Chapter 2228: Underground Palace
Chapter 2228: Underground Palace
A pair of Sacred Ancestors immediately gave affirmative responses, while the other Grand Ascension Stage beings and their disciples continued deeper into the original sealed site.
There was clearly an extremely powerful flight restriction in this area, as evidenced by the fact that even all of the Grand Ascension Stage beings could only fly slowly onward at low altitudes.
Of course, this was only relative to their normal speed; in the eyes of normal people, they were still extraordinarily fast.
Around an hour later, the group had already covered a distance of close to 10,000 kilometers.
All of a sudden, an extremely long canyon appeared up ahead, from within which clouds of thin purple mist were emerging before drifting up into the heavens.
What was rather concerning was that there was a rank odor being released from the mist that struck one with a sense of dizziness and also made one's spiritual sense very sluggish.
All of the Grand Ascension Stage beings swept their spiritual sense toward the purple mist, upon which all of their expressions changed slightly.
"Take care not to come into contact with too much of this stuff, fellow daoists. This is a manifestation of the Stemborer Queen's aura, and this is what's transformed the devilish insects of our holy realm into stemborers," Bao Hua cautioned.
All of the Grand Ascension Stage beings' hearts jolted upon hearing this, and some immediately bolstered the protective spiritual light around them, while others even went as far as to summon a few protective treasures.
However, the majority of the Grand Ascension Stage beings seemed to be quite confident in their own powers and didn't display any reaction.
Finally, everyone arrived in the air above the canyon, and they all drew a sharp breath at the sight that greeted them down below.
The canyon was immeasurable deep, and gusts of bone-chilling winds were surging out of it alongside the purple mist.
"Is this the place where the ancient seal is situated?" Han Li asked.
Bao Hua smiled, and replied, "The ancient seal is indeed located deep underground here. Back in ancient times, our holy race constructed a massive underground palace that encompasses the entire area with a radius of thousands of kilometers around this place. On top of that, a series of profound restrictions were set up, and the Stemborer Queen is situated right at the center of the underground palace. Due to the fact that a part of the ancient seal's power is now under the Stemborer Queen's control, we had been unable to enter the underground palace.
"However, this just so happens to be a period of time that comes around cyclically where there's a massive eruption of the world's origin Qi. As a result, the power of the ancient seal is quite unstable, and we'll be able to enter the underground palace. Otherwise, we'd still be able to force our way into the underground palace, but that would definitely awaken the Stemborer Queen.
"Is the Stemborer Queen really that alert and receptive? According to my knowledge, it's very difficult for the vast majority of insects to awaken from hibernation for recovery purposes; the only exception would be if someone approached them and tried to take their lives," an elderly man in a set of daoist robes said with furrowed brows.
Bao Hua cast her gaze toward the elderly man, and replied, "You may be renowned for your understanding of insects, but don't forget that Stemborer Queen is no ordinary insect, so there are some conventions that simply don't apply to it, Fellow Daoist Gu."
"Hmph, I'll take your word for it then," the elderly man harrumphed coldly, seemingly unconvinced by Bao Hua's words.
Bao Hua didn't seem to be very fond of him, either, and her expression immediately darkened as she replied, "If you don't believe me, you can go on ahead and see for yourself." She then cast her gaze deep into the canyon, seemingly waiting for something.
The elderly man's expression changed slightly upon hearing this, and a hint of fury flashed through his eyes, but he remained silent in the end, and of course, he certainly wasn't going to recklessly venture into the canyon on his own.
Han Li couldn't help but cast an intrigued gaze toward this elderly man.
He clearly knew that Bao Hua was no ordinary Grand Ascension Stage being, yet he still dared to speak to her in such a rude manner; it was clear that he was no slouch, either.
All of a sudden, Bao Hua transmitted her voice to Han Li. "Fellow Daoist Han, this Daoist Gong has a very abrasive personality, and he specializes in poison abilities that pose a huge headache even to me. I'd advise you not to get involved with him."
Han Li merely nodded in response, but remained silent.
Perhaps it was due to the purple mist or the power of the ancient seal, but as soon as one's spiritual sense descended more than 1,000 feet into the canyon, it would involuntarily scatter, making it impossible to glean the contents of the canyon.
As such, everyone could only look on with wary expressions.
