Chapter 1 Meanwhile, Su Zhou Was Holding a Meeting in the Camp

At the same time, Su Zhou was holding a meeting in the camp.

The Kunlun camp was a portable data center that was extremely easy to set up, using armed transport helicopters to carry the components and assemble them upon arrival.

The two Holy Seats, Number Saint and Artisan Saint, were here, monitoring all aura information within the ruins.

When Su Zhou arrived, the two Holy Seats were arguing, prompting him to curiously listen in—but the result was quite disappointing. It wasn't anything worth gossiping about at all. Mainly, Number Saint accused Artisan Saint of using too violent a method to open the ruins, which could damage the cave heaven entrance and even cause uncontrollable anomalies.

But Artisan Saint, who specialized in all kinds of magical artifacts and formations, scoffed at this: "Opening a door with a key can also damage the lock cylinder. It's just a matter of degree. Or are you planning to keep dragging it out for another ten days or half a month? The sooner we get the data from inside the ruins and know the whereabouts of the immortals and gods and their past plans, the better we can formulate subsequent plans."

"Every second of delay now could be paid for with blood later."

Su Zhou's arrival temporarily stopped the two Holy Seats from arguing—actually, there wasn't much to argue about, because the plan had already been set. The two were just venting their dissatisfaction.

After all, Holy Seats were also people, with their own emotions and tendencies. It was just that under the supervision of the various Holy Seats, their names were concealed, leaving only their sanctified titles, which made them seem lofty and mysterious.

Number Saint was a middle-aged man dressed very ordinarily, about forty or fifty years old, with a deep demeanor and profound eyes. Artisan Saint looked less than forty years old, with a rather dashing and unrestrained temperament, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. He was probably the youngest of the Holy Seats—but if Su Zhou also became a Holy Seat in the future, then he would be the youngest.

Su Zhou's report was obviously very important, and he took advantage of the unusual nature of the Kunlun ruins and the sudden heavy snowfall to directly propose the idea that 'there might be evil beings suppressed inside the ruins.'

"Perhaps the old immortals and gods suppressed their enemies in their headquarters, and perhaps they didn't have time to kill these suppressed enemies due to the urgent evacuation—or perhaps they believed that the severing of spiritual energy would cause them to die naturally, and that would be the most cruel punishment."

In the camp, Su Zhou spoke eloquently: "Or perhaps the revival of spiritual energy caused some things inside the ruins to become refined, giving birth to new life—or a combination of both. For example, just like my dragon blood attracts other dragon species to gather, if there is indeed a great demon sealed inside, then now that the ruins have gradually opened, some demons with bloodlines similar to them will definitely appear around the Kunlun Mountain ruins."

"Indeed, that's very possible. It's worth being vigilant."

Other professors had also thought of the idea proposed by Su Zhou, but the weight of his proposal was not the same as that of others. What's more, Su Zhou himself possessed dragon blood. Who knew if there would be some mutual induction?

But vigilance was vigilance, and exploration still had to be done. Coincidentally, Su Zhou had already arrived, so Bai Canglang took over the conversation and informed Su Zhou of the ritual and method for opening the ruins.

"Originally, the Daosign Bureau obtained the method from ancient books, which was to condense the blood of ten different Mimic Dao cultivators into a key to slowly open all the forbidden doors of the secret realm. This is the orthodox method, but the disadvantage is that the speed is too slow. The verification speed of the secret realm is inexplicably nearly ten times slower than theoretically. It takes nearly a hundred days. It's probably because the formation has been a bit sluggish after being sealed for thousands of years."

"And Artisan Saint doesn't plan to wait that long. He wants to rely on the existing permission key to directly crack it all the way, and by the way, master the formation permissions of the entire secret realm—although theoretically there is no danger, after all, we already have the key and won't trigger countermeasures, but it may indeed damage the integrity of the great formation."

Ten kinds of high-level demon blood with internal inheritance, that is, the blood of divine beasts such as true dragon blood and white tiger blood, should have been easy to gather in ancient times, but in the modern era, when Mimic Dao is declining, it is very difficult.

Especially the specified 'dragon blood', they couldn't find any qualified blood at all. Fortunately, Su Zhou appeared and solved the urgent need. Otherwise, they would have to try if Flood Dragon blood could be used instead.

"There's no problem, but what if it doesn't work?"

Providing a little blood was nothing to Su Zhou. The essence of transcendents was actually the condensation of transcendent elements. Just taking blood wouldn't reveal anything—he was just thinking, there was no inheritance in his blood at all, would it meet the requirements?

Bai Canglang was stunned, feeling that Su Zhou was joking: "How is that possible? Professor Su, just look at your current strength. How could it be useless?"

"You dare to question the power of my blood?!"

