From the dome of this dark cavern down to the faint glow below, the distance was unimaginably long. Quinn Shepherd kept falling, and even he began to feel a chill down his spine. His speed increased by the moment—if he couldn’t slow his descent with divine arts, he’d be smashed into a pile of pulp!
He tried to activate a divine art, but as soon as his vital energy formed rune‑seals, they scattered and failed to take shape.
This underground space had a strange power that interfered with his cultivation techniques and divine arts. Quinn quickly realized the disturbance was an attack on his mind—every time he tried to cast a divine art, a mysterious force would scramble his thoughts, making it impossible to execute.
"Mental divine art?"
Quinn was surprised. Though rare, such arts were mentioned in the Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra and certain demonic techniques—usually as illusion attacks that leveraged powerful thought-waves to assault the brain, trapping the target in an illusion where they couldn’t distinguish reality from fantasy.
In those cases, you could use your own divine arts to break the illusion, pierce through to reality, and kill the opponent.
But the mental divine art in this underground darkness was far more advanced—it attacked his thoughts directly, preventing him from casting any divine arts, so he couldn’t break free of the opponent’s mental art at all.
"Mental divine arts… This is actually a direction worth researching. I’ll have to mention it to the Imperial Preceptor—maybe we can train some students skilled in mental arts. If they went to war, a burst of mental divine power could stop the enemy from casting any arts at all—just slaughtering chickens and dogs… Bah, why am I thinking about this? I’m about to be smashed to pulp myself!"
Quinn couldn’t concentrate his mind, but his flesh remained incredibly strong. He immediately started running, trying to sprint through the darkness at such a speed that he could ‘run’ through the air itself.
But then he discovered something else strange—the air here was thin, and the farther he fell, the thinner it became. Even with legs spinning like wheels, he couldn’t get any traction at all.
Just then, he spotted a 'star' in the darkness—a boulder no bigger than a bucket, which was actually a grain of Star Sand.
“First Senior Brother’s Star Sand! He really did come here!”
Quinn’s heart leapt. He planted his feet on the bucket-sized Star Sand, which plummeted rapidly under his weight. But the Star Sand contained a strange force that resisted the weird field here; after falling for a while, its momentum slowed, and it even started to rebound.
Quinn immediately crouched and sprang, landing on another piece of Star Sand. He leapt from one to the next, bounding across dozens of Star Sand boulders like a bead of light, quickly approaching the glow at the earth’s core.
The source of the glow was a platform floating in the darkness, trapezoidal with steps on all sides, wide at the base and narrow at the top, suspended alone at the center of the blackness like a hovering altar.
Quinn landed on the altar and looked back—Star Sand dots floated in the darkness. The Founding Patriarch had clearly discovered this place and set up the formation. That meant whatever was on this altar was something the Founding Patriarch wanted to leave for the Woodcutter Sage.
What could it be? First Senior Brother had already left two things: one was the God-Slaying Headsman’s Blade, a human head packed in a box; the other was a command token of unknown age. So what was this altar’s item...?
He looked toward the center of the altar, where there was a stone coffin made of unknown material, engraved with relief patterns that looked like sealing runes.
The stone coffin was over ten zhang long and two or three zhang wide—enormous, clearly not a mortal’s coffin but the burial place of a god.
Quinn tried to activate the Ninefold Heaven Eye Art, but still couldn’t cast any divine arts. After hesitating, he could only peel off the Golden Willow Leaf at his brow and use his third eye to peer into the coffin.
Even with this eye, he didn’t sense anything strange, but he could vaguely tell there was no corpse in the stone coffin—only a giant vat.
Quinn resealed his brow with the Golden Willow Leaf and stepped forward.
“A giant vat inside a coffin—what’s the meaning of this?”
He cautiously probed the stone coffin with vital energy, but found nothing unusual. Still, Quinn didn’t relax—like a spirit cat, he circled the coffin at high speed, probing with threads of vital energy, but again found nothing.
Only then did he let his guard down and step forward to try opening the coffin.
The coffin lid was extremely heavy; he used all his strength to finally shift it aside a bit.
Inside the stone coffin was indeed a giant vat. Quinn peered into the glow and saw a severed head in the vat—a head with four faces, and on top of its tower-like hair bun, yet another eye.
The head was soaked in strange liquid, seemingly still alive. Suddenly, the eye atop the hair bun snapped open and fixed its gaze on Quinn.
Quinn’s heart lurched. Suddenly, his surroundings shifted—the earth’s core, darkness, altar, stone coffin, vat, severed head—all vanished!
He found himself in a grand palace, dazzlingly luxurious, the floor made of white jade and the stars of pearls and gems. A faceless man approached him and said, “Gavin Zaro, I need you to do something for the future of our Pioneer Era.”
“As you command, Your Majesty.”
“Indra King Buddha gathered the world’s sorcerers to create Carefree Haven and forge the Other Shore Ark. I need you to preserve some foundation for the Pioneer Era—I fear that future generations will forget Carefree Haven, or that enemies will destroy the Other Shore Ark. Here are the ark’s blueprints. With your god-brain, memorize them all.”
Quinn saw mountains of blueprints. He watched 'himself' leaf through each page—the diagrams and text were extremely complex, nearly impossible to memorize. Yet 'he' imprinted every detail in his mind, page by page, without missing a single thing.
“Your Majesty, do we truly have no chance of winning?” Quinn heard a stranger’s voice.
It was the voice of the god named Gavin Zaro.
“None.”
The faceless man turned his back and shook his head. “Not the slightest chance. The more I learn about our enemies, the more despair I feel. Every era in history has been destroyed, and we can’t escape the same fate. But there is still hope for the future—if you leave behind these blueprints, you leave behind hope. One day, my descendants will find you and retrieve these plans. They’ll bring you to Carefree Haven to see me. Then, we’ll rise again and change the world!”
