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At the same time, the Spirit Breath Lamp Xu Qing held glittered with even more intense light. Together the two fields of brightness created a surging, glowing sea.

Xu Qing’s expression flickered as that light washed over him. Even if he had made the decision to back away, he wouldn’t have had time. In the blink of an eye, the sea of light vanished, and Xu Qing went along with it! Paradoxically, the process seemed to take a very long time, but also, happened in an instant.

Everything faded away from Xu Qing’s perspective. Then things started to grow clear again. The first thing he sensed was an absolutely terrifyingly mighty pressure, almost like the roar of an immensely powerful wild beast, coming from straight ahead. There was clearly no sound, just the pressure. But nonetheless, it caused Xu Qing’s ears to ring so badly he worried they might collapse. Blood even started oozing out of them.

Then blood started dripping out of his nose, and his eyes hurt so badly he was having trouble opening them. It was worse inside of him, as his internal organs all started to tremble.

Because of the intense pain, and the fact that he couldn’t open his eyes, he had no idea what was around him. All he could do was drop to his haunches and try to fight back against the pressure. He did sprinkle some poison powder around him, and also took out his iron skewer. Next, he didn’t hesitate for an instant to release the sealing mark on Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior. The moment the sealing mark was removed, a howl of grief erupted from the skewer.

“I’m sorry, milord! I’m really sorry! Where are we? Oh my god! This... this…. Milord, you really didn’t need to throw me in here to suffer endless torment. I’m familiar with the ancient records, and have read the story of many characters who were punished like this.

“Milord, I swear that I’ve truly acknowledged allegiance to you. I really want to be your spirit automaton. Don’t kill me! I’ll follow orders. I know what I did was wrong. Okay, I confess that I actually have another spot with a spirit stone stockpile. Actually, I paid some fellow daoists a lot of money to come track you down if I ever disappeared. I’ll tell you who they are, milord, and you can just kill them!”

“Shut up,” Xu Qing growled, still unable to open his eyes. “Just tell me where we are!”

The patriarch didn’t dare to do anything but follow orders. After all, his life was in Xu Qing’s hands, as Xu Qing could end him with a thought.

Voice trembling, the patriarch said, “Milord, it looks like we’re near some sort of altar. There are bones everywhere. A whole sea of bones! We’re on an elevated spot, and there’s a staircase in front of us. It leads down to a narrow path that runs between two cliffs. And at the end of the path there’s a circular altar. The sea of bones is in front of the altar. Oh my god. It’s so huge! There are also three astonishing statues in front of the altar!”

“Are they standing in a row?” Xu Qing asked.

“No. Only one of them is standing, the other two are kowtowing.” Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior had no idea that he’d once again managed to save his own life.

“Continue,” Xu Qing said.

“The standing one is a giant with a nine-headed snake wrapped around him. He looks like a god! Holy moly, what is he? I feel like I’m going to go blind looking at him. If I wasn’t a spirit automaton, I’d probably be blind. And there are two more in front of him... I’m sorry, milord, really. What is this place...?”

As the patriarch continued to jabber, Xu Qing reeled as he came to the conclusion that he was somehow inside the world of the mural. After mulling the matter over, he waved his hand to seal the patriarch again. Once everything went quiet, he just waited to acclimate to the environment.

As enough time passed for an incense stick to burn, the violet crystal’s powers of regeneration worked constantly. Eventually, he started getting used to the mighty pressure around him. He still felt pain, but didn’t feel like his entire body was about to be crushed. And it took a lot of effort, but he managed to open his eyes and look around. Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior had described the place accurately. On the one hand, this place seemed like an enormous cave temple. On the other hand, it seemed like a different world.

The stairs in front of him were enormous, like they hadn’t been built for humans to walk. And in the middle of the sea of bones were three divine statues. The pressure that Xu Qing could hardly tolerate was coming from the statues.

