Chapter 966: Priestess Qin (3)

Liu Shaji curled his lip disdainfully. "The pot might hold up, but you, little soft bun, won’t. Don’t go barging in and causing more trouble. You’ll just drag him down."

Liu Shaji was infamous for his sharp tongue. Xiong Gang’s face darkened immediately. Suddenly, the square-faced man’s nose twitched. His expression shifted.

"Something’s coming," he said.

Liu Shaji looked out toward the wilds of the Blade Ruins behind them.

"The Heavenly Eye Guards are approaching." A wild glint of battle lust flashed in his eyes. "You all hide. Leave the rest to me."

The White Lotus Killing Sword was a path built upon slaughter and combat. After each battle, Liu Shaji’s strength would leap forward, inching ever closer to the quasi-Emperor realm of his past life.

Though the Heavenly Eye Guards were a terrifying force from the Reaper Ancestor Court, feared wherever their name was heard, Liu Shaji was in the mood to challenge them today.

Zhu Zhixun and the others exchanged glances and didn’t argue further. Master Jin carefully retrieved a small handful of ash from his storage pouch. He raised his hand and scattered it, covering himself and his four companions in a veil.

This ash had been collected back at the funeral pyre on the Burial Ice Cliff. Subsequent testing had revealed that it had the power to conceal one’s presence. When scattered, it created a veil that completely blocked the Reapers’ perception, rendering their group invisible to enemy senses. Zhu Zhixun and the others quickly took cover.

Moments later, ten streaks of crimson light burst forth like lightning from the depths of the Blade Ruins, tearing through the sky at terrifying speed.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The ten streaks of light struck the ground. When the cloud of metallic dust settled, ten towering figures appeared. They were humanoid in form and clad in crimson metallic armor. This was the standard battle gear of the Heavenly Eye Guards.

The seemingly heavy plate armor made them look like cans of reinforced steel. According to rumors, these suits had been personally designed by the Ancestor of Wisdom and forged from the finest materials. Not only did they offer incredible defense, they also enhanced the Guards’ speed, strength, and reaction time.

Ten figures stood there like a peerless beast of war. From head to toe, they radiated an overwhelming aura of slaughter and brutality, forming a field of invisible pressure around them.

Liu Shaji’s lips curled slightly as he thought,

Not bad, peak level eight. And one among them is half-step level nine. That must be the squad leader.

Only enemies like this could truly pressure him. Only foes like these could ignite the bloodlust of battle in his veins.

"Human." The cold, mechanical voice of the half-step level nine Reaper came from beneath the armor. "You dare trespass upon the domain of the Divine Clan. Surrender."

Liu Shaji chuckled and said, "Pah. A bunch of half-baked mutts dares to call themselves divine?"

Question: What’s the five-word phrase guaranteed to enrage a Reaper?

Answer: Not fully evolved.

The Reapers, who had always claimed to be the most perfectly evolved beings in the universe, could not tolerate being called incomplete. It might not have mattered once, but ever since the Ancestor of Wisdom experimented with the human transformation evolutionary path, many high-level Reapers had struggled to fully complete their humanoid evolution.

So those five words struck deep at their sore spot, their reverse scale. Liu Shaji’s sharp tongue didn’t spare his allies, but when facing his enemies, it became downright venomous. Yet the Heavenly Eye Guards before him showed no sign of rage.

They remained as calm as frozen obsidian, and as merciless as sharpened blades. The squad leader signaled with one hand. The other nine Heavenly Eye Guards moved instantly, changing formation and fanning out around Liu Shaji.

But how rich was Liu Shaji’s combat experience? That brief exchange of words was all the information he needed. The White Lotus Killing Sword moved as murderous intent filled the sky.

The sword light poured out like liquid mercury, surging in an instant toward the fourth Heavenly Eye Guard on the left, the weakest among the ten. The blade flashed.

Figures blurred past one another. A crimson helmet shot into the air. A severed head spewed a stream of blood from within the helmet. White lotuses bloomed from the headless corpse, their petals drifting softly on the wind.

At that moment, death and beauty blossomed side by side. A one-move kill. Watching from their hiding place in the distance, the five young warriors nearly cheered aloud. It was their first time seeing Liu Shaji go all out.

They hadn’t expected him to be this strong. No matter the time or place, for a human to instantly kill a Heavenly Eye Guard in single combat was an achievement worthy of eternal remembrance in the resistance's annals.

The Heavenly Eye Guards of the Reaper Ancestor Court had been personally established by the Ancestor of Wisdom. It was said that only Reapers of noble lineage, those with extremely advanced evolutionary bloodlines, were selected. They then underwent rigorous training and countless trials, with a final acceptance rate of just five percent, to earn the right to wear the armor of a Heavenly Eye Guard.

