'How are there so many lightning elemental beasts in one place?'
John couldn't help but be shocked at this revelation. Although the beasts were not that strong, they all had flickers of lightning flowing over their bodies, revealing the fact that they were all lightning elemental beasts.
John wished he could capture these beasts and bring them back home to be raised, but lamented the fact that he was unable to do so. He had tested out his palace realm and tried to store live animals there, but was unable to bring anything living besides himself into the realm.
Also, spatial rings were unable to support life, which made it so that he was unable to gather any of these beasts.
Peng!
John raised his scythe and struck out, blocking the claw attack of one of the beasts. The other beasts also pounced forward, looking to kill the intruder on their land.
John dashed quickly all throughout the battlefield, and each swing of his scythe would fell one a beast. Like the first beast, these beasts were equivalent to middle Mist Creation cultivators, and so John had no problem dispatching them efficiently.
Despite the fact that the beasts had no chance, they still swarmed towards John without a care for their safety. John continued to cut down the beasts with ease, but his surprise was growing by the second. It was unusual for a beast to throw away their lives like this, let alone dozens at a time.
After several minutes of fighting, the battlefield was quiet once more. At John's feet lay the corpses of over a dozen different beasts.
'Well, regardless of the reason, these beasts are giving me a nice supply of blood essence.'
John collected all the corpses and drained their blood essences before continuing onwards.
The same scene repeated itself several times as John ran into more and more beasts as he climbed the mountain. Towards the top of the mountain, John started running into late Mist Creation beasts. Although the beasts were still unable to harm John, he was required to use more and more of his strength to proceed forwards.
Bang!
Scythe struck the back of a beast, and it collapsed to the ground dead. John swung his scythe to the side, throwing the blood off the blade as he caught his breath.
'Just how many beasts live on this damn mountain?'
John had killed over two hundred lightning beasts by this time, and finally dispatched the last one he could see. The corpses began to pile up in his palace realm, making John quite happy at the gain.
John truly couldn't understand their actions, but was happy to see that he was almost at the top of the mountain range. After a few more minutes of climbing, he finally reached the summit and peered over to the other side of the mountain.
The other side of the mountain revealed that large depression surrounded by the mountain range, making it seem as if it was a giant bowl. The dark gray clouds churned violently overhead, and the lighting arcing throughout the clouds seemed as if they wanted to strike down violently at the center of the crater.
The crater was around ten miles wide, and quite deep as well. John looked around for more beasts, but was surprised to see none. His eyes swept around the crater, eventually landing on the very center many miles away. John strained his eyes to see what was there, but could only see a bright blue glow. Lighting occasionally struck down at the very center, which made John want to get a closer look.
Carefully, he started descending into the crater to get a better look at what was in the middle. After a long time of descending, he finally got close enough to discern what was in the center of the crater.
A four sided temple, roughly one hundred yards tall and fifty yards wide rested at the center of the crater. The temple was dark blue and white in color, and gave off an ancient aura. Lighting occasionally rained down and struck the roof of the temple, which would then cascade down the rest of the building.
After inspecting the surrounding area for any danger, John was unable to notice anything of concern and proceeded forward towards the temple. After several minutes of walking, John stood directly in front of the temple. He peered into the open archway that led inside the temple, but was unable to see anything of note.
'Standing here won't get me anywhere.'
John carefully started walking forward, keeping his guard up in case of any sudden danger. After walking through the main hallway for a short bit, John eventually came to a wide open room much like the one in the first palace he, Miko and Ryan had encountered. At the very center of the room, a round object rested on a pedestal. John raised his eyebrows as he stared at the ground around the object.
Dozens of human skeletons laid around the pedestal. Most of the skeletons were charred black, a sign of lightning damage. John once more raised his guard, wary of whatever had caused the deaths of all these people.
John observed the object for some time before daring to do anything. The object glowed a dazzlingly beautiful blue color, and small flickers of lightning danced all over it. Whenever the temple was struck by lightning, he noticed that most of the lighting entered the building and directly struck the round object.
Every time this happened, the object's bright aura would brighten ever so slightly. This process repeated itself many times before John finally decided to send out his divine sense to see if he could get any clues.
His divine sense carefully spread out towards the pedestal, but he hastily retracted it as a voice echoed throughout the empty room.
"I would suggest that you leave this place."