Chapter 288: Martial King!
Translator: AstralGhost Editor: Kurisu
Qin Rulong looked at the photograph with disbelief for a long time before he burst into laughter!
"Haha! Martial King! This is the grave of the Martial King!"
Qin Rulong willowy body straightened significantly, and his head of white started to darken. His wrinkled skin became smoother, and there was even a hint of healthy red on his cheeks!
A monstrous aura shot into the sky, shattering all the lights in the corridor!
"Urgh!"
The Qin Clan elders grunted dully and retreated repeatedly. They had undeniably been affected by the powerful aura!
Only Qin Wufa remained on the same spot, seemingly unaffected. In truth, he was secretly shocked in his heart. Although Fake Dan experts were seemingly only half a step away from Controlled Dan Heavenly Experts, that half a step was actually as far apart as the sky and the sea!
"Get ready, we're moving out immediately! Your chance to break through to the Controlled Dan realm is at hand!"
Qin Rulong might look like a 40-plus-year-old middle aged man now, but the archaic aura on him was not something that could be masked so easily.
"Old Ancestor, who is this Martial King?"
Qin Wufa was extremely curious about the identity of this person. He did not know the what the title signified.
"2300 years ago, a phenomenal figure was born. He was so powerful that he completely suppressed an entire era of experts! There were rumors that he ended up breaking through the atmosphere and left the planet. But who would have thought that a dazzling character like the Martial King would actually die as well!"
Qin Rulong found himself looking forward to seeing the tomb of such a person himself. It was easy to imagine what kind of glory it was to be able to lord over an entire era!
This was especially more impressive given that he'd risen to such heights in the China 2000 years ago! At that time, the Heaven and Earth Ling Qi was not in a state of decline yet, and all schools of thoughts contended for attention. The number of Heaven's Chosen was countless, and there were even peerless geniuses who were born with Xiantian physiques! But despite all these, the Martial King was still able to rise above everyone and suppress an entire era!
It was easy to imagine how strong the Martial King must've been back then! But now that the tomb of the Martial King was discovered, it meant that the rumor of him leaving Earth was dispelled!
This was a very simple logic. With how the Martial King was able to conquer an entire era of geniuses, how could his pride of being the number one person under the heavens tolerate the construction of his own tomb even before he was dead?!
The Qin Clan Elders exchanged shocked gazes. The ruler of an era! What kind of glory was something like that!
But after he died, there actually wasn't even any record of him left behind. This was a case of winners were kings, and losers were thieves!
It went without saying that someone must have intentionally destroyed all records of the Martial King, wiping him from the annals of history! And those who had the power to do something like that had to be a powerful group as well!
The Qin Clan Elders came out of the corridor, and there was already about a dozen helicopters waiting in the huge clearing within the Qin Clan manor. These helicopters had been prepared beforehand already. Even if Qin Rulong did not come out of seclusion, the Qin Clan would not miss out on such a grand event!
Only at times like these was the true strength of a clan finally revealed. The entire Qin Clan had over a hundred Xiantian Lords!
Most of them were a bunch of decrepit old men who had declined in strength. Another twenty were middle-aged, and only five were from the current generation!
From this, one could see the changes that had occurred in the last 100 years. 100 years ago, when the Heaven and Earth Ling Qi was denser, the difficulty of breaking through to the Xiantian realm was not as great as now.
Those 20 middle-aged Xiantian Lords had also only broken through to the Xiantian realm in the last few decades.
Their numbers were many times less than those decrepit old Xiantian Lords. When the time came that all these old experts inevitably passed on, the entire Qin Clan would only be left with a mere twenty, thirty Xiantian Lords!
This was already the case for the Qin Clan which was among the top ten powers in the country, so one could easily imagine the difficult state the weaker clans were in!
Most of the influential powers relied on their elderly Xiantian Lords to hold the fort. But once these older generation Xiantian Lords died, their entire clan would drop to the bottom of the ravine!
The martial world might look impressive right now, but they were actually in a state of decline. With a few more years at most, a large batch of Xiantian Lords would reach the end of their lifespan!
