Chapter 613: The Accumulation Pit |
After he finished preparing, he abruptly summoned his battle armor.
He protected his body within it.
At the same time, Ning Qi also sensed the threat ahead.
He was already at Golden Immortal strength, so why could he still feel danger here?
Ning Qi frowned and studied the situation in front of him.
Although the formation restrictions here were strong, they were not enough to threaten him.
So clearly the problem lay below.
Ning Qi focused his attention downward, then began circulating his Dao Patterns.
He probed forward.
With a faint hum, the Dao Patterns transformed into countless spiritual lights and surged onward.
But in the blink of an eye, they became entangled with the fierce winds ahead.
Because no one was intervening here, the fierce winds and the formation did not fluctuate much.
“Master, what is happening?”
The Pill Spirit had already landed on his shoulder, looking carefully at the scene below, his eyes full of curiosity.
“I don’t know yet. Let’s take a closer look first.”
Ning Qi shook his head and refocused his gaze downward.
Gradually, he began to discern the pattern.
Within this cemetery, someone—or rather, something—was manipulating things.
To be precise, it wasn’t people controlling them, but the soul force here.
After years of depletion, these soul forces no longer posed much direct threat,
yet they still attacked anyone who entered. Ning Qi’s intrusion had stirred them.
The danger he felt wasn’t from their individual strength.
It was because the accumulated soul force was enormous. This graveyard contained at least dozens of tombs,
and the combined soul force alone was intimidating.
“I see.”
Once Ning Qi understood, he smiled slightly.
“Master, what is going on?”
The Pill Spirit still did not understand. While peering forward, he continued asking.
“This place is being affected by soul force. If we suppress our auras,
and restrain our strength, we can go in without interference.”
After Ning Qi said this, he abruptly contracted his aura.
Then he shot downward.
In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the area where the cemetery lay.
“Phew!”
Here, the fierce winds had weakened; only the oppressive residues of former masters remained.
However, none of that could threaten Ning Qi now.
After landing, he scanned the area.
“Master, there are tombs here.”
The Pill Spirit pointed to a spot and told Ning Qi.
“Mm, let’s go down and see.”
Ning Qi nodded, then flew forward. In the blink of an eye he reached the entrance,
concentrated, and inspected the place.
He discovered the entrance also had restrictive formation seals.
But that was no problem for Ning Qi.
He circulated his Dao Patterns and probed ahead.
In the blink of an eye, he had dispelled those formations.
With the formations cleared, Ning Qi strode into the entrance without hesitation.
“Master, be careful.”
The Pill Spirit looked at the corridor ahead and warned.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine here.”
Ning Qi continued to observe the situation ahead.
He walked a bit and saw nothing amiss.
Then he quickened his pace and passed through the corridor.
He emerged into an open area where two passages branched off.
“One path of life, one of death.”
Ning Qi gazed at the two passages and smiled.
“Which one should we choose?”
The Pill Spirit flitted back and forth in the air, momentarily at a loss.
“Pick the one with the heaviest death qi.”
Ning Qi looked forward and continued, “Trying to confuse our judgment might have worked before, but things are different now.”
“Master, we still need to be careful.”
The Pill Spirit remained uneasy and could not help saying.
“Let’s go.”
Ning Qi agreed and walked straight ahead.
Soon they entered the corridor thick with death qi.
As he proceeded, a stenchy wind blew past, wrapping him in a chill.
“So strong.”
The Pill Spirit frowned and said in a deep voice, “Master, is this the right way?”
“It should be fine. We go.”
Ning Qi glanced ahead and stepped further in.
In this passage, he saw corpses everywhere—some human, some spirit beasts, and signs of past battles.
Ning Qi grew increasingly alert, his eyes constantly scanning the surroundings.
When he reached a relatively wide section of the passage,
he quickly noticed two deep pits there.
“Master, there are corpses everywhere!”
The Pill Spirit was the first to check and immediately realized something was wrong.
These pits were piled high with corpses.
Many of the corpses had rotted, but there were no bare bones.
“Strange.”
Ning Qi stepped closer and looked into the pit: “Why aren’t they decayed?”
“It seems there are formations supporting them that prevent decomposition.”
“Also, their former strength is being sealed here.”
The Pill Spirit analyzed seriously from the side.
“Hmm, not bad.”
Ning Qi nodded, then his eyes brightened suddenly: “Perhaps by doing this, they can sustain the outer formations and mechanisms.”
“What?”
The Pill Spirit widened his eyes and said, “Master, don’t tell me… that’s actually possible!”
“So if we break these restrictive formations, won’t outsiders be able to enter smoothly?”
After saying this, Ning Qi fell into thought.
He looked at the pits with a puzzled expression.
The Pill Spirit hovered anxiously beside him.
“You’re not wrong.”
After a moment, Ning Qi returned to the pit’s edge: “But if we just dismantle them outright, won’t all that power be wasted?”
“Yes, but we have no choice. These people have been dead for who knows how long.”
“Their power being sealed here wasn’t easy.”
“If we break it, I feel they will immediately surge out and return to the world, becoming part of the Law Force.”
The Pill Spirit sighed, showing agreement.
“If we can somehow claim that power for ourselves…”
“Then my Golden Immortal cultivation might rise another level.”
Ning Qi spread his hands and watched the power flowing in his palms: “I’m currently about first-rank Golden Immortal strength.”
“That’s an initial breakthrough level. If I absorbed all this power,
I could at least reach above fifth-rank Golden Immortal. With my Immortal-Demonic Power running at the same time,
I could feel like a ninth-rank Golden Immortal expert. I’d have a real chance to fight.”
