protecting all this ti. I must trouble you to bring them along as well—though, once we are out of the Shamans’ territory, simply escorting them to Hanyang Pass will suffice. I also have a Third Senior Sister whom I had fought side by side that day. It is thanks to her that both of us were ultimately able to escape. She should have passed through Hanyang Pass by now. Now, the four of us are the only ones left in the entire Swelling Water God Palace.”
Tears welled up in the woman-in-red’s eyes when she said this. However, Wei Yuan remained unmoved and asked in a cold voice, “You say that, but you’re still hiding your true appearance. Are you testing ?”
The woman-in-red replied in a gentle voice, “I wouldn’t dare.”
It did not matter if she dared to test him or not; Wei Yuan wasn’t going to be led by the nose no matter what. The Dao of incense prayer boasted many aberrant thods, and Yun Feifei was obviously a formidable woman. Unfortunately for her, he was ard with various Immortal Lord level thods right now. Thus, he feared nothing and no one. After taking a mont to check his array disc with his divine thought, he confird that there were multiple karmic light dots in this chamber alone. It so happened that the biggest one was right under his feet.
It was one thing when she was still in hiding, but now that she had shown herself, there was no way she could escape the Immortal Lord’s karmic tracing. Every karmic entanglent within the vicinity was laid bare. A cold chuckle escaping his lips, Wei Yuan ignored Yun Feifei and strode toward the broken main deity statue. There was a light dot in its left leg. It wasn’t the biggest light dot in the chamber, but it was conspicuous enough. He thought he would use it to test Yun Feifei.
Although the karma underneath the central hall was the biggest one of them all, Wei Yuan felt a chill and a subconscious reluctance to approach it every ti he thought about it. Combined with the result of his fortune-telling, he had no choice but to treat it with the utmost caution.
As expected, Yun Feifei paled and questioned him, “S-Senior Brother! What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” asked Wei Yuan as he walked up to the statue and cut off its left leg!
The left leg looked perfectly natural from the outside, but surprisingly, it was hollow on the inside. The next mont, a tiny jade statue that was over a chi long rolled out of it.
Wei Yuan caught the jade statue and examined it carefully. It was dark green in color and shaped like a woman that was tangled with a big snake. The snake was holding a token about an inch long in its mouth. The small token was exquisitely crafted, and it contained a wisp of vibrant and exceptionally high rank Dao essence. It was only after the jade statue had left the deity statue’s left leg that it began to emit ripples of Dao essence. Before this, all Wei Yuan could sense was solid stone no matter how many tis Wei Yuan had scanned the deity statue with his perception. He hadn’t sensed anything inside the statue either.
On a related note, Wei Yuan had scanned the whole place with his perception when he first arrived at the central hall. However, he had only scanned the two broken deity statues once before subconsciously accepting that nothing was wrong with them. Now that he thought about it, he must have been influenced by so sort of incense prayer-type thod.
Luckily for him, the Immortal Lord’s thods surpassed it all. That was why he was able to unveil the token.
Yun Feifei exclaid in pleasant surprise, “So that’s where the token was hidden!”
Her expression did not seem fake, but Wei Yuan hadn’t missed the instant her face had changed when he started toward the statue. He asked with a smile that didn’t reach the eyes, “What is this token used for?”
Suddenly, Yunfeifei blanched and raced toward a gap in the collapsed part of the chamber, ignoring Wei Yuan’s question. She looked shocked, scared, and slightly panicked.
Xu Wan’er instinctively wanted to follow her, but she hesitated and looked back at Wei Yuan. In the end, she did not make a move, seemingly waiting for Wei Yuan to arrive at a decision.
Wei Yuan sneered internally. Even now, Yun Feifei was still putting on an act! So far, everyone he encountered since entering the Shattered Realm was an actor. Not one of them was a small fry he could deal with without a thought. Seriously, he had not t even one honest and upright person such as himself.
Wei Yuan beckoned Xu Wan’er to follow before striding into the gap Yun Feifei had disappeared to. They followed their aura and quickly arrived at a dilapidated house missing parts of its roof.
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