170: Chapter 170 Welcoming the Divine Envoy! Entering the City of Bones!

When Su Changge's hand, holding the "Heart of Blood Rock," did not reveal a shred of greed or joy, but merely accepted it indifferently, an invisible shackle quietly unfastened from the Divine Soul of every Black-robed Person.

It was a relaxation born from the instinct of life.

They were still trembling, their prone bodies shivering uncontrollably, but that pure fear, sufficient to shatter their Divine Soul, had already quietly receded. Replacing it was the exhaustion of surviving death, and a more complex awe born from the unfathomable forgiveness of a god.

Especially the leading Black-robed Person; he could clearly distinguish that the moment that hand left the tribute he held high, his blood, which had been frozen by extreme pressure, finally began to flow with difficulty in his veins again.

The god had accepted his tribute.

This thought exploded in his mind, no less than the voice of the Heavenly Dao.

This meant that he, and the offense of his entire tribe, had been forgiven.

He dared not lift his head, his forehead still pressed tightly against the hard frozen earth, using a nearly twisted posture, with his knees and elbows as fulcrums, moving backward bit by bit, with extreme difficulty. Every movement was accompanied by the faint sound of bones rubbing against the frozen earth, appearing exceptionally harsh in this dead-silent ruin.

He dared not feel even a shred of relief; this was a ritual that a mortal must observe before a god, a retreat, and also an atonement.

Not until he had retreated a full three zhang away, a distance he deemed absolutely safe, did he dare to stop.

Subsequently, he mobilized all his remaining strength, standing up from the ground with an extremely slow and stiff motion. He dared not straighten his waist, maintaining a posture nearly folded in half, his head hanging deeply, his vision only able to see the ground three inches in front of his toes.

After steadying himself, he extended a withered hand toward the direction of Su Changge, palm upward, making an incomparably humble guiding gesture.

That posture had already transcended respect; it was a humbleness that completely crushed one's self into dust.

Following the leader's action, the Black-robed People kneeling behind him finally struggled out of the shock to their Divine Soul. They were like people waking from a dream, not daring to make the slightest sound, scrambling up on their hands and feet, also bending their waists and lowering their heads, quickly and orderly retreating to the sides.

In the blink of an eye, a wide path extended beneath Su Changge's feet.

The end of the road led to the depths of the gloomy wasteland from which they had come.

They were leading the way in front.

They were using the most primitive, and also the most direct action, silently inviting this supreme existence walking in the human world to go to their dwelling place—their tribe.

Su Changge looked at the scene before him, his heart calm and undisturbed; everything was within his expectations.

He was temporarily safe.

Not only safe, but it seemed that, by a strange twist of fate, he had seized an extraordinary identity.

Go, or not go?

This thought flashed through the depths of his Divine Soul and was immediately captured and analyzed by his meticulous thoughts.

Stay here? This ruined Holy Land, leveled to the ground, certainly had no immediate threats, but looking out, the world was vast, filled entirely with unknown blood-colored wastelands. He knew nothing about this world; where should he go next? A destroyed Holy Land itself indicated the terror and disorder of this place. Who could guarantee that in the shadows of this wilderness, there were not existences hidden that were even more terrifying than this group of Black-robed People, and capable of even seeing through his disguise?

Follow them to the tribe? This act was no different from entering a Dragon's den or a tiger's lair. But similarly, this was also a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity, an excellent springboard for him to quickly understand this strange world.

He needed a foothold to digest everything that had happened today, and to study that blood-colored crystal containing vast energy.

He needed intelligence, needed to figure out what kind of world this was, and what kind of Law and power system it possessed.

The tribe before him, whose will had been completely crushed by him and who revered him as a god, was undoubtedly his only, and also best, choice at present.

The path of cultivation is, from the start, a high-stakes gamble. What one seeks is not wealth, but a glimmer of survival amidst ten thousand calamities.

Since he had already maintained the airs of a "god" to this extent, there was no reason to give up halfway. Either act out this play to the end, or be torn into pieces by this group of fanatical believers the moment he was exposed.

