Chapter 706 Entering the Ruins
Crack!
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
A series of faint yet distinct sounds, like eggshells breaking, rang out in everyone’s ears.
Ding Hao looked up and saw the transparent shield finally cracking like spider webs. With the bombardment point as the center, they began to spread out in all directions, increasing in number and density!
“It’s about to break down!”
“Haha, this damn boundary formation is finally going to break down!”
Someone cheered.
The next moment, the transparent shield finally shattered under everyone’s gaze. The space around the bombardment point suddenly began to shrink, with even light being compressed and distorted. All the objects in sight were misshapen, compressed into that point. Accompanied by a complete silence between the heaven and earth, the picture seemed to freeze at that point.
Everyone felt that their world was dead silent, without any sounds or colors.
The next moment, the rapidly compressed point began expanding at a shocking speed. Light waves, like radiation halos, spread out at the speed of light. The formerly depressed and distorted light and space suddenly bulged outward.
The next moment—
Boom!
A loud noise, like a cataclysmic thunderclap, rang out in everyone’s ears.
In the next moment, that point under attack finally exploded, releasing terrible energy waves. White energy surged and rose into the air like a leaden cloud. Ding Hao’s mind went blank. He had no time to think. He could only feel a huge force coming at him, with him like a small boat in peril during a tempest…
Then, everything in his sight turned white.
He did not know how much time had passed. As the sensations returned to his face, Ding Hao slowly opened his eyes and saw everything around him in a complete mess. There were gravel, dust, and flames from earth fissures. All of a sudden, it felt like a scene from doomsday.
When he looked farther into the distance, he saw the endless stretch of opulent buildings behind the transparent shield had turned into rubble, in the surrounding few kilometers. The buildings had collapsed, the suspending pavilions had crashed, and there were only foundations left of the stone palaces. The deity statues had exploded into several fragments. The place was like a sandcastle after a hurricane’s assault, almost razed to the ground and now in complete ruins.
“The explosion must have caused this catastrophe when the boundary formation broke down!”
Ding Hao was stunned.
The Sacred Hall was indeed a sovereign sect of the Divine Central Continent. It was hard to imagine how powerful it once was. This was a boundary formation from tens of thousands of years ago, but still so powerful today. If dozens of absolute masters of the Human and Demon Clans had not joined hands today, no one would be able to enter the ruins!
“Why are you still standing there? Go in at once! Someone’s already ahead of us…”
Uncle Tianshu jumped out of the gravel and earth. Ignoring the dust on his body, he sprinted into the distance. After the boundary formation broke down, he could finally step into the real ruins. There might be all kinds of divine treasures hidden in that unbroken stretch of opulent Sacred Hall palaces!
“Meow. Charge!” Evil Moon’s eyes were also red. Since the divine treasures were just right ahead, this great Demon King would want to seize them all.
Ding Hao dug out the black puppy, the white tigress and her cubs from the rubble and took them along with him, going after Uncle Tianshu.
“Hmm?”
The moment he stepped into that area behind the transparent shield, Ding Hao almost stumbled.
In that instant, the gravity of the earth seemed to have increased many hundred times. His feet seemed stuck to the ground, so heavy that they felt impossible to lift. Even the air had become heavy, almost like he was inhaling dense iron sand into his lungs, not air.
“This is… a power that’s almost at the level of the rules. The power of the rules in this place has been changed by some mysterious power…” Ding Hao was shocked.
He could sense this was not simply the inscription power of the boundary formation, but the real power of the rules. It was a power superior to any ordinary power.
The Qi power in his body was completely suppressed, withdrawing from his meridian channels and contracting into his Dantian. It could not run at all. His Icing Qi could no longer be used, and even his power of inscriptions had been completely nullified. Since the rules of this place were different from those outside, it was difficult for these inscriptions to communicate with the willpower of this place, or to borrow its innate power.
The Heavenly Fire power in the Middle Dantian of his chest was also extremely compressed.
However, Ding Hao soon detected something different. Unlike his Hell Ice Qi, his Heaven Fire Qi had not been suppressed to the extent that it could not be used, after integrating the Bi Fang’s power. Instead, he could still activate the Bi Fang’s Fire somewhat.
This discovery relieved him somewhat.
However, when Ding Hao released his Divine Senses, they could only extend to about a kilometer away. They were also compressed by the power of the rules that existed in this place.
There were good and bad sides to these discoveries.
Ding Hao silently contemplated what fighting methods and trump cards he would use in this domain. He thought about how he should fight if he encountered a powerful enemy. Standing where he was, he exercised his limbs, experiencing the power of the rules in this new battlefield.
After some time, he got used somewhat to the changes in the intensity of this power.
