Ch. 178 - Primordial Pyramid

This was a vast source mine, so spacious that even with over a thousand people digging inside, it felt empty. Terrified screams echoed through the mine, reverberating far and wide.

The miners fled toward the exit like madmen. Stone bones were scattered everywhere, piled in heaps, hard as rock. People stumbled and fell, trampled in the chaos.

At the deepest part of the mine, a blood-red mist drifted. Anyone who touched it let out a horrific scream, instantly dissolving into a pool of pus and blood, meeting a gruesome end. The cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground sprang into action, deploying weapons or casting forbidden techniques to block the chilling mist.

But neither weapons nor techniques could stop the blood mist. It was fiercely corrosive, melting over a dozen weapons in an instant.

“Ghosts! Save us!”

“It has three eyes, I saw a demon!”

The miners fled for their lives, shouting in terror, gripped by overwhelming fear.

Ye Fan sensed that things were taking a dire turn. The premonitions of the veteran miners were likely coming true. Nimble and quick, he sprinted ahead, reaching the mine’s exit in a few breaths and stopping only when he was safely far away.

The mine was breached. The cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground rushed out in disarray. One middle-aged man, nearly crazed with fear, screamed hysterically, but in the blink of an eye, he dissolved into a pool of pus and blood, collapsing to the ground.

The mine descended into utter chaos, filled with screams and wails. Those who escaped trembled uncontrollably, scrambling and crawling to get as far from the mine as possible.

It wasn’t until half a quarter-hour later that the chaos subsided. Of the nearly thousand miners who had gone down to excavate the stone bones, only three hundred or so made it out alive. The rest perished inside.

The cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground stood grim-faced. In their attempt to contain the blood mist, five of their own had died, including a middle-aged cultivator from the Dao Palace Realm.

Such an incident demanded immediate reporting. A Ghost Mine had emerged, the very scenario they dreaded most.

Soon after, a Supreme Elder from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground, accompanied by seven or eight prominent figures, arrived swiftly to inquire about the situation in the mine.

No one could provide a clear explanation. They could only vaguely describe seeing a motionless ghost.

“All of you, step back,” commanded Supreme Elder Li Yuan. He pointed forward like a sword, unleashing a beam of light that transformed into a massive light sword, slashing downward.

The sound was like thunder, and dust and sand flew everywhere. The massive mine was sliced open, revealing a dark, eerie, and foreboding abyss.

Supreme Elder Li Yuan continued to move his fingers, and the sword of light, dozens of meters long, struck repeatedly, fully exposing the mine to the open air. All the earth and stone were transported hundreds of meters away, creating a massive pit. Many stone bones were extracted by Li Yuan and placed nearby.

Ye Fan watched from the side, his heart filled with shock. The vast number of bones had all fossilized. Upon closer inspection, it was clear they weren’t human. Though some belonged to humanoid creatures, they were distinctly different from humans. Supreme Elder Li Yuan continued his work, using the great sword to carve open the source mine and extracting all the stone bones with his techniques. Soon, a mountain of stone bones, numbering over ten thousand, piled up on the reddish-brown earth.

Strands of blood mist rose, and when Li Yuan’s light sword touched it, it sizzled and dissolved. He swung his sleeve, dispersing the blood mist into the sky. It took a long time for the area to calm. Then, he cast a secret technique, forming a large hand of green light that probed deep into the mine. The earth trembled as the hand pulled up all the soil and stone from the mine’s depths, placing them on the surface.

“Demon!”

“It’s that demon!”

Among the unearthed reddish soil and stone were several pieces of source stone, each as large as a washbasin, an extremely rare and valuable find, marking this as a rich mine. Shockingly, each piece of source stone contained something impure.

The first two pieces sealed bright red liquid, clearly blood. Earlier, one of these source stones had cracked, and the leaking blood had caused the tragic deaths.

“How powerful must this creature have been? Its blood, turned to mist, can kill a Dao Palace Realm cultivator…” The prominent figures from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground were shaken. Even Supreme Elder Li Yuan frowned.

The third piece of source stone contained a crystalline finger, beautiful and delicate, as white and tender as a fresh scallion. Though it was a severed finger, it exuded an extraordinary vitality, brimming with potent energy.

The fourth piece was the most shocking. It contained half a head, its face covered in fine scales, with a vertical eye on its forehead and thick black hair. The head had been cleaved diagonally in two.

“These must be from two different creatures. The delicate finger and this half-head clearly don’t belong to the same body,” the prominent figures remarked, astonished.

“These four source stones are too important. I must personally escort them back to the Sacred Ground,” said Supreme Elder Li Yuan, his expression grave.

Though not the legendary godsource stones, their contents made them invaluable and irreplaceable. He sealed the four source stones and, with a sweep of his sleeve, stored them away. Then, he closely examined the unearthed soil and stone.

Among the debris were two fragmented stone skeletons, one slender, the other robust, belonging to two distinct creatures. Though humanoid, they were not human. The slender one had six arms, while the robust one bore a pair of bone wings.

