Chapter 684: Today, Even If We Die, We’ll Die With No Regrets!

The Grand Hall fell into deathly silence.

Only the sound of golden sap dripping from above remained, seeming heavier than before.

Shadow crouched on Su Ming’s shoulder. Feeling the oppressive atmosphere, she uneasily quivered her wings.

After a long while, Qingheng’s aged voice sounded again.

This time, the detachment he had shown while recounting history was gone. Instead, his voice carried a deep sorrow.

“Young friend of the human race, you have a keen eye.”

Qingheng’s thought slowly swept through the ancient hall, as if caressing the twenty-four soul cocoons that had only a thread of life remaining.

“Truthfully, how could I not know?” Qingheng sighed. “But being trapped inside these cocoons, watching yourself slowly decay, is too bitter. I had thought that even if they were reduced to dust, they should at least be allowed one more glimpse of the sky of the spirit realm.”

Su Ming said nothing. He knew this was a tragedy belonging to that ancient era. As a junior of the human race, he had no right to judge.

“Enough.”

Qingheng’s voice suddenly became utterly calm, yet beneath that calm lay a resolve that would sever all ties.

“Let those twenty-four remain asleep.” Qingheng’s thought formed an invisible wall, sealing the twenty-four outer soul cocoons once more. “Do not let one battle today extinguish the last embers of my Qiming Royal Court.”

At the very moment Qingheng formed the hand seal,

“Rumble!”

The ground above the ancient hall suddenly shook violently. Large amounts of rock debris pattered down through the gaps between the roots, striking the cocoons.

An extremely dense death energy surged downward through cracks in the earth veins.

“They’re here,” Lin Yu said in a low voice within the Consciousness Sea. “Those three old monsters from the Dark Current Sect. Two of them actually bypassed the First Main Root and are heading straight for Withered Wood Cliff!”

Su Ming’s expression tightened. He had already gripped his lifebound formation plate inside his sleeve.

“Young friend of the human race.”

Qingheng’s voice suddenly rang out, loud and imbued with unquestionable authority.

“I’ll deal with those two vermin scouting above. Since you are proficient in formations, protect the formation base of this ancient sleeping hall for me.”

Before his words had even faded, a pale green leaf-shaped pattern suddenly drifted out through a crack in the central soul cocoon.

Thin as a cicada’s wing, the pattern radiated a gentle yet resilient light. It traced an abstruse path through the air before landing precisely on the back of Su Ming’s left hand.

The instant the leaf pattern touched his skin, Su Ming felt a cool breath sweep through his entire body. The soul pressure that had been pressing against his meridians painfully inside the ancient hall was completely shut out by the leaf pattern.

Su Ming stared in surprise at the green markings on the back of his hand.

Qingheng’s voice rang out one last time in Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea, now carrying a solemn promise.

“Young friend of the human race, Qiming will remember this kindness.”

The ground above shook more and more violently. Large rocks were corroded by the death energy into black sludge, which dripped through the gaps between the ten-thousand-year-old roots. The nauseating stench of decay had already begun to spread through the ancient sleeping hall.

Su Ming stood where he was. The pale green leaf pattern on the back of his hand glimmered, purifying all the death energy that tried to approach.

“Crack!”

A cracking sound louder than any before burst from the center of the Grand Hall.

The largest soul cocoon in the center, as if struck by an invisible giant axe, split completely in two. Its thick shell turned into countless dancing green specks of light that drifted in every direction.

A figure slowly emerged from those specks of light.

Su Ming narrowed his eyes slightly.

What kind of being was this?

Qingheng was so thin he was little more than a skeleton. A faded, oversized ceremonial robe hung from his body. His skin was a grayish brown, half-transformed into deadwood, and covered with deep wrinkles like the bark of an ancient tree.

He stood there quietly, as if a gust of wind could topple him.

Yet when Su Ming’s gaze met Qingheng’s eyes, an involuntary sense of reverence rose within him.

They were clear and pure, untouched by the muddiness of time or the venom of three hundred years of imprisonment. The rise and fall of stars were reflected in those eyes, which held a profound understanding of the laws of heaven and earth.

Inside the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu looked into those eyes, and his Soul Body stopped trembling of its own accord.

“This is what a true Dao-realized cultivator looks like.” For once, Lin Yu’s voice held no trace of teasing, only deep respect.

Qingheng did not look at the death energy drawing ever closer from above. Instead, he turned toward the twelve inner-ring soul cocoons and slowly raised his withered right hand.

“My old friends, the dream is over.”

At his call, densely packed green formation lines appeared on the surfaces of all twelve soul cocoons.

“Thump! Thump! Thump!”

A series of muffled sounds echoed through the ancient hall as the cocoons broke open one after another.

Eleven figures emerged from the shattered cocoons in succession.

Using Observation of the Minute, Su Ming saw everything clearly, and the shock he felt was beyond words.

The eleven venerable elders of the Qiming Royal Court, once famed throughout the land, were now in a truly horrific state.

The old man at the front had lost his entire left arm from the root. There was no blood at the wound, only rings of withered yellow markings like the growth rings of a tree.

Another, a hunched female spirit-race elder, had one half of her body completely turned to wood. With every step she took, her wooden joints scraped together with a grating sound.

One of them had long since lost both eyes, leaving only two pitch-black hollows. Yet his soul was like a drawn sword, thrusting straight toward the heavens.

Though their auras had weakened to the extreme, like guttering candles in the wind, their backs remained ramrod straight.

They did not look at Su Ming, nor at the danger above.

The first thing they did after emerging from their cocoons was turn in unison toward the deepest part of the ancient sleeping hall, in the direction of the main hall of the Royal Court they had once sworn to serve.

The eleven bent their broken bodies deeply and performed an elaborate salute of the Spirit Race Royal Court.

When the salute was done,

they turned again to face the roots of the ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan that had sheltered them for three hundred years, toward the place where Elder Woodheart’s true body lay, and bowed once more.

It was a sense of order and gratitude carved into their very bones.

“These old fogies...” Lin Yu muttered inside the ring, his voice unexpectedly tight. He forcibly swallowed the words that followed, then used his soul power to form a tiny illusory stone at the bottom of the ring and slammed it down, disguising the stirrings of his emotions.

Just then, an elder with a head of fiery red hair abruptly straightened. Though his body was withered, a furious blaze burned in his eyes.

A dazzling mass of red vitality instantly gathered in his one remaining intact hand.

“Elder!” The red-haired elder’s voice rang like a great bell, making the ancient hall hum. “Why did you awaken only us? Let me wake the remaining twenty-four brothers, too! Today, even if we die, we of Qiming will die with no regrets!”

With that, he turned without hesitation and strode toward the twenty-four sleeping soul cocoons on the outer ring. The red glow in his hand was about to touch the nearest cocoon.

“Stop.”

Qingheng’s voice was not loud, yet it carried absolute authority.

He did not take a step. He merely raised his withered right hand from afar.

A faint glimmer of green light flashed in his palm.

The red-haired elder’s raised arm froze a mere inch from the soul cocoon. His entire body trembled violently, but he could not move forward even the slightest bit.

“Chiyan, you’re still as impatient as ever.” Qingheng lowered his hand and looked at the red-haired elder’s back, his tone frighteningly calm.