Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1478 - Monument

Chapter 1478 – Monument

Liu Wuxie pushed his speed even harder as Ghost Pupil pierced the fog and revealed a towering construct ahead.

“The monument!” A giant monument rose before Liu Wuxie, matching the reference point his senior brother had given him.

As he closed in, he realized the monument looked even more majestic than he had imagined, its surface carved with texts. Each character carried the weight of ages, so people dared not look at it directly.

Liu Wuxie couldn’t tell what kind of power it was, only that it had already surpassed the level of immortals. In the next instant, a terrifying suction force erupted, dragging Liu Wuxie toward the monument.

The monument produced that suction force, and even experts at the Heaven Gaze Realm couldn’t resist it. It felt as though something had latched onto his body and kept yanking him closer to the monument.

When the Dark Evil Emperor and the others approached, they, too, lost control of their bodies and were pulled toward the monument.

“What is that?” The people behind the Dark Evil Emperor stared in shock at the monument.

The monument stood over 10,000 feet tall and stretched 1,000 meters wide. Yet the true terror didn’t come from its size, but from the laws flowing across its surface.

“Immortal runes! So many immortal runes!” Liu Wuxie’s eyes turned green with greed the moment he took it in. Beyond the immortal runes, he also spotted many runes he didn’t recognize at all, and those had to be runes beyond immortal runes.

“Could those be divine runes?” A bold thought sprang up in Liu Wuxie’s mind, but he quickly shook his head and cast it aside. No one had ascended to godhood in the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm for a long time, and deities had long since faded into history.

Those unfamiliar runes looked shattered and mixed in with the immortal runes. Since he couldn’t recognize them, he could only treat them as divine runes for now.

This monument should have been an immortal artifact, yet for some reason, it had ended up in this state. Even so, it still retained at least the level of a quasi-immortal artifact. No wonder Liu Wuxie’s eyes had turned green with greed, because at its peak, this monument had absolutely surpassed immortal artifacts.

Even though damaged, it was still comparable to a quasi-immortal artifact. If Liu Wuxie could restore some of the immortal runes on it, restoring it to the level of an immortal artifact wouldn’t be difficult.

If he possessed an immortal artifact, then once he reached the Earth Immortal Realm, he wouldn’t have to fear cultivators at the Heaven Gaze Realm. He could simply use the immortal artifact to kill them.

Forging an immortal artifact wouldn’t challenge Liu Wuxie, but the real difficulty lay in finding the materials. In the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, the materials needed to forge an immortal artifact were pitifully rare.

“This is an immortal artifact!” The Dark Evil Emperor and the others went mad with excitement as the suction force dragged them in.

They all stood at the high levels of the Earth Immortal Realm, and if they reached the Heaven Gaze Realm, they would be able to wield an immortal artifact’s power. To unleash its full might, only genuine immortals could do that, yet even one-tenth of an immortal artifact’s power could still sweep through everyone with ease.

Xiao Yuetian’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. The moment he laid eyes on the immortal artifact, he momentarily forgot about Liu Wuxie, and he wasn’t the only one, as the others forgot about Liu Wuxie as well.

After all, the Great Dao of Wood’s fragment couldn’t compare to an immortal artifact.

The suction force intensified, pulling Liu Wuxie down to the base of the monument.

“Senior Brother!” Liu Wuxie strained with everything he had to break free of the suction force, but he couldn’t do a thing against it.

He spotted his senior brother in the distance, who must have been dragged there by the monument as well. Besides his senior brother, he also saw a man and a woman, and they were most likely his second and third senior brothers.

“Junior Brother!” Sun Xiao turned around and waved when he heard someone calling out to him.

Liu Wuxie immediately forced himself toward his senior brother.

Right then, the Dark Evil Emperor and the others arrived beneath the monument behind Liu Wuxie as well.

Once they reached the central area beneath the monument, the suction force weakened, and they could move freely within a ten-meter range. If they tried to leave, however, the suction force would drag them right back.

“Senior Brother, what happened?” Liu Wuxie asked as soon as he got close.

“Junior Brother, let me introduce you. This is your Second Senior Brother Tong Shan, and this is your Third Senior Brother Yin Ying,” Sun Xiao said as he introduced them.

Just as Liu Wuxie had suspected, Sun Xiao had received messages from his second and third junior brothers after entering the Heavenly Deity Valley. As he rushed over, he managed to send Liu Wuxie a message before being dragged away by the monument, setting everything that followed into motion.

Once they entered the monument’s region, the outside world became completely cut off. An invisible magnetic field disrupted everything around them, preventing them from sending any messages.

“Greetings, Senior Brothers,” Liu Wuxie said, clasping his fists in salute. Sun Xiao had already told them about him, and although this was their first meeting, the two treated him warmly.

“Junior Brother, Senior Brother has been praising you the whole time we have been here,” Tong Shan said as he stepped forward and patted Liu Wuxie’s shoulder.

Liu Wuxie hadn’t expected his second senior brother to be bald, yet the man’s personality was straightforward and open as he laughed.

“You two have been trapped here the whole time?” Liu Wuxie asked with a chuckle. Initially, he was worried about his senior brothers’ personalities, but it seemed he had overthought it, since Hua Feiyu valued character over talent.

“That’s right. Half a month ago, enemies chased your third senior brother into the Astral Sea, and he had to run for his life. I was training in the outer world when I received his distress signal, and I rushed over at once. After a fierce battle, we plunged into Heavenly Deity Valley,” Tong Shan said.

