Chapter Ninety-Six: Activating the Stone Chamber

Chapter Ninety-Six: Awakening the Stone Hall

Together, Chu Jie and the other nine launched a fierce assault on the charcoal-faced warrior. At once, a torrent of light surged over the armored man, thunderous crashes echoing nonstop through the vast hall.

Air currents scattered in all directions. The charcoal-faced warrior in his golden armor was blasted high into the air, yet the streaks of light formed by the magical treasures continued to slam into him again and again, still failing to shatter the armor. That alone showed just how formidable it was.

What powerful golden armor.

Chu Jie longed to obtain such a set for himself. And this armor was still incomplete. If it were whole, how terrifying would its power be?

Even with all of them attacking at once, they still could not kill the charcoal-faced warrior.

He crashed to the ground. As the golden armor shifted, it emitted a grating metallic scrape. After landing, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Though the armor’s defense was formidable, the set he wore was incomplete, so after it absorbed most of the attacks, some force still penetrated it and injured his body. The wounds were not severe, however; he still had the strength to fight.

The charcoal-faced warrior struggled up from the ground, glanced at the crowd, and sneered. “Hmph. You dare attack me? Then taste my power.”

Then he turned and ran straight for the hall’s entrance. There was not the slightest sign that he intended to unleash any ultimate move. The reason he did not press the attack was, on the one hand, that his armor was incomplete and could not fully display its defensive might, leaving him at a disadvantage. On the other hand, Chu Jie’s group outnumbered him, and he was not easy to deal with.

So he chose to flee without hesitation.

“After him!” Chu Jie transformed into a streak of light and pursued at once. The golden armor was something he had to obtain. Such a powerful treasure had to be in his own hands.

Not only Chu Jie, but Duan Kun and Wu Long also saw how extraordinary the armor was. All of them gave chase.

Once they emerged from the stone hall, Chu Jie and the others discovered that the charcoal-faced warrior had already vanished without a trace. In terms of speed, he was unquestionably top-tier. Now he was surely off searching for the remaining pieces of the armor. If he ever managed to assemble a complete set, he would become a tremendous threat.

The missing piece of the golden armor was already in Chu Jie’s hands: the golden ring. Without it, the armor could not be complete.

Finding the charcoal-faced warrior in the dark tunnels would be extremely difficult, though not entirely impossible. At present, Chu Jie had one method: use the power of the stone hall.

If he could activate the stone hall, then locating the charcoal-faced warrior would certainly become easy.

Chu Jie and the others searched once more at the stone hall’s exit, checking whether the charcoal-faced warrior might be hiding nearby.

“Chu Jie, nothing on my side,” Duan Kun reported when he returned.

“Boss, there’s nothing where we looked either. No caves around here,” Wu Long said after coming back.

They split up to search, but they did not go far. In these tunnels, it was all too easy to lose one’s way.

Chu Jie had no choice but to give up the search for the charcoal-faced warrior for the moment. “Let’s go. First, we’ll take a look at where that charcoal-faced warrior found the armor.”

They had searched the stone hall earlier and failed to discover the armor, yet the charcoal-faced warrior had found it. That meant it must have been hidden in a place that was difficult to notice.

Standing at the hall’s entrance, Chu Jie thought carefully about what he might have overlooked. The Wheel of Heaven and Earth flew back above the center of the hall, bathing the entire chamber in light.

“After entering the hall, the charcoal-faced warrior must have hidden himself somewhere we would never think to look,” Chu Jie said, studying the pillars and the patches of shadow where someone could easily conceal himself. He analyzed the place from the charcoal-faced warrior’s perspective, trying to deduce where the armor had been found.

Before long, Chu Jie locked onto a spot: the far end of the hall, where a stone throne stood. He walked over.

Indeed, they had not searched this place. When Chu Jie reached the stone throne, he found a tiny space behind it, just large enough for a person to hide within.

On the ground were some marks and a bit of ash. It seemed this was exactly where the charcoal-faced warrior had discovered the armor.

Chu Jie examined the area, hoping to find some clue. He still had no idea how to control the stone hall, so he had no choice but to keep searching.

Very soon, Chu Jie spotted a recess on the back of the stone throne, as though something could be inserted into it. Around the recess were many strange lines, exceptionally eerie.

Judging by its size, the recess seemed just right for a mystic crystal. A thought stirred in Chu Jie. He took out a mystic crystal from the Desolate Cauldron and placed it into the hollow.

The moment it touched the edge, the mystic crystal turned to ash. Its spiritual energy was absorbed by the recess and carried through the surrounding lines. Yet the energy seemed too little; not long after it spread out, it vanished, and the stone throne remained unchanged.

Chu Jie kept taking out mystic crystals one after another, placing them into the recess, and each one turned to ash in turn, becoming spiritual energy that merged into the strange lines around it.

Three. Four... Ten.