“Master, but… wouldn’t that be too risky?”
The Pill Spirit frowned at Ning Qi’s words: “There’s a lot of power here,
but it’s dangerous. We don’t know if there’s evil energy, or other formations below.”
“Fortune favors the bold; if we hesitate, we might miss this opportunity.”
Ning Qi was unconcerned and waved once: “Shi Xiaokun, come out.”
“Master!”
At his command, a trace of Shi Xiaokun’s spiritual sense appeared from his Consciousness Sea.
“I’m going down to claim this power.”
“You and the Pill Spirit stay here to guard.”
Ning Qi pointed to the pit and instructed the two: “I’ll leave my Dharma Body here; if anything happens, take my Dharma Body away immediately.”
“With the Pill Spirit here, he can still help me recover.”
“Understood, Master! Leave it to us!”
Shi Xiaokun did not hesitate and agreed.
“All right, it’s in your hands.”
Seeing his agreement, Ning Qi stopped hesitating.
After giving the order, he abruptly leaped downward.
When he reached the bottom, the corpse qi there was nauseating,
but as a Golden Immortal, Ning Qi simply adjusted his aura and sealed it out.
Before he began refining the power, he condensed his Dharma Body for safety.
Then he returned to the pit’s edge.
“Master!”
The Pill Spirit rushed to his Dharma Body.
But this time Ning Qi ignored him and sat cross-legged.
“This is the master’s Dharma Body. Don’t disturb him.”
Shi Xiaokun intervened and restrained the Pill Spirit.
At that moment Ning Qi had already found a sacrificial dais below the entrance and sat down.
Beneath him were countless corpses.
These former masters had been reduced to puppets operating the formation mechanisms.
Ning Qi had no time to grieve for them; he immediately began circulating his cultivation methods.
At the same time, he activated his Immortal-Demonic Power.
It turned into an invisible huge net that probed downward.
As the net surged down, it was buffeted by layers of corpse qi.
Eventually it transformed into dry, skeletal hands trying to tear his net apart.
“Go.”
Ning Qi drew a deep breath and concentrated all his power.
He pressed down further. In the blink of an eye his giant net was torn.
But Ning Qi did not give up; this was only the beginning.
With a roar he condensed another giant net that descended to cover the pit.
This time he did not stop. After the first net, he formed two more, then three.
In one breath he condensed nearly a hundred giant nets and cast them down.
The countless withered hands below were not afraid.
They kept striking, tearing each net apart one by one.
However, each time they tore a net, those thousand dry hands suffered losses.
For every net torn, hundreds of those hands were shattered.
In the end, Ning Qi’s nets nearly merged with the corpses below.
The hands could not hold out and were destroyed by Ning Qi.
“Phew!”
At this time Ning Qi was also suffering.
This massive consumption was the first since his breakthrough.
Because he had not fully adapted, forming the nets consumed too much.
He was sweating heavily.
Yet a pleased look appeared on his face.
Despite the drain, there was result.
His giant nets had merged with the corpses below and began slowly devouring them.
“Hum!”
While he devoured, the endless power below seemed to sense him
and began to surge across the corpses.
Ning Qi’s eyes widened briefly, but he soon relaxed.
They were not attacking like the dried hands had; they behaved as if welcoming him.
Thus, the countless corpses’ power began being absorbed by his nets,
gradually refined, and flowed along the nets toward Ning Qi.
These fully refined powers poured into his body.
After a second refinement, these powers fused with him.
Gradually, Ning Qi’s aura started to rise.
However, he did not allow that aura to run rampant here,
because that would easily alert outsiders.
If others discovered he was already at Golden Immortal strength, trouble would follow.
“Master is amazing, merging them so quickly.”
Shi Xiaokun looked down from the entrance and praised repeatedly: “It won’t be long before he refines all the corpses here.”
“I wonder to what realm he’ll reach in the end.”
The Pill Spirit also peered downward.
“No matter what, being stronger than before is enough!”
Shi Xiaokun laughed: “If he can refine them, then it’s not a loss for us.”
“Yes!”
The Pill Spirit nodded in full agreement.
While they refined the corpses here, the Demonic Race army outside—locked in fierce battle with the formation puppets and mechanisms—suddenly sensed something wrong.
“Commander Wang, why have the mechanisms stopped moving?”
A guard approached and reported to Wang Haoran.
“What?”
Wang Haoran was engaged in battle with several puppets. Hearing the guard, he showed surprise.
“Commander Wang, these puppets have weakened!”
“Not only that, some have stopped moving.”
Before anyone could respond, people began shouting in alarm.
Many discovered that the powerful puppets had ceased functioning.
Even more mechanisms had completely stopped running.
“What’s going on?”
Xue Xiaotian also came over, his face filled with puzzlement as he looked at the scene.
“Not sure. Maybe the Young Master and his crew tampered inside.”
Wang Haoran shook his head, then looked deeper into the tomb: “If that’s the case, we act now. Take down these puppets, dismantle the Array Eyes and formation seals inside.
Prevent them from reviving later—bring them all back and re-trigger them ourselves.”
“Yes!”
At his command, the Demonic Race forces sprang into action.
One by one they approached and removed the puppets’ Array Eyes,
rendering them completely immobile.
With those puppets controlled, their greatest threat here was eliminated.
“Commander Wang, what do we do next?”
Lu Wantian looked ahead and finally stepped forward to ask.
“You guard here. I’ll go in and report the situation.”
Wang Haoran glanced back and said in a low voice.