150: Chapter 150 Xuanming Turtle and Snake

The valley was extremely narrow.

The two walls were as if carved by blades and axes; damp moss covered the dark brown rocks, emitting an extremely heavy, moldy, and rotting stench.

The daylight overhead was cut into a thin line by the narrow valley walls. The deeper one walked, the thinner that line became, until it completely vanished into the pitch-black end.

Su Yu slowed his pace.

His Early Spirit Transformation Stage Divine Sense probed forward against the valley walls, only extending less than a hundred zhang.

It wasn't blocked by any Restriction; rather, the rocks inside this valley contained an extremely ancient, natural Law barrier that did not belong to any man-made formation.

Su Yu had seen this kind of barrier before.

Whenever an ancient Yao Beast chose a place to slumber, the Law Origin remaining in its Bloodline would, over the long passage of time, seep into the surrounding rocks and soil, forming a natural layer of insulation.

The more noble the Bloodline and the more terrifying the cultivation of the Yao Beast, the thicker this insulation layer would be.

And now, his Divine Sense had only extended a hundred zhang.

Su Yu secretly estimated in his heart, and his expression sank slightly.

"Body Integration Stage."

"And not a low one at that."

But the pull at the soles of his feet still dragged him firmly forward.

Su Yu did not stop.

Having lived five lifetimes as a human, he understood one thing too well.

His life had never been entirely in his own hands.

Half of it was held by that unreasonable Heavenly Dao Luck.

And since this Luck insisted on pushing him into the tiger's maw, then on the other side of that tiger's maw, something even bigger must be hidden.

He walked forward for about another half an incense stick's time.

The valley path suddenly widened.

Before Su Yu appeared an extremely vast, natural underground cavern.

The cavern's dome was extremely high, embedded with dark green glowing Ore, casting a faint, cold light.

The air was filled with an extremely thick, fishy, and salty odor.

It was not the smell of blood.

It was a mineralized, salty, and astringent scent similar to what would be left behind after ancient seawater weathered away.

The scent was so thick it was choking; almost every breath reminded him.

The thing sleeping down here was old to an unimaginable degree.

Su Yu's gaze fell on the very center of the cavern.

Lying there was a massive black rock, several dozen zhang in circumference.

The surface of the rock was extremely irregular, uneven, and covered in natural stone patterns resembling scales.

It looked like a natural boulder that had been weathered for countless tens of thousands of years.

But Su Yu knew.

That was not a rock.

That was a sleeping Yao Beast.

Its body was ridiculously large.

A trace of an extremely slow vibration came from the ground beneath his feet.

That was its heartbeat.

Su Yu stood where he was, extremely calmly observing this behemoth lying before him.

He did not summon any Magical Artifact, nor did he circulate his protective true energy.

In front of a creature of this Rank, those things were no different from a layer of paper.

Su Yu walked forward slowly.

Every step he took was extremely steady and slow.

During his approach, his gaze never once left the Yao Beast's "rock shell."

When he walked to about thirty zhang away from the Yao Beast, he stopped.

The stone slab beneath his feet made an extremely faint "click."

Su Yu looked down.

His right foot was stepping on a stone brick that was slightly darker in color than the surrounding ones.

The edges of the stone brick were carved with a few patterns that had been almost worn smooth by time.

They were the remnants of an ancient Seal Restriction.

And with this step, he had crushed that remnant.

"Hum—"

An extremely low humming sound spread from beneath his feet throughout the entire cavern.

Immediately after.

That behemoth lying in the center of the cavern, which Su Yu had always assumed was a giant rock.

Moved.

The first thing to move was the tail.

A giant snake tail, as thick as a city gate pillar and covered entirely in dark golden scales, slowly pulled out from the bottom of the "rock shell."

The snake tail was extremely long, dragging on the ground for over ten zhang, with faint mysterious light seeping from the gaps between every scale.

Then came the head.

Not one head.

But two.

One tortoise head, one snake head.