When Chu Jie inserted the tenth crystal, the patterns on the back of the stone throne finally lit up completely.

It seemed to be some kind of spirit array, though its purpose was unclear. Now the entire throne gave off a faint glow, looking most uncanny.

By now, the others had noticed the disturbance and gathered around.

“Boss, is this the hub for controlling the stone hall?” Wu Long asked. No matter how he looked at it, it did not seem likely, because the peerless fiend had not been in the hall at all back then; it seemed he had been in another place entirely.

But they had searched every inch inside and out and still found no such place. Seeing the stone throne glow now, they felt there might well be some connection.

“Maybe. Or perhaps it’s only a transit point,” Chu Jie said.

By now, the glow from the throne had spread everywhere.

Chu Jie’s heart stirred. He moved from the back of the stone throne to its front, looked at the others, and slowly sat down upon it.

The moment he sat, he felt a force of suction and pull. His vision went black. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a stone chamber. Since the Wheel of Heaven and Earth was in the hall and could not illuminate this place, he took some mystic crystals from the Desolate Cauldron and placed them around him.

With the light from the crystals, he finally saw the chamber clearly.

This room was likely the key to controlling the entire hall. The array on the back of the stone throne just now had probably been a teleportation formation, which was why he had suddenly arrived here.

What’s more, he discovered that he was now sitting on a stone throne as well—only this one was somewhat different, looking much smaller than the one outside.

While Chu Jie was studying the chamber, in the hall outside—

Wu Long’s eyes went wide. Just now, after Chu Jie sat down on the chair, he had vanished without a trace. But the Wheel of Heaven and Earth still hovered at the center of the hall, which meant Chu Jie was in no danger.

Duan Kun went to sit on the stone throne himself, but there was no effect at all. The brilliance on the surface of the throne dimmed greatly, becoming almost invisible.

“Could it be that the spiritual energy has been used up?” Wu Long walked to the back of the stone throne and inserted several mystic crystals. Only then did the glow on the throne’s surface brighten again.

But even so, Duan Kun, seated upon it, remained unchanged. He stayed on the stone throne the whole time and was not transported anywhere.

Duan Kun stood up and sighed. “Chu Jie, it looks like only you can go. This stone throne seems able to transport only one person.”

Everyone felt tense. If the place Chu Jie had gone to held danger, they would not be able to help him at all.

Meanwhile, in the stone chamber, Chu Jie discovered an object more than ten times larger than the recess he had seen earlier. Strange runes were densely packed around it as well, leaving him speechless.

“Could it be that controlling the stone hall requires an enormous consumption of mystic crystals?” Chu Jie stared at the recess, gritted his teeth, and kept pulling mystic crystals from his person, throwing them into the hollow.

From the first crystal to the hundredth, the runes around the recess only then began to react. Yet it was obvious that this was still far from enough.

Chu Jie had no choice but to keep pouring in mystic crystals.

Two hundred. Three hundred...

Only after Chu Jie had inserted five hundred mystic crystals did the surrounding runes light up all at once, blazing with a ghostly blue radiance. At the same moment, the entire stone hall brightened.

In the hall outside, Duan Kun and the others immediately noticed the sudden change. The surroundings became brilliantly lit in an instant, and many areas began to glow with that same eerie blue light. The stone hall now looked exactly like the one that had once belonged to the peerless fiend.

Now the entire hall had been activated.

At the hall’s main gate, the damaged stone door actually began to recover at a speed visible to the eye. At the same time, a strand of spiritual light flew in from elsewhere and merged into the door, making it incomparably hard.

The instant the stone door was fully restored, Chu Jie, seated in the chamber, found the scenery around him change at once.

There were no longer walls around him, but the tunnels outside. What excited him even more was that, with the help of the stone hall, the surrounding darkness had vanished. Instead, everything was brilliantly illuminated, and from within the hall he could clearly see the scenery outside.

What’s more, the stone hall now displayed a map. The entire structure of the tunnels was revealed across its walls in a highly three-dimensional form. Their current position was beneath the third terrace, far below the surface, which was why it had never been noticed.

With this stone hall, finding the exit would be easy.

But the priority now was to find the charcoal-faced warrior and seize the armor. The armor was something Chu Jie had to obtain.

Borrowing the power of the stone hall, Chu Jie’s voice echoed through the hall, just as the peerless fiend’s had once done.

“From now on, I have taken control of the stone hall. I am going to drive it to pursue the charcoal-faced warrior. You only need to stay here safely in the hall.”

His words sent a jolt through everyone, and Duan Kun and the others finally relaxed completely.

“All right, Chu Jie. We’ll rest here for now,” Duan Kun said at once, sitting down and entering meditation. The others did the same, all settling into cultivation.

Using the map within the stone hall, Chu Jie also discovered how many caves there were. If he could seize the armor and then tour each cave in turn, he should reap quite a harvest.