The next day.
Chu Xun and the brittle confederacy of humans and Lost Races champions came together to the Hanyang Peak. The soft morning fog veiled much of the upper half of the summit, but it did little to obscure the rainbow-like radiance shining at the top.
They barely got near and the enchantment, sensing their arrival, shimmered as if to greet them, enveloping the entire mid-hill to bar them from climbing. But they could see that the myriad-colored lights were pouring out of a stone portal.
The entryway hewn from the rock of the mountain looked ancient and old with hardly any engraving or markings. Just a simple set of doors made of cold, heavy granite.
The left door was ajar and that was where the lights were pouring out from.
Chu Xun stepped forward and examined the enchantment.
All six mutant champions stared quietly in silence, their eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Gao Mohan and his companions too watched Samsara nervously. Whether this endeavor would be a sink or swim all boiled down to him for now.
Unbeknownst to them, Chu Xun had already found the weakness of the enchantment yesterday. His “examination” now was just for everyone’s benefit.
Even so, Chu Xun needed the time to think. He needed a way to fully control this enchantment, not merely defeat it.
The enchantment was constructed using Taoist sorcery and this double-gambit enchantment contained two parts: the outer part an enchantment designed to kill any intruders while defending its domain and the inner parts Chu Xun could only expect something more complex.
“So… Have you any ideas, Samsara?” asked Gao Mohan.
Without taking his eyes off the wall of light before him, Chu Xun answered, “Getting there… I’m getting there… Patience…”
“Do let us know if you need any help,” added Kong Liqun.
“Well, you know what? I just might.” Chu Xun bobbed his head.
No one said a word, afraid that any more disturbance might cause further delays.
An hour passed and an irate Liu Jiuyuan asked testily, “How long more until you can break it!?”
“Oh, just shut it, will you?” scowled Chu Xun without even throwing his head back to look at him.
Liu Jiuyuan heaved and puffed with brimming discontent. “Why must he be given an earful whenever he says something while others were was not?!”
“Patience, Liu,” reminded Gao Mohan.
Liu Jiuyuan snorted and peered at Chu Xun’s back, the corners of his lips curling sinisterly.
It took a while more, then Chu Xun turned back to say to the others, “I’ll be triggering the enchantment. I want you all to attack the barrier of light.”
Everyone nodded.
Strangely shaped rocks and oddly-figured trees scattered all around the barrier of light. Chu Xun looked around and found a huge rock more than several tonnes heavy.
“Hey, you weak-spined oaf, come here!”
That left a sullen look on Liu Jiuyuan’s face, who ignored Chu Xun’s calls.
“Come here this instance, you weak-spined oaf! Or are you trying to sabotage everyone’s attempts to get into the ruins?!”
Chu Xun rarely spewed expletives, but strangely, he found it thrilling to hurl them at Liu Jiuyuan instead.
All six of the mutant champions and Gao Mohan with his companions all stared at Liu Jiuyuan.
The latter shuddered, knowing full well that if he refused Chu Xun’s call for help, then he would be the enemy to the cause of the champions present.
He moved reluctantly forward, while deep inside, he never stopped cursing Chu Xun.
“Lift up this rock,” said Chu Xun.
Liu Jiuyuan gaped at the huge boulder before throwing a look of disbelief back at Chu Xun.
“What are you staring at?! Come on, get to work!” bellowed Chu Xun.
Liu Jiuyuan never looked so nasty. It was insulting that for one who commanded such prestige and respect such as he to endure the humiliation of being summoned and called like a common slave!
Lifting a boulder several tonnes in weight was a cakewalk for an Immortal-level champion.
Rich Internal Breath coursed all around Liu Jiuyuan as he mustered his powers. He groped at the rock and found handholds where he could grip on. Then, with a grunt, his feet sank gradually into the soil as he easily lifted the huge boulder.
Chu Xun bobbed his head, looking absolutely satisfied. Then he peered around and found another boulder more than several tonnes too. He chipped his foot at the bottom of the boulder and lobbed the rock up into the air and it landed on top of the boulder Liu Jiuyuan was hoisting over his head with the finesse of a footballer.
Any pebble or gravel under Liu Jiuyuan’s feet immediately burst into dust and his feet sank deeper.
“Hold it properly,” uttered Chu Xun before he found another boulder, and he did the same, lobbing it like a ball so that three boulders were being held aloft in a tall column.