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“Your Majesty...”
The faceless man walked away, leaving him behind. He concentrated, taking a long time to finally memorize the impossibly complex blueprints for the Other Shore Ark.
He destroyed the blueprints—they burned for a long time before finally going out.
When the last blueprint burned to ash, the hall fell into darkness.
Light surged through the darkness before Quinn’s eyes—a vast, tumultuous battlefield of gods and demons. Sky and earth alike were filled with fierce fighting, countless gods and demons falling in epic, tragic combat.
Quinn saw the Kaihuang Heaven Court plummeting from a great height, crashing through layer after layer of heavens, trailing flames and streaks of light as it fell into other worlds.
Quinn stared in a daze as 'he' raised a divine sword, then lowered it again, returned to the divine city, and slipped underground to forge a dark space and construct an altar.
He used his own spirit to construct a strange psychic field, prepared a coffin for himself, placed a giant vat inside it, and filled the vat with divine water refined from his own spirit and life force to preserve his flesh from decay.
He raised the sword once more.
“Whoever sees this scene...”
Quinn heard the stranger’s voice again, murmuring, “Are you a descendant of the Qin clan? Have you come by the Pioneer Emperor’s command to retrieve the blueprints? I cannot repay the Pioneer Emperor’s kindness; I offer my head and await Lord Qin’s arrival.”
Sss—
A flash of sword light—Quinn felt a sharp pain, then saw 'himself' tumble into the vat. Looking out, he saw Gavin Zaro’s headless body moving the coffin lid, slowly sealing the coffin shut.
A moment later, he heard a heavy thud echo from the depths of the earth—the god’s corpse had fallen from the altar to the ground.
Quinn’s eyes stung and reddened; he wiped away his tears.
The head in the vat seemed to see him. It spun inside, sending powerful psychic waves that resonated with Quinn’s spirit. Blueprint after blueprint appeared as images, burned into Quinn’s mind. The blueprints multiplied, while the divine water—spirit and life force—dwindled.
By the time the divine water in the vat was exhausted, Quinn’s mind was filled with the Other Shore Ark’s blueprints.
The god’s head continued to emit psychic waves, transmitting the remaining blueprints into Quinn’s mind. The head decayed visibly, and when its spirit was spent, only a skull lay quietly at the bottom of the vat.
Quinn stood silently before the stone coffin for a long time. Suddenly he said, “You owe the Qin family nothing—it’s we who owe you! I won’t let you die without your body whole!”
He leapt from the altar, a thread of vital energy suspending him as he plunged into the depths below. After a long time, Quinn rose slowly, carrying a headless skeleton and clutching the gossamer strand of vital energy.
He returned to the altar, lifted the giant vat, and respectfully placed the headless skeleton in the coffin. Then he took the skull from the vat and set it on the skeleton’s neck.
Quinn closed the stone coffin, bowed three times, then turned and leapt upward, bounding from Star Sand boulder to boulder toward the sky.
With one final leap, still a thousand zhang from the cave mouth, Quinn pointed his finger—vital energy shot out, lashing onto the bone rope hanging at the cave’s entrance.
The skeletons at the cave mouth scrambled upward, struggling for a while before finally hauling him out of the bottomless subterranean space.
Just as Quinn climbed out, a tremor shook the earth below. His expression changed; he unleashed vital energy, sweeping up the surrounding skeleton monsters and forming a Great Luo Star Force Field, then fled with them at top speed.
Behind him, the ground collapsed—the ruined divine city fell into the earth’s core, the cave mouth widening into a massive abyss.
Quinn sped up to the limit, racing out of the ancient ruins. The tremors gradually stopped. Looking back, he saw the ruins had become a deep chasm, burying history.
Quinn put the skeleton monsters down, sat on a rock, and gazed at the bottomless abyss, his eyes deep and sorrowful.
One skeleton monster patted his head, as if to comfort him. Another approached, trying to wipe the tears from the corner of his eye.
Quinn smiled, stood up, and bowed to the skeleton monsters. “I’m fine now. Thank you all for accompanying me these days. If I survive, I’ll come back to reunite your souls and revive you. Until we meet again!”
He strode away. This time, the skeleton monsters did not follow. Quinn looked back and saw them waving their bony arms at him.
Quinn waved and walked away.
“Even in death, a hero’s bones are fragrant, unashamed before the world’s worthies. Pioneer Emperor, my ancestor—far away in Carefree Haven, do you still remember the god named Gavin Zaro, who gave his head for a promise? I fear you’ve forgotten, but I remember for you. The Qin clan will never betray those they follow, nor forget their own or their ancestors’ promises!”
He trekked across the desolate land, heading straight for the place where the Kaihuang Heaven Court had fallen. There, according to Gavin Zaro’s memory, was the entrance to Taihuang Heaven or the Great Ruins.
“I’ll fulfill your promise and let the fallen heroes rest in peace!”
He arrived at a fractured space, dazzling rays swirling there, faintly revealing another world. The rays were shards of space—crossing them was perilous.
Quinn took out a small box from his Glutton Dragon Pouch, leapt into the fractured space, and as the rays closed in, he snapped open the box—two blades of bloodthirsty light burst forth, snipping the rays short!
Before the rays could close, Quinn darted through the spatial shards, plummeting downward. Below, mountains and forests stretched far, and the Southern Heavenly Gate towered high.
Quinn was startled—the land below was not Taihuang Heaven, but the Great Ruins.
———In Old Village, Great Ruins, Chicken Dragon looked serious: Cluck! Cluck cluck! Cluck cluck cluck!
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