The golden summit of Swords Gate, the majestic palace bathed in the warm golden sunlight, it was an enchanting and fascinating scene.
Every day on the golden summit, the warm sunlight would shine down for two extra hours compared to the places below the mountain. In the middle of the golden peak stood a high platform, atop which crouched an exotic beast with four heads each staring at four different directions.
The exotic beast was like a statue, most of the Qi Practitioners had never seen it move even a single inch before.
But today, the exotic beast suddenly moved, the golden furs on its neck bristled upright, one of its heads opened its eyes widely, staring at the direction of the Beast God Ridge, releasing a muffled roar.
The roar was gravelly and penetrating. Its voice shook the whole golden summit.
Suddenly, a white light flashed over, an elder dressed in white appeared on the high platform, he was deeply concerned, he asked anxiously, "Four Ken Beast, what happened?"
The exotic beast opened its mouths. Its gravelly voices caused the surrounding air to visibly tremble, "Reporting to the grand elder, there appears to be a situation in the Beast God Ridge, there is an aura of gods right there."
The Four-Ken Beast was an exotic beast with four heads. It could overlook the surroundings over a considerable distance; it was one of the rarest auspicious beasts. As such, the Four Ken Beast was placed at the topmost position of the Swords Gate mountain, the golden summit, so that it could closely overwatch the Great Wilderness, if there were any signs of intrusions or anomalies, the Four Ken Beast would alarm and alert the Swords Gate.
"May the grand elder take a look."
The eyes of the head of the Four Ken Beast that was facing the Beast God Ridge opened widely, and a hologram of the Beast God Ridge appeared in front of them. In the middle of the eight hundred miles radius land of Beast God Ridge, a horrendous image could be seen, a god that was over ten thousand feet tall released a dreadful roar into the air and shook away the clouds!
This image was the heteromorphism that was triggered by Zhong Yue when he activated the intermediate slaughtering array and slaughtered the monster Qi Practitioner!
"This is…"
Flashes of white rays appeared on the high platform one after another, the rays then all turned into the elders of Swords Gate dressed in white robes. They took a look at the images in the hologram and were all shocked. They exclaimed out involuntarily, "God-level seals!"
"It was rumored that the Beast God Ridge was formed from a dead beast god, could the rumor be true? That place is really the remains of the beast god?"
"It is fine even if it's formed from the beast god's corpse. The main issue is the God-level seal! Could it be that the beast god sealed away its treasures?"
"Not good, the monsters outside of Great Wilderness always had their eyes on our land, it is the presence of Swords Gate that stopped them from coming in. But if the God-level seal appeared in the Beast God Ridge, it proved that there are treasures of the fallen beast god right here, the monsters outside of Great Wilderness will definitely rush over here…"…
The elders of Swords Gate stiffened up their faces. They could feel an immensely heavy burden coming down on their shoulders. Contention among the ranks was already rising with the current Swords Gate headmaster nearing the end of his life, and this new quandary did nothing to alleviate the mounting tensions – it was like adding a bucket of fuel to a fire!
"Troubled times, troubled times."
The eldest of the elders was the grand elder from the You Yu Clan, he said solemnly, "It is impossible to conceal the appearance of the God-level seal from the monster race. Gather the elders immediately to the golden summit. We will discuss our available options."
In the golden summit palace, all elders of Swords Gate gathered together, and after a small briefing, all of them kept silent. Moments later, an elder from the Shui Tu Clan slowly spoke, "The headmaster is getting old, it is unwise to rage war with the monster race. In my opinion, if the monster race comes and negotiates, it is fine to allow them to explore the Beast God Ridge … the less trouble, the better."
While the elder from Lei Hu clan held a different opinion, he sneered and said, "The Great Wilderness is the land reclaimed by our ancestors, we will not hand over a single scrap of land. If the monster race dares to come, they will be welcomed by swords. If we die, we die in honor, what is there to be afraid of!"