Liu Jiuyuan’s feet never stopped digging into the soil.
No one understood what Chu Xun was trying to do, although they could only guess that it was related to defeating the enchantment.
Chu Xun wandered around and found one more and he lobbed it to the top. The entire rock column tottered unsteadily.
“Careful,” Chu Xun barked, “Drop it and our effort will be wasted.”
Liu Jiuyuan said nothing, devoting every iota of his focus to the reluctant task of keeping the rock column steady while he wobbled around like a circus clown.
Four huge boulders. They weighed more than a couple of dozen tonnes.
“One more!”
Boom!
The fifth rock thumped down on the top of the column.
Liu Jiuyuan stood calf-deep in the ground. He grunted once and channeled more Internal Breath as his arms began to shake.
“The sixth,” said Chu Xun, finding one more boulder.
But Liu Jiuyuan furiously tossed aside the rock column and leaped away.
Bang! Bang!
The boulders crashed to the ground and the earth shook beneath everyone’s feet.
“WHAT WAS THAT, YOU WEAK-SPINED OAF?!” Chu Xun snapped sharply.
Everyone – human and mutant champions alike – threw churlish looks at Liu Jiuyuan.
Hues of white light shimmered all over Liu Jiuyuan as he caught his breath. He glared at Chu Xun nastily, “Thirty-three tonnes! That is the maximum weight I can bear! I could never carry that sixth rock just now!”
“So that’s the weight that an Immortal-leveled champion can carry. Thirty-three tonnes, eh?” Chu Xun mused quietly.
“Weakling,” scowled Chu Xun. “We were so near and you’ve bungled it all.”
Liu Jiuyuan seethed with indignation. One more boulder and he would be hurt, and he could not believe that he should be blamed. In fact, he wondered if Chu Xun was playing a wicked prank that had absolutely nothing to do with defeating the enchantment on him.
But, obviously, no one shared his sentiments; everyone stared at Liu Jiuyuan with frustration and resentment.
“Huang Hai, you’re next,” said Chu Xun.
The Mustelid champion’s face contorted with horror. He knew right from the start that Chu Xun would call for him.
“Good luck, Huang,” remarked Gao Mohan.
Huang Hai responded only with a glum and surly look. Knowing that this might be crucial to destroying enchantment, there were no grounds for him to refuse and no one would allow him to.
Reluctantly, he went to a piece of rock. He summoned his powers and groaned audibly as he raised one of the boulders.
“Hold it steady.”
Chu Xun propelled the boulders one after another on the Mustelid as he called, rebuilding the rock column again piecemeal.
Six massive rocks, weighing more than thirty-six tonnes crushed down on Huang Hai. Knee-deep into the ground, his trembling arms showed that he was already at his limits.
“Look, weakling,” Chu Xun took the chance to tease Liu Jiuyuan.
The ridicule hardly came welcomed by Liu Jiuyuan, but he too was astonished by the physical strength of beasts that evidently outstripped humans’.
“Come here,” Chu Xun called Liu Jiuyuan, “Take the rock.”
“No more than five,” Liu Jiuyuan grumpily reminded with a growl.
“Spare me your piffle.”
Chu Xun tossed more boulders and built another five-boulder rock column that Liu Jiuyuan hoisted over his head.
“What about us, Samsara? What can we do?” asked Kong Liqun.
“The moment the enchantment changes, attack it with everything you’ve got,” said Chu Xun.
Chu Xun trotted to another rock on the ground. Half-sunken into the ground due to its colossal weight, it looked doubtlessly ordinary.
“Be ready!” Chu Xun called.
He gave the rock a heavy push.
The rock groaned as it rumbled across the soil but the barrier of light began rippling as if pebbles were being pelted at it.
Then everyone saw it. Right as the barrier of light began rippling, countless energy bolts shaped like swords flitted over its surface.
“NOW!” yelled Chu Xun loudly.
The remaining mutant and human champions answered with a wordless cry and they attacked.
Unnatural winds churned as the fabric of Air and Space twisted and warped from the sheer might and power unleashed by the champions.
Such was the magnitude of destruction that eight Immortal-level champions set loose that the air groaned and shrieked as if in fright.
Devastating barrages of energy bolts rained down on the barrier of light.
Rumble!
Ear-splitting roars from the blasts wailed across the vale as Hanyang Peak never stopped quaking, eliciting landslides all around it with boulders rolling off its cliffs every now and then.