As blood leaked out of the corners of his eyes, his pupils constricted because of the sight of the giant standing in the middle of the bones. In one of the nine-headed snake’s mouths was the black umbrella lamp. The black umbrella lamp cast out glittering, scintillating light onto the two worlds that rested on the giant’s shoulders, making them seem incredibly lifelike. Xu Qing struggled to breathe, his heart pounded, and his mind spun as he stared at the black umbrella lamp.

A life lamp?

He’d had his speculations when he arrived in this place, but had been too out of sorts to think about it. But now he was certain that the black umbrella was actually a life lamp! As he thought back to what the Captain had said about life lamps, an indescribable desire to acquire that lamp erupted in his heart.

If word of this got out, the Grand Competition would end immediately, and this place would become the center of all attention. And the first people to come would be from the Seven Sect Coalition on the Revered Ancient mainland. It would lead to complete insanity. When compared to a life lamp, the entire Merfolk species would be considered trivial.

The Merfolk obviously had no idea the life lamp was here, otherwise they could have given it to some powerful sect in return for protection from Seven Blood Eyes.

And Xu Qing would never have had this chance if his shadow hadn’t found this place and led him here. As he looked at the life lamp, his heart pounding, he chose not to do anything rash. Instead, he took a deep breath to calm himself and steady his nerves. Reaching up, he wiped the blood off his face. As the violet crystal continued to heal him, he realized he felt a lot better than earlier.

After some more breathing and rest, he felt even better. Looking up at the lamp, his eyes flickered with determination. He cautiously walked forward until he was at the edge of the first of the massive steps. Then he dropped down to the second step. The moment he landed, the pressure suddenly grew vastly more intense than before.

His entire body trembled, and blood sprayed out of his mouth. As his face turned pale, he immediately got into a cross-legged position to stabilize his breathing.

After some time passed, he started to recover. Gritting his teeth, he kept walking forward, shaking the entire time. Blood oozed out of his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and his bones felt like they might shatter.

Eventually, he reached the end of the second step. At that point, he felt like he had reached his limit. He was even having trouble seeing. He was certain that he couldn’t continue, and had the feeling that if he dropped to the third step, something even more terrifying would happen. But then he looked up and stared at the life lamp. He just couldn’t bear to leave without it. So, he looked back down at the ground.

Because of the light from up ahead, his shadow wasn’t visible in front of him. Looking back at the shadow behind him, he narrowed his eyes and said, “Wake up. You like extinguishing lamps, right? I’ve got one right here for you.”

As he spoke, he took control of his shadow. It twitched, almost as if it wasn’t willing to move from its spot behind him. But then it slowly crept forward. The bright light made his shadow so faint it almost wasn’t visible. But he knew it was there. And under his control, it slid down to the third step.

Xu Qing felt no adverse effects.

Eyes glittering, he stretched his shadow out to the fourth step, then the fifth. Eventually, it reached the altar, where it continued through the sea of bones to the three statues.

Xu Qing actually wasn’t sure how far his shadow could stretch. But he could tell that the further it went, the more effort he had to expend to control it. At the same time, the shadow was growing unstable, which made it even more difficult to control. As it closed in on the statues, it was so unstable in Xu Qing’s mind that he didn’t think he could push it any farther.

His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at the life lamp and then checked his shadow. Unfortunately, he had only one option left.

Tapping into the violet crystal, he used the power of suppression on the shadow, hoping it would make it a bit longer. It was an option when he was out of options. And yet, before the power of suppression could even be fully unleashed, the unstable shadow suddenly twitched and, as if tapping into power it didn’t even possess, stretched out even farther. It reached the statue of the giant, stretching up it until it was almost touching the life lamp in the snake’s mouth.

However, this time, the shadow had really reached its limit, and was visibly trembling and starting to break apart. It didn’t matter how much more Xu Qing suppressed it, he couldn’t go any further. What was more, it looked like it was about to start shrinking back. Xu Qing inhaled sharply.

He just wasn’t sure that he could actually trust his shadow. For all he knew, it was doing this on purpose, and actually could reach the lamp.

