Chapter 100: Carapace

Qing Feng merely stated, “The Nine-Revolving Profound Ginseng is forbidden with cinnabar,” and then saw sword qi pierce the air, striking directly at the mechanism’s core, incidentally sweeping over a jade gourd capable of absorbing spiritual energy.

After that, he learned his lesson, always proactively handing over any retrieved magic treasures to Immortal Maiden Yun.

At this moment, the zither music before the stone gate suddenly quickened, and Qing Feng leaned against the green bricks, counting his heartbeats. The seventh movement of the Eight Tones of Luoshen, “Ocean’s Deluge,” shook the dome, causing dust to fall, and he suddenly felt that being carried by a powerful figure was quite good; even eating soft rice with a hard bite was a skill, not to mention Immortal Maiden Yun’s posture while playing the zither was truly pleasing to the eye.

Watching Yun Qingrao about to win, a warmth surged in Qing Feng’s heart; having such a reliable companion fighting alongside him truly brought peace of mind. As he was secretly congratulating himself, the battle had reached its conclusion.

The clear zither music erupted abruptly, and the sound waves transformed into tangible energy surges, shattering the ink-colored flood dragon coiled in the air piece by piece.

Amidst the sky-filling brilliance, a scroll shimmering with mysterious ripples slowly emerged, with myriad rays of light flowing ceaselessly, its dazzling glow making it difficult to look at directly.

Just as Yun Qingrao was about to touch the treasure, several magic artifacts previously acquired in the tomb suddenly emitted clear sword cries, flying out of her sea of consciousness on their own accord, echoing the scroll in the air.

At the same time, the Profound Iron Flute and the Blazing Flame Cauldron in Qing Feng’s arms also broke free, flashing with faint blue cold light and scorching red light, respectively hovering in the positions of yin and yang.

The eight supreme treasures formed a Bagua formation diagram, and the entire underground palace trembled violently.

Ancient runes emerged from the void, and as profound Daoist rhymes circulated, a vast starry river illusion was projected from the dome, as if recreating the scene of primordial chaos.

This phenomenon not only awed the Sword Pavilion Disciples and demonized beasts in the Mystic Realm but also caused the Dragon Yang Peak Disciples, who were about to pass the first trial, to turn red-eyed.

“Heavenly Mystery Map! This is the supreme treasure the Demon Lord has sought for a thousand years!” The Dragon Yang Disciple trembled with excitement, about to leap forward to seize it, but the stone steps beneath his feet instantly disintegrated.

He hurriedly forced his true essence to step on his sword and rise, but he crashed into an invisible barrier, his protective aura tearing like thin paper, and he fell into the abyss like a kite with a broken string.

Outside, everyone saw a golden light reaching ten thousand feet high piercing the clouds, but the two individuals at the center of the formation had strange expressions.

At the Bagua formation’s eye, instead of the expected yin-yang fish, there was a palm-sized Profound Turtle adorably paddling its four limbs, with naturally formed trigram patterns on its back glowing faintly as it spun.

“This…” The usually aloof Yun Qingrao rarely showed such a stunned expression.

The Profound Turtle, however, suddenly opened its mouth and spat out a string of colorful bubbles, and the Bagua formation diagram instantly reversed, an irresistible suction pulling the two into a vortex.

Even with Qing Feng’s Nascent Soul Realm cultivation, he lost his balance like a leaf in the wind, and when he fell heavily, a soft body pressed against his back.

Qing Feng rubbed his aching lower back with a wry smile; in this era, even falling down depended on one’s cultivation level?

Yun Qingrao, who was sitting beside him, had slightly flushed ear tips and hastily propped herself up to straighten her skirt. Her gaze suddenly fixed on a corner; the green-shelled turtle that should have been outside was leisurely gnawing on the moss on the stone wall.

As Yun Qingrao’s wide sleeves swirled, she flung out three ice prisms, only to see the clumsy turtle shell suddenly soar into the air, drawing a mysterious trajectory in mid-air, finally landing steadily on top of the central stone coffin.

In an instant, the entire underground palace roared, and gilded light burst forth from the cracks in the stone coffin.

Two illusory figures appeared in the air: the man on the left had prominent dragon horns, and his golden scaled armor shimmered with starlight; the Daoist on the right held a jade whisk, with a yin-yang fish diagram slowly rotating behind him.

The immense pressure made Yun Qingrao stagger backward, and Qing Feng instinctively reached out to steady her arm.

“Presumptuous!” Yun Qingrao recoiled as if shocked, but then suddenly realized something was amiss.

