Chapter 4020: The Forbidden Relic Section

While everyone was still thinking about the rebellion a disciple frowned. "Why would broken armor require that many seals?"

The elder’s expression became grim. "Because everyone who wore it after the Black Banner General died eventually tried to kill their own allies."

The disciple immediately stopped asking questions.

Further along was a bronze mirror cracked directly through its center. Half of its reflective surface was completely black, while the other half reflected the room incorrectly. When one of the disciples moved past it, his reflection remained standing still for a fraction of a second before following him.

The disciple froze and he slowly backed away.

"Do not stand in front of that," one of the High Elders warned.

"What is it?"

"The Soul Reversal Mirror. It belonged to a rogue elder of the Spirit Division around thirty thousand years ago. Supposedly, it could pull fragments of a person’s soul into the reflection."

The disciple became pale and moved several meters farther away.

There were dozens of strange objects, like a broken spearhead stained with green corrosion, which had belonged to an enemy general who poisoned three rivers during an ancient war. A pair of silver shackles had once been used by a traitorous Law Division elder to imprison disciples and drain their cultivation.

A cracked bell the size of a fist had belonged to a demonic cultivator known as the Mourning Monk. The records claimed that whenever it rang, everyone below a certain cultivation level within several Li would hear the voices of their dead relatives calling to them.

There was a blood-red needle barely longer than a finger. A shattered mask made from something resembling white jade. A black flag reduced to little more than burnt cloth. A severed metal claw with five curved blades.

A translucent bottle containing a single dried insect. A chain whose links had been carved with thousands of tiny human faces. Some objects had been destroyed almost completely while others appeared perfectly intact.

One pedestal contained nothing more than a piece of rope. Yet that piece of rope was surrounded by eight separate barriers.

Another contained a wooden box covered in cracks. The box itself seemed worthless, but three warning formations surrounded it, including one that appeared designed to destroy the entire pedestal if the inner barriers failed.

The elders gradually stopped trying to approach the objects as there were too many, and too many had histories soaked in blood.

"What is this place?" an elder finally asked again, but this time his voice was considerably quieter.

He looked toward Zhenyu. "Senior, just what exactly was kept here?"

Lin Mu slowly turned. He had been examining the chamber while everyone else identified the objects, and their explanations had allowed him to piece together the answer. The items had one thing in common, they were dangerous.

More importantly, many of them belonged to people who had become enemies of the Heavenly Stream Guardian Sect. Some were traitors, some were invaders, some were criminals hunted down by the sect and some had killed important members of the sect.

Others had nearly caused disasters before being defeated. These were trophies, evidence, dangerous relics, and historical records all at once.

Zhenyu raised one hand and gestured around the chamber. "Can you not see?"

The elders exchanged confused looks.

Zhenyu pointed toward the Cursed Blade of the Wilderness. "Look at what is kept here."

Then he pointed toward the Tiger Eye Ring. "The possessions of traitors."

His finger moved toward the Seven Grudge Armor. "The weapons of enemies."

Then toward the Soul Reversal Mirror. "The tools of criminals, heretics, rebels, and those who once threatened this sect."

Understanding gradually appeared on the elders’ faces. Lin Mu continued walking deeper into the chamber and his gaze moved across the countless sealed relics. Some were dangerous because of the techniques engraved within them while others carried curses.

A few were likely preserved because destroying them would be even more dangerous than sealing them. And some, Lin Mu suspected, had been kept because they were evidence of events the sect did not want forgotten.

Zhenyu stopped at the center of the chamber.

"This place existed long before most of the vault that you all know today," he said. "Whenever something dangerous could not be casually destroyed, whenever a relic carried information worth preserving, whenever an enemy left behind something that might become useful or dangerous in the future, it could be brought here."

High Elder Palm Saber frowned. "Then why was knowledge of this place lost?"

Zhenyu glanced toward him. "How should this old man know what foolishness your generations committed after I disappeared?"

High Elder Palm Saber’s mouth twitched as he could not argue with that.

Zhenyu swept his sleeve and looked around the chamber once more. "This is the Forbidden Relic Section."

Silence filled the chamber as everyone contemplated the name. The name alone seemed appropriate.

High Elder Palm Saber slowly repeated it. "Forbidden Relic Section."

Several elders looked toward the sealed objects again, and this time they understood why the entrance had been hidden so thoroughly. This was never intended to function like an ordinary treasury.

Many of these objects should never return to the outside world. Lin Mu, meanwhile, had already stopped caring about most of them. His eyes moved from pedestal to pedestal as he was searching for something specific.

’The Justice Crushing Cestus.’

If this section contained the relics of traitors and enemies of the sect, then the chances of finding it here had suddenly increased considerably. He continued walking from one pedestal to another.

He went by a broken saber, a blackened cauldron, a pair of cracked boots and a strange iron tablet covered in bite marks before Lin Mu stopped and his eyes narrowed slightly. There, several pedestals deeper into the Forbidden Relic Section, was something that looked suspiciously like a large metal gauntlet.

It was a very familiar large metal gauntlet. Lin Mu’s heartbeat remained steady and Zhenyu’s expression remained unreadable.

Inside, however, a single thought appeared. ’Found you.’