Ye Fan, watching from a distance, was astounded. What kind of powerful creatures were these, and why were they nowhere to be seen now?

Rumble!

Suddenly, the open mine collapsed, and everyone was startled. The bottom of the mine sank, revealing a pitch-black abyss. The burial pit-like mine had an even deeper, bottomless chasm beneath it! It wasn’t created by their digging but had existed long before, now exposed. A bone-chilling aura surged upward, making everyone shudder. Even Supreme Elder Li Yuan couldn’t remain calm.

“This place is no ordinary site,” he said.

He ordered everyone to retreat and personally acted, extending his divine sense to probe the area. After a thorough inspection, he unleashed his supreme forbidden technique.

Boom!

The earth shook, and the reddish-brown ground cracked. Using the Radiant Light Sacred Scripture, he caused the mine to rise, akin to moving mountains and filling seas. Soil and stone flew, and the earth split as the mine ascended, with much of the debris cast far away.

The Supreme Elder’s technique caused the ground within a several-mile radius to tremble violently. The deep pit beneath the burial site was no longer sunken, slowly rising to the surface.

“Heavens… what is that?” As the reddish earth quaked, an increasingly eerie and oppressive aura emerged, accompanied by a cold metallic sheen.

“A massive iron block!” As the soil shifted and the pit leveled with the ground, it became fully visible.

This was no small structure. The ground was paved with solid stone, perfectly flat, spanning several miles. At its edges stood massive stone pillars reaching into the sky. At the center of the stone platform stood a pyramid cast from metal, over a hundred meters tall, gleaming with a bluish hue, free of any rust. Ye Fan was stunned. What was this? The pyramid was engraved with sun, moon, and stars, shimmering with light.

This massive pyramid, forged from an unknown metal, was at least from the Primordial Era, possibly even older, yet time had not eroded it. Supreme Elder Li Yuan frowned, then swung his sleeve, attempting to store the pyramid.

To his shock, though he could shake it, he couldn’t take it into his sleeve. A faint mist swirled around it, resisting his efforts. “Something’s strange!”

Li Yuan approached, channeling godpower to scan the pyramid. The sun, moon, and stars on its surface lit up, and with a flash of light, he was pulled inside.

The prominent figures from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground gasped, their faces filled with worry.

Boom!

The azure pyramid trembled, exuding a suffocating pressure that caused many mortals to collapse to the ground. Moments later, the pyramid’s celestial engravings glowed brilliantly. Li Yuan stumbled out, pale-faced, blood trickling from his mouth, staggering backward.

“Retreat! Everyone, stay back! Don’t approach this place!” he shouted, his body swaying.

Ye Fan was shocked. What was so strange about this pyramid that even a Supreme Elder of the Radiant Light Sacred Ground suffered a loss?

“This place is of great importance. Seal off all information about it. I’m returning to the Sacred Ground immediately. No one is to approach this area,” Li Yuan solemnly instructed before hurriedly departing to cross the void.

The Fifteenth Mining Zone became a restricted zone, with no entry or exit allowed. Ye Fan frowned. This place was ominous, and he didn’t want to stay, but he had no way to leave. On the fourth day after Li Yuan’s departure, the Radiant Light Saintess arrived, bringing news that the Sacred Lord would soon come in person.

Ye Fan’s lips twitched as he cursed his luck. Yao Xi was here, and if she recognized him, she’d likely skin him alive. From a distance, he saw Yao Xi, as stunning as ever, her immortal beauty radiant like a pearl, her jade-like body glowing, breathtakingly beautiful. The thousands of mortals who saw her thought an immortal had descended, many feeling awestruck and then ashamed of their own inferiority.

Hidden among the crowd, Ye Fan wasn’t worried about being spotted. He smirked inwardly, after all, he still had her panties tucked away. If that secret got out, it would shake the major sacred grounds.

“Not a word of this must leak. The Fifteenth Mining Zone is completely sealed. No one is allowed in or out,” Yao Xi’s voice, like heavenly music, echoed through the air.

But then, she suddenly stopped speaking, her expression stunned, as if in disbelief.

Ye Fan’s heart stirred. Had she noticed him? That seemed unlikely.

At that moment, the other cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground also exclaimed, “You… who are you? How did you get in?!”

Ye Fan turned to look at the pyramid. A faint azure light glowed, and before the metal structure stood an old woman, unnoticed until now. She had appeared silently, as if materializing out of thin air, circling the pyramid and muttering to herself.

The Fifteenth Mining Zone was a vast, open expanse of reddish-brown earth. Any intruder would have been spotted immediately. Yet, no one had sensed her presence until now.

Ye Fan was utterly shocked.

“Holy shit! It’s her!” he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t expected to see this old woman again in the Northern Region. Years ago, outside the Forbidden Ancient Realm, when he first encountered the Old Madman, this same old woman had appeared, and through her mutterings, he learned that the Old Madman was from six thousand years ago.

“Someone from the same era as the Old Madman… and now she’s here…” Ye Fan was astounded.

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