Chapter 122: Scripture Lecture
Chapter 122: Scripture Lecture
“What exactly are you looking for?”
“Empire secret, no comment!”
“What does that thing look like?”
“Empire secret, no comment.”
“How are we supposed to find it if we don’t even know what it looks like?” Suppressing the urge to curse aloud, Li Yi said through gritted teeth.
“You’ll know it when you find it,” Tao Hua said dismissively, speaking with an air of confidence.
Tao Hua was the name of the girl in red.
Li Yi was gradually realizing that this Tao Hua was a bit of a blockhead. She was simple-minded, rigid, and stubborn, always acting with an official, business-like manner. She wasn’t particularly annoying, but she was hard to like.
Along the journey, she was in charge of tracking the Barbarian’s trail. Li Yi and Zhangsun Shenji took turns searching with their mental energy, and they worked together seamlessly.
Occasionally, Undead Creatures appeared, but they were all swiftly defeated by the girl’s “Twin Black Lotuses.”
What puzzled them was that they hadn’t encountered a single magical beast along the way.
It was as if all the magical beasts in the entire Soul-Return Marsh had vanished overnight.
Buzz!
Tao Hua reversed her grip on her long blades. Her paired blades seemed poised to leave their sheaths yet didn’t. A clear humming sound accompanied the rhythmic ebb and flow of her aura, rising and falling like the tide.
Just as Mages practiced Magic Gestures, warriors had their own methods for tempering their combat techniques.
It was Zhangsun Shenji’s turn to search. Feeling bored, Li Yi watched Tao Hua’s repeated drawing and sheathing of her blades, gaining some faint insights.
“Tao Hua, how about teaching me a couple of moves?” A glint of morning light shone in his eyes as Li Yi stared intently at the blades, testing the waters. “Surely that’s not an Empire secret, right?”
With the foundational training from “Mammoth Shakes the Mountain” and “Siren Splits the Tide,” he believed his comprehension for combat techniques was definitely exceptional.
“Oh? Teach you a couple of moves?” Tao Hua wore a faint, ambiguous smile. “What do you want to learn? ‘Dark Bubble’ or ‘Fleeting Splendor’?”
Dark Bubble? Fleeting Splendor?
A flicker passed through Li Yi’s eyes. Based on the names alone, he could vaguely deduce that Dark Bubble was a kind of evasive movement technique, like a bubble bursting, while Fleeting Splendor was that astounding, single slash.
“I want to learn both!” Li Yi didn’t hold back, making a bold request.
“Quite the appetite!” Tao Hua’s eyes turned sharp. She tightened her grip, and a phoenix-like cry sounded as cold light flashed. Her blades were suddenly drawn and then immediately sheathed again. “Tell me, how many times did I pause mid-draw just now?”
“Seven times! Four with the left, three with the right!” A cold gleam flashed in Li Yi’s eyes as he stated with certainty.
“Not bad…” Tao Hua was slightly taken aback. She flicked a wooden stick towards Li Yi with her right foot. “Copy the movement I just made with my right hand!”
Gripping the stick in reverse, Li Yi extended his right arm as if drawing a blade. The stick trembled slightly as he performed a drawing motion.
Swish!
He swept the stick across. A deep force reverberated back and forth, stirring up three layers of gusting wind.
Although there was no Battle Aura, the form was already seventy to eighty percent similar.
“Huh?” The girl was stunned again, looking at him as if he were a monster. When she had practiced this technique, it had taken her a full three days. “Li Yi, would you be willing to become an Imperial Forest Shadow Guard?”
“Imperial Forest Shadow Guard?” Li Yi refused without hesitation, firmly. “No, I wouldn’t.”
He had no desire to become an assassin who walked in the darkness.
“What a pity,” the girl shrugged. “The ‘Thirteen Dark Forms’ of the Shadow Pavilion cannot be passed on to anyone outside the Imperial Forest Shadow Guard.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Li Yi tossed the stick aside with a soft snort.
Even as he said that, using his Dawnlight Eyes, he could still glean quite a bit of insight. He naturally wouldn’t admit it, though.
…
“We can’t go any further!” Zhangsun Shenji said suddenly, his expression grave.
“What’s wrong?” Tao Hua frowned.
“Ahead… there are magical beasts!” Zhangsun Shenji lowered his voice, keeping it brief.
“What kind of magical beasts?” Tao Hua pressed.
“Weren’t you wondering where all the magical beasts in the Soul-Return Marsh have gone?” Zhangsun Shenji’s face was bitter, his voice low. “I think… they’re all ahead. All of them.”
“The entire Soul-Return Marsh?” Li Yi’s eyes widened in shock and disbelief. “How is that possible?”
“My Gold-Thread Lotus would never lie,” Zhangsun Shenji shook his head with a wry smile.
“The mission comes first. We proceed!” Tao Hua rested her chin on her hand, thought for a moment, and made a decision so reckless it stunned the other two.
“Are you crazy?” Zhangsun Shenji was first stunned, then sneered. “You go ahead if you want. I don’t want to die here.”
