Chapter 1066: Fusing the Maps
Translator: StarveCleric Editor: Millman97
The Ten Great Kings of the Qingtian Lineage had all reached Saint 4-dan at the very minimum, and they were existences who could individually cause a great calamity anywhere, even in Qingyuan Conferred Empire.
With the Ten Great Kings moving in this operation, he had thought that they would be able to snitch the ancient domain easily and inflict great damage upon Qingyuan Conferred Empire while they were at it.
Yet, eight of the Kings had died before they could even cause the slightest stir. They thought that the Master Teacher Pavilion or Combat Master Hall might have caught wind of their movements and dispatched experts to eliminate them, thus resulting in their deaths. But who knew that they were killed by a mere Nascent Saint master teacher?
The more the Scarletleaf King thought about the matter, the more stifled he felt.
It is fortunate that the Qingtian Emperor was unaware of this matter! If he were to learn of it, would he faint from anger on the spot?
Just what kind of grudge did the other party have against them, to be hunting down their Ten Great Kings one after another?
I don't want to explore the ancient domain anymore. I want to go home...
The Scarletleaf King felt deeply dismayed, but the situation did not allow him any time to wallow in his emotions.
He was the one who had set up a huge portion of the grade-7 pinnacle formation, so he fully understood the might that it wielded. Even with the means that he possessed, he knew that he would not last for long against the might of the formation. He had to escape as soon as he could.
At that moment, however, the voice of the young man sounded from above. "Guild Leader Han, come over here and control the formation. Kill that fellow as fast as possible..."
Right after those words sounded, the might of the formation suddenly intensified, as if it was driven by some greater power.
"You..." The face of the Scarletleaf King paled.
While he was the one who had set up the formation, he was not too familiar with its entire layout and its various transformations. It would take at least an hour before he could find the Life Gate and escape.
As the other party was only at Nascent Saint, it would have been extremely strenuous for him to drive a grade-7 pinnacle formation. Given so, the Scarletleaf King would still have been able to cope for the time being. However, if it was Guild Leader Han who was driving the formation, he might really just meet his end there!
On top of being a Saint 4-dan pinnacle expert, that fellow was the head of a Formation Master Guild, a true expert of formations! With the formation being controlled by such a skilled and powerful individual, his chances of escaping were as good as null!
While the Scarletleaf King was despairing, outside the formation, the eyes of Guild Leader Han and the others were gleaming in excitement.
When they heard Zhang Xuan's shout, they immediately leaped out of their hiding spots and dashed toward the waterfall. As soon as they arrived, they found the Scarletleaf King trapped within an extremely powerful Slaughter Formation!
With the sheer might of the Slaughter Formation, they could easily kill the Scarletleaf King as long as they were to control properly.
While driving the formation, Guild Leader Han couldn't help but turn to Zhang Xuan and ask, "Principal Zhang, if I am not mistaken, this formation should be at grade-7 pinnacle, right? Were... were you the one who set it up?"
Out of fear that they would be noticed by the Scarletleaf King, they had chosen to hide quite a distance away, so they were unaware of how Zhang Xuan had managed to deal with the Scarletleaf King.
The Slaughter Formation before him could be considered one of the stronger ones even among the grade-7 formations, and even with his proficiency of formations, it would have taken him an extremely long time to set up it perfectly. Principal Zhang was only a Nascent Saint, so how could he have done it so quickly?
The humble Zhang Xuan shook his head, not taking credit for what he had not done. "I wasn't the one who set the formation up. The Scarletleaf King was the one who did it..."
"The Scarletleaf King?"
The crowd was dumbfounded.
To set up a formation just to trap himself in... Was that fellow sick in the mind?
"Perhaps he might have grown tired of the vicissitudes of life, so he wanted to seek an end... Who knows what could be going through the minds of those Otherworldly Demons?" Zhang Xuan shrugged nonchalantly.
He could not talk too much about how he had managed to trick the Scarletleaf King as it would be difficult to explain how he had managed to disguise as the Violetleaf King.
Leaving Guild Leader Han and Wu shi to drive the formation, Zhang Xuan retreated to the back of the crowd to find a remote place to sit down. After which, he immersed his consciousness into the Library of Heaven's Path to carefully examine the booklet containing an introduction of the ancient domain, which he had just obtained from the Scarletleaf King's hands.
The booklet was also written in the language of the ancient gods, as the Scarletleaf King had claimed, so he could not understand a single character. However, he could roughly tell that there were quite a few words that were similar to the one written on Wu Yangzi's map.
Flicking his wrist, an ancient sheet of goatskin appeared in his hands. On it was a map that was labelled with all kinds of bizarre words.
Studying the map carefully, Zhang Xuan frowned in bewilderment. There is nothing similar between what is depicted on the map and the geographical terrain of the ancient domain.
While he could not recognize the words written on the goatskin, he could still interpret the geographical terrain on it... but there was not the slightest semblance to the ancient domain they were in!
It was also for this reason that he did not think that there was a connection between the map and the ancient domain.
The map should be several dozen millenniums old by now. Could it be that the world has changed since the crafting of the map, resulting in its geography changing entirely? Zhang Xuan hypothesized.
Continents and oceans persisted through the ages, but they were not unchanging. They would gradually be reshaped with the passing of time or a major natural disaster. Could that have happened to the ancient domain as well?
That thought did not persist for too long before Zhang Xuan shook his head. That isn't right. We are in a folded space, and there are no tectonic plates or natural disasters that could cause such a significant reshaping of the geographical terrain.
