159: Chapter 159 Mural

Time ticked away, second by second; the sun rose and set.

When night fell once more, a sudden change occurred!

In that pitch-black night sky, without any warning, two identical, massive blood-red full moons rose simultaneously!

Those two blood moons were like two giant demonic eyes from Hell, emitting an eerie and ominous scarlet light, dyeing the entire world a shocking blood red!

Twin moons weeping blood!

The celestial phenomenon had appeared!

And just as the two blood moons rose to their highest point, the moment their blood-colored light precisely shone upon that massive stone gate!

“Hum——!!!”

The entire Serpents Eye Peak began to tremble violently!

That massive stone gate, which had been silent for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, finally slowly awakened at this moment!

The relief of the two entwined giant snakes on the stone gate seemed to come alive!

Their eyes erupted with two dazzling beams of blood-red Divine Light!

The countless ancient Talismanic Incantations on the stone gate also began to light up one by one, flowing rapidly!

A terrifying pressure, countless times more vast than before, crashed down!

“Rumble...”

Accompanied by a teeth-grinding, dull, thunderous sound, that massive stone gate, weighing who knows how many tens of thousands of catties, finally slowly opened to the sides, revealing a narrow gap only wide enough for one person to pass through!

A surge of Chaos energy, filled with endless ancient, vicissitudinous, and majestic Spiritual Qi, burst forth from that gap!

Just by inhaling a sliver, Gao Feng felt his Bottleneck, which had long reached the Fifth-Rank Peak, loosen slightly!

The gate was open!

The gate to that legendary ancient ruin had finally opened!

However, there was not a trace of joy on Gao Feng's face.

Instead, his brows were tightly locked together.

Because he discovered that the stone gate had only opened a crack before stopping.

It seemed as if it was still missing some final catalyst.

“Still missing... the final key...”

Gao Feng muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping rapidly over the stone gate.

Finally, at the very center where the two giant snake reliefs intertwined, he discovered an extremely hidden, tiny circular groove.

That must be the place to insert the third key.

But, where exactly was this third key?

Just as Gao Feng was burning with anxiety, a flash of inspiration struck his mind!

He suddenly remembered the incomplete star chart he had obtained from the Hundred Ghost Cave!

He remembered that cryptic, ancient phrase!

He remembered the stunningly beautiful woman, half-human and half-corpse, whom he had kept sealed in an ice coffin within his spirit spring space!

——“Sacrifice”!

A thought, bold to the point of insanity, uncontrollably sprouted wildly in his mind!

Could it be...

Could this so-called third key not be a physical object at all?

But rather...

A living person?!

Or rather, a living dead person between life and death?!

Gao Feng's heart began to beat violently and uncontrollably!

He knew this was an incredibly crazy gamble!

But he had no other choice!

He no longer had any hesitation!

With a thought, the massive ice coffin exuding bone-chilling cold air appeared out of thin air on the platform atop the Peak!

He shattered the ice coffin with a palm strike, then picked up the stunningly beautiful woman, who was still asleep and breathtakingly beautiful, and walked step by step to the front of the massive stone gate.

He looked at the tiny circular groove in the center of the stone gate, then at the woman's smooth, jade-like forehead in his arms.

He took a deep breath and slowly pushed the woman in his arms toward the stone gate.

Allowing her forehead to align precisely with that circular groove!

“Hum——!!!”

The very instant the two made contact!

A seven-colored Divine Light, countless times more brilliant than before, erupted explosively!

The stunningly beautiful woman, who had been in a deep sleep, suddenly opened her eyes at this moment!

What strange and beautiful eyes they were!

The left eye was clear and lively, like a stream thawing in early spring, and like the purest star in the Nine Heavens, filled with endless pure vitality and spirituality.

Just one glance made one feel as if bathed in a spring breeze, as if even the Soul had been purified.

But the right eye was the complete opposite! It was pitch-black and deep, like a bottomless abyss ten thousand zhang deep, and like the eternal silence at the birth of the Universe, emitting a cold Death Qi capable of freezing everything and annihilating everything!

Life and death, light and darkness! Two completely opposite yet equally powerful forces, pushed to the extreme, appeared so strangely in the same pair of beautiful eyes!

At that moment, time seemed to stand still. Gao Feng only felt that his Soul was about to be completely sucked into those eyes that were half-god and half-devil!

“Hum——!!!”

Before he could react from that extreme shock, a majestic energy, countless times more vast than before, erupted explosively!

As the woman's smooth, jade-like forehead made contact with the stone gate's groove, it was as if a fuse had been lit, and a black-and-white, constantly rotating Taiji symbol instantly lit up!