At the same time, sensing Su Zhou's doubts in his heart, Yala, who was shrinking in Su Zhou's ear, swelled up with anger, making Su Zhou feel extremely itchy in his ear: "Let me put it this way, if that formation dares to reject my blood, it can only prove that its level is not enough!"

"In the end, you can't be sure either!"

But even if it didn't work, Su Zhou wasn't nervous. Ten minutes later, he had already taken a helicopter and arrived next to the entrance of the Kunlun Secret Realm.

The entrance to the Kunlun Secret Realm was located on the summit of a mountain in the real Kunlun Mountains.

In the mountains thousands of meters above sea level, steep and precipitous peaks and majestic snow-capped mountains were clustered together. It could be seen that the top of the most towering peak was already surrounded by white clouds, as if the upper end had entered the heavenly realm and no longer existed in the human world.

Layers of water-like, translucent ripples echoed in the space above the entire summit, and behind this hazy ripple, there was another vast world phantom, which was projecting from an infinitely distant time and space and reflected here.

"This feeling is a bit like a small teleportation gate opened by a Celestial God imprint."

Standing on the lightning above the clouds, Su Zhou felt a familiar feeling from it. He couldn't help but nod: "The former Earth was actually full of such space-time channels leading to another world? What a wonderful world structure."

Without much emotion, Su Zhou went to the ritual location.

The blood of the other nine divine beasts had already been gathered, and they had been transformed into nine clusters of misty spiritual light, rotating and hovering above the array disc that served as the key.

Surrounded by a group of Daosign Bureau researchers, Su Zhou came to the array disc, which was shaped like a pentagon. He picked up the ritual dagger, cleanly and neatly cut his wrist, dripped a few drops of blood, and sank into the array disc.

The dagger was surprisingly sharp. Although Su Zhou still used a little force to cut in, he could at least cut it. According to Artisan Saint's explanation, this was a small divine weapon forged according to the method of the 'Execution Platform' beheading knife of the ancient Heavenly Court. Ordinary indestructible bodies could not stop it at all. With a slight stroke, it would directly break open.

The fact that Su Zhou's body actually needed force had already surprised him enough. If the atmosphere wasn't right, he would probably rush forward and pinch it himself to see how deep this body was.

Su Zhou's cyan spiritual blood was suspended above the array disc, and a misty aura overflowed from it, sublimating into light mist. It could be vaguely seen that there was a huge hazy phantom like a dragon snake hovering in it, like a giant shadow in the deep sea void. It tossed and turned for a moment, let out a long roar, and then slowly sank into the array disc.

The other nine spiritual bloods did not show their visions until Su Zhou's blood disappeared—the roar of a fierce tiger, the cry of a divine bird, and the sounds of various other divine beasts could be heard.

Bai Canglang couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. He didn't see the vision presented by Su Zhou's bloodline just now, representing which dragon... But according to priority, Su Zhou's bloodline was obviously higher than the White Tiger, one of the Four Symbols sacred beasts.

"Ying Long? Zhu Long? Or even really the Thunder Marsh Dragon God? According to records, only these few dragon snake descendants are higher than the White Tiger... But if so, it can explain why he cultivates the Way of Thunder Marsh so smoothly."

Although Bai Canglang unexpectedly guessed one of the original correct answers, he didn't have time to think about it.

Buzz—A sound like the buzzing of a large bell resounded through the clouds.

Satisfied with the opening ceremony, the gate of the Kunlun Secret Realm finally opened slowly—and Yala nodded with satisfaction, it seemed that the formation of the Kunlun Secret Realm was indeed qualified.

The misty ripples shrouded in lightning cracked the first layer of cracks.

Immediately, a cool spiritual energy overflowed from the secret realm, setting off a gust of wind that went straight into the sky—for a time, the originally thick snow clouds were dispersed, and the dim orange light of the setting sun overflowed from it, dividing into rays of light.

The extremely rich spiritual energy intoxicated most of the researchers. It felt like being immersed in the most comfortable bathtub, and the refreshing feeling of sweeping away the dirt inside and outside the body.

But not everyone was immersed in this pleasure. Number Saint, who was monitoring all the data in real time, frowned: "The data is wrong. Even with Artisan Saint's reckless cracking method, the speed is too fast!"

As the planner of the plan, Artisan Saint naturally knew it very well—he was not the kind of person who would get carried away just because he felt that his plan was going smoothly. This seemingly dashing Holy Seat pushed his glasses and said in a deep voice: "The formation of the Kunlun Ruins has almost no resistance, allowing me to crack it... It's indeed abnormal."

Su Zhou didn't know about the data. He just stared intently at the crack in the misty wave, which seemed to lead to the other side, trying to see clearly what was behind it.