Not only were the Heavenly Eye Guards powerful, but their status and influence were immense. In the world of the Reapers, they stood as a symbol of authority and might within the Ancestor Court star systems. Yet Liu Shaji, even while surrounded, had slain one of them in a single move.

What kind of strength is this?

The five young warriors were stunned.

The squad leader of the Heavenly Eye Guards was even more shocked. He realized he had gravely underestimated his opponent.

"Be careful. Strike in formation!" he shouted. And thus, a battle of epic proportions began.

***

Within the well of the Burial Sea. Inside the shrine of the Dragon Palace.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"So the Burial Sea was actually created by Senior Lin, the Sword Immortal?"

Li Xiaofei was utterly stunned as he listened to Priestess Qin’s account.

"That is correct," she said with a nod.

Priestess Qin recounted the events in detail. "Sword Immortal Lin once entered the Ancestor Court star system alone, wearing simple robes and carrying only a single sword. He slaughtered his way through countless enemies, undefeated in every battle, causing catastrophic losses for the Reaper race. Their advance on the galactic war front had to be delayed. Eventually, it forced one of the twin Ancestors of the Reapers, the Ancestor of Wisdom, to emerge and battle him in the Holy Ruins. That clash shook the heavens and earth..."

According to her account, Lin Beichen had been completely invincible upon his arrival in the Ancestor Court system. The Reapers had fled at the mere mention of his name. Countless high-level Reapers had fallen. Only then did the Ancestor of Wisdom step out of seclusion.

Yet even he had been unable to suppress Lin Beichen. In the end, to prevent the Ancestor Court system from being utterly destroyed, the Ancestor of Wisdom invited Lin Beichen into the Holy Ruins to battle. But after several fierce clashes, the Ancestor of Wisdom had still been defeated.

However, relying on his intimate knowledge of the terrain and laws of the Holy Ruins, the Ancestor of Wisdom had managed to trap Lin Beichen within the ruins for a time. As Priestess Qin described all this, Li Xiaofei recalled the massive sword scar that stretched for tens of millions of meters, nearly slicing apart a quarter of the entire star system, he had seen when he first arrived in the Ancestor Court star system.

That scar still hadn’t faded. It gleamed like a river of stars. Clearly, it had been carved by none other than Lin Beichen himself.

The traces he had seen in the Holy Ruins, the Burial Ice Cliff, the Endless Flame, Mount Ten Thousand Blades, must have been remnants from the period when Lin Beichen had been temporarily trapped there.

Especially those two cave dwellings. Lin Beichen must have lived inside them for a long time. The Reaper Ancestor Court had publicly declared that Lin Beichen had been defeated and imprisoned in the Holy Ruins by the Ancestor of Wisdom. But now, it was clear that it wasn’t the truth.

According to Priestess Qin, the place where Lin Beichen had ultimately stayed the longest was the Blade Ruins. There, he had spent many years scheming and laying down foundations for a plan. He constructed Mount Myriad to hide swords, and the Burial Sea to hide an army.

"The miasma within the Burial Sea," Qin explained, "was extracted from the Land of Annihilation deep within the Holy Ruins. It is a chaotic and annihilative energy.

"The Land of Annihilation lies at the deepest depths of the Holy Ruins and conceals the secrets of the origin of all things. It is also the birthplace of the twin Ancestors of the Reapers.

"The twin Ancestors emerged from that place, stepped out of the Holy Ruins, and created the Reaper race. They have never stopped yearning to return to their origin, to unravel the mystery of their creation. But it seems even they cannot re-enter it."

"The Land of Annihilation has long since changed. Even the Ancestors now fear the annihilative, chaotic energy within. Their bodies can no longer withstand the aura of their former home. They must complete their final evolution before they can return.

"Brother Chen gathered that very annihilative chaos, the kind even the Ancestors dread, and used it to forge the gray mist, creating the Burial Sea. The aura of the Burial Sea carries a terrifying power of corruption. Once tainted by it, one is damned for eternity, unable to reincarnate.

"The Reapers believe that by casting the corpses of fallen human heroes, corrupted by their own miasma, into the Burial Sea, they can prevent resurrection and erase all remnants of resistance. What they don’t realize... is that this place is the human race’s secret arsenal."

Priestess Qin spoke slowly and clearly. The more Li Xiaofei listened, the more confused he became.

"But if no living being can survive within the Burial Sea, how could it be used to store an army?" he asked instinctively.

Priestess Qin replied, "No living beings may enter, but the dead can."

A lightbulb went off in Li Xiaofei’s mind. In that instant, he recalled the army of countless skeletal spirits he had seen before entering the well, massed together and converging silently.

The dead. Could the so-called hidden army truly be these legions of undead?