Ch. 280 - Grand Emperor's Imperial Palace

The Black Emperor was visibly uneasy, hesitant to move forward. It worried that someone might want to use the Grand Emperor’s corpse as proof of their claim.

Ye Fan shook his head and said: “Impossible. There can’t be some so-called Corpse Emperor in there. You can hear the battle raging inside, if such an existence truly appeared, even if every cultivator in the Eastern Wilderness came together, they’d all be wiped out, body and soul!”

This grand complex was built with sacred golden wood, crystalline and radiant, glowing with golden brilliance, transparent like crystal, both real and illusory.

They climbed the steps. The jade stairs beneath their feet overflowed with auspicious light. There was no trace of deathly aura, only the fragrance of flowers. The towers were surrounded by blossoms and greenery.

Entering the first sleeping hall, they were immediately met with a surge of rich spiritual energy. Everything shimmered with light, dazzling and brilliant. Every object inside was carved from spirit jade.

“Split up. Don’t draw too much attention,” Ye Fan said, leading the way.

The Black Emperor shrank its body down to just over a foot long, like a spirit cat. Padding silently, it moved stealthily into the shadows.

In the first palace, the ground was covered in blood. Many cultivators had died violently, their corpses nearly pulped. In addition, several ghostly soldiers, no, ghostly generals, had fallen here.

Though slain, they still looked lifelike. On their backs sprouted a pair of black wings, each more than two meters long. When tapped with a finger, they rang out like metal, unyielding and indestructible.

Despite the seemingly peaceful atmosphere, with such things guarding the place, it was clearly no benevolent land.

Ye Fan hesitated briefly, then pressed on.

The second palace shocked him, blood ran so deep it would have submerged his ankles. Alongside countless corpses of cultivators lay the body of a massive snake.

The great serpent lay dead, its blood flooding the entire hall, reeking and foul.

“The yin energy actually manifested such terrifying flesh… but in the end, it was still slain.” The Black Emperor, standing afar, clicked its tongue in astonishment.

Ye Fan found the cut marks, made by the Desolate Saint’s weapon. Once again, it was the work of the Leviathan Monarch. Truly, this future monarch of the demon race was formidable.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Within the quiet hall, only Ye Fan’s own footsteps echoed. Entering the third palace, a burst of silver light rushed at him, accompanied by a vicious gust of wind.

Startled, he quickly formed a seal and struck.

Clang!

A loud sound rang out as the creature was knocked back.

It was a Yaksha, its body radiating silver light. With a hideous face and a pair of powerful silver wings, it let out a deep roar and lunged at him again.

Ye Fan had never seen such a thing before. Legends claimed these beings had at least the power of the Four Pillars Realm, extremely strong and difficult to deal with.

Yet he felt no fear. Though terrifying, this silver-winged Yaksha was already near death, half of its body smashed, its strength mostly gone.

He raised his golden palm like a divine seal overturning the heavens, and brought it down fiercely.

Bang!

The Yaksha was crushed to pieces.

All across this hall, over a dozen silver-winged Yaksha corpses lay scattered, the equivalent of more than a dozen cultivators at the Four Pillars Realm. Yet the disciples of the sacred grounds had slaughtered them all.

This showed just how powerful the younger generation of the sacred grounds truly was.

But the human cultivators had also suffered. Corpses lay among the Yaksha, the scarlet blood outnumbering the silver ichor. The floor ran red.

Soon after, Ye Fan entered the fourth hall, where human corpses were even more numerous, piled everywhere, blood soaking the ground.

Among them were six very unusual bodies, not human, but six Daoist cultivators. All skin and bone, dressed in Daoist robes.

Their shriveled golden flesh clung tightly to bone. Tiny feathers sprouted from their skin, hard and metallic, ringing when touched. Their bodies weighed like ten thousand catties.

These were not manifestations of yin energy, they were real cultivators who had died sitting in meditation, later refined into corpses inhabited by ghostly spirits. Such things possessed unbelievable combat power, surpassing even the Four Pillars Realm.

“All six Daoists were killed, their golden bodies broken… These heirs of the sacred grounds are terrifying indeed.”

Ye Fan was surprised, but not shocked. With geniuses like Ji Haoyue and the God-King Physique of the Jiang Clan, once their Celestial Phenomena manifested, they could battle across realms, capable of slaying even ancient cultivators, let alone six corpse-refined Daoists.

“This tomb is truly extraordinary.... I’m starting to worry, could some fool actually be trying to prove emperorship through corpses?” the Black Emperor muttered to itself.

The fifth palace was littered with even more corpses, leaving no place to set foot. The ground was a slurry of blood and mud, with occasional white fragments of bone splattering against the jade walls.

“What happened here? Could it be everyone perished in this place?” Ye Fan felt a chill in his heart.

Suddenly, he sensed lingering traces of a Supreme Daoforce. From the blood and mud, he uncovered three particular fragments of bone, glowing with jade-like brilliance.

The Black Emperor was stunned.

“Three Jade-Bone Corpse Kings! In life, they were surely Supreme Giants. After death, their bodies were refined and inhabited by spirits. Though not on par with their former selves, they’d still be terrifying.”