A Yin and Yang energy, pure to the extreme, burst forth wildly from her body like a breached Milky Way from the Nine Heavens!

That pure vitality transformed into a brilliant white beam of light, while that annihilating Death Qi transformed into a deep black beam of light.

One black and one white, two Dragon-thick beams of light intertwined and wove together, forming an even larger and more terrifying black-and-white spiral beam of light, which slammed fiercely against the massive stone gate!

“Boom——rumble——rumble——!!!”

Accompanied by a teeth-grinding, dull, thunderous sound that seemed to want to tear the entire world apart, that massive stone gate, weighing who knows how many tens of thousands of catties and silent for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, could finally no longer resist that terrifying power originating from the Yin and Yang Origin!

It began to slowly open completely to the sides!

A Chaos energy, filled with endless ancient, vicissitudinous, and majestic Spiritual Qi, burst forth wildly from behind the slowly opening gate, like an ancient giant beast awakening!

That aura was so pure and vast that the surrounding air, unable to withstand this terrifying energy, formed visible ripples!

Just by inhaling a sliver of the Chaos energy escaping from the crack, Gao Feng felt his unbreakable Bottleneck, which had long reached the Fifth-Rank Peak, begin to melt and disintegrate at a visible speed, as if it were snow meeting the scorching sun!

An unprecedented feeling of comfort and power spread throughout his entire body!

He knew that as long as he could retreat and Cultivate behind this gate for one day, he would have absolute certainty of breaking through the Bottleneck in one go and stepping into the legendary realm of the Sixth-Rank Grandmaster!

As for Big Fool, Wulu, and Gong Qianxue, they were in an even more sorry state!

They were only slightly affected by the escaping Chaos energy, yet they felt the Internal Energy within their bodies start to surge wildly, as if they had eaten a panacea!

The Bottleneck that had troubled them for so long actually showed signs of loosening!

What kind of ancient ruin was this? This was clearly a supreme Cultivation Holy Land that would drive any Martial Artist crazy!

...

However, what none of them knew was that at the very moment this Heavenly Gate leading to supreme Opportunity opened and the majestic energy fluctuation reached its Peak, hundreds of miles away, atop a towering demonic mountain—which was enveloped in thick black Devilish Qi all year round, where not a blade of grass grew for a hundred miles, and which was regarded by everyone in Jianghu as a "Forbidden Demonic Realm"—

Inside a massive palace built from countless ghastly white bones, a young man wearing a deep purple, luxurious dragon robe embroidered with nine black Dragon, with an extremely handsome and evil face, and a strange demonic mark like a burning purple flame on his forehead, suddenly opened his eyes!

What purple eyes they were, filled with evil charm and demonic nature! Just one glance seemed capable of pulling a person's Soul completely into an endless abyss of desire!

He slowly stood up from the throne carved from a single piece of massive, ten-thousand-year blood jade, the corners of his mouth curling into an evil smile filled with playfulness and cruelty.

He extended that fair, slender hand, more flawless than a woman's, and with a gentle beckon, a triangular key made entirely of an unknown purple crystal—which looked seventy to eighty percent similar to the two keys in Gao Feng's hand, but with a significantly weaker aura—appeared out of thin air in his palm.

At this moment, the purple key was trembling violently, emitting pulses of purple light filled with longing and guidance!

“Hehe... hehehehe...” He looked at the key in his hand and let out a low, soft chuckle filled with endless demonic nature.

“Waited for a full thirty years... finally, some ignorant fools have opened this damn gate for me.”

He slowly licked his thin, sexy lips, and his purple eyes flashed with unmasked greed and bloodthirsty light. “Tongtian Pagoda... the legendary supreme secret hidden within that allows one to ascend to the heavens in one step and achieve Ascension... I am coming.”

He was none other than the number one giant of the Demonic Path—Zi Donglai—who had long vanished from Jianghu for decades and was regarded by all righteous sects as a taboo, a name that made people pale upon hearing it!

However, he did not immediately turn into a streak of light and rush toward Serpents Eye Peak as one might imagine.

He just unhurriedly straightened his incomparably luxurious purple dragon robe, and then, as if taking a leisurely stroll, walked step by step out of the massive demonic palace built of bones.

His face bore a cruel smile filled with confidence and composure, like the most patient hunter waiting for the prey to walk into the trap.

He was deep in schemes, calculated every move, and never fought a battle he wasn't sure of. He wanted to let that group of "fools," who were no different from ants in his eyes, go in first to test for him what kind of dangers and murderous intent were hidden within the legendary Tongtian Pagoda.

