Chapter 593 - 554: Heaven-Reaching City, Whose Cage?

Just as Song Ciwan finished answering, her spirit soaring, her body was suddenly engulfed by thousands of starlit flames.

The starlit flames, projecting down from the void, unleashed tidal waves within her flesh and blood, causing her experience with the Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique to skyrocket once again!

Thunder Fire Body Devouring Technique, Fourth Layer of Opening the Universe (Masterful Skill 1,602/1,000,000);

(Masterful Skill 135,280/1,000,000);

(Masterful Skill 265,967/1,000,000);

(Masterful Skill 357,645/1,000,000);

...

Finally, her experience with Opening the Universe stopped at (Masterful Skill 961,253/1,000,000). She was just a hair’s breadth away from breaking through Masterful Skill and reaching the realm of Mastery!

The collision of the starlit flames brought with it waves of seemingly endless, vast energy.

It slammed into Song Ciwan’s flesh, causing it to constantly explode and regenerate, explode and regenerate... It forced her body to follow its instincts, like the withering and flourishing of all things in an endless cycle, or like a desolate galaxy flickering between death and rebirth.

Endless inspiration burst forth like sparks, cleansing Song Ciwan’s body and Divine Soul.

Under this wondrous propulsion, she crossed a galaxy in a single step, traversing the final leg of the Ancient Starry Road. She arrived at the end of this path of light and ascended to the Heaven-Reaching City on the great tortoise’s back.

But it was different from what she had expected—

Instead of appearing on the edge of the great tortoise’s shell where the Ancient Starry Road connected, as the Corpse Demon had, Song Ciwan bypassed the waiting demon completely. As if leaping across the sky, she suddenly materialized within a massive city!

And so, the Corpse Demon could only watch with wide eyes as the Human Race’s Celestial Pride, for whom she held such high hopes and had so eagerly awaited, passed through the Ancient Starry Road successfully—but did not stop before her.

Instead, the Celestial Pride abruptly, suddenly, WHOOSHED past her and then, just like that, vanished right before her eyes!

The Corpse Demon had waited in vain. After anticipating for so long, she had ended up making a fool of herself.

The Corpse Demon stood there, stunned, wishing she could just break down and wail.

Song Ciwan didn’t know the specifics of the Corpse Demon’s emotional turmoil, but at the moment the starlight propelled her past the demon’s body, the Heaven and Earth Scale appeared at her side and collected another ball of essence from the creature.

[Demon Heart: The shock, stupor, and anguish of a Demon King Stage variant Corpse Demon. Weight: three catties and six taels. Tradable.]

The weight of this emotional essence was a full three catties and six taels. For a Corpse Demon that had always been so stingy with its emotional fluctuations, this was nothing short of a miracle.

Song Ciwan closed the Heaven and Earth Scale. Standing on a broad street, she felt as if her eyes were undergoing a grand and mystical baptism.

’What was she seeing?’

In the Heaven-Reaching City, the roads were broad and the buildings immense.

The buildings, soaring tens or even hundreds of yards into the air, were of exceedingly peculiar styles. Some appeared classical, with curved eaves, upturned corners, and a thousand layers of attics. Others had the texture of magical machinery, like storied ships floating in the sky or rainbow bridges suspended in the air...

Gleaming, iron-wing-like window panes glinted with a cold, metallic light, and giant, toppled statues lay on the streets.

There were also shop plaques of mismatched styles, some hanging on the outer walls of the buildings, others lying shattered and broken on the ground—

None of this was particularly shocking. Song Ciwan had seen even stranger cityscapes before in Illusory Nether City.

Having been Traveling through the Nine Provinces, she was no longer a person of limited experience.

What truly stunned Song Ciwan was the writing on those plaques.

Words like "Vast Sea Tower Library," "Wenyuan Spaceship," and "Qiangong Machinery"... were all written in Huaxia characters!

The traditional Huaxia characters were carved into her very bones and blood, imprinted deep within her soul—unforgettable.

Although most of the plaques were damaged and there weren’t many characters Song Ciwan could clearly recognize, compared to the scattered fragments of language she had encountered before, this was a bountiful harvest.

Song Ciwan’s right hand, hanging by her side, moved involuntarily. Her index finger, hidden within her sleeve, began to trace the characters in the air, stroke by stroke.

She walked as she traced, and tried to pick up a broken plaque from the ground beside her.

She wanted to collect it with her Heaven and Earth Scale to see what it might be worth.

But in the end, Song Ciwan’s hand passed right through the plaque!

She couldn’t pick it up. The plaque was like a tangible illusion, as if she and it didn’t truly exist in the same world. Though she could see it, she could neither touch nor feel it.

As for picking it up, that was even more impossible.

Unsure of the reason, Song Ciwan tried touching other objects.

She eventually discovered that no matter what she tried to touch on the street, her hand would pass through it as if it were a phantom image.

Song Ciwan also tried to collect them directly with the Heaven and Earth Scale, but the result was the same; she couldn’t take anything.

It all seemed to be a massive mirage.

However, when Song Ciwan walked up to the Vast Sea Tower Library, which seemed to rise a thousand stories high, and tentatively tried to enter through its main gate, she discovered that she could enter the building!

If everything was just an illusion, how could she be physically stepping onto the Library’s stairs and walking through its gate?

Song Ciwan silently activated her Xuanwu Mountain Observation Seal, ready to use Upright Shadowless at a moment’s notice. With her guard raised to the absolute maximum, she slowly stepped into the Vast Sea Tower Library.

The moment she entered, Song Ciwan suddenly felt a chilling sensation seep through her entire body.

The First Layer of the Vast Sea Tower Library was spacious, enormous, and elegantly arranged.

The main hall was very high, with a vaulted ceiling over a hundred feet high.

Song Ciwan looked up and immediately saw dozens of thick chains crisscrossing the ceiling of the hall.

And bound by those chains was a giant insect! It had a perfectly round, grotesque body from which grew countless tentacles.

The giant insect appeared to be dead. Its gruesome tentacles hung down limply from all directions like a dense cluster of strange snakes, devoid of life or movement.

But even though the giant insect was dead, the moment Song Ciwan laid eyes on it, a chaotic, gloomy, and tyrannical aura of terror surged toward her like a tidal wave, crashing down with a deafening ROAR.

Song Ciwan’s heart began to race, the blood pulsing in her veins.

A suspicion, impossible to suppress, surfaced in her mind.

’Is... is this a dead member of the Ancient Divine Insect Race?’

The Heaven and Earth Scale appeared. Song Ciwan actively controlled it, trying to collect the gloomy aura that permeated the space.

[Ancient God’s Bad Luck: From a half-mature Ancient Divine Insect. Though dead, its Bad Luck remains. Capturing it yields one mace, which is tradable.]

One mace. It was only one mace.

But this gloomy aura did, indeed, come from the Ancient Divine Insect Race.

The Heaven and Earth Scale had collected it!