It was slightly dilapidated buildings and nearly collapsed palaces.

And... a huge shadow that flashed across the sky!

Inside the Kunlun Ruins.

In a palace that had long been dilapidated but still maintained its basic integrity.

A huge shadow descended from the sky, transformed into a human form in mid-air, and stepped into the palace.

The ancient Kunlun Divine Palace was based on jade marrow. Even if it was dilapidated due to the sudden change of the world, it would never collapse naturally as long as it did not encounter a strong battle.

The crisp sound of footsteps echoed, and the entire palace spontaneously lit up with fluorescence due to the fluctuation of spiritual energy.

Until the deepest part of the palace, in front of a dark and bottomless giant cave that seemed to lead to another world.

The giant cave was sealed and suppressed by layers of runes. Even after thousands of years and gradually destroyed by later generations, it still flickered with a terrifying divine light. A palm print, similar to a human palm but also like a tiger's paw, served as the core of the seal, overflowing with metal energy that seemed to be able to cut and destroy everything.

In front of the seal, the figure stopped and hissed in an ancient tone, as if it were another language.

The language of the spirits.

"I smell dragon blood, and the bloodlines of other divine beasts... The remnants of the immortal world have begun to reopen the gate of the Kunlun realm."

Its tone was a bit anxious: "When will you be able to come over? They are the inheritors of the legitimate rulers of this realm. The permissions seized according to the methods you taught will soon be taken away."

"Don't be anxious, don't be afraid."

A deep thought came from the other end of the giant cave. It comforted the figure: "As long as you mobilize the various formation obstacles that originally existed in the Kunlun realm, they will not be able to detect the abnormality of this world so quickly. Conceal the seal here and slowly unseal it. We will eventually arrive, give you freedom, and avenge your ancestors."

"Freedom..." The figure lowered its head and repeated those words: "Revenge."

Immediately, a dark hatred, as if originating from the bloodline, surged up. It recalled many unbearable memories, those memories of being skinned and boned, marrow extracted, and using the most vicious and poisonous methods to extract power, covering all areas of its brain used for thinking.

Those terrifying upright apes extracted their power, transformed into their forms, and hunted their kind...

After a while, it regained its composure.

"Okay."

After a while, the figure walked out of the palace, raised its head, and then turned into a huge shadow, straight into the sky.

It flew into the sky and looked down at this vast world.

Long rivers hung down from the peaks, shimmering with sparkling waves. Peach groves were densely distributed beside the vast Yaochi, and ancient peach trees rejuvenated in the long-lost nourishment of spiritual energy, re-growing new buds.

On the overlapping mountains, there were dense vegetation and towering rocks, which formed large areas of dense forests like armor scales, growing on the mountains and earth.

But those were not mountains.

But corpses.

The huge shadow looked down at the world. Its divine eyes could clearly distinguish that the seemingly towering peaks were actually unimaginable skeletons—dragon skeletons thousands of meters long, tiger bones as high as mountains, and that gently sloping dome mountain, under the layers of soil, was actually a huge turtle shell of a divine turtle.

Their corpses constituted this world, this secret realm.

This was the Kunlun Secret Realm, the place where hundreds of gods resided.

The burial ground of ten thousand demons.

The huge shadow descended again, landing on a 'mountain peak'. The overall appearance of this mountain looked like a huge Peng bird had died here.

In fact, that was indeed the case.

The shadow transformed into a human form again and landed on the top of this avian bone mountain, next to a broken cyan glazed orb.

That was where it was born sixteen years ago.

This young and somewhat overly 'delicate' human form stood next to its birthplace. It squatted in place in confusion, hugging its knees, and thinking hard.

This time, the dark hatred and memories reappeared in its memory.

But this time, the scenes in the memory were completely different from before, even completely opposite.

That was the memory of countless upright, hairless apes being swallowed as prey by huge monsters—they were crushed to bones, their brains sucked, and the tribal camps that had been built with great difficulty were completely turned to ashes by a burning firebird flapping its wings.

Some people resisted under the leadership of their leaders, and some could only flee in a panic.

But the same was hatred—the purest hatred, as if burning from every part of the blood and bone marrow.

So they spent an extremely long time imitating the power of those giant beasts, using their bloodlines to fight against them, and even transforming themselves into the giant beasts they hated to defeat another giant beast.

"This is, human... revenge."

It murmured to itself: "This is 'demon'."

In the bloodline, two completely different and completely opposite memories made it painful to think: "The voice of the black giant cave is not credible. They are just using me to open that seal... But they are the only external information I can receive."

"But which side am I on? Am I the 'descendant of the divine bird' in their mouths, or the descendant of the race called humans who seized the power of the divine bird?"

"What do those remnants from the immortal world... think?"