Chapter 1609 - The Heaven-Swallowing Toad

Su Yi sighed softly. “It’s just a pity... that you aren’t fated to see that wondrous day.”

He pressed down with his hand.

Bang!

The decrepit old man’s soul scattered.

The Church of Divine Flame had strict rules, and the rulers only got stricter as you climbed the ranks. The most important of these rules was, naturally,

thou shalt not betray the church

!

Those beneath the Immortal King Realm all had to pledge Grand Dao Oaths. Those who betrayed the church and sought refuge with its enemies would be executed by heaven and earth. Those at or above the Immortal King level were no longer subject to the Grand Dao Oath’s fetters, but those who reached that level almost never betrayed their allies anyway.

Thus, Su Yi knew better than to hope he could learn anything from the decrepit old man, and he simply killed him.

Once this was over, he set off.

......

Su Yi walked alone through the desolate ruins. He looked like a passerby out sightseeing.

But he was no mere tourist. In his past life, he’d founded these ruins!

When he saw the ruins, he recalled what they once were. All that remained was melancholy.

The walls lay in ruin. Everything was desolate and bleak. The prosperity of long ago had long since disappeared in a puff of smoke. None of it remained...

Su Yi held his jug of wine, pausing from time to time to recall the distant past. Occasionally, he had a sip of wine.

He proceeded deeper and deeper into the ruins until he arrived at a massive valley. Heaven and earth were overcast, and thunderclouds churned overhead.

The slopes lining the valley had collapsed. It too was a vision of long-abandoned desolation.

A collapsed, battered stone stele lay by the entrance to the valley. It was covered in cracks and moss, but its badly corroded characters were still just barely legible. They read, “Seeking the Profound! ”

The valley was once one of the academy’s venues for transmitting the Dao. At regular intervals, one of the Teaching Elders would take to the altar and expound on the secrets of the Grand Dao and clear up students’ doubts.

Every time, every disciple of the Academy of Eternal Night would come listen.

Ordinary instructors, deacons, and even the other Teaching Elders would come and listen, too. Sometimes, they’d get into fierce arguments over their differing perceptions of the Grand Dao.

The more they argued, the clearer the truth became.

These fierce debates were a popular topic of conversation among the students, and every cultivator in the Immortal Realm longed to witness one.

In truth, the Academy of Eternal Night had never been selfish with its knowledge. Every time they hosted such a lecture, they invited experts of other factions to participate, spar, and test their Dao.

This was a rule Wang Ye had personally put into place.

At the time, he said that if the Academy of Eternal Night was to become the greatest institute of learning in the Immortal Realm, it ought to have the greatest breadth of spirit and magnanimity. It ought to accept influence from all schools of thought and benefit the entire world!

Only then could they learn from others’ strengths and stand above all others!

At regular intervals, Wang Ye delivered lectures here too, and he never minded experts of other factions coming to listen.

Because the lectures were held here, in the Valley of Seeking the Profound, they were known as the Immortal Assembly for Seeking the Profound!

The Assembly for Seeking the Profound was once one of the grandest and most famous occasions in the Immortal Realm, just like the Six Paths Immortal Assembly and the Immortal Peach Banquet!

Yet now, the Valley of Seeking the Profound lay in ruin, and the once famous Assembly for Seeking the Profound was now no more than a fleeting legend.

Su Yi silently took a sip of wine, walked forward, and gently tapped the black jade pendant hanging from his waist.

Weng!

The ruined stele at the entrance to the valley suddenly lit up, and a terrifying aura surged forth.

“Croak——!”

Suddenly, a massive figure appeared, crouched on the ground like a towering mountain.

It was an enormous toad, but its body was ethereal and indistinct. It was shrouded in churning black fog, and its eyes were the size of lakes!

Earlier, when Su Yi, Tang Lingqi, and Tang Bao’er first arrived at the ruins of the academy, they caught a glimpse of the enormous toad.

But now, when the toad saw Su Yi from close quarters, its massive frame shook violently before shrinking until it was small enough to fit in the palm of Su Yi’s hand. The little snow-white toad crouched atop his outstretched palm. Its fiery red eyes glinted like rubies.

“Long time no see, little toad.” A hint of a smile tugged at Su Yi’s lips. “I wouldn’t have thought a wisp of a true spirit like you lasted all this time.”

The snow-white toad was a Xiantian variant species from the primeval era, a Heaven-Swallowing Toad. It was born in a chaos source and extremely rare.

The Encyclopedia of Primeval Xiantian Spirits described them as one of the thirty-nine variant species of the Primeval Era. They were extraordinarily talented, with shocking abilities. They could devour and refine stars and moons, and absorb baleful and calamitous energies.

When the Academy of Eternal Night was first founded, the Heaven-Swallowing Toad was one of its four guardian true spirits. A single roar could destroy one’s soul!

However, the toad in front of him was merely a wisp of spirit sealed within the stele, not the toad’s true body.

“Croak! Croak!” The snow-white toad’s voice boomed like thunder as it crouched on Su Yi’s palm.

Alas, as a mere imprint of spirit, it had no intelligence. All that remained was instinct, and it couldn’t speak.

