Chapter 408 - Gods of the Bai Zhe Clan
Zhong Yue's vision then changed again, and the palace and Shao Hao Bell disappeared. He returned to the sea of icy fire, and the Bai Zhe Clan clan masters that were frozen in ice reappeared in his sights.
Dang——
Suddenly, a vast and powerful energy seeped through the dimensions and surged into the Shao Hao Bell that Zhong Yue visualized.
The visualized Shao Hao Bell was a replica of the Shao Hao Bell itself, and thus, it was just like part of the Shao Hao Bell's body. The legendary divine weapon used Zhong Yue as a conduit to transfer its power into the Shao Hao Bell that Zhong Yue visualized.
It was all because the visualized art was based on the Shao Hao Bell, or else, even such a strong divine weapon like it wouldn't be able to transfer any of its power over.
The energy was vast and mighty, tens of thousands of time stronger than Zhong Yue's own visualized Shao Hao Bell. Sensing the incoming energy, Zhong Yue heaved a breath of relief. He now had the confidence to traverse through this sea of ice flame!
“Have you seen that little fatty?”
In Zhong Yue's psyche ocean, Xin Huo asked, "How is it, did the little fatty say anything? Did he mention my name to you?"
Zhong Yue nodded, and an ambiguous expression crossed his face. He said, "Your name really helped me a lot. Oh, Xin Huo, have you borrowed Shao Hao Bell's powers before?"
Xin Huo then laughingly, "Of course I have, more times than I can count! Remember the last time I helped you fight against Sha Qishan and the Xia Clans? I borrowed its power back then. However, he and I are life-long friends, so I don't have to notify him whenever I need his powers!"
"Well, about that … I think it's better to ask first before you do it the next time." Zhong Yue winked his eyes and advised.
“No need for that, doing so will only pull our friendship further apart!” The little flame, however, did not listen at all.
Zhong Yue turned speechless and ignored the proud little flame. He cast the skill and cover Bai Shuyue with the Shao Hao Bell as well. The two then walked into the sea of ice flame. Immediately as they stepped foot in the sea of ice flame, the many totem patterns pulled the ice flame together and rained attacks down on the two intruders.
The translucent bell was taking hundreds of attacks every second. It slowly revolved while fending off the incoming attacks.
The bell itself was over 60 feet tall, and its unassuming and translucent appearance made it seem like it was unable to block anything at all. But that wasn't true at all, every single strike from the ice flames would just be blocked right outside of the Shao Hao Bell, Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue did not even feel a single breeze inside of the Shao Hao Bell at all.
However, Bai Shuyue's heart was thumping, even though they were left unscathed inside of the visualized bell, what if the bell were to suddenly be crushed by the attacks somewhere in the middle of the sea of ice flame?
Out there, those frozen Bai Zhe beasts could only reach this stage because they were the strongest Bai Zhe of their time, they were the clan masters, and their strengths were beyond doubt.
But Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue were merely two Inner Core Qi Practitioners. Although they were on the brink of breaking through to Heavenly Dharma, they still weren't able to survive the ice flames!
Right now, the bell surface would ripple like water when an attack landed on it, the ripples on the bell surface were growing in number, and looking out from the inside of the bell, it felt like the bell was a curved river and the attacks were raindrops.
The attack rate was steadily increasing as they walked further into the flame sea. Bai Shuyue was incredibly terrified, but to her surprise, no matter how many strikes landed on the bell, it remained unscathed through all of it!
Gosh, is this really a skill?
Her little brain went blank. It was hard to imagine that this was a skill of an Inner Core Qi Practitioner, being able to fend down the attacks that could even kill the Imminent Deity Qi Practitioners!
There shouldn't be such a heaven-defying skill in this world!
Bai Shuyue calmed herself and thought, Senior Martial Brother Zhong must have some other means to enhance this bell skill, there is no other explanation for this!
She was, after all, a young lady with high intelligence, it didn't take long for her to deduce it, but even so, she could never begin to fathom what was actually augmenting that skill!
One must say that even Zhong Yue himself was worried at first, but once the Shao Hao Bell blocked all of the attacks, he relaxed and laid back.
The two of them continued like this for a few hundred miles before suddenly, Zhong Yue sensed a very faint divine aura. Although it was weak and faint, it was still very distinct in his senses.
Such a godly aura was a far cry from the aura emitted from divine weapons. This was from a god!
How weird, are there still gods in the ice palace?
Zhong Yue was puzzled, Just how strong are the gods, the demon god in Eight Barren managed to clamp me in the air just with his arcane energy. He didn't even need to be present at the time or use any other medium. If there really is a god in this ice palace, who can it be?
Soon, Bai Shuyue also sensed it and became as curious as Zhong Yue. As they walked further in, the godly aura kept getting stronger.
They had traveled for another hundred miles, and the godly aura was so powerful as if a god were standing right in front of them!
While around them, the ice flames were still continuously striking, countless ripples were raised on the bell surface as the attacks continued landing on it!
Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue then suddenly stared at the front, and in the midst of the ice flames, there was the faint figure of a giant man.
