Chapter 990: Nine-Tailed Icefox

The magic beast statues atop those twelve thick stone pillars seemed to come alive, and the entire temple seemed to be resurrecting.

After three minutes, that huge array at the front of the temple started shining. With a flash of light, the thirty people instantly disappeared.

Then, everyone reappeared in a new area.

The first thing they saw was a long, dusky hallway that was over a kilometer wide and several hundred meters high. Thick columns were supporting the dome above their heads.

They were standing atop huge pieces of ashen cyan rock that were covered in simple yet magnificent patterns.

"Hell, the ground is actually made of Ash Bluestone, and it's a solid piece of Ash Bluestone! So extravagant..."

Upon seeing what they were standing on, Morgan couldn't help bending down to try digging at it, his eyes red.

Lin Yun was slightly startled as he heard this. He had glanced at it but hadn't been too sure. Morgan's surprised shout slightly distracted him.

Ash Bluestone... That name didn't seem particularly amazing, but it hadn't been produced since the Nesser Dynasty.

It was loved by the Pureblood Elves and was one of the few hardest kinds of rock in Noscent. More importantly, Ash Bluestone came with its own patterns. It had innate magic patterns and possessed extremely high resistance to physical attacks. Those under the Heaven Rank could only dream of splitting Ash Bluestone.

And its magic resistance didn't pale in comparison to its hardness. Both fire and ice had no effect on it. The only general method to cut Ash Bluestone was to compound a special potion, allowing those under the Heaven Rank to mine the precious mineral.

The recipe behind that compound had always been a classified secret of the Pureblood Elves. Besides their higher-ups, no one knew about it.

Because of this, Ash Bluestone could only be obtained from the Pureblood Elves at the time, and only the most respected people would be qualified to use Ash Bluestone in their buildings. At that time, the Pureblood Elves' most powerful war fortress was mainly built using Ash Bluestone.

In those days, the Dark Elven rebellion failed and they were exiled, but the main reason behind their defeat shouldn't be ignored. It was because the Pureblood Elves dispatched a floating war fortress made of Ash Bluestone.

During the 3rd Dynasty, no Ash Bluestone veins could be found within Noscent's land. Only the Endless Sea might still have some, but that was at the seabed. Even if they discovered it, they couldn't mine it from that place.

But the tiles here were made of ten-meter-wide pieces of Ash Bluestone, and each one of them had gone through strict selection regarding cutting and polishing. Each piece seamlessly merged with the rest, and the magic patterns were completely linked together.

In such a large place, the defenses built were absolutely comparable to a Spatial Barrier, and even if Heaven Rank powerhouse went all out, he wouldn't be able to shatter the floor.

The floor aside, even those thick stone pillars were made of Ash Bluestone. Besides Ash Bluestone, nothing else could support that huge hallway. The current Noscent couldn't create a hallway of this size without the help of magic.

Everyone cautiously took a step forward, when suddenly, flames ignited on the pillars.

At this time, everyone could see the parts of the pillars that weren't still shrouded in darkness. Countless statues of ancient magic beasts were spiralling atop the pillars, and spheres of flames were coming from their mouths.

All the spheres of fire within the statues' mouths burned even brighter, illuminating that originally dusky long hallway.

Then, a sort of huge pressure pierced through their eyes, seemingly suppressing everyone's souls.

As the darkness was cleared by the light, twelve huge statues could be seen.

Both sides of the hallway had caved-in shrines, and those huge statues were standing in those shrines.

"Those are the twelve Beast Gods worshipped by the Beastmen!" someone from the Odin Kingdom exclaimed.

They all vigilantly walked through the hallway and were able to confirm that those twelve shrines were only statues and not some terrifying magic beasts.

These twelve Beast Gods had nothing in common in terms of appearance. The tallest had the shape of a Golden Behemoth, and the top of its head was already reaching the ceiling.

There were plenty of different beasts, but they were over a hundred meters in height. Lin Yun reacted to one of the statues in particular.

That Beast God statue stood a hundred and fifty meters in height, and it was in the shape of a large, majestic wolf. It had no fur, as it seemed to be covered in a layer of bone armor. Its neck had a malevolent ring of bone armor that seemed to be a layer of sharp knives.

The most conspicuous part was the third eye on its forehead, and that eye seemed to pierce through time, apparently understanding the flow of the river of time.

Seeing that statue, Lin Yun suddenly thought of the young Three-Eyed Wolf he had been raising. Apart from its speed, the small wolf didn't have much fighting power.

