138: After ten thousand years of chaos, let us once again embark on a conquest of the Heavenly Dao!

"It's memory manifestation!" Ning Xiwei's bone talismans formed a defensive Formation. "This mist seems to be reading our fears."

Morning Dew hurriedly used Holy Light to disperse the mist ahead.

The mist revealed a bronze giant gate carved with reliefs of the twelve golden men.

Sun Feifei cast a spell, driving the compass to fly into the air.

"Swift!"

She steered the compass to strike the door knocker, instantly emitting a hum like chime bells.

Lu Chen used his bone finger as a key and inserted it into the door lock; a loud sound of gears turning came from inside the wall.

The moment the door opened!

Ignis's greatsword ignited with black flames as she vigilantly guarded everyone.

But the scene before her eyes left her stunned in place!

—"Are these... Terracotta Warriors?"

Ignis said blankly!

Within this space spanning tens of thousands of square meters, three thousand pottery figurines covered in oracle bone script stood in Formation.

A holographic star chart hovered above each figurine's head, and the Luo River, made of mercury, flowed on the ground.

On the central altar, phantoms of the twelve golden men were assembling a bronze giant cauldron; human hearts bobbed in the boiling liquid inside the cauldron.

"Finally, you've arrived!"

A man's voice suddenly came from the loudspeaker. "It's been a hundred thousand years; Lord Xu Fu's 'Everlasting Life Furnace' will finally be completed."

Lu Chen's tianwen sword suddenly unsheathed, its Sword Qi sweeping away the camouflage coating on the walls—countless transparent incubation pods were embedded in the walls, each containing a clone resembling Ning Xiwei.

Shelley held her ice crystal sword, silently using a cold current to search for the core.

Whether it was a Formation that integrated technology...

Or an ancient Formation purely laid out with spiritual power.

They all have a Formation eye, which is the core!

Shelley spread her magic throughout the space; no one would notice her cold current.

—Found it!

Shelley pointed somewhere and shouted sharply, "The energy core is at the Gen position!"

Ignis immediately swung her sword at the control console, but her Balrog power was absorbed by the bronze pipes.

The entire space suddenly shook. Red light lit up in the eyes of the three thousand pottery figurines, and the bronze halberds in their hands formed a killing array.

Morning Dew instantly spread her six wings and flew into the air. Under the illumination of Holy Light, the oracle bone script on the surface of the figurines began to peel off.

"It's useless," the man's voice rang out again.

At this moment, the man's projection appeared above the giant cauldron!

It turned out to be the manager of this company's engineering department.

Was he that evil cultivator?

The man roared frantically:

"These terracotta soldiers use the essence of employees as fuel. For every one you destroy, a Mortal will die suddenly."

Sun Feifei's five elements flags were thrust into the ground, and Taoist True Qi formed a protective shield.

She said to Lu Chen:

"Little Skeleton, I can use the Heaven and Earth Reversal Formation, but I need fifteen minutes!"

Lu Chen suddenly leapt onto the altar, his true bone form fully revealed, his body covered in strange bronze patterns.

He surveyed everything around him.

He was incredibly familiar with this arrangement.

Xu Fu!

It seemed Xu Fu had kept a trick up his sleeve back then.

His philosophy for dealing with the Heavenly Dao was completely different from Lu Chen's.

He hadn't expected that after a hundred thousand years, he'd still have to clean up this old fellow's mess.

"Xu Fu, do you really think I didn't know you tampered with things at Mount Li?"

As Lu Chen spoke, he stabbed the tianwen sword into his chest with a backhand; gold-dust-like blood dripped into the giant cauldron, and the boiling mercury instantly solidified.

The harsh sound of gears jamming echoed through the space, and the incubation pods exploded one after another.

The manager's projection distorted into the likeness of Xu Fu!

"How is this possible! Who are you! You dare to use Imperial Blood to pollute my Mount Li Formation! Aaaaah!"

"You are but a wisp of obsession. I could defeat you a hundred thousand years ago, and I can do so today." Lu Chen pointed his sword to the sky, his Sword Qi stirring the Dragon Qi of the earth veins.

The three thousand pottery figurines knelt in unison, and the phantoms of the twelve golden men turned into streams of light and merged into the tianwen sword.

—Devour!

When everyone returned to the surface, the setting sun was dyeing the glass curtain walls red.

Ignis poked her heat-deformed ID badge, looking depressed.

"What about my internship certificate?"

Shelley yawned, pulled out a fake certificate she had prepared long ago, and said lazily:

"I have a refrigeration expert certification from the Arctic Realm... will this do?"

Finally.

Morning Dew quietly used her "privileges" to fix everyone's attendance records, while Ning Xiwei was tampering with the surveillance footage.

Sun Feifei looked at the collapsed underground space, which seemed like a hexagram. She murmured:

"Great misfortune turning into good luck, but... there seems to be a sliver of life? Strange!"

She shook her head, thinking she was overthinking it.

In the sky at that moment, a blood-red vertical pupil flashed through the clouds and vanished.

In Lu Chen's shirt pocket, the fragment of the bronze door knocker he had brought out was growing hot.

He looked toward the city skyline, where the image of Tianyong City appeared on the glass curtain wall of the newly completed financial center.

Those were ancient images restored by people of later generations.

Tianyong City?

The glory created by the Ancestral Dragon of Huaxia.

In this world, it was already a hundred thousand years ago... By the time they returned to the academy.

Lu Chen immediately told the Old Dean about the situation.

The Old Dean immediately sent a report to the capital.

Within three days.

Everyone in that company, from top to bottom, seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Even their families seemed to have been notified.

Everyone remained tight-lipped.

According to the news Lu Chen knew, those still alive were taken to a secret base for treatment and supervision.

As for those who died, their bodies were all collected and destroyed.

This seemed like the best choice.

Three days later.

When Lu Chen was organizing ancient books in the library.

Ignis suddenly burst through the library doors.

"—Little Skeleton, something's happened!"

"No, I'm in trouble."

"Actually, no...! Anyway, come with me!"

...The day before yesterday.

The Huangpu River reflected the blood-red setting sun.

Tianhai City was beautiful.

Especially this Huangpu River.

Ignis stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the World Financial Center, her Balrog tattoos flowing with a lava-like crimson-gold luster in the twilight.

On page 37 of the investment report in her hand, the construction plans for the "Earth Vein Resonance Power Station" were prominently marked—the crisscrossing underground pipe networks were clearly Balrog Ancestral Runes magnified a hundred thousand times.

"Young Miss, there's an anomaly in Unit 3." The secretary's projection suddenly popped up. In the surveillance footage, construction workers were kneeling and bowing to bronze vessels emerging from a crack in the ground.

Ignis's pupils constricted, her haute couture skirt rustling sharply in the breeze!

"Get me a helicopter!"

Back to the present.

Night.

The neon sea of Lujiazui distorted, and Shelley's ice crystal drone swarm formed a hexagram array over the river.

The portable low-temperature meter in her hand showed that the water temperature in the center of the river was dropping at a rate of 0.3°C per second.

"31°14' N, 121°29' E." Shelley's ice staff tapped open a holographic map. "—It's right here."

Morning Dew stood to the side, urging Holy Light to penetrate thirty meters deep into the water. The oldest Bible in her hand automatically flipped to the Book of Revelation.

Black blood seeped from the ancient book in her hand. She looked at Shelley with concern and said:

"Something at the bottom of the river is echoing the pollution sent down by the Heavenly Dao!"