The energy blasts smashed into the protective wall of light of the enchantment and mushroom clouds of fumes and dust ballooned into the air. All of Hanyang Peak would have been leveled into a barren flatland if not for the barrier of light soaking up all the damage.
Swoosh!
With sentience of its own, the enchantment retaliated. The barrier of light coruscated with a sudden gleaming sheen of gold and the horde of energy bolts, each in the semblance of swords, fused into one single body – a shiny and behemothic sword of light more than fifty meters in length – and hacked furiously at the mutant champions.
The blade of light fell with such intensity like a lightning bolt cracking across the sky that could instantly liquefy anyone’s insides.
All five champions of the Lost Races felt assailed not only by the gigantic sword of light that came down with flecks of trailing glitters, but also a panicking sensation that gripped and petrified them.
Boom!
The tossing winds from the sheer pressure of the falling blow evoked rolling waves of dust and steam and a huge explosion followed.
When the dust finally settled, groans and grunts could be heard coming from the mutant champions. They had managed to weather the first blow. Even so, that the impact of the strike had hammered them into the ground bore testament to how great and powerful the sword of light was.
The barrier of light gave off another blinding gleam and the monstrous sword of light materialized once more. Tongues of white flames danced off its edges as the gigantic sword loomed menacingly over the mutant champions, then it came swiftly down again at them.
The Lost Races champions beheld mixed expressions of horror and frustration. “Why is this sword only attacking us?!”
Swift and sure was the blow that they could hardly think. The five mutant champions pooled together their powers once more to hurled whatever attacks they could at the titanic weapon of light.
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Rumble!
The gigantic sword erupted like a nuclear detonation, fanfaring the mutant champions’ success. Down at the foot of Hanyang Peak, even from a thousand meters away, the congregation of human warriors and Beast Lords all looked aghast at the tremors shaking the earth.
But there was hardly room for celebration; the mutant champions looked worse for wear. Defending themselves against the giant swords of light had depleted much of their powers.
They traded quick looks and the same look of doubt and incredulity registered in their eyes. None of them understood why the enchantment only chose to attack them.
Gao Mohan and the human champions too were not so much dubious than shocked, each of them throwing inquiring glances at Chu Xun.
Hum!
The barrier of light emitted another blinding burst that lighted up the skies.
Swoosh!
Something long and shiny protruded from the surface of the barrier of light then it shot at Gao Mohan and his companions.
That rather came as a relief to the mutant champion; the enchantment was not really targeting them exclusively.
Although they would be disappointed in just an instant as the appeased expressions on their faces quickly froze before squirming with dissatisfaction and rage.
The energy bolt too was shaped like a sword as it charged at the human champions. Only, this sword of light was barely three meters long, and by the time it reached its targets, its power was all but spent and its light waning.
Gao Mohan and his companions flung out their arms, firing energy blasts. But the energy bolt had almost fully dissipated, and their attacks hit the wall of light causing more explosions.
“What on earth…”
Gao Mohan and his companions floundered with shock and disbelief.
The mutant champions all looked prim and stiff.
“What is this, Samsara!?” demanded Kong Liqun, believing it as mischief concocted by Samsara.
Chu Xun was still pushing the huge boulder. “Are you a fool?!” he cried, “That’s a Taoist enchantment! Do you not know that Taoist enchantments are all specially-conjured three-pronged security countermeasures designed to keep out fire, theft, and demons or beasts like you!”
Kong Liqun and his fellow mutant champions could not believe what they just heard. “A three-pronged security countermeasure in the form of enchantments to keep them out?! What nonsense is this?!” But when they thought about it, Chu Xun’s words made sense.
The barrier of light shone majestically in the sunlight like a gilded armor flecked with scales of gold. Then came the same, recognizable aura, thick and terrifying as before, and another gigantic sword of light materialized with tendrils of flame-like gesticulation dancing down the fifty-meter length of its blade.
Rumble!
The air screamed as the colossal weapon of light hacked down at the Lost Races champions.
Kong Liqun and his fellow mutant champions could have not been more frustrated; once again the enchantment chose to attack them. Enraged, all five of the mutants mustered every shred of power they could call upon. Their Internal Breaths roiled in their bodies, their respective auras each vast and awesome, and they retaliated together, striking at the sword.
Boom!