He, like the most brilliant chess player, would arrive at the final and most critical moment, and then take all the chess pieces, along with the final fruits of victory, into his pocket!

He would become the ultimate winner of this earth-shattering chess game that had spanned tens of thousands of years!

...

Serpents Eye Peak.

With immense vigilance and excitement, Gao Feng and the others resolutely stepped into that colorful spatial vortex filled with the unknown and mystery!

After a brief moment of dizziness, the feeling of having their feet back on solid ground finally returned.

Boom—!!!

Before they could even see their surroundings clearly, a deafening sound erupted from behind them!

The massive stone gate, which stood ten zhang high, slammed shut the moment they entered, completely cutting off all their paths of retreat!

It seems that here, one can only enter, not leave. Gao Feng's eyes narrowed as he kept his guard up inwardly.

He looked around and discovered that they were currently standing inside an immensely huge circular corridor.

The corridor was about ten zhang high and dozens of zhang wide, built from an unknown dark cyan stone that exuded an ancient and weathered aura.

The entire corridor was terrifyingly silent; there wasn't even a whisper of wind, only the clearly audible sounds of their own breathing and heartbeats.

My Lord, this place is so eerie. Wulu gripped his scimitar tightly, his beast-like, sharp eyes scanning the surroundings vigilantly, his muscles tense.

Big Fool went even further, placing his massive mysterious iron tower shield in front of him, revealing only a pair of naive yet vigilant eyes.

Gao Feng did not speak; his gaze was quickly drawn to the continuous, massive murals on the walls on both sides of the corridor.

It was unknown who had painted those murals or what pigments were used, but despite having endured the erosion of countless tens of thousands of years, they remained vivid and colorful.

The murals recorded an earth-shattering war between gods and demons!

The first mural depicted a supremely glorious ancient divine dynasty. Countless heavenly soldiers and generals, clad in golden armor and wielding divine Sharp Weapons, were led by a supreme God Emperor wearing an imperial crown with a blurred face, patrolling the Nine Heavens and ten lands, with all races submitting and the world at peace.

The style of the second mural changed abruptly! Pitch-black Devilish Qi rolled in from the Void Realm outside the territory! Countless hideous extraterrestrial demons of various forms, led by a Demon Lord whose face was also obscured but who radiated an endless aura of destruction and Chaos, launched a full-scale attack against that glorious divine dynasty!

The subsequent murals depicted a continuous, tragic war! Gods and demons slaughtered each other in the sea of stars! Immortals and monsters fought for their lives on the earth!

Countless stars shattered and fell during the duels of the powerful! The boundless earth sank and tore apart under the bombardment of forbidden spells!

Blood dyed the galaxy red! Bones piled up in the abyss!

The tragic, heroic, and world-destroying aura transmitted through the murals was so real that Gao Feng and the others, just by looking, felt as if their Souls were about to be pulled into that world-destroying ancient battlefield, their spirits wavering, unable to control themselves!

Such... such a terrifying war... Gong Qianxue's cold, beautiful face was filled with shock, and her breathing became somewhat rapid.

These paintings... seem to be alive... Big Fool was dumbfounded; he couldn't help but reach out his hand, wanting to touch a giant divine general on the mural who was wielding a giant axe and fighting a hundred-zhang Dragon.

Don't touch it!

Gao Feng's expression changed abruptly, and he shouted sternly!

However, it was already too late!

At the very moment Big Fool's finger was about to touch the cold wall, a sudden change occurred!

Hum—!!!

The entire circular corridor shook violently without any warning!

At this moment, all the murals on the walls seemed to have truly come alive!

The countless ancient soldiers fighting in the paintings, whether they were divine generals in golden armor or hideous demon soldiers, all simultaneously lit up with two points of eerie, blood-red light in their eyes!

Their gazes pierced through the murals, through time and space, and locked onto Gao Feng and the other three, the invaders who did not belong to this era!

Jie—Jie—Jie—!!!

Bursts of sharp, demonic sounds, not like human voices and seemingly capable of completely tearing a person's Soul apart, rang out madly from the walls on all sides!

Immediately after, a hair-raising scene occurred!

They saw ancient soldiers holding blades, spears, swords, and halberds slowly seeping out from the hard walls, just like ghosts without physical bodies!

Their bodies appeared semi-transparent and greyish-black, with no expression on their faces, only endless numbness and cold killing intent!

They were the Yin Soldiers condensed from the billions of military Souls that had fallen in this ancient war between gods and demons!

Kill!

A cold intent to kill exploded in everyone's mind!