The ice flames around were huge and were shaped like shards. They pierced through the god and pinned him to the ground.
"Our Bai Zhe Clan god!"
Bai Shuyue shouted in shock, "He is the Bai Zhe Clan's god! Senior Martial Brother Zhong, do you remember that I said I've felt a god's aura? That godly aura belonged to him!"
Zhong Yue nodded heavily, they walked past the Bai Zhe Clan god and stopped beneath him. Zhong Yue lifted his head up and looked at the magnificent god frozen in the ice flames.
Everything that came into visions was colored white. The god's clothes were white, his brows were white, and they were so long that they touched the floor. His mustache and beard also covered half of his face, and his hair was even whiter than the clothes he wore.
In his hands was a divine weapon — a scepter made of an alabaster wood which he used as a cane up to this point before being frozen to death in the end.
Bai Shuyue was dead quiet, she was staring at this god of the Bai Zhe Clan, and she mumbled bitterly, "Why are the seals so strong, why did Lord Bai leave behind such powerful sealing array formation … did he not want his descendants to obtain his heritage…"
Even a god died here. It wasn't hard to infer that Lord Bai never even thought of leaving his heritage behind for his descendants. The whole ice palace he left behind was a dead end!
Zhong Yue then shook his head and responded, "I don't quite agree with you. With all these arrangements, it seems like Lord Bai was trying to seal something instead of leaving his heritage behind. He just didn't want the Bai Zhe Clan to vanish and is trying to save his people."
Bai Shuyue was bewildered, and she asked, "What do you mean?"
"I'm saying that Lord Bai must have found something dangerous that can erase the whole Bai Zhe Clan from existence. Thus, he built this ice palace and placed down various seals with his divine weapons. But something must have happened that caused him to die before being able to notify the Bai Zhe Clan of his intentions."
Zhong Yue continued, "As such, all of you have thought that the ice palace contained the greatest heritage of the Bai Zhe Clan left behind by Lord Bai. You all tried with all your might to get past the seals. But little did you guys know that doing so was simply going against his will."
Bai Shuyue kept quiet and answered, "I asked Senior Martial Brother Zhong to come with me with a promise of the Bai Zhe Clan's greatest heritage, but now, it turns out that it was just hot air on my part. I hope Senior Martial Brother Zhong's can forgive me. There is really nothing much that Shuyue can offer senior martial brother at this point, but if senior martial brother has any difficulties in the future, please let me know, and Shuyue will help at all cost."
"You can ask her to repay with you with her body!" The little flame hopped around in Zhong Yue's psyche ocean and urged.
Zhong Yue ignored him and replied with a smile, "The Luminant Sun Gold is already a greater harvest than I could've hoped for. Senior Martial Sister Shuyue, let us continue forward, I believe we can find out exactly what Lord Bai wanted sealed in here."
Bai Shuyue nodded softly, and the two continued moving forward. Not long later, another surge of godly aura came into their sense, and the two youngsters' faces stiffened up again. Soon, they came across a second god of the Bai Zhe Clan that was frozen in ice!
After another few moments, they saw the third god.
They continued moving forward and saw the fourth god, Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue was stunned. Their bodies shuddered in shock, and Bai Shuyue shouted, "This god, it is not from our Bai Zhe Clan!"
Zhong Yue stared vacantly at the frozen god and raised his brows, and he mumbled, "The insect race!"
Before them, an enormously huge, dreadful looking golden insect was frozen in ice and pinned down to the ground by the ice flame shards. This golden insect had the body of an insect and a torso of the demon race. It was huge, and many thick totem patterns were wrapped around it, but they were also frozen by the ice flames!
Bai Shuyue's body shuddered in fear, and she mumbled, "Insect race? Why is it here, how did it slip into the Bai Zhe Clan saint city and enter the ice palace…."
Zhong Yue scrutinized the golden insect god and abruptly said, “I don’t think he came from the outside, but more like he was trying to get out of this ice palace.”
A flash of fear flashed across Bai Shuyue's eyes, and she quickly looked at the golden insect. It was true; the golden insect was walking in the opposite direction. They were trying to go deeper, whereas the golden insect was trying to walk away from the palace!
“From now on, the truth will slowly unveil itself.”
Zhong Yue strode forward, and Bai Shuyue quickly followed. They walked for another few miles and saw another frozen insect god.
Then the third, fourth, fifth…
Along the way, they saw many insect gods frozen in this sea of ice flames, more than twenty in just a few hundred miles of distance!
Finally, the two of them trekked past the sea of ice flame, and they looked back and unsurprisingly found the sea of ice flame disappearing with only a towering ice tower remaining at that spot.
“This…”
Zhong Yue and Bai Shuyue looked forward. Their bodies then stiffened up, and their eyes widened with fear.
In front of them was an endless battlefield, huge shards of ice were pierced into the ground, scattering across the battlefield like swords falling from the sky. Millions of ice sculptures appeared in their vision as far as they could see; these were all the dreadful-looking insect race Qi Practitioners!
While in the middle of the battlefield, there were two giant corpses. One was a mother queen of the insect race ... and the other was Lord Bai!