Perhaps it might not even take that long. The 200 years of lifespan for Xiantian Lords was only an ideal estimation. Many of these experts had suffered some form of injury in their earlier years. For these people, they would generally reach the end of their road at around the 150 or 160 years' mark!
Thus, the Qin Clan had pulled out all the stops for the exploration of the underground crypt. Every single Xiantian Lord was dispatched!
The resources they gained from the expedition would not even be used on those elderly Xiantian Lords. Everything would be used to groom the next generation!
That was the only way to ensure that the Qin Clan would continue to prosper in this era where Heaven and Earth Ling Qi was lacking. Despite knowing this, those old Xiantian Lords did not have any complaints. Everything was for the clan!
"Ai, a hundred years have passed; what was once the sea has now changed into mulberry fields!" [1]
Qin Rulong lamented as he sat within the helicopter. As he watched the tall buildings in the city below him, he could not help but to feel a sense of happiness in his heart at the way the world had advanced.
Early the next day, numerous cars drove towards Qing Ling Village. Their speed was not very fast.
Everyone had been scared out of their wits by the Demonic Beast the night before, so no one wanted to hang around the area before the Controlled Dan Heavenly Experts arrived.
When the 200-plus experts from the Martial Practitioners Control Department arrived, they found to their stupefaction that there was no one here at all! Where the hell did everyone go?
Only after confirming that the people from the Martial Practitioners Control Department arrived did everyone dare to make their way in. Soon, everyone suddenly began to rush into the village with all their might, afraid that they would not even receive the scraps if they were late.
Time passed quickly and it was already noon. The usually quiet Nie Clan ancestral grounds were now filled with a sea of people.
Four powerful groups stood at four corners of the huge pit. It was about a hundred meter wide and had unfathomable depths.
The strongest power among them was the Martial Practitioners Control Department and their four Controlled Dan Heavenly Experts. After transferring experts from all of their branches throughout the country over, they had 200 Xiantian Lords!
The other three superpowers also had Controlled Dan Heavenly Experts on their side. On the western corner was exactly the Qin Clan with over 100 Xiantian Lords!
In the southern corner was the Lan Clan. They, too, were one of the top ten most powerful clans in the country, and were on the same level of strength as the Qin Clan.
In the northern corner was the Eight Extremes Sect! There was a saying in the martial world, "Taiji exists in culture, calming all under the heavens. The martial path has the Eight Extremes, settling the universe!"
This ancient sect had lasted from ages past. Within the same realm, practitioners of the Eight Extremes Fist could overwhelm their opponents with shocking battle prowess. Their entire bodies were their strongest weapon!
The Itoh Clan, Ize Clan, and Ryzu Clan were also here. Initially, they had come together after receiving the news that their Xiantian experts had been killed by someone here. It was the Itoh Clan who took the initiative to invite the experts of the other two great clans, gathering over fifty Xiantian Lords and a Controlled Dan Heavenly Expert to make a trip here to kill a chicken to warn the monkeys!
But unexpectedly, they received news that a powerful treasured land had been discovered. Greed instantly consumed them and they changed their target in an instant, coming to Qing Ling Village instead. They planned to obtain the treasures first before proceeding with their vengeance.
The focus of their revenge this time was not only on Bei Feng. They also planned to make a move on Mount Longhu, and the four great clans who had been at Lido Ghost City!
"Pada!"
The Japanese alliance directly strutted to the center of the clearing, emanating a fierce aura as they walked. Those in front of them who were slow in getting out of their path were directly thrown aside, suffering heavy injuries.
"Our country will also stake a claim in a portion of the benefits here!" Itoh Jinsu declared in clear and fluent Mandarin as he regarded the rest of the superpowers. At the same time, he released his aura as if wanting to announce his cultivation as a Controlled Dan Heavenly Expert.
The way he saw it, these locals were all split into their own factions. At such a crucial time, they would not be willing to suffer losses to their own forces just to deal with them. No one would want to be left with only dead fishes and a broken net, allowing the other powers to reap the benefits.
Itoh Jinsu was not afraid that the other powers would gang up against them either. When a valuable treasure was at stake, everyone was an enemy. Thus, should be no distinction between an outsider and a local.
[1] TL/N: This is an idiom to say that time brings great changes to the world.