199: A world left behind by civilization!

When she saw the scarlet lettering of Lot 77, 'Blood of Cain,' Nita's blood-suppression device suddenly contracted, digging into her flesh. Lu Chen, however, pushed the iced plasma in front of her. 'This is a sacred relic lost by the vampires two hundred years ago. Who would have thought it would actually be here?'

Through the screen, Lu Chen saw that this item indeed harbored hidden heavenly dao contamination.

He needed to collect all the Divine Artifacts of this world.

Only then could he uncover the answer.

At least, that was what the information on the card given to him by the Faceless Man said.

The liquid crystal lamps in the auction house suddenly extinguished.

When the first lot was brought out by mechanical tentacles, bidding runes lit up simultaneously in all thirty-six private boxes.

That replica of the Spear of Longinus, embedded with a Philosopher's Stone, was, in Lu Chen's eyes, nothing more than a forgery created through special means.

It wasn't until Lot 44—a clay tablet engraved with cuneiform—was brought out that he touched the bidding device for the first time.

'Sumerian King List fragment, starting bid: thirty million dinar gold coins!'

Before Lu Chen's bidding rune could rise, a burst of ancient Carthaginian erupted from Private Box Earth-7. 'In the name of the god Baal, this sacred relic shall belong to the descendants of the Phoenicians!'

Nita saw the bidding light screen crushed by a phantom image, while the magic flowing from Lu Chen's fingertips was locking onto the clay tablet.

Was he going to seize it?

When the bidding soared to five hundred million, a cherry blossom petal drifted down from Private Box Heaven-1.

Also from the East, a Japanese Onmyoji woman wearing a twelve-layered kimono waved a bat-wing fan, and a phantom of a deity suddenly appeared around the clay tablet.

Lu Chen sneered, and his sword box released Sword Qi!

In an instant, a roar erupted in the air from the collision.

Nita saw a phantom of an emperor with double pupils emerge from deep within the clay tablet, which startled her!

Lu Chen noticed her expression and whispered, 'Don't be afraid. Those are all Puppets of the Heavenly Dao. You don't need to know so much; just treat them as enemies.'

'The gentleman in Box 7 bids one billion dinars!' An electronic voice tore through the stalemate.

Lu Chen looked toward the source of the voice and saw an inverted pentagram tattoo faintly visible on the black-robed figure's cuff. The bronze mask the person wore was clearly a replica of the Sanxingdui protruding-eye mask.

Did it flow out from the Eastern Divine Land?

The moment the auction hammer fell, the auction house suddenly shook violently.

Thirty mechanical tentacles thrust toward the clay tablet simultaneously, only to be shredded by a burst of cursive-script Sword Qi just before making contact.

Nita swayed uncontrollably; she quickly steadied herself and acted decisively!

She wanted to help Lu Chen and not be a burden!

Streams of dark red energy traced back along the passage of the private box, only to discover that the black-robed figure had long since dissipated into a stream of magic.

'Stay close.' Lu Chen suddenly wrapped his arm around Nita's waist. The tianwen sword cleaved open a rift in the Void Realm, teleporting them directly to the deepest part of the ruins at the bottom of the river.

In front of a bronze door engraved with the river map and book of luo, a tomb keeper wearing a nano-Taoist robe was inserting a peach wood sword into a quantum keyhole.

'The 65th descendant of Celestial Master Zhang, Zhang Jin, has been waiting for the Lord of the Undead from another world for a long time.'

'You are not from this world either?' Lu Chen put Nita down and asked in a deep voice.

'Heh, interesting. You actually managed to evade the eyes of the Heavenly Dao. How did you do it?'

Hearing this, Lu Chen thought of the item the faceless man had given him.

It must have been that thing.

'The identity of the Lord of the Undead belongs to the Lu Chen of another world. Now, I have a new title, given to me by the people here—Sword Immortal!' Lu Chen said coldly.

Following his response, he threw out a tiger tally covered in green rust.