Even so, when Su Yi listened carefully, he figured out that the little toad hadn’t actually recognized him. Rather, it recognized his black jade pendant.

And it was trying to warn him that this place was dangerous, and that he should leave immediately! Su Yi furrowed his brow.

Don’t tell me the Church of Divine Flame has discovered the secret tunnel to the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound?

A long time ago, Wang Ye created an underground hidden realm in the Valley of Seeking the Profound, the most secret, forbidden place in the Academy of Eternal Night.

The Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound!

Only Wang Ye and the nine Teaching Elders knew how to enter the secret passage leading to it.

Furthermore, reaching the palace required extremely distinctive secret abilities and treasures. Without them, not even an expert of the Great Realm had any hope of entering.

“Croak! Croak!”

The Heaven-Swallowing Immortal Toad croaked repeatedly, as if urging Su Yi to leave.

Su Yi thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I have to have a look. You can just wait here for me. Right, if anyone else exits the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound, kill them, no matter who they are.”

With that, Su Yi set the toad on the Stele of Seeking the Profound and continued into the valley.

“Croak! Croak!”

The Heaven-Swallowing Immortal Toad repeatedly called out, but Su Yi ignored it. He’d come here to investigate the fall of the Academy of Eternal Night. He didn’t want to leave until he’d uncovered the truth.

After all, as terrifying as the Age of Fallen Immortals was, numerous ancient orthodoxies had survived it, including the Church of Supreme Oneness, the Church of the Pure One, and the ancient Tang Family.

Su Yi refused to believe that the greatest institute of learning in the Immortal Realm, the Academy of Eternal Night, had disappeared into the river of history simply by failing to withstand the cataclysm.

There had to be secrets behind it all.

The heart of the valley was covered in ruined buildings. A massive ritual ground had split into pieces, leaving pits and ravines in the earth.

Su Yi walked through the rubble and arrived at a spot behind the ritual grounds. A palace had once stood here, but it too lay in ruin.

Su Yi waved his sleeve through the air.

Boom!

Countless fragmented walls were forced out of the way, revealing a massive diagram shaped like a lotus in bloom.

Su Yi stared intently at the diagram for a moment. His hands formed seals, and countless flowing lights fell and fused into it.

Then, Su Yi lowered his foot.

An unbelievable scene followed. The lotus flower suddenly came to life, its petals unfurling as a whirlpool-like portal formed at its center.

This was the path to the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound!

Su Yi walked inside. Beyond the entrance was a dark, winding tunnel leading deeper into the earth.

Wisps of spatial power surrounded the tunnel, creating an extremely stable spatial barrier. When someone walked through the tunnel, it might seem they were moving slowly, but in truth, they were effectively shuttling across endless space.

But it wasn’t long before Su Yi stopped in his tracks.

A battered, rotten corpse had appeared on the path ahead. It sat there with a thumb-sized hole through its skull.

Su Yi examined it for a few moments, then concluded that in life, this had been a Saint Realm Immortal Lord, as well as a yao cultivator. Before their death, someone forced a finger through their skull, destroying their vital energy and instantly reducing their soul to powder!

“This was most likely a yao cultivator deacon of the Academy of Eternal Night.” Su Yi’s brow furrowed.

He could tell that the corpse had died a long, long time ago, most likely during the Age of Fallen Immortals!

“But only the nine Teaching Elders and I knew how to enter the secret passage to the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound. How could one of the academy’s deacons have died here?”

Su Yi sensed that something was amiss, and his heart sank.

It was just as he’d thought. The Academy of Eternal Night hadn’t simply fallen due to the catastrophe that had befallen the Immortal Realm!

On the road ahead, Su Yi discovered numerous corpses. Some had long since been reduced to countless fragments; there was nothing left to identify.

That aside, the corpse’s treasures, command tokens, and other treasures that could be used to identify them were missing. This made it almost impossible for Su Yi to figure out who they’d been in life.

“Nine Immortal Lords, forty-nine Void Realm True Immortals, over two hundred and twenty Universe Realm Immortals, and countless people yet to step into the Immortal Dao....”

Along the way, Su Yi’s heart grew increasingly heavy. He’d already started mentally outlining what had happened here.

These experts of the Academy of Eternal Night had hidden themselves here to seek refuge, only for external enemies to fight their way in. They tried to intercept their foes and keep them outside, leading to the outbreak of extraordinarily brutal conflict here in the secret tunnel the Underground Palace of Seeking the Profound!

When he looked at the corpses’ injuries, it wasn’t hard to discover that their enemies had been extraordinarily powerful. Their ranks had most likely included Immortal Kings!

“Back then, the Academy of Immortal Night had nine Immortal King Realm Teaching Elders to oversee things, and the Heaven-Swallowing Immortal Toad, one of the four great mountain-protecting true spirits, to oversee things. How could they have just watched as external foes made it here?”

“Just what happened here?

“Why is it that all of the corpses’ treasures are missing? Don’t tell me the enemies won and looted the corpses of the fallen?”

One question after another flooded into Su Yi’s mind.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and gazed into a corner.