697 - You're finally here
Chapter 697 You're Finally Here?
Ye Qingyu: "..."
Although it sounded like a compliment, it was a little distastefully put.
Wen Wan said cheerfully, "Little Yi, it seems that you don't understand your master too well, being his personal bodyguard and all. He's someone too shrewd to ever get the short end of the stick. That Captain Huangn had better go back to his mother's womb and be properly reborn first if he wants to plot against your master."
Only now did Luo Yi begin to understand what was going on.
It turned out that Wen Wan and Ximen Yeshui had long discerned a few clues, and thus had to prevent him from kicking up a fuss. If that had gone on, his master's plan might have been ruined.
"Master, sorry, I..." Luo Yi lowered his head to apologize.
He felt too inadequate in various aspects and was thus a little depressed. He had not only failed to help Ye Qingyu, but had even become a bit of a burden. Though this caused him to feel terrified and pressured, it also greatly motivated him.
Ye Qingyu laughed, "Don't blame yourself. You did great and I believe you'll do even better next time."
He had a long-term plan for developing and training Luo Yi, who had only been with him for over a year and thus could not be expected to know him as well as the other two. While Luo Yi still needed to improve his cultivation and temperament, the loyalty he displayed earlier greatly moved Ye Qingyu.As as result, he became more trustful of him.
Ye Qingyu bent his fingers.
Three pale-silver beams flew out from his fingertips and swooped into the yuan-inhibiting formation shackles on the trio's hands and legs.
The shackles became ineffective at once.
As the trio flexed their wrists, their inner yuan qi surged once again.
"What's the plan? Are we gonna kill our way out?" Ximen Yeshui seemed a little restless.
Ye Qingyu shook his head, "Let's wait and see. The person I'm waiting for hasn't appeared... What's more, when I was at the bottom of the icy water just now, I found a hidden tunnel which seemed to have a few strange things in it. I'm going to dive down and have a look. For now, pretend that you're still shackled and don't alert the enemy. If the situation worsens, use this to escape."
He raised his hand as he spoke.
A pale-yellow glow landed in Wen Wan's hands.
It was actually a palm-sized stone engraved with several ancient formations.
"It'll help the three of you to escape when you inject yuan qi into the formations. It can defy all restrictions, just like the [Delimiter]." Ye Qingyu gave them several more warnings and pieces of advice before his figure gradually submerged into the chilly water and disappeared.
In the opposite cell, the trio glanced at each other, resigned to patiently waiting for the time being.
"See? Your master has exotic treasures all over his body. There's probably no one alive who can mess with him. If you run into anything next time, remember to keep calm and not be so rash. Learn from your master's deviousness and shamelessness, that way you can be of better help to him." Wen Wan laid comfortably on the wooden bed while raising and crossing his legs.
Luo Yi: "..."
"Since when has Lord Ye been devious and shameless?" he retorted.
Ximen Yeshui guffawed, "You've only just joined him. During the old times, we broke into the Formation Emperor Luoso's suspicious palaces together, where he killed god-knows-how-many martial experts... you're still too young."
…
The maximum depth of the chilly water was only two meters or so.
Ye Qingyu had dived to the bottom earlier while pretending to be suffering in the boiling frigid water.
It was at that moment that he accidentally discovered a highly concealed small hole at the furthest end of the cell. Its diameter was less than half a meter, and from it, frigid water continually surged out into the cell. Furthermore, he could clearly feel that the water which surged out of the hole contained a relatively strong power of chill.
Of course, most importantly, he saw several extremely peculiar groove marks on the margins of the hole.
These groove marks, being extremely ordinary and disorganized, looked like they were nature's creation at first sight. However, Ye Qingyu acutely felt a highly obscure force emanating non-stop from them. If not for his spiritual cultivation which had attained the pinnacle of the Immortal step realm, as well as his training in the mural space of the [Cloud Top Cauldron], he would perhaps have overlooked this peculiarity.
He then tried to divide his consciousness power so as to explore the depths of the secret hole.
At that time, he felt a wonderful yet familiar aura which he found hard to believe would appear in such a place.It seemed to defy logic and reason.
This was why he dove down a second time.
When he reached the mouth of the secret hole, he focused his vision and observed carefully.
"These groove marks aren't simple and are definitely not naturally formed. They could be Great Emperor Formationss... This is Sunrise City after all, and legend has it that the Storm Martial Emperor once put down void demonic beasts here. It's certainly possible that these are formations the Storm Martial Emperor left behind."
The more he looked, the more shocked he became.
He could sense a vague Great Dao aura.
He got as close as he could to this secret hole and indeed felt an obscure pressure and a faint repellent force.
For a time long enough to completely burn out an incense stick, he made many failed attempts to dispel the force from the groove marks using the [Supreme Ice Flame].
