Chapter 988: Chapter 974: The Mysterious Hei Huang Iron Token

Walking on the slowly falling white ashes, Ye Zhen reached the end of the passage. It was a layer of blue light screen, much like a door of the passage, spanning across there.

The blue light screen was not only very thick, but its structure was also very peculiar, likely a guardian light screen formed by a formation Ye Zhen had never seen before.

Ye Zhen tried it out; the blue light screen had incredibly strong defensive power.

Under a barrage of Xuan Fire Drill, the blue light screen didn’t even budge. It wasn’t until after the third barrage of Ye Zhen’s Xuan Fire Drill that the blue light screen emitted ripples, seemingly showing some disturbance.

However, this disturbance quickly returned to normal, indicating that the grand formation creating this guardian light screen was undoubtedly supported by an earth vein below!

“Can’t get through?”

This discovery, albeit late, still made Ye Zhen feel a bit fearful. If the Thunder Saint who came in earlier had not been injured, then after Ye Zhen fled here, it might have been a dead end.

“I wonder if I can pass through underground?”

With a thought, Ye Zhen’s body, like sinking into quicksand, swiftly sank into the underground.

A few breaths later, Ye Zhen’s figure appeared inside the blue guardian light screen. This blue guardian light screen extended only ten meters underground, allowing Ye Zhen to easily bypass it using the Earth Escape Technique.

Just as Ye Zhen’s head emerged from the internal space of the blue light screen, he immediately held his breath, and his action of emerging from the ground became incredibly slow!

Corpses!

Inside the blue light screen, there were even more corpses than in the passage, mainly human martial artists, intermixed with many gigantic demon beast corpses, sprawled messily here.

In the chests and abdomens of many martial artists, there were even weapons still lodged in vital parts.

A rough glance showed no fewer than ten thousand corpses. Fortunately, the corpses here had all turned into white bones; otherwise, it would have been an Asura Hell.

But even so, it still made Ye Zhen shiver with fear. What exactly happened here?

So many martial artists died here!

With the previous lessons from the passage, Ye Zhen acted with extreme caution, fearing that any slight disturbance might completely destroy this sight.

Ye Zhen wanted to find and discover some clues through the traces left here.

Why did so many martial artists gather and die here?

Ye Zhen’s figure slowly rose from the underground, gradually ascending higher, and suddenly, Ye Zhen’s gaze sharpened.

Standing on the ground and looking around, Ye Zhen suddenly saw a gigantic octagonal space roughly ten miles in diameter right in the center of this area!

Inside this light-screen-enclosed space, corpses and bones were everywhere, but within this roughly ten-mile-wide octagonal space, it was entirely empty, without even half a fragment of bone to be found.

“Formation?”

With Ye Zhen’s eye power, it wasn’t hard to judge that the ten-mile-wide octagonal space before him was a massive formation, but what surprised Ye Zhen was that a closer look seemed to show that the countless corpses scattered all around had died surrounding this octagonal formation.

Some corpses, judging from their bone directions, seemed to be striving to get closer to this octagonal formation!

Ye Zhen even saw several bodies of infants and children!

“Underage infants and children, how could they have died here?” This made Ye Zhen even more puzzled!

Suddenly, Ye Zhen’s gaze landed on a slightly red palm-sized black iron token among the many bones. With Ye Zhen’s eye power, he could basically confirm that the iron token was still intact.

With a slight movement, Ye Zhen flew towards that black iron token at an extremely slow speed.

However, the next moment, Ye Zhen chuckled wryly.

Even though he was moving very slowly, the slight gust of air caused by his movement still scattered the bones nearest to him.

Instantly, it was as if a chain reaction occurred throughout the entire space. All the bones collapsed into ashes at that moment, creating what seemed like a white whirlwind.

In the space of a few breaths, over ten thousand bones turned into a ground full of white powder!

“Fortunately, this iron token is still here. I wonder if it holds any useful information!” Blowing away the white ashes floating above it, and fearing any abnormalities with the iron token, Ye Zhen wrapped a layer of spiritual power around his fingers and reached for this slightly red iron token.

With a grasp, Ye Zhen couldn’t help but be astonished.

“Can’t move it? How heavy is this thing?”

Taking a deep breath, spiritual power surged in his Dantian, and Ye Zhen took a firm stance, trying to lift the reddened iron token.

A few breaths later, with flushed cheeks, Ye Zhen released his hands a bit discouraged, staring curiously at this reddened, strange iron token.

Although Ye Zhen wasn’t a body cultivator, his spiritual power, refined by the Mirage Dragon Pearl, was purer than that of ordinary third and fourth stage Establishment Kings. Although he didn’t possess pure brute strength,

with the aid of spiritual power, there was no problem moving a small mountain weighing hundreds to thousands of tons!

But what shocked Ye Zhen was that he couldn’t budge this small iron token in the slightest despite using all his strength.

This seemingly unremarkable iron token, how heavy exactly is it?

If Ye Zhen’s strength limit was a thousand tons, even if something weighing fifteen hundred tons was in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to lift it, but he could surely make it wobble!

