218: Chapter 218 Tomb Raid! Trap-filled and Terrifying!

After the suffocating tremors had lasted for nearly half a minute, the rumbling of the mountain finally subsided. The blood-red light shooting from the eyes of the Phoenix totem also withdrew its Evil Qi, dimmed, and returned to deathly silence.

In the absolute silence, only the lingering echoes of falling rubble reverberated.

Accompanied by a dull sound of mechanical gears interlocking, a faint light flowed across the center of the hundred-foot stone door, silently outlining a recessed contour. The outline was about half a meter long, and its shape was identical to the Heart of the Realm stele that Su Changge held tightly in his arms.

"So that's how it is."

Su Changge's tense heartstrings relaxed slightly, and he exhaled a breath of stale air. This was not an offensive Restriction, but a mechanism to verify a token.

Carrying the heavy stele, he suppressed the surging Qi and blood within his body and stepped, one step at a time, back within a hundred feet of the stone door. This time, that scrutinizing pressure did not descend again. He arrived before the door, raised his arm, and slowly aligned the cold and heavy complete stele with the groove.

"Click." With a soft sound, the stele and the groove fit together perfectly, seamless as if they were one.

The moment Su Changge withdrew his hands, a thunderous roar came from within the mountain again!

"Rumble—"

This time, it was not shaking, but opening! The massive stone door, sealed for who knows how many ten thousand years, began to slowly recede to both sides amidst a teeth-gritting grinding sound. A pitch-black gap appeared in the center and continued to expand, as if an ancient giant beast was opening its maw to devour the world.

The moment the gap opened, a gale of extreme chill surged out from within.

The wind carried a thick, inseparable smell of dusty mold, as well as a faint, yet bone-piercing, old scent of blood. This aura was biting cold; it was not the cold of the mortal world, but the Nine Nether Yin Qi capable of freezing a Cultivator's spiritual power and eroding their Divine Soul.

Su Changge bore the brunt of it, feeling the flow of blood in his body slow down by half a beat, and he couldn't help but shiver.

Lin Waner's delicate body trembled violently. Subconsciously, she hugged Su Changge's arm tighter, her teeth chattering, and her voice carried a sobbing tone: "Fellow Daoist... the Yin Qi here is so overbearing. Are we... really going in?"

"Naturally." Su Changge's voice was steady, without a ripple, "It is just a tomb of a predecessor, what is there to fear."

Yet his heart was roaring. Damn it! This Yin Qi is even more troublesome than the gravity in the Void Region! Could there really be something unclean inside? This is no laughing matter!

His thoughts raced as he sank his consciousness into his Sea of Consciousness, issuing a command to the mysterious power. "Protective Spiritual Light, appear!"

[Mobilizing the Origin of emotions, constructing "Warm Sun" spiritual light... Authorization confirmed, executing.]

The moment the command was issued, a trace of imperceptible golden light rose from Su Changge's Dantian, instantly flowing through his limbs and bones, then radiating out to form a thin, cicada-wing-like pale golden light screen around him.

This light screen looked weak, but it contained a pure and warm Yang power. The biting Yin wind blew against the screen and, like spring snow meeting the scorching sun, dissolved silently, unable to penetrate even a fraction. Su Changge felt a warmth wash over his body, and the bone-chilling cold was completely dispelled.

Lin Waner had been shivering with cold, but suddenly felt the chill around her swept away, replaced by a gentle warmth. She opened her eyes in surprise, seeing the pale golden radiance flowing around Su Changge. The light was sacred and solemn, setting him off like a deity walking through the netherworld.

In her eyes, shock and admiration were intertwined: "Fellow Daoist, is this... is this the Golden Body of a Buddhist Protector? How profound!"

"A small trick, not worth mentioning." Su Changge waved his hand indifferently, maintaining the demeanor of a Master, and stepped first into the deep, dark stone door.

Behind the door was a tomb passage that stretched endlessly. The passage was magnificent, ten meters wide and over twenty meters high, carved directly out of the mountain interior. On the dome, a fist-sized night pearl was embedded every hundred meters, emitting a cold and soft radiance. However, because too much time had passed, the pearl light had dimmed, only able to illuminate a range of ten-plus zhang underfoot, while the darkness further away was as deep as an abyss waiting to devour people.

The stone walls on both sides of the tomb passage were polished extremely smooth, and giant, continuous murals were painted on them using ancient mineral pigments.

Su Changge proceeded while remaining vigilant, dividing his attention to observe these murals.

The first mural depicted a young mountain girl dressed in simple clothing, wearing a wooden hairpin, carrying a medicine basket, and gathering herbs in the deep mountains. Her features were delicate, and her eyes revealed a wisdom and resilience beyond her years. By a mountain stream, she encountered a Sword Cultivator with a celestial air, who was smiling at her, seemingly examining her aptitude.

The young girl's appearance was nine parts similar to Ye Qingyao! Su Changge's heart trembled slightly, and he continued to look on.

In the second mural, the girl had changed into a Sect robe, having joined an immortal Sect. She sat cross-legged, surrounded by a vortex of Spiritual Qi, clearly having just entered the Qi Refining Realm.