Thousands of Yin Soldiers turned into greyish-black afterimages the moment they appeared, launching a tidal, silent attack on Gao Feng and the others!

Careful! These things are not right!

Gao Feng's pupils constricted sharply! The sky-splitting star river blade in his hand immediately transformed into a brilliant blade glow, slashing fiercely at the Yin Soldier in the lead!

However, a bizarre scene occurred! That domineering blade glow, capable of splitting mountains and shattering rocks, passed through the semi-transparent body of the Yin Soldier without any obstruction, as if it had cut into air, without causing any damage!

Yet the Yin Soldier seemed completely unaffected; its speed increased rather than decreased, instantly piercing through Gao Feng's Protective Aura and slamming fiercely into his body!

Boom!

Gao Feng felt as if his mind had been struck by an invisible heavy hammer; a cold, tyrannical, and negative Mental Energy shock, filled with endless negativity, exploded in his Sea of Consciousness!

Even with his iron will, forged through countless trials as a special forces king in his past life, he couldn't help but feel dizzy at this moment, his mind wavering slightly!

Damn it! Physical attacks are useless! These things specifically target the mind and Soul!

Gao Feng's expression turned incredibly ugly in an instant! He had never dreamed that the first level of the Tongtian Pagoda would be such an eerie and deadly Mental Energy attack!

On the other side, Big Fool and Wulu were in an even more miserable state! While both of them had strong Physical Bodies, their Mental Energy was their greatest weakness!

Facing the overwhelming and ubiquitous Yin Soldier assault, they had absolutely no ability to resist!

Ah—!!!

My head! My head hurts so much!

In just a single encounter, they were both passed through by dozens of Yin Soldiers simultaneously! They clutched their heads and let out painful roars like beasts!

Their eyes turned blood-red instantly, veins bulged on their faces, and their expressions became incredibly hideous due to the extreme pain!

Those eerie demonic sounds, capable of disturbing the mind, were like life-taking Talismanic Incantations, constantly echoing and magnifying in their minds, driving them to the brink of madness!

Even Gong Qianxue, standing behind them, was greatly affected! Her beautiful face was pale, cold sweat streamed down her forehead, and her hand holding the divine bow was trembling uncontrollably!

Although her willpower far exceeded that of ordinary people, facing the indiscriminate Mental Energy attack launched by thousands of Yin Soldiers, she also felt overwhelmed and on the verge of collapse!

The entire battle situation was on the verge of collapse in an instant!

A bunch of lonely ghosts that have been dead for who knows how many tens of thousands of years! How dare you act presumptuously in front of this King?!

At this critical moment, Gao Feng let out a thunderous roar like Nine Heavens divine thunder!

His eyes, which had been slightly unfocused due to the intense pain, instantly became as sharp as knives!

Relying on the iron will of a special forces king from his past life, which had long been integrated into the depths of his Soul, and the strong resistance to all negative energy generated after practicing the Myriad Dao Unity Art and smelting all techniques, he forcibly held onto his clarity of mind, which was on the verge of being lost!

He discovered that these Yin Soldiers, which seemed intangible and immortal, were not truly without weaknesses! They feared all power filled with Yang energy and the aura of life!

And what Gao Feng lacked the least in his body was this kind of power!

Get lost—!!!

Gao Feng's eyes snapped open! He no longer held anything back, pushing the massive blood energy within his body—which had long been completely fused with the Myriad Dao Unity Art and transformed into a dark golden color—to its absolute limit!

Boom—!!!!!

A terrifying wave of energy, seemingly capable of burning the heavens and earth to ashes, erupted with his body as the center! A brilliant Great Sun, ten zhang in diameter and burning with raging dark golden flames, slowly rose from behind him!

That Great Sun was so scorching! It was so domineering! The dark golden light it emitted was filled with the supreme Divine Might of being the most Yang, capable of breaking through all evil!

Under the radiance of the light, the entire cold, dark circular corridor became as bright as day at this moment!

Ah—!!!

Jie—!!!

Those thousands of Yin Soldiers who were attacking Big Fool and Wulu madly, upon touching the dark golden light, were like snow meeting its natural enemy, letting out sharp, shrill screams filled with endless fear and despair!

Their semi-transparent, greyish-black bodies rapidly melted and vaporized at a speed visible to the naked eye!

In just a few breaths of time, those thousands of terrifying, seemingly immortal Yin Soldiers were completely purified by that domineering dark golden Great Sun, leaving not even a trace of their existence!

When the last Yin Soldier vanished into ashes amidst shrill screams, the dark golden Great Sun hanging behind Gao Feng also slowly faded away.

The entire circular corridor returned to a deathly silence once again.