This is like an ordinary person who can lift at most a weight of one hundred catties, yet when it comes to weights of five or six hundred catties, a small movement is sometimes possible!

But now, this iron plaque doesn’t move an inch.

In other words, the weight of this black iron plaque is likely four or five times, seven or eight times, or even more, than a thousand tons!

In shock, Ye Zhen examined it carefully.

The iron plaque was inscribed with ancient and mysterious patterns, but there wasn’t any spiritual power fluctuation; spiritual power could be infused, and divine soul power could also be infused.

But the problem was, even though Ye Zhen had the martial arts inheritance of the Earth Core Fire Commander, and he scoured through many famous heavy heavenly materials and earthly treasures in the artifact refining experience of the Earth Core Fire Commander, he couldn’t find the material used to cast this black iron plaque!

This made Ye Zhen somewhat delighted!

Putting aside everything else, just because of this, the black iron plaque is definitely a treasure.

“Let me see if I can use divine soul power to put it into the storage ring!” The next moment, Ye Zhen’s divine sense enveloped the black iron plaque!

Sss!

A dozen breaths later, Ye Zhen gasped again!

His divine sense couldn’t move the black iron plaque either.

Using divine sense to collect items into a storage ring is usually very easy—as long as the divine soul power is strong enough, no matter how heavy the thing is, even a mountain could be put into the storage ring, yet this black iron plaque couldn’t be put in?

This made Ye Zhen increasingly curious!

“Since divine soul power can enter it, I’ll try using divine soul power!”

The next moment, the mighty four-colored innate soul light surged into the black iron plaque immediately.

“Rise!”

With a booming shout, Ye Zhen’s Red Moon Soul Ring suddenly flashed with radiance, and the mysterious black iron plaque immediately disappeared from its original place, while Ye Zhen’s vision suddenly blackened, causing him to stagger at the spot, almost falling to the ground!

“Good heavens, what on earth is this thing? Just moving it consumed more than eighty percent of my four-colored innate soul light, almost making me pass out from divine soul power exhaustion!”

Ye Zhen held his forehead, his face full of surprise.

He couldn’t understand how this palm-sized black iron plaque could be so heavy!

Ye Zhen’s four-colored innate soul light is of extremely high quality; if an average Establishment King used three-colored innate soul light to move it, they might faint immediately!

Ye Zhen’s divine sense once again fell into the Red Moon Soul Ring, carefully scrutinizing this mysterious black iron plaque. After observing for a while, regardless of how he tried, he couldn’t find anything abnormal.

It’s just an ordinary black iron plaque, but its weight is astonishing to the extreme.

After observing for a long time, Ye Zhen noticed that the patterns on the back of the black iron plaque seemed to form a very ancient character, a ‘Huang’ character, which Ye Zhen recognized only because of the similar script in the Earth Core Fire Commander’s martial arts inheritance!

“In that case, this thing will be called the Hei Huang Iron Token then!”

Since he discovered nothing, Ye Zhen no longer dwelled on the Hei Huang Iron Token, planning to study it further after his cultivation greatly improved, possibly gaining some insight.

Of course, Ye Zhen did not rush to depart; instead, he sat cross-legged in meditation for half a day, restoring more than seven-tenths of his previously consumed divine soul power, before resuming his exploration!

As Ye Zhen expected, the ten-li square octagonal area in the center was indeed a gigantic formation.

Brushing away the dust, he found the ground filled with formation layout lines engraved with various rare materials, scattered all over were array plates embedded into one cohesive whole, particularly the materials of those array plates were entirely made of materials used for refining high-grade soul artifacts.

In shock, this made Ye Zhen very envious, yet he had no method to handle it.

Moreover, Ye Zhen wasn’t proficient with formations, thus he couldn’t identify what kind of formation this grand formation was.

Helpless, Ye Zhen could only record the appearance and all the intricate carvings of this grand formation into a jade talisman to ask Illusion Formation King Chen Chi after returning to see if he could recognize this formation!

Other than that, in this space before him, apart from ashes, it was still ashes.

Crossing the octagonal formation, Ye Zhen continued to explore forward; the space began to narrow, revealing a rather wide passage, yet there were no remains on this passageway!

Advancing about ten li, upon reaching at a fork, suddenly Ye Zhen’s hair caught fire spontaneously.

This gave Ye Zhen a huge fright.

Xuan Fire Spiritual Power surged forth, enveloping his entire body tightly, ensuring no further flames appeared.

“Hundreds of times!”

“The density of these pale light points here is actually several hundred times thicker than in the previous passage!” Ye Zhen, with his eyes closed, carefully sensed, “The left!”

“Those pale light points should originate from the left passage!”

The next moment, Ye Zhen decisively turned into the left passage, eager to know what within this left passage emits such astonishing fire force from the white light points!

The left passage was somewhat winding; after detouring a distance of approximately thirty or forty li, Ye Zhen suddenly found the view before him opening up to a vast expanse of white sands!

Staring at this vast expanse of white sands closely for a few moments, Ye Zhen’s expression suddenly changed dramatically! (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please read at m.qidian.com.)