Free Web NovelA few minutes ago, near Hong Bian Monk's sleeping temple inside Yumen Pass.
The earth trembled, and from deep within the temple, a dazzling, powerful light shone forth, a brilliant gold, pure and magnificent like high-purity gold.
Immediately after, accompanied by the rumbling of the earth's tremors, the intense golden light gradually transformed into a sacred, pure white, shooting straight upwards, piercing the darkness and converging into a terrifying beam, as if to rip through the firmament, it pierced the gloom in the sky.
In an instant, airwaves swept through, gravel flew, and a deafening roar echoed repeatedly through the shattered ruins. Numerous Miracle Order members were caught in the airwaves, flying off into the distance like kites with broken strings.
“Holy crap! What exactly did these Miracle Order guys do?” Bai Kai, hidden behind a broken high wall, couldn't help but Spell as he saw the scene beyond the wall, “How are we supposed to find the Nangling Commander's Relics now?”
Indeed, with the Half-Guitan tribe releasing the Shaman King from the front, and the Miracle Order awakening Hong Bian Monk from the back, Yumen Pass was in complete chaos. It was quite possible that two Calamity-level beings from ancient times would even engage in a battle.
At that time, the plight of all Psychic and urban legend within Yumen Pass would be like that of young children watching their parents argue—it would be good enough if they could protect themselves. As for doing anything else? Don't even think about it!
“If it really comes down to it, we can only take a gamble,” Lord Bing said in a deep voice. “That strange cenotaph vanished into thin air, and this is the last place we can find that might contain the Nangling Commander's Relics.”
“You go gamble!” Bai Kai rolled his eyes and said, “Xiao Bei and Xiao Hua haven't been found yet! What will happen to them if I die here?”
“...” Lord Bing opened his mouth, but hesitated to speak.
Just then, a majestic figure, seemingly cast from gold, slowly rose from the stone temple, which had already turned into ruins, curling up as if emerging from a shell. He opened his eyes and gazed at the earth.
Then, He softly said, “Speak your wish...”
As His voice fell, a majestic aura solidified the air, and His voice, like a torrent, surged into every corner of Yumen Pass.
As the voice entered his ears, Bai Kai felt as if he were being bewitched, and a thought quietly arose in his mind—why not just make a wish and have Him hand over control of Yumen Pass to me?
Half a day ago, when he discovered that the cenotaph Lord Bing had spoken of had disappeared, he had already wanted to make such a wish.
Now, the opportunity was right in front of him, why not seize it? Bai Kai thought in a daze.
————
Half a day earlier, at roughly the same moment Lu Yibei asked Shen Baiwei's name for the seventeenth time.
Two figures, accompanied by the sonic boom of air breaking the sound barrier, rapidly approached the southernmost city wall of Yumen Pass.
Under a gloomy sky tinged with a faint yellow, the earth was scarred and desolate.
It was even more dilapidated and ruined than other areas within Yumen City Pass, which had long been corrupted by the flesh and Spiritual Energy of urban legend that had accumulated in this masterless God Kingdom over thousands of years.
Nameless dry bones and rusted, twisted metal were scattered all around, and a chilling, dark red mist, like a viscous tide, drifted through the air, obscuring vision and gradually devouring all warmth.
Beyond the mist, the profoundly dark city wall loomed, stretching endlessly out of sight. Even with Spiritual Energy, it was difficult to perceive its boundaries, like a towering mountain built from basalt.
A battle, whose timing was unknown, had left countless cracks on this ancient and sturdy city wall—some deep, some shallow, varying in age—like the claw marks of countless brutal beasts, scarred and battered.
And those weapons and arrows, broken and rusted, embedded in the wall and hanging with corpses, were like the broken fangs of those beasts.
One could even see the dark brown substances left behind after blood had dried and corpses had decayed around the wounds, the tear-like streaks of grime dragged out, and the thick stench emanating from those stains, a stench accumulated from countless piled-up lives.
Among the crisscrossing “scars,” irregular metal plates, each over twenty square meters in area, appeared insignificant against the backdrop of the magnificent and enormous city wall, like neatly arranged door studs on a grand gate.
Those irregular metal plates, condensed with several feet of thick, dark green copper rust, were likely solidified Spell artifacts that recorded defensive Spells.
Over a thousand years ago, the development and application of Spells by Psychic were far less mature than they are today. To solidify a powerful defensive Spell, it was only with such colossal metal castings that there was a certain chance of success.
Standing on the ruins, gazing at the city wall ahead, Bai Kai pulled back the hood of his cloak, his gaze slightly narrowed.
