'I-It's a demon! Impossible! Why is there a demon in this place?!' Yuan was shocked to the core when he saw the demon statue.
Although he has only seen a couple of them, their unique features were more than enough for Yuan to immediately recognize them at glance.
'Wait! Calm down! I am overthinking things! There is no way demons really exist in this world, right? That is only a stone statue— nothing more!'
Yuan began trying to convince himself that the stone statue was merely just that and not a real demon that had been sealed even though it looked ridiculously realistic.
However, that didn't explain why his body was burning when looking at the demon statue, as his body was clearly reacting to it.
"Brother Yuan, what do you see?" Chu Liuxiang asked him when he remained silent for too long.
"S-Sorry, but I think I overreacted to that statue over there." Yuan pointed at the demon statue that was surrounded by the six golden coffins.
"The stone statue?" Everybody there turned to look at the statue.
Since it was sort of dark there, they didn't notice the horns and other features immediately.
When they eventually noticed these unique features, their eyes widened with shock.
"What the… Why is there such a thing in the founders' tomb?"
"What even is this thing? It looks like a human, but humans don't have horns."
"It's a demon, I think," Yuan answered their questions.
"A demon? How do you know this?" Chu Liuxiang asked him.
"Because I have fought with them before inside Cultivation Online…" Yuan sighed.
"Cultivation Online?" Everyone there turned to look at him with raised eyebrows.
Yuan nodded and proceeded to explain to them his encounter with demons inside the Mystic Realm.
"Demons are powerful and immortal beings that have existed since ancient times in Cultivation Online. They cannot be killed through normal means. You can crush their body, burn them, and even sever their head, but they will regenerate completely like it never happened."
"I have fought a couple of them inside the Mystic Realm, and I was nearly killed by them."
"Wait… If they can regenerate any injuries no matter how severe, how do you defeat them?" Senior Wang asked.
"There are two ways to defeat a demon. You can destroy their body to the point where they cannot regenerate anymore, but they can fully regenerate within seconds even if they only have a single finger left, so that's not the preferred method."
"The second method is to seal them using a demon sealing technique, but that doesn't really kill them, and they will break out of that seal after a few hundred or thousand years depending on the strength of the seal."
"Oh, and I believe they're weak to techniques with the divine attribute."
"Heavens… How can such powerful entities exist? If they exist in our world in its current state, I highly doubt we will be able to defeat them." Senior Shi mumbled in a dumbfounded voice.
"Well, lucky for us, this is only a statue." Senior Xi said.
"What if it's not a statue?" Meixiu suddenly said.
And she continued, "What if that statue is the source of the calamity? If cultivation exists, then demons might also exist."
She turned to look at Yuan and said, "You've sealed them before, right? Can you look at that statue just in case? I have a bad feeling about it when I look at it."
Yuan nodded and used his divine sense to take a closer look at the demon statue without actually getting close to it.
"This is…" Yuan quickly frowned, but because of the mask blocking his face, the other couldn't see his expression.
If one looked at the demon statue with their bare eyes, they wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary about it, but Yuan's divine sense allowed him to see things with more clarity, and he could immediately tell that the demon statue was not made out of stone.
Furthermore, he could sense a familiar feeling coming from within the statue— a feeling of carnage and bloodthirst.
"I… I think it's a real demon that had been sealed…" Yuan muttered in a voice of disbelief after a long moment of silence.
Nobody there responded for a very long time, as they were as baffled as Yuan.
"R-Real…? Are you sure?" Senior Wang asked for confirmation.
Yuan nodded and said, "I have sealed a few demons in Cultivation Online, and they all turn into that appearance when sealed. Furthermore… I can sense unusual energy flowing through that statue."
"Good lord…"
"H-How long did you say demons can be sealed for?" Senior Hong asked him.
"I don't know. It all depends on the person who sealed the demon." Yuan shook his head.
Chu Liuxiang then spoke with a serious expression on her face, "This tomb has been here since ancient times, right? If you ask me, considering the situation with the calamity and the chilling energy from this place, there's a good chance that this demon is the calamity that we must face, and it's going to break out of the seal very soon."
"If that's the case, then we're all doomed! We have no way to defeat this demon if it really cannot be killed normally!"
The grand elders began panicking.
They suddenly looked at Yuan and said, "Y-You have experience with sealing demons, right?! Can you somehow reseal this demon before it breaks the seal?!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't really know how sealing demons work. I have a technique that allows me to seal demons, but I can only use that technique in Cultivation Online. I can try to learn the technique in this world as well, but I can't say for certain that it will happen before the demon breaks out of its seal, nor can I guarantee that it will work on the demon."
Senior Wang then said, "Let's look around to see if there are any clues for now. I'm sure the founders placed this demon in this place for a reason. Hell, they might've even left behind the method to deal with the demon.. We can figure out the other things later."