The Sword Dynasty

Book 8: Chapter 46: Long Ago

From when the black crystal stone started to heat up until it was completely red, it only took a breath. At this time, the young cultivators who had entered the hall of the Twelve Shamans or were close to him and had not yet entered were all giving out energy vibrations, so no one sensed his abnormality.

Yet just like the vibrations when the Twelve Shamans returned, the crystal stone in his hand caused vibrations in the formations deep in the ancestral hall. Or in other words, some of the layouts buried deep in the ancestral hall sensed the presence of the crystal and started to wake up.

In one of the halls between the Twelve Shaman halls, there was a crowned crystal disc which was over a hundred feet wide. Under the pure clear black crystal disc was a deep cylindrical pit. Inside were countless complex crystal formations visible to the naked eye. There were crystal stones of different shapes floating or tangled together like gears. There were also several profound black lines of light passing constantly among the crystal stones.

Above the black crystal disc were seven old people, sitting in positions reflecting the Big Dipper. In many legends of the Qi Dynasty, the Big Dipper was a sign of death. The real reason was that when the astral energy from that part of the sky fell to the world, it greatly affected the energies of yin and ghosts.

These seven old people had clothing and skin stained in the black crystal by the energies of the hall. They had stayed in the hall for nearly a century, guarding the hall for generations. The guards of the hall had been strictly selected. All of them cultivated how to protect and control the hall’s formations. So when they started to learn such knowledge, they were forbidden from leaving the ancestral hall, making sure that all the secrets of the ancestral hall formations could not be leaked out. From a certain sense, they were not just the guard and maintainers of the ancestral hall, they were also a symbol.

When there were unusual sounds coming from the deep formation hub under them, these seven old people opened their eyes at the same time. They started to search for the origin of this abnormality in shock. Instantly, dozens of flames spread out from their bodies. These were all black, and changed into different shapes. Some were like twisting snakes, some were like flames, and others were like wandering ghosts.

These black flames started to flow along the walls of the cave, going into other caves, going down below the crystal disc, and into some of the scripts. Their consciousnesses searched in key formation hubs but still could not find the source of the problem. They were just sure that these were not natural vibrations from the return of the Twelve Shamans.

“Why is it like this?” the leader shouted in disbelief.

Below the crystal disc where he sat, among many black crystals, there was one stone which was carved into the shape of an infant. This black crystal infant reached its fingers. Occasionally, a thread of black yin energy would flow out and touch the different crystal stones around it. This black infant was one of the key hubs of the ancestral hall’s formation. At this time, he saw a golden thread of energy come out of the fingers of the black crystal infant.

In the next moment, with a boom, an enormous power charged from below. A faint golden rush surged from the black crystal disc they sat on, and threw them up into the air. At the same time, countless golden threats roamed among the formation scripts they were familiar with.

Waves of enormous power kept on surging, forming invisible barriers. These barriers which were invisible to the eye but easily sensed by the conscious had originally been the protective formations of the cave. But now, they were activated in chaos, and even the hub of the formation had been locked, with the seven guardians trapped here in the hall.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Many heavy crashing sounds came along the passageway to the hall of the Twelve Shamans. The bodies of many young cultivators collided with these invisible barriers. They were easily bounced back, hitting the ground or the walls heavily. The young cultivators who had entered the hall of the Twelve Shamans were trapped inside the hall, and those who had not entered were blocked outside.

The seven guardians had ashen faces. They touched the crystal disc or the invisible barriers with their hands, their bodies trembling. They finally understood why the Twelve Shaman’s heads had been stolen before.

It was not that the disciples of the grandmaster who had started to fight after the grandmaster passed, but because there had been problems with the builders of the hall! Among the people who had created the formation for the grandmaster in the past, one of them had other thoughts. When setting up the formation, he had hidden a secret key inside which was above their control of the formation.

And now, someone had activated a formation hub that they did not know of!

The sounds of bone breaking, pain, and terror filled the passage. The vital energy of some young cultivators naturally reacted when they encountered resistance. But the more power they reacted with, the more backlash they received.

So some young cultivators immediately turned into bloody gore, the blood spraying all over the hall of the Twelve Shamans. In the extreme chaos, no one noticed that Su Qin was not affected by the invisible barriers at all. Among the sound of heavy impact and flying waves of energy, he was like a fish which passed through the water curtain, silently entering one of the halls of the Twelve Shamans.

The stone seal and key in his hand came from Zheng Xiu. When one of the traitors of the hall set up a secret hub above all other controls of the formation, after stealing the heads of the Twelve Shamans, and ending this important inheritance, he naturally was pursued by all cultivators who cultivated yin energy and ghosts. This traitor finally fled overseas, and Jiaodong Commandery had spent countless years to finally obtain this thing.

Jiaodong Commandery had many things that had passed to Zheng Xiu’s hands, but these things were undoubtedly the most important. Zheng Xiu giving them to him naturally had deeper intentions. The schemes she used were usually two birds with one stone, and with many more moves following. She used the heads of the Twelve Shamans for the alliance of the Qi Emperor. And now, she wanted to have Su Qin record some of the methods after the Twelve shamans returned to take back to the Qin.

The complete methods would only appear when the heads returned to the Shamans. In order to have Su Qin record some of the methods, she had made other arrangements. Yes, the only thing she had not thought of was that all her knowledge of the ancestral hall came from Jiaodong Commandery.

But in one of the libraries of the Chu Dynasty, there were records of the ancestral hall. The history of the Chu Dynasty was longer than that of the Jiaodong Commandery and Qin Dynasty.