Although he knew that things seen within the God Kingdom could not be judged by common sense, he still couldn't help but exclaim upon seeing such a magnificent structure.
“Amazing, the scale is almost comparable to Shanhai Pass! How do you think people over a thousand years ago built a city wall of this scale?”
Lord Bing looked straight ahead, took a step to the side, dodging Bai Kai's elbow that kept poking his ribs, and frowned, “Legend has it that a complete Abyss Dragon skeleton was used when Yumen Pass was built...”
“I guess they must have utilized the Abyss Dragon's authority to first construct a stone wall, and then used a large amount of Alchemy materials to transform it into the appearance of a city wall. Theoretically, the entire Yumen Pass city wall is a single, integrated structure.”
Bai Kai glanced at Lord Bing sideways, then pouted and said, “How do you know so much?”
Lord Bing tilted his chin slightly upwards and gave an answer that Bai Kai found unsurprising, “Family heritage!”
“Tsk!” Bai Kai rolled his eyes. “I knew you were going to say that, I shouldn't have asked! Can't you say anything else?”
Is family heritage so great?
It's just that the Old man didn't train me to be the next head of the family, otherwise, the knowledge of my Yumen Sand Sea lineage would definitely be more rich and colorful than the contents recorded in your family's tattered books! Bai Kai thought.
“Just stating facts,” Lord Bing said, crossing his arms over his chest, and glanced at Bai Kai, changing the subject. “Moreover, this is no longer the city wall built over a thousand years ago. The original city wall was damaged when the Shaman King's army broke through the city.”
“The city wall you see now was mostly renovated during the The Torch Bearers period. As a member of the Yumen Sand Sea lineage, don't you even know this?”
Bai Kai, “...”
The so-called The Torch Bearers, simply put, were those who silently held torches to dispel darkness, and they were the predecessors of the Eclipse Society and the Night Watch.
Such an organization, formed spontaneously by a group of talented and extraordinary individuals, was inherently loosely structured with diverse members. Moreover, to prevent the spread of urban legend, the The Torch Bearers had always acted relatively secretively, and there were not many written records concerning them.
Friendly reminder: The Website is about to be revised, which may cause loss of reading progress. Please save your "book shelf" and "reading record" (screenshot recommended) in time. We apologize for any inconvenience caused!
When the Eclipse Society and the Night Watch parted ways, the two sides fought many times, causing the few existing The Torch Bearers-related materials to be damaged or lost.
The only The Torch Bearers-related information still found in the Night Watch archives is a single sentence—"Day and night, unafraid of evil spirits, unbowed to gods and ghosts, carrying the torch, braving fire and blade, never retreating unto death."
To learn other information about the The Torch Bearers, one could only glimpse it through orally transmitted stories and privately collected classics, similar to the books stored in Lord Bing's home.
In Bai Kai's view, it was perfectly normal for him, a Night Watch member who joined halfway, not to know the past deeds of the The Torch Bearers. free𝑤ebnovel.com
“How would I know about these old, rotten things? The Old man never told me.”
“What's more, if it was renovated during the The Torch Bearers period, it could be traced back to five or six hundred years ago at the earliest. Even my Master might not know,” Bai Kai said indignantly.
“No, Nangling Senior certainly knows, and Lu Ming certainly knows,” Lord Bing said lightly.
“Tch!” Bai Kai spat, and as he walked forward, he steered the conversation back on track, “Speaking of which, this is your first time in this cursed place, isn't it?”
He knew very well that ever since Lu Ming defeated Lord Bing with an overwhelming display of power when he was young, Lord Bing, who had always proclaimed himself the number one genius Psychic in Z Country since childhood, had become a somewhat twisted “Unmyouki fan.”
It could be described as a love-hate relationship.
Getting entangled with such a person on topics related to Lu Ming would not lead to any good outcome.
It was like arguing with the many women in Hua City about who was the top male escort in the underground entertainment club; there was simply no logic to it.
“Are you sure the Nangling Commander's cenotaph is nearby?”
The Nangling Commander's cenotaph was the destination for the two of them on this journey.
Legend has it that the owner of Divine Kingdom Jade Gate—Nangling Commander—went missing during the battle with the Shaman King, and his remains were difficult to find. Currently, the only thing that could still be closely linked to the Nangling Commander was this cenotaph.
Through the items within the cenotaph, any Psychic proficient in summoning Spells could summon the remnant soul of the Nangling Commander.