Lin Yun became pensive as he thought about those two Ancestor Souls shamelessly living in the Demiplane and trying to brainwash their Wolf God every day.

After staring at that Wolf God statue for a moment, Lin Yun felt his head go numb. It was as if the true Wolf God was standing before him, watching him.

The statue before his eyes obviously had no mana fluctuations, and the carving didn't look very good, not giving it a realistic feeling, but the more he looked at it, the more he felt that these statues carried a certain type of charm... Almost as if the true Beast Gods were standing there, their pressure continuously increasing.

That kind of pressure suddenly disappeared when looking away.

And in the Demiplane, the little wolf was lying down on a rock, feeling dispirited. It had its eyes closed because it didn't want to see the two Beastman Ancestor Souls continuously harassing it.

The little wolf suddenly seemed to react to something. It stood up from its stone and kept checking its surroundings for a while before doubtfully lying down once again.

Within the hallway, Lin Yun wasn't the only one feeling strange. The others also felt weird.

"Don't look at these statues, they are too strange. Don't move them either, they are the twelve Gods worshipped by the Beastmen. We'd best walk away." Cold sweat trickled down Dylas' back as warned everyone.

He looked at that Golden Behemoth statue for a moment, but the pressure kept on increasing. He felt as if he couldn't go on as his soul was apparently suppressed by Divine Power.

On another side, Morgan was already sitting on the ground panting, afraid to keep looking at the statues.

No one dared to remain there, so they proceeded along that seemingly endless hallway. They kept walking and walking while a wisp of pressure slowly appeared in the air.

The weakest mages felt it more clearly. The further they moved, the more they felt like they had entered the territory of a frightening existence.

Lin Yun slightly frowned, and he squinted as he tried peering into the hallway's abyss.

Heaven Rank!

There was an Extraordinary lifeform ahead, a true Heaven Rank powerhouse!

And it could only be a magic beast. Only magic beasts would unconsciously scatter their aura like that to delimit their territory. That aura was like a sea... Humans simply couldn't possess such boundless magic power. Only magic beasts with their incredible mana reserves could have this kind of power.

They kept walking a few hundred meters before Dedale suddenly said with a solemn expression, "Everyone, be careful. There is a slumbering Heaven Rank Magic Beast ahead of us, a genuine Heaven Rank Magic Beast, not those Pseudo-Heaven Rank Magic Beasts that didn't awaken wisdom!"

Everyone became wary after hearing that.

They had been able to barely deal with the Pseudo-Heaven Rank Magic Beasts because those didn't possess Extraordinary Power, hadn't established Demiplanes, and hadn't awakened wisdom.

Those normally low-level magic beasts that suddenly got a huge boost of power out of nowhere were relatively easy to handle with human wisdom.

But a true Heaven Rank Magic Beast was enough to kill ten Pseudo-Heaven Rank Magic Beasts. They weren't on the same level.

Sure enough, after continuing for another two kilometers, they saw a huge magic beast sleeping on the ground.

This was a fox-like magic beast with nine tails. It was curled up and reached over ten meters in height while asleep.

Moreover, that huge magic beast's fur was as white as snow, and ice crystals formed as it breathed, comparable to 6th Tier Spells.

An area of a few hundred meters around it was covered in a layer of white ice. It looked as if that ice had solidified for over a hundred years.

It was a Nine-Tailed Icefox, a variant of the Nine-Tailed Firefox, an owner of an innately powerful bloodline. The Nine-Tailed Firefox was like the Chromatic Dragons. As long as they reached adulthood, they would be able to automatically advance to the Heaven Rank. And after advancing, their rank would depend on their effort and their luck.

The Nine-Tailed Icefox before them had recently reached adulthood, so it was a true Heaven Rank Magic Beast!

Dedale took out a long magic staff that seemed to be made of a red metal. It had an orange flame swaying at its tip.

As this flame appeared, a distinctive fluctuation appeared.

The slumbering Nine-Tailed Icefox suddenly opened its eyes as it felt that fluctuation.

The long and narrow ice-blue eyes watched everyone emotionlessly, and the snowflakes falling in the surroundings started whirring around.

The ice elements seemed to have suddenly awakened. A blizzard spanning several hundred meters appeared out of thin air. That blizzard seemed to burst as the Nine-Tailed Icefox got up, expanding outward.

Dedale roared and rushed out first like a berserker.