"Cough-cough, although such a stance is very noble, the headmaster is not getting younger, and the successor is still yet to be decided. The youngsters are far from being able to take charge as chiefs on their own. If the Swords Gate were to wage war with the monster race, we might not be able to spare enough efforts to protect the Great Wilderness!"
The Shui Tu Clan elder refuted him, "I didn't mean to hand over the Beast God Ridge, I'm saying that we can allow them access to explore the Beast God Ridge. We would only be losing face at most, but our strength would remain intact. Senior martial brothers, do you all plan to start a war with the monster race and cause the deaths of countless brave warriors? If you have a better plan, then please enlighten me!"
The elders of the clans kept quiet, even the elder from Lei Hu Clan also furrowed his brows.
Moments later, the You Yu Clan grand elder coughed and said, "Junior Martial Brother Zian1, you have a wide circle of acquaintances, even the outsiders will respect you at times. If the monster race received the news regarding the Beast God Ridge, you will be in charge of the negotiations. But I have a condition, not a single piece of land in the Great Wilderness will be surrendered to anyone! Our lives in the Great Wilderness are more valuable than gold! Regardless of who or which monster race arrives in the Great Wilderness, they must curb their reckless acts, if anyone dares to take a wrong move, then a war between the two races will be inevitable. We will perish together along with them!"
The Shui Tu Clan elder quickly nodded in understanding, he smiled and replied, "Zian will not disappoint you! Another thing, with the sudden appearance of the God-level seal in the Beast God Ridge, there must be valuable treasures in it, should the Swords Gate explore it ourselves before this? We might just be able to find a thing or two and strengthen the Swords Gate."
"The treasures of the beast god must be treasures of the monster race. We are humans; it would be useless even if we are able to acquire them."
You Yu Clan grand elder shook his head, "In addition, it will be difficult to break the God-level seal, it's not an easy task to get to the beast god treasures. We might even suffer losses during the exploration, and the treasures we get will be of no use to us, it is not worth the candle. However, if Junior Martial Brother Shui is interested, you can give it a shot, but try not to waste too much time on it."
Shui Tu Clan elder Shui Zian nodded his head, smiled and said, "Grand elder is right. Then I will have my men to explore the ridge."…
Beast god seal, Zhong Yue staggered all the way and finally, he arrived at the seal's core, Xin Huo looked around through Zhong Yue's eyes, he then heaved a breath of relief, smiled and said, "Lucky, lucky! Who knew the fallen beast god still placed another trump card right here, not only the Seven Slaughtering Arrays."
Zhong Yue was shocked, he asked, "Not only the Seven Slaughtering Arrays?"
Xin Huo slowly flew out of his psyche ocean and then landed on his shoulder, the little flame wobbled in the air, smiled and said, "Look at that river."
Zhong Yue gazed at it, there was a stream of water meandering and zigzagging, with a total of eighteen twists, it flows all the way from the core of the beast god seal through the Seven Slaughtering Arrays.
However, there were a few places where the water flow stopped. Hence, the river couldn't flow through every stone tablet. This should be attributed to the changes in the topography of Beast God Ridge that disrupted the river from flowing along its set path.
"This is the Yin Dragon River; it is also another slaughtering array, linked and connected to the Seven Slaughtering Arrays. Other than that, there is the Flora Soldiers Array which was also destroyed with the changes in topography."
Xin Huo sighed in deep regret, his heart ached considerably, and he stomped on Zhong Yue's shoulders, "Such arrays, it'll be a shame if we don't return them to its flawless state."
Zhong Yue coughed and reminded him, "Xin Huo, our target is the beast god essence."
Xin Huo gazed at Zhong Yue from the side, "After the beast god essence, can we perfect these three arrays?"
Zhong Yue upon seeing the eyes that were filled with great expectations, his heart softened, he nodded and said, "Alright, we will do it."
Xin Huo hopped around excitedly, suddenly, he calmed down and held his hands together, an air of expectancy lurked around him as he asked again, "After we complete the arrays, can we activate them and have some fun playing around with them?"
