One after another, the giant stone statues gathered near the drilling stone statue. Suddenly, their massive arms and legs moved at a blinding speed, furiously digging into the earth. Their arms spun like whirlwinds, tearing up the ground and hurling huge boulders aside.
Quinn Shepherd and the others on the Solar Ark were stunned. The speed at which these demon-god stone statues dug was astonishing—awkward in appearance, perhaps, but in no time they had excavated a massive pit. The statues' bodies gradually sank underground, all the while flinging rocks out of the hole.
“These guys dig even faster than a dog paddling!” Crippled Joe muttered.
Whale King glanced at Rat Immortal and said, “When it comes to burrowing, apart from Rocky Clayborne, no one’s better than Brother Rat.”
Rat Immortal stood up and said, “I’ll go see what they’re up to.” With a shake, he transformed into a big gray-furred rat, leapt off the Solar Ark, and in a few breaths reached the ground. Then he dove into the earth and vanished.
Whale King said, “Rat Immortal is a master at treasure-hunting—Uncle Ash-Treasure, we call him. He moves through the earth as if it’s nothing. He’s bound to find something.”
Quinn looked up. Overhead, the sky was filled with blossoms—an entire canopy of flowers stretched above the Solar Ark, with Lady Hua standing at the heart of one gigantic bloom. She seemed to be growing right out of the flower itself.
“These gods of High Heaven must be dealt with!”
Quinn turned to Apothecary and the others. “Any ideas?”
Apothecary grinned. “I used to have no way, but now I’ve got plenty.”
Whale King drew out the golden horn and said, “Let me handle this.” He rose from the pool and bowed to the golden horn.
That golden horn was the Whale-King Tribe’s sacred artifact, forged into a golden spear. After Whale King bowed to it, the horn whistled into the sky. With a crisp sound, a golden streak flashed across the heavens—the trail left by the horn’s flight.
The golden streak pierced straight through Lady Hua’s brow, then abruptly curved behind her head and shot toward another deity, drilling through Lord Yan Star’s heart.
That golden horn, now a streak of light, twisted and darted at impossible speed. In moments, every god present—including Lord Yan Star—had been run through by it.
A clear, piercing whistle rang out as the golden horn landed back in Whale King’s hand.
The golden streak in the sky slowly faded, then vanished altogether.
Quinn felt a chill in his heart and looked at the golden horn. Not a trace of blood stained its surface. The horn had killed so many gods, including Lady Hua and Lord Yan Star of the Four Lords of High Heaven, yet remained utterly unblemished.
It was well known that the bodies of gods and demon-gods from High Heaven were unbelievably tough. Even sect-suppressing treasures couldn’t harm them; attacking their flesh was like eggs against stone, shattering the weapon instead.
Yet the Whale-King Tribe’s sacred artifact hadn’t suffered the slightest wear. Its power was beyond question.
Still, no matter how powerful the artifact, it depends on its wielder. Whale King had struggled against the gods of High Heaven before, unable to win—most likely because his own cultivation was still lacking.
“Whale King, I’ve already made the three-bridge method for repairing the Divine Bridge public. Why don’t you come ashore and learn it too?” Quinn asked.
Whale King was surprised. “So that Divine Bridge repair technique was spread by the Human Emperor. I’ve already got it, to be honest. Our tribe often comes ashore to trade with the Everpeace Empire—we exchange all sorts of things.”
Quinn relaxed. “So that’s how it is.”
Suddenly, a giant rat bounded onto the Solar Ark, sprinting toward them. As it ran, it transformed back into a gray-robed elder, panting as he reached the group. “There’s definitely something underground! It’s hollow down there—palaces, a statue so huge it’s unreal, and an enormous saber!”
Apothecary quickly urged him into the Pure Yang Pool. “You’re still hurt—slow down and tell us.”
Rat Immortal caught his breath and continued, “There’s a passage underground. The stone statues have already dug down and reached it. Follow it and you’ll arrive at the planet’s core—a vast hollow space. At the center is a statue, like it’s drilled up from the depths, surrounded by chains. The chains anchor the palaces, and somehow that statue ended up tangled in them. These chains are even thicker than the ones tethering the sun to the Solar Ark!”
Everyone was shaken and glanced at each other.
The chains that bind the sun to the Solar Ark are a masterpiece from the Pioneer Era. With current smithing techniques, no one could forge such divine objects anymore.
Yet the chains beneath Godsever Mountain are even thicker than those that hold the sun. Could they be relics from the Pioneer Era as well?
Deaf suddenly said, “The Solar Ark’s chains bind the sun—so maybe the chains underground are meant to bind that statue?”
A chill crept into everyone’s hearts.
Why would anyone need to chain down a statue?
Rat Immortal shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You guessed wrong. The chains are connected to several palaces—they run under the palaces, and I followed the stone statues down to see them floating around the statue. That statue wasn’t always there underground. It looks like it just drilled up, kind of like the ones that appeared in the Everpeace Empire recently—statues that suddenly emerged. But this one was unlucky. It came up right under the Godsever Mountains and got stuck in the chains, couldn’t break through to the surface.”