Waves of steam and dust rolled in all directions like huge stampedes pounding at the earth.
The mutant champions had triumphed once again, but not without a heavy cost. They became so spent that they tottered several paces away from the blast.
Afraid that they might be caught in the fallout, Gao Mohan and the human champions evaded the waves of shock and dust quickly.
“NOW’S THE TIME! USE THE ROCKS! HURL THEM AT THE BARRIER!” Chu Xun boomed suddenly.
That flabbergasted both Liu Jiuyuan and Huang Hai. “What?! Throw the rocks at the barrier?! WHAT ON EARTH?!”
“MOVE!” Chu Xun roared anxiously.
Stunned, the two champions charged with blank faces, obediently smashing the rock columns they were carrying at the barrier of light.
Boom!
The boulders – amounting to a collective force of more than sixty-six tonnes – smashed viciously into the wall of light.
Hum!
The barrier of light flashed wildly. Tens of thousands of energy bolts each in the form of swords peeked out of the surface of the barrier and shot out like bees, swarming in on all eleven boulders and gnawed them into smaller rocks and ultimately bits and pieces by the end.
Aghast by the flock of destruction pullulating around them, Liu Jiuyuan and Huang Hai roared maniacally as they frantically summoned their powers to defend themselves.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The sea of energy bolts bore down on both champions like a ravenous school of piranhas before exploding in a terrible boom.
Emitting agonizing cries as they were knocked off their feet by the blast, Liu Jiuyuan and Huang Hai both crashed a few hundred meters away.
When they finally stood back up, the two battered and ashen-pale champions looked absolutely dismal in their tattered rags and disheveled hair.
They might be hurt with blood trickling out their mouths, but they were not fatally wounded, although the beating had greatly reduced their powers.
Boiling in anger, they could not understand why did they have to attack the barrier with rocks and boulders instead of firing attacks themselves.
But before they could demand answers from Chu Xun, the latter’s cries resounded across the clearing in front of the barrier, “QUICK! THE BREACH IS OPEN! RUSH INSIDE NOW!”
Indeed, there really was a gash right in the middle where the huge boulders had struck the barrier just wide enough for a person to pass through.
Right at that moment, any doubts about Chu Xun had all but vanished.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
As quickly as they could, the mutant champions dove inside the crack in the wall of light.
“Quick! It’s closing soon!” yelled Chu Xun.
Liu Jiuyuan and Huang Hai too dragged their wearied selves and rushed after the others with all dignity forgotten.
Chu Xun watched with a devious grin as everyone passed through the barrier. With a powerful punch, he blasted the boulder he was pushing earlier into bits, and inside, he found a pale jade-like stone barely the size of his hand.
The actual Keystone of the enchantment.
He stowed it away and slipped inside the enchantment, right before the barrier closed up.
Gao Mohan saw Chu Xun came in. He peered at him strangely and smiled, “That was fabulous work, Samsara.”
“Don’t mention it. We’re allies; it’s right to help one another,” said Chu Xun.
Even the mutant champions, never mind Gao Mohan, could see that Chu Xun hardly meant what he said.
Liu Jiuyuan and Huang looked absolutely pathetic. They did most of the heavy lifting just now – quite literally.
“You knew, didn’t you!? You knew that it would be dangerous for us both?!” Liu Jiuyuan lashed out furiously at Chu Xun, no longer able to keep his wrath bridled.
“Of course I did,” said Chu Xun very frankly.
“So you used us on purpose?!” Huang Hai growled darkly.
“Call me evil, call me vile, and so what? Of course, I knew it would be dangerous, but I did not call you to attack the barrier with the rocks without reason, did I?” retorted Chu Xun hotly, “Someone has to do it and since I never liked you both, so I chose you two. Who else would you think I’d ask?”
That did little to assuage the two livid champions.
But everyone was surprised too by Samsara’s outspoken candor. “Surely there’s no need for him to admit so openly his dislike of them even if he really loathes them?!”
“All right, that’s enough,” said Kong Liqun, “We’ve passed through the enchantment, so I guess we’re all on our own now. May the best man wins.” He began moving towards the stone entryway.
Seeing this, everyone hurried after him.
Huang Hai shot Chu Xun a fierce glare that morphed into a wicked and ominous grin before he turned around and left.
Liu Jiuyuan too snorted contemptuously and he spun around and headed for the stone door.