The tortoise head was ancient and silent, eyes tightly shut, its shell covered in cracks of varying depths, as if it had been struck by an extremely terrifying force.

The snake head was slender and ferocious, its scarlet vertical pupils suddenly cracking open a slit at this moment.

Su Yu's figure was reflected in the vertical pupils.

The pressure of the Body Integration Middle Stage poured out in that instant like a bursting flood!

"Boom—!"

The entire cavern began to tremble violently.

The glowing Ore on the dome shattered and fell in large patches.

The stone slab beneath Su Yu's feet cracked into a spiderweb pattern, and an invisible force pressed him firmly in place.

His Early Spirit Transformation Stage protective true energy was as brittle as foam in the face of this Body Integration Middle Stage pressure.

His knees made a dull sound of being unable to bear the weight, and fine bloody gashes burst open on the surface of his skin.

Su Yu gritted his teeth tightly, refusing to kneel.

But his body was already bent.

"Body Integration Middle Stage..."

Su Yu was rapidly weighing the heft of this Yao Beast in his mind.

It was a full tier higher than those five Body Integration Early Stage Old Monsters chasing him!

If this thing were an enemy.

Then he wouldn't even have the qualification to run.

The chasm between the Body Integration Middle Stage and the Early Spirit Transformation Stage could not be bridged by any tactics or Magic Treasure.

That was an absolute crushing at the level of life itself.

If it wanted to kill him, it wouldn't even need the time of a single breath.

But just as Su Yu's body was about to be completely crushed by this pressure.

That terrifying force field suddenly vanished.

It wasn't blocked by any power.

It was that the Yao Beast had withdrawn it itself.

Immediately after.

A shrill, mournful cry came from the depths of the cavern.

"Awoo—"

The sound was turbid, ancient, and hoarse.

It was not the roar of a ferocious beast in anger.

But a cry of extreme pain, suppressed for who knows how many tens of thousands of years.

Su Yu slowly straightened his body, wiped the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, and looked up at the Yao Beast before him.

Only then did he see its full appearance.

Xuanming Turtle-Snake.

Su Yu had seen this name in the Celestial Pivot Sect's ancient Yao Race compendium.

This was a descendant of the Xuanwu Bloodline.

A pure ancient Yao Saint.

Even if it was just a descendant of the Bloodline, it was an existence sufficient to make all factions in the Hunyuan Heavenly Domain tremble with fear at the mere mention of its name.

But at this moment, the state of this ancient Yao Saint was extremely wrong.

Its massive body was covered in cracks that went deep into the bone marrow.

The cracks were not new wounds; they had existed for an extremely long time, and their edges presented a dark gray, deathly, and silent pattern.

Dao injury.

And it was an extremely severe Dao injury.

Su Yu's gaze swept over those cracks, and his pupils contracted slightly.

At first, he thought this Yao Beast had just suffered ordinary serious injuries.

But after observing carefully, he discovered that within the texture of those cracks, a trace of extremely high-level Law residual power remained.

That residual power was already extremely weak.

So weak that it was almost imperceptible.

But it was still there.

It was like a broken needle stuck into flesh; you think it has rotted away, but in reality, it is stuck in the bone joint, torturing you day and night.

The source of this injury.

Could not have been left by a Body Integration Early Stage.

Not even a Body Integration Middle Stage.

At least a Body Integration Peak, or even... Mahayana.

Su Yu took a deep breath.

No wonder it had to slumber for tens of thousands of years.

For a Dao injury of this level, let alone self-healing, even using ten-thousand-year Spirit Medicine to force a recovery would just be scratching the surface.

Because that was not a wound on the Physical Body.

It was a brand at the level of Law, a mark left on its Origin by the power of the Great Dao at a higher level.

Its pain stemmed from this.

And the reason it withdrew its pressure the moment Su Yu crushed the Restriction stone.

Was not because it was kind.

And certainly not because it recognized Su Yu as some Child of Luck.

It was purely because it was in too much pain!