In a flash, a decision had already formed in Su Changge's heart.

He did not speak.

Many words lead to mistakes.

An existence that overlooks the ages and views all living beings as ants, how could he speak even half a sentence more with a group of mortal beings.

He merely emitted a very light nasal sound from the depths of his throat.

"Hmm."

The sound was not loud, but it carried a peculiar penetrative power, as if it were not transmitted through the air, but branded directly onto the Divine Soul of every Black-robed Person.

This one word, for the people prostrate on the ground, surpassed all decrees in the world, heavier than an eternal divine mountain.

The leader standing at the very front leading the way had his hunched body tremble violently again, his head buried even lower, almost touching his own knees.

He immediately turned around, not daring to have the slightest hesitation or negligence, and took steps to lead the way in front. His pace was small and repressed, filled with awe for the existence behind him.

Su Changge's expression was calm, without ripples, and he began to walk.

His pace was neither fast nor slow, the distance of every step as precise as if it had been measured, and he followed.

He walked in the very center of the procession, those Black-robed People lining up on both sides of the road, surrounding him, yet between them and him, there was an invisible, uncrossable chasm. They were both guides and guards, using their own humble bodies to protect the god in their hearts.

Every time Su Changge's step landed, it made the bodies of those Black-robed People in front involuntarily tense up. They walked trembling with fear, fearing that any careless action on their part, or even a slightly heavy breath, would again anger this capricious great existence.

Under the guidance of this group of special "guides," Su Changge passed through a vast and dead-silent blood-colored Gobi.

Beneath his feet was dark red sand and earth, as hard as iron and stone, every grain of sand seeming to be soaked in dried blood. In the distance were craggy black strange rocks, casting ferocious and twisted shadows under the blood moon.

The huge blood moon in the sky emitted a cold and eerie radiance, stretching the shadows of the group extremely long; on the desolate earth, they were like a group of silent ghosts.

About the time it takes for a stick of incense to burn had passed.

A huge and ferocious silhouette tore through the horizon, appearing at the far end of the distance.

As the distance closed, Su Changge's eyes, which reflected the Void Realm of the ages, finally saw clearly the full picture of that "tribe."

That was not some architectural complex at all.

It was a City of Bones, built entirely from the skeletons of some unimaginable giant beast!

Ribs, each so huge it was hard to believe, each one like the ridge of a small mountain, curved and inserted into the earth, forming the outermost city wall of the tribe. On the surface of the bones remained a dark golden luster, as well as countless claw marks and cracks deep enough to see the bone, silently recounting an earth-shattering ancient war.

A ferocious skull, as huge as a hill, became the most core building in the center of the tribe. Those empty eye sockets were two bottomless giant caves, with firelight leaping inside, making the whole skull look like a demon god about to awaken from slumber.

Countless slightly smaller leg bones and arm bones had been polished into incomparably sharp bone spikes, inserted upside down on the rib wall, flashing with a chilling cold light under the blood moon.

The entire tribe exuded an aura that was primitive, barbaric, bloody, yet magnificent.

It was not a settlement for living beings, but more like a graveyard of ancient giant beasts, a throne forged for the victors using the corpses of the defeated.

The leading Black-robed Person stopped at the giant entrance of the tribe.

That entrance was formed by two giant fangs rising into the sky and crossing each other; the tips of the fangs even submerged into the low-hanging blood-colored clouds.

He turned around, once again performing a ninety-degree bow to Su Changge, then stepped aside, using the most humble posture to respectfully invite him to enter this City of Bones.

Su Changge stood at the entrance, his gaze passing through the giant gate formed by the fangs, looking toward the flickering soul fires inside the city, and those bone buildings that appeared even taller and more ferocious under the firelight.

His eyes remained calm.

This city, with the skeletons of giant beasts as its foundation, and blood and barbarism as its totem, would be the first stop on his journey into this world.

Inside the city, what else was waiting for him?

Was it more "believers," or... an even deeper unknown and murderous intent?