Crippled Joe perked up. “I bet those palaces are packed with treasures. We ought to—uh, I mean, go pick up some loot!”
Apothecary scolded, “You’ve barely survived—run around like that and you’ll lose your life for real! Rat Immortal, what else did you see?”
Rat Immortal replied, “There are floating bridges in the air, linking the palaces around the statue…”
Whale King frowned. “There are already chains—why do you need floating bridges too? What are the chains for?”
Rat Immortal’s expression grew odd; he hesitated. “There’s a saber stuck in the statue’s forehead. The chains are locking down that saber… When the statue drilled up from below, it must’ve hit the blade and got its head split open…”
Apothecary asked, puzzled, “What kind of saber?”
“A giant saber. A really, really big saber.”
Rat Immortal bared his long front teeth, his whiskers twitching. “Heavenblade’s saber is already huge, but next to that one, it’s pitifully small. The Titan Saber runs north to south, embedded in the statue’s forehead—so long, so vast. When I saw it, I noticed something strange…”
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He steadied himself. “Granny Sue, the Imperial Preceptor, and all the gods of High Heaven are inside that gleaming saber. It’s like a mirror—inside it, their Primordial Spirits are fighting, but none of them realize it.”
Quinn and the others tried to picture the scene, shivering a little. Granny Sue and the rest had used the Da Luo Heaven Star Domain to pull everyone’s Primordial Spirits—including those of the High Heaven gods—away, only to end up inside the saber’s pocket realm?
And when the Imperial Preceptor activated the Quake Cauldron, hoping to perish together with the High Heaven gods, its energy was also absorbed by the terrifying power underground—could it be the work of that Titan Saber?
Whale King was stunned. “We fell into that bizarre space—vast and boundless, yet utterly empty. Who would have thought we were standing on the surface of a saber… We fought for so long on a blade and never realized!” He was incredulous.
Rat Immortal went on, “The stone statues reached the place before me. Some of them are building a huge altar—I’ve no idea what it’s for.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Rat Immortal, can you sketch what the altar looked like?”
Rat Immortal used his yuanqi as a brush and painted in midair. After a while, the altar appeared. It was almost identical to the one Quinn had seen at the cave entrance in another world—a portal altar for the demon army to cross the world’s barrier into Everpeace.
But the altar Rat Immortal drew had runes similar to that other altar, yet also some differences.
Quinn paused, suddenly curious. “Does anyone have a mirror?”
Crippled Joe grinned. “Deaf loves to admire himself—if anyone’s got one, he does.”
Deaf snorted and produced a mirror. Quinn quickly said, “I need two mirrors. Anyone else?”
Apothecary mumbled, “I’ve got one.”
Deaf glared at him. “You don’t even have a face—what do you need a mirror for?”
“To tidy my clothes,” Apothecary replied matter-of-factly.
Quinn took the two mirrors, placing one on the left side of Rat Immortal’s sketched altar and one on the right. “Rat Immortal, can you reflect the altar in the mirror?”
Rat Immortal willed it, and his yuanqi altar floated into the mirror. Quinn peered into the glass, realization dawning. “These two altars are mirror images! The one built by the stone statues and the one in the other world are reflections—they’re transmitting the demon army directly from the other realm to the underground altar. Their array is a kind of transmission formation, but it’s different from the Cult of the Heavenly Saint’s—it’s more primitive, and needs blood sacrifices.”
Crippled Joe laughed. “Why would they send a demon army over? Are they planning to blood-sacrifice them to wake up the statue underground?”
No one laughed. Crippled Joe’s smile faded too.
The demon army would be sent in, sacrificed to awaken the statue underground. And once that statue woke up—who knew what would happen?
“That statue probably isn’t just a statue—it’s the ancestor of all these demon-god stone statues. They must have come here to rescue their forebear.”
Deaf said, “Once the demon army’s been sacrificed, the statue revives. Ha! All our fighting was for nothing—the demon gods’ offspring just bring their ancestor back!”
Everyone fell silent. The Village Chief was dead, Old Buddha was dead, the old Dao Master was dead, and even Xuan Shengwu, White Immortal, and Yellow Immortal had fallen. In the end, none of it had stopped the descent of true gods and demons.
They were spent. If this true demon revived, they’d all be doomed.
Quinn kept studying the mirrors. Suddenly, he asked, “Anyone else have a mirror? Give me two more.”
Apothecary rummaged through his medicine basket and tossed over two more mirrors. Deaf raised an eyebrow and snorted, “So flashy!”
Quinn placed one mirror between the two, refracting the light, and used another to reflect it again. After several bounces, the altar in the last mirror was still a mirror image. Quinn thought for a moment. “If the demon army can’t be transmitted over, could the remaining stone statues still wake the statue underground?”
Apothecary asked, curious, “What’s the Little Human Emperor planning?”
Quinn blushed. “Grandpa Apothecary, don’t tease me… I’m thinking of building two more transmission altars between the existing ones—to interfere with their transmission. If the demon army gets disrupted, they might not make it through. It’s like with these mirrors—if you change the angle, the image won’t reach the last mirror.”