Not far away…
Uncle Tianshu, looking like a highly-skilled, otherworldly master, also fell facedown. He was running so fast that he stumbled heavily. His golden teeth flew out of his mouth. After much groaning, he finally got up, his face badly bruised.
Evil Moon was also walking with great difficulty, trying to adapt to the changes in the energy field here.
The black puppy, the white tigress, and her cubs were for some reason unaffected, walking normally.
“Ouch, ouch…”
“Ah…”
Many surprised gasps were heard from behind.
Many other experts had reacted and dashed into the ruins. Caught off guard, they all stumbled one after another.
“Let’s go!”
Uncle Tianshu held his swollen jaws, flipped up and jumped on the back of the white tigress. They continued to charge forward.
Ding Hao lifted his legs forcefully and leaped up with a loud boom. The earth cracked, leaving a small crater. He jumped dozens of meters, sprinting like blazes behind the white tigress.
Behind him, experts from every region were like intoxicated babies, struggling to adapt to the environment and its rules.
Ding Hao kept bouncing forward like a humanoid Tyrannosaurus, leaving behind deep craters with pebbles flying wherever he passed. He was like a destructive machine. Many experts who had just adapted to the new rules of the power looked at him in horror. This bodyguard of the Taoist master Tianshuzi did not seem suppressed by this environment—it was almost like his body was not made of flesh and blood.
“Could he be a Combat Puppet refined from divine materials?”
Ding Hao soon saw a carcass.
A gigantic Wolf Demon’s body fell onto the street of the ancient structures, its inner essence ripped away. Someone had extracted its extremely powerful Demon Power by some secret method.
“This Wolf Demon must be at least a high-level Demon Royal. Yet he died on the wayside like a mere beggar…”
Ding Hao sighed.
As they continued to push forward, they saw quite a lot of blood and corpses. There were slain experts from every region.
These warriors had died an extremely gruesome death. They were all heroes in regions outside the Bone-burying Forest, capable of causing an earthquake even with a stamp of their foot. They had innumerable disciples under their command, and could do anything they wanted. Yet they had been killed here by some unknown method, with no one to collect their corpses.
They walked past the opulent buildings and ancient structures that had been destroyed by the waves of the earlier explosion. Nearly one kilometer away, more than 20 bodies were found, with even the weakest above Ding Hao’s realm. Ding Hao was not certain he could defeat these opponents in a fight.
There was an unending stretch of golden buildings, as if they had walked into an ancient metropolis.
All kinds of houses and stone halls were on both sides of the street, with almost no dust on the road. Only the look and style of these buildings betrayed their age from the Archean times. Everything else looked extremely new. They felt like they were among throngs of people in this continuous stretch of ancient buildings, when all of a sudden, the crowds vanished!
As they walked along the narrow street into the cluster of ancient buildings, the street became wider and wider, and the buildings higher and higher.
In the end, they came to an area with an endless extent of lofty magnificent buildings that resembled imperial palaces. Quaint and antique, most were constructed out of stone bricks, with carvings on these golden stones. They were in the architectural style of the post-Archean period, imposing yet plain.
All around, it was extremely quiet.
From time to time, there would be sporadic sounds of fighting and screaming from afar. Most likely the experts who had entered before them had encountered a killing formation, or were slaughtering one another, making this continuous stretch of ancient buildings look even more lonesome and sinister.
With such a large building complex, one could imagine the number of disciples the Sacred Hall had in its heyday. They must be as numerous as clouds or raindrops—a terrible force powerful enough to ravage the world.
Ding Hao and the others proceeded very cautiously.
In this seemingly peaceful place, there were countless traps and mechanisms. A careless man would die a graveless death here.
Ding Hao released his Divine Senses at all times, looking to detect any movements around.
Driven by curiosity, he carefully observed everything around him.
One thing left a deep impression on Ding Hao.
In this ancient building complex, deity statues that resembled heavenly pillars could be seen everywhere. There would be one almost every hundred meters.
These statues were sculpted in the likenesses of Humans, Demons and Gigantic Beasts, all fully clad in armor, and holding weapons in their hands. After nearly 10,000 years, they were still extremely lifelike. A strange power was faintly visible on these sculptures, making one’s blood curdle. These statues almost looked like they would come suddenly to life and open their eyes, once their observers drew near.
“These… are all deity statues that could only be sculpted by a Martial Sage expert. They have condensed quite a lot of martial essence…”
Uncle Tianshu was almost drooling.
He waved the black pot, trying to collect all these statues into it.
Unfortunately, these deity statues seemed to have grown roots. They would not budge even with Ding Hao’s brute strength. Uncle Tianshu hit a statue sculpted seemingly out of stone with his black pot. There was a shower of sparks like in metals colliding, yet it left no marks at all on the statue.