After falling into the valley, they had searched for an exit, eventually ending up there.

“Senior Brother, have you found a way out?” Liu Wuxie asked because being trapped there for so long made him suspect that escape might be impossible.

Liu Wuxie had tried to fly out several times, yet the monument felt strange, radiating a forcefield that affected the entire Heavenly Deity Valley. That was why the plants here lacked spirituality even after growing for countless years, and why he couldn’t figure out the suction force.

“We’ve tried everything, but there’s nothing we can do. The suction force is too powerful, and it’s useless unless an immortal comes,” Sun Xiao replied with a bitter smile. They had tried every method they could think of, but nothing worked.

They also couldn’t send a message out, which meant they had no way to contact the sect and call for help. Unless the sect sent an immortal over, they had no way out of this place.

Right then, the Dark Evil Emperor and the others entered the region beneath the monument as well.

“Liu Wuxie, you stole a fragment of my Great Dao of Wood, and I want you dead!” The Dark Evil Emperor moved to strike the moment he got close. The monument was a treasure, but no one knew how to claim it. So he wanted to kill Liu Wuxie first, since Liu Wuxie had been the one who had dragged them into this place.

“You can give it a try,” Liu Wuxie said. He immediately communicated with Gong Gong, and a powerful aura surged out from him, forcing the Dark Evil Emperor to retreat a step.

Gong Gong had reached the pinnacle of the Earth Immortal Realm, and in terms of combat strength, he stood far stronger than the Dark Evil Emperor.

Tong Shan stood at the fifth-level Earth Immortal Realm, and Yin Ying stood at the fourth-level Earth Immortal Realm. Sun Xiao had likely reached the sixth-level Earth Immortal Realm, yet even together, they still weren’t enough to deal with the Dark Evil Emperor and the others.

After all, the Dark Evil Emperor, Xiao Yuetian, and the others were of the older generation, unlike Sun Xiao’s group, who were at most 50 years old.

“Liu Wuxie, I know that you carry a powerful expert in your body, but he’s alone. With so many of us, you’ll be dead if we send two people to pin him down,” an elderly man said as he stepped forward and unleashed murderous intent toward Liu Wuxie.

Not many people knew of Gong Gong’s existence. Sun Xiao knew, but he hadn’t mentioned it to the other two, since it was Liu Wuxie’s secret.

“You’re an elder of the Grand Unity Sect, aren’t you?” Liu Wuxie asked as he swept his gaze across the fifty-odd people and quickly locked onto the old man.

Another old man stood beside him, glaring with blatant hostility. Across the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, only the Grand Unity Sect and the Divine Alchemy Sect wanted him dead the most, and both hated him enough to chew his flesh and drink his blood.

That hatred flared hottest inside the Divine Alchemy Sect, because the Heavenly Dao Society had steadily ebbed into its alchemy market. Even after they bought a batch of spiritual herbs from the Grand Unity Sect, they still couldn’t reverse their market’s collapse.

The expressions of the two old men shifted the instant Liu Wuxie exposed their identities.

“You’re right. We’re elders of the Grand Unity Sect, and we didn’t expect to run into you in the Outer Astral Spacetime. Your life ends here,” the old man admitted, no longer bothering to hide anything.

They had ventured into the Outer Astral Spacetime to search for a material, and by chance, they had discovered Liu Wuxie. That was why they had followed the Dark Evil Emperor’s group in pursuit, since the feud between the Heavenly Dragon Sect and the Grand Unity Sect was no secret in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.

“You can give it a try,” Liu Wuxie sneered. He then summoned Fiery and Xiao Rou to guard his sides.

The atmosphere instantly tightened, and battle could erupt at any moment. His three senior brothers also took their stances, ready to fight, but the moment they saw Fiery and Xiao Rou, a strange look flickered across their faces.

They hadn’t expected their junior brother to possess companions this terrifying, especially Fiery, a qilin with frightening cultivation. As for Xiao Rou, she needed no explanation, since she was a Vine Demon with formidable cultivation.

“Liu Wuxie, do you think these two monsters can stop us?” the Grand Unity Elder asked as he advanced slowly, while the Dark Evil Emperor and the others stepped back.

Their movement was restricted to a ten-meter radius, leaving barely 100 square meters, with more than 50 people packed into that small space.

Fiery roared furiously, being called a monster, and terrifying flames erupted outward.

“The True Samadhi Fire! Put the fire away!” The other cultivators couldn’t withstand it, especially those at the seventh- and eighth-level Earth Immortal Realm. They tried to fly out of the ring, but the suction force yanked them back at once, leaving them no choice but to remain inside like Liu Wuxie.

“Old dogs of the Grand Unity Sect, stop right now! If a battle breaks out, we will all have to die!” The Dark Evil Emperor roared. He didn’t fear the two elders from the Grand Unity Sect, but now wasn’t the time to fight, because they were all trapped there, and if battle erupted, no one could escape. The backlash alone could kill them all.

“That’s right. This place is too small, and it’s not suitable for combat. We should all focus on how to escape this place first,” Xiao Yuetian said as he stepped forward. Even if they managed to kill Liu Wuxie, it could end in mutual destruction, and the aftershock could catch them as well.

If cultivators at the ninth-level Earth Immortal Realm traded blows in such a cramped area, a single palm strike could wipe out a large group of people.

Faced with condemnation from everyone, the two elders from the Grand Unity Sect had no choice but to retreat, because they didn’t dare to make enemies of everyone at once.