“Even the corpses of Supreme Giants… someone actually managed to find them?” Ye Fan was shaken.

It was clear that Yan Ruyu had acted, smashing the three Jade-Bone Corpse Kings with her imperial weapon. Traces of its might still lingered faintly in the air.

Ye Fan listened carefully. After a while, the sounds of fierce battle echoed again, far away.

He didn’t linger, heading toward the sixth palace. The distance was immense, several miles long.

Ahead, only one final radiant hall remained, glowing brightly in the underground darkness.

The earth itself had been hollowed out. The sixth palace floated in the abyss, vast and ethereal, as though suspended in the void.

“The last hall… all secrets lie within!” Ye Fan’s heart raced. Perhaps the Nine Secrets were there, perhaps something else, but certainly something extraordinary. He hurried forward.

In the shadows, the Black Emperor moved like a cat, graceful and quiet, following close behind.

Upon reaching the final palace, Ye Fan immediately felt the oppressive might of a Grand Emperor’s weapon, so terrifying it made him tremble.

“An imperial weapon…” The Black Emperor’s eyes gleamed, itching to seize it.

Within the radiant hall, a battle raged. Even such an ultimate weapon was being used, proof of how powerful the opponent must be.

Ye Fan and the Black Emperor did not rush in. They waited at a distance.

The entire underground world quaked violently, but the sixth palace remained dazzling and unmoved, upheld by extraordinary Dao Runes.

Above its entrance hung a plaque with four bold characters: The Light God Temple.

Boom!

The earth trembled, shockwaves erupting from within, but the Light God Temple stood firm, indestructible.

“This place looks familiar…” The Black Emperor frowned, uncertain.

At that moment, Ye Fan suddenly froze. The jade towers had indeed ended, but deeper in the darkness stood three colossal coffins.

His heart shook. The smallest coffin was the size of a palace, while the other two loomed even larger, towering in the shadows.

“Six halls, three coffins… Together they form nine. The ancients revered this number,” Ye Fan whispered.

Suddenly, the Light God Temple shuddered violently, then fell silent. The oppressive aura of the imperial weapon dissipated, calm returning.

“Is it over?” Ye Fan prepared to act.

But then chaos erupted inside the hall, voices raised in argument.

“So it’s finished after all… Forget the coffins, let’s see what’s inside first!” Ye Fan dashed forward.

As he neared, the Black Emperor trembled, disbelief written across its face.

“It’s… it’s that place!”

“What do you mean?” Ye Fan stopped abruptly and looked back.

“This isn’t the Light God Temple at all, it’s the Imperial Sleeping Palace of a Grand Emperor! Some bastard dragged it here and slapped on a fake name!” The black dog cursed under its breath.

“What?!” Ye Fan’s heart pounded. No matter how much he pressed, the Black Emperor refused to explain further, answering only with silence.

With no choice, Ye Fan strode into the Imperial Sleeping Palace.

The grand hall was vast and resplendent, still reverberating with the lingering aura of an imperial weapon. Cultivators inside had nearly turned on each other, ready to fight.

At the center floated a black divine platform, emanating multicolored radiance that cascaded downward mysteriously.

Atop it lay a beast-skin scroll, plain in appearance yet enough to drive everyone mad with desire.

Everyone wanted it, certain it might be one of the Nine Secrets.

The scions of all great sects were here, Grand Ascension, Primordial Beginning, the Jiang Clan, Purple Mansion, Absolute Dao, the Ji Clan, Radiant Light, all unharmed.

Ji Haoyue, the Radiant Light Saint, Yao Xi, the Jiang Clan’s God-King Physique, the Jade Pool Saintess, and others all stood on edge, ready to seize the beast-skin scroll.

Only one important figure was missing, Yan Ruyu. How could someone wielding a Paragon Artifact simply vanish?

“There she is…”

He spotted an ancient pagoda within the hall. At first he thought it was mere decoration, but now he realized it was a dreadful weapon.

The translucent tower revealed Yan Ruyu inside, suppressed on its fifth level, her imperial weapon flaring as she struggled violently.

The tower had seven levels. On the highest sat a shadowy figure, blurred and indistinct, clearly the one controlling it, using sheer strength to suppress the princess of the Demon Race, despite her imperial weapon.

Ye Fan drew a sharp breath. This person was unfathomably strong. The pagoda itself was not on par with an imperial weapon, yet by relying on his own might, he had sealed Yan Ruyu. This was the guardian of the sixth hall!

Ye Fan felt a chill. None of the other sacred heirs intervened, they all had their own agendas, letting Yan Ruyu clash with the mysterious powerhouse while they waited.

The black divine platform in the center continued to radiate auspicious light, the beast-skin scroll hanging upon it. None dared make the first move.

“What is that black stone platform? How can it float on its own?” Ye Fan sent his voice by divine sense.

The Black Emperor was trembling with excitement.

“That’s no ordinary object, it’s a treasure… a Chaos Stone! It was once the bed where a Grand Emperor slept!”

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