“He’s right. The Soul-Return Marsh is huge. We can easily go around,” Li Yi also tried to persuade her. “That Barbarian isn’t a fool. Why would he head towards a gathering of magical beasts?”
“On the contrary!” A flash of insight shone in Tao Hua’s eyes as she said calmly, “That thing is extremely precious! Unless something unexpected happened, that Barbarian would never abandon it. And if that unexpected event isn’t related to you two, then there’s only one possibility… Besides, you said there are many magical beasts. Our auras are weak. Mixed among them, we should be fine.”
“You could talk until the sky falls, but I won’t entrust my life to the word ‘should’.” Zhangsun Shenji looked annoyed and simply plopped down on the ground in protest.
“I’m not good at reasoning,” Tao Hua patted her twin blades, her gaze turning unfriendly. “Don’t force them to reason for me…”
Li Yi and Zhangsun Shenji looked at each other, seeing the shared frustration in each other’s eyes.
…
The oppressive pressure boiled, savage and intense, like dark clouds pressing down from above!
The ferociously surging aura of the magical beasts was a sickly green color, vast like the sea and tide, blotting out the sky and sun, coalescing into something akin to a Domain. The pressure was mountain-heavy.
Morning light swirled within his pupils. Li Yi gazed into the distance. Moments later, his body gave a slight tremble.
“This is…”
As far as his eyes could see, tens of thousands of shadowy figures crouched and huddled, densely packed and arranged in rows. The sight was utterly terrifying!
Even more bizarre was that this immense horde of magical beasts wasn’t fighting or killing each other. Their positions and seating, if one could call it that, actually followed a pattern. The stronger ones were inside, the weaker ones outside, all orderly arranged.
“A gathering of elites? A magical beast conference?”
Li Yi clicked his tongue inwardly, withdrew his gaze, and described the scene to the other two.
Hearing this, Tao Hua’s expression turned ugly.
Even though the mission was her priority, she wasn’t an idiot. She understood the danger of going deeper.
“Hmm?” Zhangsun Shenji’s eyes changed abruptly.
Suddenly, a brilliant white light shot through the sky, changing the color of heaven and earth!
Within the radiant light, the mist receded, the Domain crumbled, and a figure as majestic as a towering mountain floated upward.
Within a few breaths, a gigantic vertical pupil stretched across the sky and earth. An aura of destruction undulated from it, vast and surging like a tide, imposing like a Monarch’s Descent upon the world!
The many magical beasts also revealed themselves one by one. They were all marsh monsters: frenzied pythons, venomous frogs, giant insects, weird rats—a bizarre and fantastical assortment.
The most eye-catching were the four giant beasts at the very center.
The four giant beasts were respectively: a Red-Back Centipede coiled like a dragon, a yellow leech the size of a giant elephant, a black-water manticore wreathed in poisonous miasma, and a Death Knight shrouded in vengeful spirits.
These four giant beasts were all minor lords of Level Five magical beasts, yet they all prostrated themselves in worship towards the central eye, showing boundless reverence.
This scene was utterly bizarre!
“A Transcendent Behemoth—an Evil Eye!” Zhangsun Shenji’s teeth began to chatter slightly.
“Evil Eye? That’s also a Transcendent Behemoth?” Li Yi’s expression shifted slightly.
There was no strict quantification for Transcendent Behemoths.
If an Apocalyptic Colossal Beast appeared within a species, it proved that species possessed the potential to ascend to the heavens. That species could then be called a Transcendent Behemoth. For example, Feixue’s species—the “Blood-Shedding Manticore”—as well as the Five-Colored Dragons, Metallic Dragons, and others, all belonged to Transcendent Behemoths.
But as far as Li Yi knew, Evil Eyes mostly only reached Level Five or Six. They weren’t a species with exceptionally superior bloodlines.
“Although Evil Eyes aren’t a powerful species, a very few among them can awaken the ‘World-Piercing Eye,’ comprehend Conceptual Realm Rules, break through the shackles of their species, and evolve into an Evil Eye Tyrant! In ancient times, there was a titled colossal beast named ‘Shadow-Extinguisher’ with formidable lethality. Legends say it could even erase shadows. It was an Evil Eye Tyrant at the Heaven’s Revelation realm!”
Zhangsun Shenji noticed Li Yi’s confusion and explained in a low voice.
“The old Seventh Level monster in the Soul-Return Marsh is most likely this one! This Evil Eye… perhaps is on the path towards becoming an Evil Eye Tyrant…”
Hearing this, Li Yi swallowed hard, feeling almost rooted to the spot.
The Evil Eye dominated the sky and earth. A wisp of purple light, like ripples on water, drifted from its pupil, spreading outwards.
Strands of purple light, large and small, fell impartially upon the body of every single magical beast, like dew sharing itself with the clouds.
Upon contact with the light, all the magical beasts took on an intoxicated, entranced appearance. Even the grim-faced Death Knight revealed a smile that sent chills down one’s spine.
“What… is this?” Li Yi couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“I know what’s happening now…” Zhangsun Shenji, seeing clues, spoke softly.
“What?” Li Yi and Tao Hua asked simultaneously.
“—A Colossal Beast Scripture Lecture!”