Chapter 156: When the Sky Collapses, the Strong Hold It Up
Chapter 156: When the Sky Collapses, the Strong Hold It Up
.
The mountain was clearly at a great distance from where the cloaked man stood, and yet it was perfectly visible, as was the palace upon it. Needless to say, its size was immense.
The cloaked man, upon seeing this, remained silent as if pondering something before finally making a decision and moving toward it.
"It’s likely that there’s a clue about its whereabouts there," he muttered, and with a swift flick of his figure he rushed in that direction.
As he did so, many others who had chosen to explore the place had, in one way or another, noticed the imposing mountain in the distance, and they too began heading toward it.
Usually, in naturally formed secret realms, there should not be any structures built by man. If there were, then it was likely that the realm itself had been created by someone, in other words, it was the inheritance left behind by someone powerful.
The realization of this drew the interest of many cultivators, and everyone who had noticed it decided to head there.
They did not doubt that further dangers awaited them, but in secret realms, the greater the dangers, the greater the rewards, and in a place crawling with third, fourth, and even fifth stage beasts, the rewards would by no means be small.
Zhu Rong, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the temporary daze of the creature that had attacked him, struck again without hesitation, this time with greater force.
Boom!
The blow was not only stronger but also more precise. The beast’s head received the full impact, and without resistance it was sent flying, crashing against the trunk from which it had just emerged.
Yet even so, the beast’s body did not seem affected. It lurched forward once again to attack Zhu Rong, who, noticing this strange anomaly, quickly moved aside.
’It can move without a head, but its awareness of its surroundings seems weaker’ he thought, observing the movements of the headless body.
He could tell that although the attack was aimed at him, it was mainly because that was from where he had struck it before. Now that he had shifted away, the body would have trouble locating him.
’Looks like I was right, it’s one of those creatures,’ he thought, the seriousness in his eyes growing as elemental fire Qi flared within his clenched fist.
Without wasting time, he dashed toward the beast, which had stumbled only a short distance, and drove his fist into its abdomen without hesitation, piercing straight through.
The moment this happened, the beast’s body trembled violently before collapsing lifelessly.
Seeing this, he sighed, pulling back his fist and letting the corpse fall heavily to the ground, this time without any sign of life.
"Wonderful... to think I’d run into one of these beings so soon. But how the hell did they get in here?" he muttered, while images of strange creatures of every form and size surfaced in his mind,white, glassy eyes, distorted bodies, charging forward without the slightest hesitation, destroying everything in their path.
The Infected, or demons, as people had begun to call them after their first appearance.
They were creatures sighted for the first time during the great war that involved all three empires. At that time, the empires were fragmented; there was no single flag under which all stood united.
Civil wars between various factions hungry for power were the order of the day, and that left all races weak to external threats.
It was during this period that a great calamity struck the continent, one that forced all living beings of the three empires to set aside their conflicts and struggle for survival.
Among the greatest threats of this calamity were none other than the Infected, creatures whose very souls had been corrupted, who had completely lost their will.
Beasts, humans, elves, none were spared. Before long, a vast army of these Infected marched across the continent, spreading chaos and death everywhere, their numbers swelling by the day.
It was in this desperate situation that the most powerful beings of the continent began to step forward, giants who chose to hold up the sky as it threatened to collapse.
These beings united under the command of three figures, and together they led the force that repelled this menace until it was completely eradicated.
They were the ones who united all races beneath a single banner and founded the three empires that exist today,
The first Human Emperor
The Queen of the Elves
And the Calamity Dragon
Three beings who had transcended the Spirit Realm and utterly suppressed the threat that had thrown the entire continent into chaos.
According to some legends, even if the divine weapons had not been sent from the heavens, these three would still have managed to repel the menace. But all that was known of that era was shrouded in uncertainty, and little could be said for certain.
That said, although the menace was repelled, no one ever truly believed it had been completely wiped out. And after the appearance of the cocoons in his past life, the three empires understood that this menace was still alive and most likely returning.
During his five centuries of life, Zhu Rong had faced some of these creatures before, and his memories of that period were anything but pleasant.
He looked at the lifeless corpse of the creature, then let out a weary sigh, not from physical exertion, but from something deeper within.
He raised his palm, gathered elemental Qi, and in an instant condensed it into a blazing fireball, which he then dropped onto the corpse.
Flames engulfed it immediately.
He also retrieved the head embedded in the trunk and tossed it into the burning body.
Even though the creature was dead, the corruptive energy within it would not dissipate completely for some time.
If he left the body as it was, another beast could easily stumble upon it, try to devour it, and in turn become corrupted.
Zhu Rong did not know how long these beings had been crawling within this secret realm, but just a few days would be enough to infect everything.
For that reason, he believed there was a high chance that the creatures here had long since fallen to this corruptive energy.
⬇️