As the Twenty-Eight Mansions on the bronze door began to rotate, Nita heard the mechanical wolf howls of the Medici Family's private soldiers from behind, and further away, the bat wings of vampire princes were cutting through the water.

Someone had caught up!

The scene behind the bronze door caused Nita's blood-suppression device to completely disintegrate.

Inside a spherical space with a diameter of one kilometer, three hundred and sixty circular jade discs were suspended, each carved with the creation myths of different civilizations.

In the center of the space, thirteen crystal coffins were slowly rotating around a bronze sacred tree—lying in the coffin at the very top was a man with his hair tied up.

'My elder brother, Zhang Xu, fell in the Kunlun Ruins in the ninth year of Chongzhen and came to this world.' Zhang Jin looked at the coffin, the tassel of the peach wood sword in his hand moving without wind. 'These jade discs are the sparks of civilization he collected over two hundred years. This world has actually existed for a very long time. It doesn't matter how you entered; what matters is that this is the preservation site for the last sparks of civilization.'

This person continued, '...Thereafter, a king came from the East, riding on Sword Qi, controlling the stars, and all cities presented bronze sacred trees as gifts...'

Below the coffins, twelve bronze sacred trees of various forms were impressively displayed!

A variation of 'Guanglingsan' suddenly sounded in the ruins.

The Onmyoji wearing the twelve-layered kimono descended, stepping on a shikigami, followed by the Medici Family's mecha wolf cavalry.

The black-robed figure reconstituted their form from a data stream, and the inverted pentagram tattoo surged with the seventy-two pillar demons of Solomon.

'Your Excellency Sword Immortal?' The black-robed figure's Sanxingdui mask cracked open electronic fissures. 'Hand over the things here, and we will allow you to leave with your blood slave.'

Lu Chen's tianwen sword was fully unsheathed for the first time.

As the poetic Sword Qi of 'Bring in the Wine' filled the spherical space, Nita saw all the jade discs simultaneously project creation light and shadows: Greek Titans colliding with Xing Tian's giant axe, the Eye of Horus sinking and floating within the river map and book of luo, and the branches of the bronze sacred trees growing into giant, towering trees!

'Nita,' Lu Chen's voice suddenly pierced through the battle. 'Get to the side!'

The branches of the bronze sacred trees grew silicon-based crystals amidst quantum collapse—what a familiar sight!

Lu Chen was all too familiar with it. Everything, absolutely everything. This trip to the Eternal World had not been in vain!

A storm suddenly arose. In such a vast place, the wind was strong enough to make people unable to stand steady.

When Nita grabbed the fluttering cloud-and-thunder-patterned sleeve of Lu Chen, the Nether Old Demon's mechanical tentacles had already pierced through the chest of a Medici Family private soldier!

This group of people began to fight among themselves; no one was willing to let go of the treasure before them!

'Close your eyes.' Lu Chen's voice pierced her eardrums.

Nita couldn't close them because her Bloodline was boiling—she saw the coffins releasing strange phantoms!

Those were the Eastern Yinglong and the Western God of Thunder fighting!

Lu Chen watched all this and looked at that Celestial Master Zhang. Seeing him just hiding to the side, he felt puzzled.

—Was this group of people really allies? Perhaps they were enemies?

The shikigami of the Onmyoji woman in the twelve-layered kimono crashed into a powerful magic barrier and died instantly! It turned into wisps of fragments.

The black-robed figure's Sanxingdui mask shattered completely, revealing a mechanical skull flashing with the sun calendar runes of the Mayan civilization!

'Your Excellency Sword Immortal, this is not your item. Why bother fighting us for it?'

Lu Chen's tianwen sword split into seventy-two phantoms, each engraved with powerful force.

Without hesitation, he thrust his Flying Sword toward the center of the storm!

The moment the sword tip pierced into the core of the bronze sacred tree, the core suddenly expanded, dragging the entire quantum space into an energy storm.

'Kan is water, Gen is mountain.' Lu Chen used blood as ink to draw runes in the Void Realm; it was precisely the Daoist technique that Sun Feifei was adept at.