Chapter 1023: Gargantuan
What was written on the stone?
Yi Yun wondered. Every inch of the Door to the 33 Skies exuded an air of strangeness. Despite walking in it for so long, he had yet to encounter hints of human or Fey race activity.
“It’s text used by the Ten Thousand Fey Empyrean Heaven.”
When Yi Yun cautiously came in front of the black stone, he saw a line of text that was written with bold strokes. Although it had been weathered by the elements for an unknown period of time, with portions of it eroded, it still had Dao charms circulating within that ensured that the line of text was not destroyed.
“I’m acutely aware that my days are numbered and I have established my tomb here. To mistakenly enter the Door to the 33 Skies, there is no regret to dying after seeing the forces of nature and the powers of gods and demons. — Yue Ziya.”
The few dozen words left a deep impact on one’s soul. Had he established a tomb for himself? Who was Yue Ziya…?
Yi Yun glanced at Granny Yin and noticed her expression looking complicated. The corners of her mouth were twitching as she kowtowed at the tombstone.
“Yue Ziya is our founding ancestor of our Azure Wood Manor. He was also the only Divine Lord that had perished in the Door to the 33 Skies. He entered the Door to the 33 Skies thrice and he failed to exit it on his third. Nothing was heard of him from then on.”
When Granny Yin recounted the piece of history, her face was filled with mixed emotions. Hundreds of millions of years had passed, but she had managed to see the tomb and last words of Yue Ziya in the Door to the 33 Skies. How could she not sigh?
“So the Divine Lord died here.” Yi Yun had a serious expression. He knew that a Divine Lord had perished in the Door to the 33 Skies, but it was not necessarily a place that was filled with danger. For example, Yi Yun had managed to easily exit the Blood Desert with his energy vision. If a Divine Lord had entered the Blood Desert, his perception of the forces of nature would make it trivial for him to escape the Blood Desert. There might not even be a need for a Divine Lord to fully understand the forces of nature to withstand the laws of the Dao patterns.
But here, Yue Ziya had set up his tomb and said that he knew his days were numbered. He felt no regret for his death after seeing the forces of nature and the powers of gods and demons.
What did Yue Ziya see in his final living moments, and what did he encounter? What made him immediately know that his days were numbered?
Yi Yun suddenly felt a baffling chill.
If a Divine Lord could not survive in here, what about Master?
“Granny, if Ancestor Master perished here, this might actually be a land of great peril…” Yue Yingsha felt a dark cloud veil across her heart. The seemingly lush savanna was actually a hundred times more dangerous than the Blood Desert.
Before Granny Yin could say a word, the sounds of the rubbing metallic chains resounded once again.
The sounds seemed to come from the deepest depths of hell as they assaulted the eardrums. Immediately following the sounds of the chain was a loud boom!
“Boom! Boom!”
The reverberations surged at them and each one of them induced an earthquake!
The world in the Door to the 33 Skies was massive, yet the ground could quake from the sound blasts?
What sort of existence created it?
The reverberations continued blaring, striking straight at the heart. After hearing it a few times, Yi Yun realized that the sounds were resonating with his heart. His heartbeat was influenced by the sound and began to synchronize its beats with the sound. This made Yi Yun’s blood and energy turbulent as he felt his chest heavy. It was an extremely unpleasant feeling.
“The sound is terrifying. What is it?” asked Yi Yun while clasping his chest. Granny Yin was fine, but Yue Yingsha was in a worse state than Yi Yun. Her face was pale and blood was seeping out the corners of her mouth. Clearly, the massive sound blasts had injured her when they resonated with her organs.
“Successor, quickly calm down and meditate. I’ll be on guard. Let’s wait for daybreak!” exhorted Granny Yin. She did not know how long more the sound will continue. She felt that Yue Yingsha was unable to last long against it and she had to be wary of the mysterious eye that was hiding in the fog. She could not be distracted.
Yue Yingsha stopped just as she was about to say something. She knew her bodily condition, so all she could do was close her eyes and meditate. She left everything to Granny Yin.
The night was longer than expected.
The terrifying booms and the rubbing sounds of metallic chains continued on. Occasionally, the fierce roars of ancient beasts were interspersed in it. The roars could instantly reduce a Dao Seed realm warrior to a mist of blood.
All of this gave them the creeps. It was as if there was a terrifying existence chained in the rolling mountains who was trying its best to escape those shackles in this dark and eerie night.
The torturous night depleted Yue Yingsha’s Yuan Qi greatly. Even Yi Yun found it extremely unsustainable.
He knew that he had yet to actually encounter danger. It was just sound waves that would have been harmless to figures at the level of Yue Ziya. However, they were sufficient to reduce him to such a sorry state. This made Yi Yun feel a great sense of danger for he was unsure what he would encounter next.
“The fog is dispersing…”
Perhaps it was because daybreak was nearing as the night fog that occluded their vision and prevented their perception from working had mostly vanished. Looking up into the sky, the river of stars were becoming dimmer. In the eastern sky, a blood-red morning sun gradually rose, scattering its luminance that resembled thousands of divine swords.
“Daybreak has finally…finally, come.” Yi Yun sighed in relief. Yue Yingsha’s expression relaxed in a rare fashion. She had her brows knitted previously with sweat perspiring from her forehead.
However, before Yi Yun and Yue Yingsha had a chance to say something, they were simultaneously astounded by what they saw into the distance.
Under the blood sun’s illumination, Yue Yingsha and Yi Yun saw an alarming scene that they would never forget for life.
They saw in the distant horizon dozens of thick veins as thick as mountains gathered together. Like dragons snatching at a pearl, they twined around and formed a thick divine tree trunk. It stood erect like a heavenly column that reached toward the ends of the Door to the 33 Skies.
And in front of the divine tree stood a bronze gargantuan. The gargantuan seemed to hold up the heavens and his body obstructed the sanguine sun. All the mountains were crushed beneath his feet like sand mounds in a sandpit. The bronze gargantuan held a massive ax in hand while his body was wrapped around by black chains. The end of these chains pierced into the bronze gargantuan’s flesh and on the other end, they were buried deep into the ground.
“Boom!”
The bronze gargantuan was brandishing his ax and chopping at the tree root!
Boom!
The chains resonated producing the terrifying sound again. Like the collapsing of mountains and the howling of seas, a massive shockwave ran through the ground as a result of the sound blast with the bronze gargantuan as the epicenter! The blast radiated out for hundreds of kilometers and moments later, a strong squall came rushing at Yi Yun and company.
With a grunt, Yi Yun took several steps back. Even with his Yuan Qi protecting him, he felt as though his eardrums were about to rupture from the sound blast.
Yue Yingsha was in an even worse state. She nearly collapsed after experiencing a night of torment.
What was this?
Yue Yingsha was astounded. There was a gargantuan deep in the Door to the 33 Skies and it was chopping at the Azure Wood Great World’s divine tree!