Zhong Yue quickly shook his head. It must be a joke, a single intermediate slaughtering array was already this strong, if the larger God-level slaughtering array were to be triggered, wouldn't it poke a hole in the skies?
Not to mention that Xin Huo was planning to activate three slaughtering arrays, even the consequences of activating one was unimaginable, let alone three?
The little flame twitched his mouth, discontentedly said, "The pure-blood Fuxi Celestial Race will definitely accept my request to activate the three arrays…"
Zhong Yue ignored as if he did not hear anything.
Not long later, under Xin Huo's guidance, Zhong Yue arrived at a rounded opening cave-like door, the door was splattered with dried blood all over it, forming carvings of totems, but as ages passed by the carvings were blurred and fainted.
The door ajar, filaments of monstrous Qi seeped out through the gap and into the air along with surges of scented fragrance.
Zhong Yue smelled the air and said curiously, "This scented smell is so odd, could it be that the beast god had condensed its essence into a medicinal pellet?"
"You're right." Xin Huo smiled and said, "The beast god essence is indeed a medicinal pellet, but it doesn't go by that name. Instead, it's known as the inner core. The inner core is the thing formed when the monster race cultivates and consummate their essence. During the eras of the Sui Sovereigns and Fuxi, the monster race was the most inferior of all races. During the banquet of the Gods, they would usually serve a plate of monster gods' inner cores."
Zhong Yue was dumbstruck while Xin Huo continued, "Judging by how you humans are right now, I suppose they will serve a plate of human gods' inner cores during the banquet of the Gods. The seal on the door is already broken, quickly get in and take the beast god essence, we will then hastily complete the three slaughtering arrays! Oh yes, hold your breath, don't inhale too much of the scented fragrance, or otherwise, you will turn into a monster beast…"
Zhong Yue quickly held his breath, all of a sudden, he felt a surge of irritation on his hand. He glanced at it and was horrified as he saw a scale growing beneath his skin. He had only inhaled a few breaths of air, and there were already signs of assimilation into a monster beast!
If he consumed the beast god essence, wouldn't he definitely turn into a monster?
I hope Xin Huo is trustworthy this time…
He recollected back his thoughts and pushed the door fully open, he walked into it, and the fragrance in the air grew more pungent, as if it would just percolate through his skin pores into his body.
Zhong Yue felt surges of itchiness all over his body, he held his composure and started visualizing the Sui Sovereign in his psyche ocean, only then did he feel much better.
He lifted his head and looked around, the space behind the door was huge, at least a million square miles with the height of a thousand miles. In the middle of the space was a pearl emanating light rays all over the space, bathing the whole place in an intense radiance.
"This is the beast god's heart chamber, where it's heart is located. Before the beast god died, it fused its psyche and its blood into the three slaughtering arrays so that his soul and the inner core would remain untainted beyond the reach of others."
Xin Huo urged him to hurry and babbled, "Quick, quick, take the inner core and we will go and have fun with the slaughtering arrays!"
Zhong Yue closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, two dreadful Jiao Dragons surrounded by lightning appeared beneath his feet and soared right at the monster god's inner core!
The moment his hand grabbed onto the inner core, scales started to form beneath his skin in a split second!
"Quick! Plant the Beast God Inner Core into your psyche ocean!" Xin Huo shouted.
"How?" Zhong Yue was utterly lost, the Beast God Inner Core was as big as a goose egg, how could he just plant it in his psyche ocean?
While the conversation was going on, the scales continued to crawl up his arm at an increasingly alarming rate!
Xin Huo shouted, "Just stuff it in!"
Zhong Yue clenched his teeth, he raised his hand and pressed the Beast God Inner Core onto his glabella!
I'm starting to like Xin Huo. After reading so many novels with matured, calm and sedate 'old grandad', it's truly eye-refreshing to see someone as immature and playful as Xin Huo. Man, it's gonna be a fun ride.