In the third, the scene skipped ahead; she was now a graceful young woman, her cultivation having reached Foundation Establishment, and then Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Transformation... Her path to Cultivate was unstoppable, and the scene of every Breakthrough was depicted with magnificent grandeur. Finally, she stood above the Nine Heavens, wearing an imperial crown and a Phoenix robe, with thousands of Cultivators bowing down; she was clearly an Empress who ruled over this Cangxuan Dao Domain!

In the fourth mural, the style changed abruptly, filled with the murderous aura of iron and blood. The Empress wore military attire, wielding a divine sword burning with flames, leading an army of Cultivators that blotted out the sky, engaging in a bloody battle with the endless Demon Race from beyond the domain. The galaxy shattered, and the Dao mourned. The final scene of the painting was fixed in a broken world called the "Blood Abyss Realm," where the Empress's body was pierced by several demonic spears, blood staining her imperial robe, yet she still stood proudly, ultimately perishing together with a ten-thousand-foot-tall Demon God. Her body was brought back by her subordinates in tears and buried in this mountain range.

Seeing this, Su Changge had no more doubts. This was the tomb of Ye Qingyao's past life, that stunningly talented yet prematurely deceased Empress of Cangxuan!

Lin Waner watched, dazzled, and couldn't help but exclaim: "Fellow Daoist, this Empress... is truly peerless, a heroine not inferior to any man."

Su Changge nodded slightly without speaking, but his gaze became even more solemn. He took Lin Waner and continued to walk deeper into the tomb passage.

They walked another hundred steps. Su Changge's right foot had just stepped on a floor tile that looked unremarkable, but the tile silently sank by half a fraction. "Click!" A crisp sound of a mechanism being triggered was exceptionally harsh in the deathly silent tomb passage.

The next instant, thousands of tiny holes opened without warning on the smooth rock walls on both sides of the tomb passage. Black arrows, like a poked beehive, shot out from the holes!

These hidden arrows were pitch black, their tips flashing with a dark green luster, clearly coated with potent poison. They tore through the air, emitting sharp whistles, weaving into an airtight net of death, sealing off all space for the two to dodge.

"Ah!" Lin Waner screamed, frightened until her face was drained of color.

Su Changge's heart also jumped, but his reaction was extremely fast; his Divine Thought had already issued a command. "Defend!"

[Mobilizing the Origin of emotions, constructing "Water Curtain" spiritual light... Authorization confirmed, executing.]

In an instant, outside the pale golden light screen around him, an invisible barrier appeared once again. The barrier was like a calm water surface, rippling with transparent waves.

"Cling-clang!" The dense sound of metal impacts merged into one, pouring down like a rainstorm. Countless poisoned hidden arrows struck the invisible barrier; arrowheads shattered, shafts snapped, and they fell powerlessly to the ground, unable to cause even a single ripple in the barrier.

Lin Waner looked at the broken arrows piled at her feet, her whole body going limp with lingering fear.

Su Changge gently patted the back of her hand, his tone still indifferent: "A mere mechanical trick, no harm done."

Yet inside, he was filled with lingering fear. Damn it, the killing intent in this tomb is too heavy; one wrong step and it's the end of one's Divine Soul!

He suppressed his palpitations and led Lin Waner to continue moving forward.

Along the way, it felt as if they had entered a museum of mechanical killing arrays. They triggered massive boulders crashing down from the dome, which were caught by an invisible Qi force from Su Changge and turned into powder. They encountered green poisonous mist gushing out from the crevices in the rock walls; the mist was sweet and greasy, capable of eroding Magic Treasure and corroding the Divine Soul, yet it was purified and evaporated by that layer of golden Warm Sun light when it approached within three feet of Su Changge. They even fell into a hallucinatory maze that could trigger the Heart Demon, but Su Changge's will was firm, completely unmoved, and he walked out as if strolling in a courtyard.

All the dangerous traps were like child's play before him, easily resolved by various methods that seemed ordinary yet were incredibly miraculous.

Lin Waner followed behind him, from the initial terror, to later numbness, and now, the look in her eyes as she gazed at Su Changge's back was left with only near-blind worship. In her heart, the image of this mysterious Fellow Daoist had already surpassed that of the stunningly talented Empress on the murals, reaching a transcendent Realm she could not imagine or understand.

After walking for about half an hour like this, the tomb passage finally came to an end. At the end, it was not the magnificent main gate of the tomb chamber as imagined, but an ajar stone door. From the crack in the door, light even darker and more profound than in the tomb passage shone through.

Su Changge stopped, stood before the door, and was about to push it open and enter. Just at this moment, a faint, yet clearly audible sound drifted out from the huge tomb chamber behind the crack in the door.

Haa... exh... Haa... exh... It was the sound of breathing. A long, deep sound of breathing, filled with a certain rhythm of life.

This sound did not belong to the two of them, yet it truly echoed in the depths of this imperial tomb that had been Sealed for ten thousand ages.

Su Changge's muscles instantly tensed, and his raised hand froze in mid-air.

Lin Waner heard it too; her almond-shaped eyes were filled with extreme fear, and she was almost hanging on Su Changge, holding her breath.

"Fel... Fellow Daoist... is... is there... a living thing inside?" Her voice trembled uncontrollably.

Su Changge's brows were tightly locked, staring fixedly at that door crack, his heart beating wildly against his will. How could this be? In an imperial tomb sealed for ten thousand years, how could there be the breathing of a living thing? Could it be... that the Empress on the murals who perished with the Demon God did not truly die?