Just as he was about to give up, he activated the power of the chaotic thunder liquid and made his final attempt. An intriguing change abruptly occurred. When the power of thunder and lightning appeared, the repellent force instantly disappeared and silver light began to faintly circulate on the groove marks. He then felt a subtle and intimate aura emanating from within the secret hole.
"Hmm, the repellent force from the groove marks can be dispelled by chaotic thunder liquid? Could it be..."
Ye Qingyu's eyes brightened.
Chaotic thunder liquid was a legacy of the then-Lightning Emperor Qin Ming, and it contained a strand of his extremely demonic laws and will. Meanwhile, the groove marks were likely related to the Storm Martial Emperor. These two people were both human martial emperors. Was it possible that their powers and wills could not come into close contact with each other's?
Without thinking too much, Ye Qingyu circulated his yuan qi and displayed his secret technique.
His figure abruptly shrank a few notches at the very next instant. Becoming the size of a two- or three-year-old toddler, he crawled into the diminutive hole.
The hole's inner diameter was more or less the same, and it sloped downward in a fairly straight line. Several hundred meters in, he saw bright light ahead.
An incomparably huge underground lake appeared in front of his eyes.
It seemed like a boundless underground expanse of pitch-black chilly water. Ye Qingyu could see no further than a kilometer even as he strained his eyes.
There were few signs of life in the water if any at all, and certainly no fishes, shrimps, or the like.
Ye Qingyu's figure returned to normal, after which he began to operate the [True Will of the Sky Dragon] and transformed into a dragon. He immediately felt an indescribable comfort and freedom, like he was a duck to water or even a dragon to sea.
After the transformation, he could clearly sense everything within the surrounding water world and could detect that terrifying energy was contained within the chilly water. This energy became stronger the closer it got to the central region of the underground lake.
"This underground lake has a vast expanse. This could mean that it's all chilly water beneath the entire Sunrise City. And the energy grows stronger as I get nearer to the lake's center... hmm? Could there be some treasure there?"
As soon as he thought of this, his dragon body rapidly zipped through the water toward the central region.
"What a strong pressure..."
He suddenly discovered that the nearer he got to the central region, the more he felt an immense power which came head-on. It tautened his skin and bones, multiplied the water pressure upon him, and caused him to feel a dull pain.
After several dozen breaths, he finally arrived in front of the central region.
"That's..."
He simply could not believe his eyes.
Approximately a hundred meters away, a soft aquamarine light sparkled and circulated within the chilly water, illuminating an area of one kilometer in circumference. A figure was sitting cross-legged and suspended up high at the centermost area of this light.
The pressure he had felt earlier emanated from this very figure.
Now that he was fairly close to it, he could ever more feel it’s terrible might.
In his dragon form, his body's battle strength was peerlessly powerful, yet he still felt as if a huge divine mountain was pressing upon his body, causing his muscles to deform and his bones to emit a crisp clicking noise as if they were whining and could explode and fracture at any time.
"Who's that?"
Ye Qingyu was bewildered.
This was simply too astonishing.
He had never felt such a terrifying aura before.
Even the awakened million-year-old spirit back then, or the pressure generated when Old Fish showed off the quasi-emperor-level spirit, was not as terrifying as the mysterious figure in front of him.
He saw that there seemed to be ten thousand beams of divine light radiating from this figure.
By this time, he could already confirm that the strong and pure energy in the chilly water was related to this figure.
He slowly approached it while circulating his inner yuan at an insane rate. He then shot forth a dazzling divine light from his pupils, increasing his vision to its maximum level, so as to look at the figure's appearance in detail.
He could indistinctly see that the figure was wearing a primitive and simple green robe. Its thick long hair, which was pale-green in color and dozens of meters long, hung down all around its body and scattered in the water like a flower in full bloom or a burning green flame. The figure's face could not be seen precisely because the scattered long hair was covering it.
Ye Qingyu wanted to get even closer.
Just then, a weird change occurred.
Two beams of divine radiance, accompanied by a violent power, abruptly shot forth from under the mysterious person's long hair and shrouded Ye Qingyu at once.
Although they were merely eye beams, Ye Qingyu lost control of his body as soon as they shrouded him. A terrifying and invisible force seemed to have stopped his body clock, rendering him unable to move an inch.
A frosty killing intent surged forth at that instant.
Ye Qingyu had a premonition that his body, which seemed as weak as paste in front of this killing intent, would melt and disintegrate in a flash... The shadow of death was coming and yet he was utterly unable to rouse any intent of resistance in his heart, and thus could only close his eyes and wait to die.
However, the killing intent abruptly retreated and disappeared the next moment.
Ye Qingyu's body could move once again.
The suddenness of these changes made everything seem but a dream.
"You're... finally here?"
A gentle yet dignified voice sounded.
It felt like a spring breeze caressing his face.