Right at this moment, Bao Hua suddenly produced a shimmering silver formation plate, which she cast a string of incantation seals onto.
The silver formation plate began to fluctuate in brightness as if it had suddenly attained sentience, and after a short while, bright silver light radiated from the formation plate alongside countless silver runes.
"This is it! It's time to go in, fellow daoists," Bao Hua said with an elated expression as she flew toward the canyon as a ball of pink light while holding the silver plate in her hand.
The other Grand Ascension Stage beings immediately followed along.
Golden light emanated from Han Li's body, easily keeping the purple mist at bay, and he also descended along with everyone else.
To their surprise, the canyon wasn't as immeasurably deep as it had appeared on the surface. After flying for only around 10,000 feet, a patch of gentle white light suddenly appeared up ahead.
Everyone quickly landed on the solid ground down below, and Han Li looked around to discover that they were all situated on a massive plaza that was over 100 acres in size and paved with translucent white jade.
There were fist-sized jewels embedded onto the ground at regular intervals, illuminating this area and making it as bright as day.
There were eight winding paths around the plaza leading in different directions, and Han Li looked up as the purple mist slowly converged from all directions before rising upward.
"Alright, the fact that we've managed to arrive safely indicates that the Stemborer Queen is still in its slumber. Now then, let's proceed according to the original plan. I'll lead a group of people to contact the spirit of the ancient seal, while Fellow Daoist Copper Crow and our fellow daoists from the Heavenly Crow Realm will venture deep into the underground palace to try and get into contact with our trapped allies. Our two fellow daoists from the Black Night Realm will go to the deepest part of the underground palace to find where the Stemborer Queen is hibernating and conduct surveillance on it, but make sure not to alert it.
"With the concealment secret techniques of the Black Night Realm, I'm sure this won't be a difficult task. As for everyone else, split up and travel to the formation cores of the underground palace to repair some of the key restrictions there. Those places may be guarded by the descendants of the Stemborer Queen, so be careful. The true descendants of the Stemborer Queen are far more powerful than the stemborers outside, and they're extremely dangerous even for Grand Ascension Stage beings like us," Bao Hua instructed.
"Hehe, we'll look after ourselves."
"I'll be going on ahead then."
"You be careful too, Fellow Daoist Bao Hua."
Thus, all of the Grand Ascension Stage beings split up into groups and departed from the plaza.
Han Li and Daoist Xie were split into a group with two other Grand Ascension Stage beings, and the four of them disappeared down one of the paths leading away from the plaza.
These other two Grand Ascension Stage beings were Xie Lian, and the foreign Grand Ascension Stage being enshrouded in green Qi, Lü Shi.
Their mission was to repair some of the restrictions at the formation core of the underground palace.
Xie Lian was walking on ahead while inspecting a jade slip in her hand, and Han Li and Daoist Xie were in the middle, while Lü Shi brought up the rear.
None of them said anything, and they gently glided along several feet above the ground.
Their spiritual sense was able to encompass the entire area within a radius of over 1,000 feet, and as long as there wasn't anyone far more powerful than them here, no one would be able to escape their detection.
Han Li was inspecting his surroundings with a calm expression, and he discovered that the path that they were traversing was lined with tall rectangular pagodas.
These pagodas were quite antiquated in design, and their surfaces were riddled with simplistic ancient runes, seemingly having already stood for countless years.
After flying along for around 15 minutes, they still hadn't reached the end of the path.
All of a sudden, Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and he drew to an abrupt halt.
"Did you discover something, Fellow Daoist Han?" Xie Lian asked as she turned around.
Lü Shi also stopped in his tracks to hear what Han Li had to say.
"There seems to be something interesting over there; would you two like to take a look?" Han Li said with a smile as he cast his gaze toward a certain direction.
Xie Lian swept her spiritual sense toward the same direction, but was unable to discover anything, and her expression changed slightly as she said, "Your spiritual sense can detect things that far away?"
Lü Shi was also unable to detect anything with his spiritual sense, and he said, "I'd be happy to accompany you, Fellow Daoist Han."
It was clear that Han Li's spiritual sense was far more powerful than his and Xie Lian's.
Han Li nodded before drifting toward the same direction that he had cast his gaze toward, followed by an expressionless Daoist Xie.
Xie Lian and Lü Shi exchanged a cautious glance, and only then did they follow along.