“My friend…” Gao Mohan stammered to Chu Xun as if he wished to say something, although he eventually decided not to. He smiled bleakly and said, “Do be careful once inside.”
“Let’s go. Be careful after this, everyone,” cautioned Ge Zhan.
The human champions said their farewells and trotted inside.
Chu Xun’s lips twisted into a cryptic grin and he sauntered slowly after them.
The mob of human warriors and Beast Lords congregating around Hanyang Peak saw the champions entering the ruins. Feeling that it could be safe to come closer, they approached the slopes of the peak carefully, hoping that they might be able to stumble upon any bounty.
Chu Xun plunged himself into the darkness that awaited him beyond the stone doors and was welcomed by a gust of chilly air that brushed on his skin as if something was blowing at the nape of his neck, causing his hair to stand.
He barely took a few paces when he nearly stepped off a ledge and plummet into a bottomless abyss.
He projected his Divine Sense and he grinned. He was right. Another enchantment guarded the entrance and anyone who stepped inside must have been bewitched.
Before him was nothing but a deep chasm spanned only by a slender bridge of stone, without a curb or rail.
“Did any of the others who came in just fell off, I wonder?” A wild thought occurred to Chu Xun.
He needed not to ask. It was virtually impossible. As Immortal-level champions skilled in magic and means to defend themselves, they could never be impeded by an obstacle so flimsy and trivial.
“I’m hungry,” said a disembodied voice from behind suddenly, followed closely by another icy gust of air blowing at his neck again.
That came so suddenly that Chu Xun, who was deep in thought, nearly jumped with shock. “A very strange Taoist enchantment,” he thought. I almost thought that voice was real. But he could have sworn he really felt someone – or something – pressing into his back.
“I’m hungry!” the creepy voice echoed from behind him once more.
“Hungry, eh? Here’s something to chew on!” Chu Xun responded, a vile idea sparking in his mind. Purplish flames burst to life in his hand and without so much as a look back, he flailed an arm and swatted backward.
Sizzle!
A pungent stench filled his nostrils and Chu Xun felt a cold sensation wiping on the surface of his palm. He withdrew his hand and peered at it and what he saw almost made his hair stand – again.
He spied droplets of greenish ichor on his palm which sizzled with tiny plumes of steam. He could feel the skin of his palm stinging from the corrosive properties of the blood droplets.
The purplish flames quickly devoured the droplets of greenish ichor.
Chu Xun’s face shifted. This was no enchantment. “Something really was here.” A creature or an unknown entity – a wraith, perhaps. It might not be able to hurt him, yet the notion of such a ghastly being nearby hardly filled him with relief at all.
With his Divine Senses projected, he stepped on the stone bridge barely three meters wide.
A willow-green arm of thick fur swiped up from under the stone bridge and clutched at his ankle.
Chu Xun quickly flicked a little speck of purplish flame at the furry arm and with a hiss, the arm vanished in a puff and it was gone, save from the few greenish droplets of blood on the stone.
Rumble!
Chu Xun was about to continue his way across the chasm when he felt his foot connecting with nothing! The bridge was collapsing and he plummeted into the abyss.
Chu Xun quickly slapped hard at a falling stone, using the force to launch himself upwards.
But every time he found any falling debris to use, it would crumble instantly and he had to rely on his Reincarnation Lines to keep himself from falling.
And to his remarkable astonishment, he just could not reach any nearer to the other side of the chasm, no matter how much progress he has made. For minutes, he struggled with the falling stone bridge for what seemed like almost a kilometer and he still found himself still somewhere in the middle, falling with the rest of the bridge.
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Chu Xun grunted. He was still caught up in a Taoist enchantment! Taoist sorcery centered around revolution – the eternal continuation from the start to the end and vice versa, and that exactly is what was going on: every time he found a foothold in any falling debris, he would be magically transported back to the first piece he had found earlier!
Knowing the true answer to the solution, he decided on a gambit; he would allow himself to fall to the bottom of this endless chasm.
Bang!
With a terrible boom, Chu Xun’s feet hit solid ground and the flagstones under his feet shattered from the impact of the fall.
Annoyed, Chu Xun gnashed his teeth. This seemingly bottomless chasm was not bottomless after all. In fact, it only was five meters deep and he could barely react at all before reaching the bottom, never mind summoning his Hong Meng Immortal Qi, and the fall had numbed his legs.