Different from the external world, folded spaces were unaffected by the changes of nature. Furthermore, the ancient domain mainly consisted of formations, so even if there were changes over time, it couldn't possibly have been so thorough such that there wasn't the slightest resemblance.
"Hmm..." Frowning deeply, Zhang Xuan continued staring deeply into the goatskin and the booklet, and all of a sudden, he seemed to notice that there was something very similar about the two.
A thought came to his mind, and he placed both items together.
Weng!
With a soft buzz, the map and the booklet fused together, and in the blink of an eye, a new goatskin map appeared before Zhang Xuan.
This... The map was actually divided into two?
It was no wonder he could not understand either part of it individually. It turned out that they were each just a half of the full map.
Lifting the newly-formed goatskin up, he noticed that the features of the map had changed completely.
At some point, Feng Xun had walked up behind him, and pointing at the features on the map, he could not help but exclaim in astonishment, "Isn't that the lava from the very start? And that is the Unbounded World, the lightning formation, and the Black Sandstorm of Oblivion!"
"Un." Even without Feng Xun pointing them out, Zhang Xuan could tell with his own eyes. The newly-formed goatskin map contained vivid images of the various features of the ancient domain, so much so that it looked as if the entire scenery had been brought to life.
"This red line... is the correct path? There is actually such a road? Why didn't we notice it before?" Feng Xun remarked.
After hearing those words, Zhang Xuan turned his gaze over and saw a faint red line leading from the lava all the way through the ancient domain.
Zhang Xuan shook his head. "The red line is indeed the correct path through the ancient domain, but most likely, it wouldn't have appeared in the first place if we didn't have the map in our possession."
If they had the complete map before entering the ancient domain, they would have been able to advance along the path laid out by the red line safely without encountering any danger. It was not that they were not sharp enough to notice the existence of a safe path, but that the path would not have appeared in the first place without the complete map in hand.
This was probably another manipulation of the laws of space, so he couldn't say for sure how it worked either.
Tracing the map, they soon saw the celestial palace.
"So, the crux of the ancient domain lies just beyond the waterfall..." After confirming the direction and road, Zhang Xuan heaved a sigh of relief. Standing up, he turned to Guild Leader Han and the others.
With Guild Leader Han and Wu shi working together to drive the grade-7 pinnacle Slaughter Formation, it did not take them too long to kill the Scarletleaf King.
If the Fireleaf King was pitiful for being crushed to death by the Golden Origin Cauldron before he could do anything, the Scarletleaf King definitely topped that.
To be killed by the formation that he had constructed himself... the second strongest expert of the Ten Great Kings sure died an indignant death.
In any case, after dealing with the Scarletleaf King, the crowd heaved a sigh of relief.
"Let's go. Now that we have the map in hand, we should be safe," Zhang Xuan said with a smile.
After which, he raised his hand, and the goatskin map in his hands flew into the air before forming a rainbow bridge that bypassed the celestial palace, leading straight into the depths of the waterfall.
"Let's go!" Beckoning the others along, Zhang Xuan took the lead and stepped onto the bridge. A moment later, he recalled something, and with a grasp, he retrieved the formation flags used for the Slaughter Formation, stowing it into his storage ring. At the same time, with a slight flick of his finger, the Scarletleaf King's storage ring fell into his hands.
The second strongest expert of the Ten Great Kings should have quite a few good items in his possession. It would have been a waste to leave it there.
Advancing along the bridge, they soon bypassed the celestial palace and stepped through the waterfall.
Back then, they noticed that the waterfall and the celestial palace were actually a massive painting. Walking past it, the scenery abruptly changed, and a massive palace came into sight.
"What concentrated spiritual energy..." Upon stepping in, Zhang Xuan felt his pores widening as his zhenqi pulsated in excitement.
The spiritual energy contained within the palace was truly concentrated, to the point that it felt as if it would condense into water at any moment. If one were to cultivate there, one would be able to advance one's cultivation swiftly even without using high-tier spirit stones.
"Is that... carved using spirit stones?"
After taking a few steps forward, the breathing of the crowd suddenly hastened.
Ahead of them was a massive tablet, which emanated a brilliant glow. Astonishingly, it was actually carved out of a massive high-tier spirit stone!
"Is there such a huge spirit stone in the world?"
Everyone gulped down a mouthful of saliva. Even Zhang Xuan's eyes were widened.
The tablet was six meters tall, two meters wide, and half a meter thick. Such a massive tablet was actually made solely out of high-tier spirit stones. It was truly a shocking sight.
Even the largest high-tier spirit stone he had seen thus far was only the size of a baby's fist, but this sculpture should easily weigh more than a ton.
If it were to be divided into the standard size of a spirit stone, how many pieces would it be?
A few hundred thousand? A few million?
To encounter something as extravagant at this barely after walking into the palace... Just what kind of treasures would be hidden within?
"Qiu Wu Palace... Could the creator of this ancient domain be Ancient Sage Qiu Wu?"
Upon seeing the words carved on the tablet, Wu shi's eyebrows leaped up in astonishment.
Zhang Xuan swiftly turned to look at the tablet as well, and carved on it were three large words, 'Qiu Wu Palace'. The handwriting was identical to the one within the manual of the Unbounded Voyager.
"It seems like it was indeed left behind by Ancient Sage Qiu Wu."
Zhang Xuan shot a glance toward Luo Ruoxin, and both of them nodded harmoniously.
It was just a deduction they made earlier, but at this point, they could be absolutely certain of it.