Her own Nascent Soul Realm cultivation still left her dizzy, so how could this Qi Condensation Realm Disciple be unharmed?

She subtly observed Qing Feng; he was currently focused on the turtle gnawing at the sealing runes on the stone coffin.

“Are you curious about this tomb-guarding Spirit Beast, young friend?” Celestial Void Daoist’s whisk lightly swept, and the turtle instantly transformed into a stream of light, disappearing into his sleeve. “Three hundred years ago, Ao Pan and I played chess here, and this beast secretly ate half of a leftover game, thus comprehending some void-遁空術 .”

Dragon Emperor Ao Pan’s vertical pupils swept over the faintly visible silver scales on Yun Qingrao’s forehead: “Half-dragon body? It seems that in the years since this Emperor’s demise, humans have learned the art of taming dragons.”

Seeing the woman’s expression suddenly turn cold, he laughed loudly and shattered a stone pillar beside him: “Just a joke. Those pure-blooded dragon whelps ascended to heaven with this Emperor’s elder brother back then. What wanders the four seas now are just some horned loaches.”

“Senior, be careful with your words!” Yun Qingrao’s fingertips condensed frost. “The Dragon race now governs the Demon Clan of the Eight Desolates, and the barrier of the Ten Thousand Mountains can no longer hold.”

“Barrier?” Ao Pan suddenly stopped laughing, and a golden light flashed in his eyes as he met Celestial Void Daoist’s gaze, “Little girl, have you ever seen a cultivator break through without bloodshed? Have you noticed that no one has ascended in the past hundred years?”

Qing Feng suddenly pulled Yun Qingrao’s pibai and retreated three steps: “This junior suddenly remembered that there’s chicken soup simmering on the stove.”

Before he finished speaking, Celestial Void Daoist’s whisk had already entangled his ankle: “Don’t rush, young friend. You are a crucial formation eye in this great catastrophe of heaven and earth.”

Yun Qingrao froze in place, her gaze repeatedly scrutinizing the young man before her.

Qing Feng’s features were indeed handsome, but to say he could bear the heavy responsibility of saving the world, she simply couldn’t see anything extraordinary about him.

“Daoist Master, you misunderstand. My meager skills can’t even touch a corner of Immortal Yun’s clothes.” Qing Feng took half a step back, cold sweat seeping from his palm. “Such a monumental matter of heaven and earth’s survival, this junior is truly…”

Before he finished speaking, profound light circulated in Celestial Void Daoist’s sleeve, and he lightly tapped the turtle shell with his fingertip, immediately revealing a wondrous sight of interwoven star trails: “The Spirit Turtle choosing its master has its own heavenly mystery. Just look at this back shell.”

On the green jade table, the palm-sized Profound Turtle suddenly emitted a faint blue glow, its shell patterns like living stellar veins.

As Qing Feng leaned in for a closer look, those seemingly chaotic patterns reorganized themselves, transforming into countless circulating innate trigrams.

“This!” He abruptly covered his eyes, and a faint golden light spilled through his fingers. His divine consciousness was uncontrollably sucked into the depths of the turtle shell, and in a trance, he actually saw the Nine Heavens collapsing, and turbid qi transforming into myriad demonic flood dragons gnawing at the laws of heaven and earth.

Just as the cosmos was inverted, a colossal turtle shell illusion suddenly rose from the 裂口 in the firmament, single-handedly resisting the world-ending torrent.

Dragon Emperor Ao Pan clapped his hands and laughed: “When the Luo River Diagram appeared, this Deputy Head personally witnessed such a scene. Do you believe it now, young friend?”

Qing Feng staggered, leaning on a stone pillar, his forehead veins throbbing. The crack that ran through the Three Realms in the illusion just now was exactly the same as what he had seen in his dream last night.

Even more bizarrely, a faint burning sensation, resonating with the turtle shell, was subtly emerging in his Dantian at this moment.

“The concretization of the laws of the extreme of heaven and earth,” he murmured, looking at the faint golden seal script appearing on his palm.

Those glowing characters were clearly of the same origin as the turtle shell patterns, and at this moment, they were moving through his meridians like living beings.

Suddenly, Yun Qingrao’s exclamation came from afar, and looking up, an identical spatial rift to the one in the illusion appeared in mid-air.

When chaos first separated, heaven and earth manifested two supreme treasures.

The River Diagram emerged from the rivers, and the Luo River Diagram appeared from the Luo River; the former aided Fuxi in deducing the innate Bagua, and the latter guided Yu the Great in dividing the nine provinces.