“What are you saying,” Venerable Nu glared at Rock Solid, though in his heart he too felt a little uneasy as he rushed toward the Weapon Mountain.
After the fourth-level tribulation ended, the sky gradually returned to its former calm.
The two arrived at the center of Weapon Mountain.
Here a bottomless pit had appeared.
This was because of Weapon Mountain’s resilience. If it had been any other mountain, it would have already collapsed.
“Zimo!” Rock Solid lay by the pit’s edge and shouted.
His voice echoed in the hollow depths.
“Let’s go down and take a look,” Venerable Nu said.
The two stepped into the air, flying down toward the bottom of the pit.
The deeper they went, the more shocking the scene became. On one side of the walls, arcs of lightning still flickered.
Calling out Xu Zimo’s name as they went, they flew downward.
Finally, after seven or eight minutes, they reached the bottom.
It was already a field of ruins, the ground cracked and emitting black smoke.
Stones and soil everywhere had been scorched.
The two began searching below.
Venerable Nu did not dare to imagine, if Xu Zimo had truly been annihilated in the lightning, they might not even find his bones.
“Master, Brother Xu is here,” Rock Solid’s shout pulled Venerable Nu back from his dark thoughts.
Looking over quickly, he saw Xu Zimo lying beneath a large boulder.
His clothing was tattered, torn by lightning strikes.
His skin was charred and blackened.
“Brother Xu, wake up,” Rock Solid quickly lifted him up, shouting.
“Cough, cough,” Xu Zimo coughed heavily several times.
He awoke from the state of wandering spirit.
“Brother, your eyes…” Rock Solid looked at Xu Zimo’s eyes and froze in place.
Xu Zimo’s eyes were tightly shut, but above them, Chaos God Tribulation surged, making it impossible to open them.
What destructive power the Chaos God Tribulation held, anything it touched would be destroyed.
“It’s fine,” Xu Zimo waved his hand.
At this moment, he truly could no longer see.
In that crucial moment earlier, he had drawn upon the Chaos God Tribulation within his Heavenly Tribulation God-Eyes to resist the tribulation.
But unfortunately, it was like striking a stone with an egg.
In an instant, the heavenly tribulation pierced through his eyes.
His Heavenly Tribulation God-Eyes had been formed from Baleful Miasma, never truly seeing what real Chaos God Tribulation was.
But just now, when stimulated by the godly lightning descending from the heavens, Xu Zimo discovered his eyes seemed to undergo some astonishing change.
Whether it was good or bad, he did not yet know.
All he felt was a burning pain. His vision was completely dark, though if one were to look closely, it would be a sea of lightning, endless and terrifying.
This change would take time, and Xu Zimo was in no hurry.
“Really nothing?” Rock Solid asked worriedly. “Can you still see? Should we ask the Dean to heal you?”
Normally, at the God Meridian realm, blindness would never occur.
A severed limb could regrow, even eyes could recover from damage.
But Xu Zimo’s current condition looked anything but normal.
“No need, I know my own body,” Xu Zimo shook his head.
He indeed felt unaccustomed for now, unable to see and inconvenienced in many ways.
But with the sense of his God-Soul, once he adjusted, it would not affect much.
He only needed to wait for the transformation of his eyes to finish.
Besides, losing his sight made his hearing exceptionally sharp.
Xu Zimo took a black cloth and tied it over his eyes.
Otherwise, going out like this looked unsightly.
With the cloth over his eyes, Xu Zimo felt he looked rather like that blind old ancestor from the Heavenly Dao Academy.
“For now, stay at the Academy and recover properly,” Venerable Nu said. “Leave only after your eyes heal.”
“No,” Xu Zimo waved his hand.
“I want to go to the Blood Rune Domain. Please help me check everything about it.”
In fact, long ago when searching for Sword Immortal Jiang Yun’s clan, Xu Zimo had already heard of the Blood Rune Domain in the Northern Continent.
The Jiang Clan, to which Jiang Yun belonged, was one of the guarding families of the Blood Rune Domain.
But Xu Zimo only knew this much. He needed to be fully prepared before setting out.
“I knew you would go there,” Venerable Nu said. “No need to check, I already know. Back then, the Holy Progenitor sealed the Blood Rune Beasts, thus creating the Blood Rune Domain. There are a total of five Blood Rune Domains on Primordial Heartlands.”
“Five?” Xu Zimo frowned.
He had only heard of the one in the Northern Continent.
“Could it be one in each continent?”
“Exactly. But if you’re heading for the Ancient Celestial Court, it doesn’t have to be so complicated.” Venerable Nu continued, “Our Middle Continent’s Blood Rune Domain is within the Overlord Region. I estimate the Ancient Celestial Court should be there too. The Middle Continent lies at the core of the five continents, a place revered by all directions. It is the most likely place to have built the Celestial Court.”
“In the Overlord Region?” Xu Zimo was slightly surprised.
“I’ll draw you a map. You’ll know when you see it,” Venerable Nu said. “It’s not your strength I worry about, but your current condition.”
“It’s fine,” Xu Zimo waved.
Looking back at the ruined Weapon Mountain, Venerable Nu instructed Rock Solid, “I’ll take Zimo to draw the map. You go inform the Dean. This was unavoidable.”
“Understood,” Rock Solid nodded.
Then Xu Zimo and Venerable Nu left Weapon Mountain and returned to Vermilion Bird Island.
This heavenly tribulation left Xu Zimo with much to ponder.
It was his first true battle against the power of heaven and earth.
Even a mere fourth-level tribulation was this terrifying. They said there were nine levels of tribulation.
And even this was not Heaven’s full strength.
He felt his own smallness, and the endlessness of his journey ahead.
Perhaps he really should set out for the heavens beyond heaven soon.
On the Primordial Heartlands, there was little left that could make him stronger.
……
Back on Vermilion Bird Island, Venerable Nu did not draw with brush and ink.
Instead, he took out a roll of ancient beast hide.
Using spiritforce, he sketched routes upon it.
“Since your eyes are... inconvenient, even if I drew you a map, you couldn’t see it anyway,” he explained. “This hide comes from a spirit beast. I’ll mark the rough locations on it. You can sense the energy on it to find your way.”
“Thanks,” Xu Zimo nodded.
“In the Overlord Region, there is a place called the Land of Destruction. You should understand, whether in our Overlord Region or others, the imperial lineages are rulers and the strongest existences. But the Land of Destruction is different,” Venerable Nu said. “As far as I know, back then the Blood Rune Beasts in the Middle Continent were the strongest, and this was their base. Even the Holy Progenitor sealing them caused a heaven-shaking war. Just how tragic that battle was, no one knows.”