As long as the remnant soul could appear, Bai Kai could, through the remnant soul and his identity as a successor of the Yumen Sand Sea lineage, gain the Nangling Commander's recognition and obtain a portion of the Divine Kingdom Jade Gate's control. Even a very small portion would be enough to alleviate or even lift the Spell that had plagued the Yumen Sand Sea lineage for a long time.
And what Lord Bing sought was even simpler: besides helping Bai Kai, his only desire was to draw Spirit Marks by absorbing the Spiritual Energy contained within the remnant soul, thereby completing the 【Hundred Generals Chart】.
“Confirmed!” Lord Bing nodded, his expression serious. “Over 350 years ago, there was a situation similar to the current one where the daytime shortened and urban legend proliferated. To prevent a large number of urban legend from crossing the damaged Yumen Pass, my ancestor, as one of the ten The Torch Bearers leaders, participated in the repair of Yumen Pass.”
Upon hearing this, Bai Kai nodded thoughtfully. Although he didn't know about the The Torch Bearers repairing Yumen Pass, he had vaguely heard about the proliferation of urban legend over 300 years ago.
Speaking of which, those senior The Torch Bearers also had it quite tough. They expended great effort to repair the masterless Divine Kingdom Jade Gate, but unexpectedly, urban legend then invaded the Z Country land from Shanhai Pass, ultimately leaving them unable to attend to both ends.
Seeing that Bai Kai didn't speak any nonsense, Lord Bing nodded with satisfaction and continued, “That cenotaph was discovered by them during the process of repairing the city wall. Although it was just a solitary grave without even a tombstone, it was very special; they recognized its extraordinary nature at a glance.”
“According to the manuscript left by my ancestor, when they came to repair the city wall, the degree of corruption in this area was several times higher than it is now. In today's terms, the night's erosion was so high that distorted urban legend could be born out of thin air...”
“And in such a situation, with a large number of urban legend lurking, the soil around that cenotaph was surprisingly fertile, with lush green plants and blooming flowers, as if completely unaffected. There were even a few flying insects that lived among the plants. When everyone saw such a sight, they thought they had discovered a treasure, so they rushed forward...”
“And then they dug up the Nangling Commander's grave?” Bai Kai suddenly interrupted.
Lord Bing looked at Bai Kai with a stern, cold face, and there was a moment of silence.
He wanted to refute it, but based on the facts, his ancestor had indeed dug up someone's grave, making it impossible to refute.
He couldn't possibly euphemistically call it archaeology and claim that everything excavated should be handed over to the state, could he?
Fortunately, when it came to feigning ignorance, Lord Bing could be considered on par with Black Emperor among all Guardians.
If you can't refute it, just pretend you didn't hear it and skip it!
“After unearthing that solitary grave and opening the coffin within, they found an almost brand-new black armor inside, with large and small golden hot-stamped patterns in the shape of chi dragons, interwoven into several forbidden-level solidified Spells. From the style of the armor, it was similar to Mingguang armor...”
“Faced with such a well-crafted, high-grade Spiritual Energy item, the The Torch Bearers leaders and accompanying The Torch Bearers couldn't help but covet it. But after some discussion, they ultimately decided to put the armor back into the coffin, restore the cenotaph, and set up a sealing Spell to prevent later generations from damaging it.”
“No!” Hearing this, Bai Kai suddenly seemed to remember something and interrupted, “How can you be sure that's the Nangling Commander's cenotaph based on just one set of armor?”
“Because buried in the coffin along with the armor was an elegy written on silk by a woman named Xia Lianqing,” Lord Bing explained. “It clearly stated that this was the cenotaph she erected for the Nangling Commander.”
“Alright!” Bai Kai shrugged. “How much further is that cenotaph?”
“It's not far ahead,” Lord Bing said, quickening his pace. Soon, he crossed a ruin, whose original structure was no longer discernible, and arrived at an open space at the foot of the city wall. After searching for a moment, his pupils suddenly trembled.
The empty ground was covered with black mud formed from the flesh and blood of urban legend who had tried to escape Yumen Pass but ultimately died there. Malodorous dark red mist drifted among the pale, twisted, withered tree trunks... This place seemed no different from other areas in the South of the city of Yumen Pass.
And the cenotaph described in the manuscript was just gone!
It didn't look like it had been destroyed by someone.
With the sealing Spell laid down by several The Torch Bearers leaders and dozens of The Torch Bearers, it would be impossible for it to be easily destroyed, even after several centuries.
It was as if it had vanished into thin air.
Not a single trace was left, as if it had never existed.