“If you don’t get that lamp,” he said calmly, “then after I leave this place, I’ll suppress you a thousand times, even if I die in the process!”

Though his voice was calm, the shadow could sense the deadly intent in his voice. Trembling, it tried to push itself farther, but clearly, was incapable of doing so. It was really starting to break apart now. At this point, Xu Qing finally believed that his shadow was at its limit. However, decisiveness still gleamed in his eyes as he took out a talisman treasure, as well as his dharmaboat, whose defenses he activated.

Climbing onto the dharmaboat, he took out a huge quantity of spirit stones and loaded them into the spell formation magazine, to bolster the defenses. Taking a deep breath, he sent the dharmaboat forward, until it was over the third step. As the dharmaboat moved, the shadow advanced, closing the distance to the lamp in the snake’s mouth. The shadow touched the lamp, and tightened around it.

Before Xu Qing could confirm whether or not he’d succeeded, the advance of the dharmaboat caused a massive rumbling sound to build up, louder than anything from before. It exploded from in front of him, like rolling thunder, turning into a mountain-toppling, sea-draining force that slammed right into him. His dharmaboat couldn’t stand up to the force, and the sails, which were the first line of defense, ripped apart, and the dharmaboat tumbled backward. Then the second set of defenses collapsed, and all of the spirit stones were drained and subsequently shattered. The dharmaboat tumbled backward even more rapidly. Next, the force hit the prow, and the godliness from the lizard skin erupted out, but not even that could stand up to the rumbling force. Starting at the prow, the dharmaboat crumbled, until it was half-destroyed.

As the dharmaboat suffered grievous damage, the force reached Xu Qing, who was surrounded by the protection of a host of talisman treasures. They fought back wildly against the attacking force, but the calligraphy on the paper rapidly grew faint, then disappeared. Then the force hit Xu Qing.

He trembled violently. It felt like he was being struck by an entire mountain, causing enormous amounts of blood to spray from his mouth. Many of his bones shattered, and his flesh was ripped to shreds. By then, his dharmaboat had tumbled back as far as it could go, and glittering light rose up everywhere.

Back on Joine Island in the Merfolk Isles, Xu Qing and his dharmaboat shot out from the mural.

The massive force which had assailed him propelled him all the way across the temple to the opposite wall, which collapsed. The dharmaboat left a huge, 300-meter furrow in the ground all the way back to the mural.

Xu Qing was still coughing up mouthful after mouthful of blood. In many places, his flesh was shredded so badly his bones were visible. And of course, many of those bones were broken. There was a huge wound in his stomach that pierced through his entire torso. And most of his clothing had been shredded off. He was surrounded in blood, and could hardly see. He had never been injured this badly. However, his right hand was tightly clenched onto something.

It was the life lamp that his shadow had successfully grabbed!

I can’t pass out.

As his vision swam, he bit his tongue hard and forced his eyes to stay open. From inside his bag of holding, he produced a huge handful of medicinal pills. Not wanting to waste time eating them, he shoved them directly into the wound on his belly. He also scattered some poison powder around him, just in case any enemies showed up. There was no time to inspect the life lamp. He immediately put it into the pearl of holding he’d acquired from Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior. [1]

Then he put the pearl of holding into a bag of holding, yet still wasn’t convinced that was safe enough, so he put the bag of holding into another bag of holding. Hopefully, burying the bag in so many layers would prevent its aura from seeping out.

There was only a bit of godliness left in his dharmaboat, and though he hated to lose it, now wasn’t the time to be miserly. Using the godliness, he created a defensive barrier around himself.

As he accomplished that, he coughed up another mouthful of blood. He now felt so weak he was certain death was calling for him. Thankfully, the violet crystal within him glittered as it sent its power throughout his body. His entire body thrummed with intense pain, to the point where he couldn’t hold back from moaning. Gritting his teeth to stay conscious, he endured the pain as he waited for the violet crystal to heal him.

1. He acquired the pearl of holding in chapter 104. ☜