Great Li Martial God

"Cannot get in? What are we supposed to do?"

The Black Moon Yin Elder's expression was grim. He thought for a moment, then circulated his true qi and struck directly at the spot where the passageway entrance had appeared before.

The entire floor of the room was blasted open to a depth of about a zhang, but the passageway from earlier showed not the slightest sign of reappearing.

"Save your energy. The mechanisms in this palace are not as simple as you think."

Second Palace Mistress Shiyue tossed the white-haired Daoist woman to one side and began looking carefully around the room, examining every part of it closely.

But Shiyue's brow quickly furrowed, and she fell silent without a word. Clearly she had not found a way to break the mechanism either.

The Black Moon Yin Elder paced back and forth across the room with his hands clasped behind his back, his anxiety plain to see.

He still needed Li Musheng to lead them out of the Great Xuan imperial palace. If something went wrong with Li Musheng, he could easily imagine what his own fate would be.

"The Great Xuan emperor is far deeper and more unfathomable than any of you realize. I suggest you escape while you still can. You might have some small chance of getting out of this palace."

At those words, the white-haired Daoist woman was startled and was just about to reply when two dark shadows flashed in from outside the room in the blink of an eye, launching attacks on Shiyue and the Black Moon Yin Elder without any warning.

"That Great Xuan emperor is truly devious to the extreme."

The Black Moon Yin Elder snapped to his senses and erupted into action, meeting the ambush head-on.

The situation now left absolutely no doubt that his earlier suspicion had been correct. Everything was clearly under the Great Xuan emperor's control, and all of them had been playing the part of fools in a puppet show.

Second Palace Mistress Shiyue's strikingly beautiful face turned grave. She fought back against the attacking experts with one hand while retreating toward the courtyard gates with the other. Under these circumstances, staying any longer was clearly not wise. Getting out while she could was the first priority.

...

At the same time, Li Musheng and his party, having entered the passageway, pressed steadily deeper under Zhao Kuang's guidance, breaking through mechanism after mechanism along the way.

"Where exactly is the Great Xuan emperor's retreat? How much farther do we have to go?"

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's eyes, half-hidden beneath his hanging hair, fixed coldly on Zhao Kuang's back. After everything that had happened with the Earth Vault Mystery Hall, he clearly had little trust in this Great Xuan Crown Prince.

Zhao Kuang paid no mind to the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's attitude. He only continued methodically working through the mechanisms along the way, explaining as he went, "This is my first time coming here as well. But with mechanisms this elaborate guarding it, my father must surely be in retreat here."

At those words, the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit gave a cold snort and said nothing more, just kept following along with the Grand Manager of the Treasure Assembly Trading House in tow.

The Grand Manager's eyes held an unusual look throughout. He had not said a single word, and watched Zhao Kuang ahead with a long, deep look, the expression of someone observing an unfolding spectacle.

"Something feels not quite right. I cannot say exactly what it is, but I do not think things will go smoothly from here."

Zhao Muning suddenly creased her brows and transmitted the words quietly to Li Musheng through true qi.

Even so, she did not try to persuade Li Musheng to turn back. She understood clearly enough that he would never listen to her.

At those words, Li Musheng said nothing. He only gave Zhao Muning a calm glance.

She was currently rotating her head at intervals, scanning everything around them with constant alertness written across her fair and fine-featured face.

Just at that moment, Zhao Kuang ahead opened another mechanism, revealing a dim and cold stone chamber.

The stone chamber had no wall lamps and was pitch black inside, and a chill, dark draft swept out toward them. Zhao Kuang stood at the entrance to the stone chamber, and for some inexplicable reason stopped where he was, suddenly motionless.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit noticed the change and immediately moved, arriving at Zhao Kuang's side in an instant.

He looked down, and saw a dark shape clinging to Zhao Kuang's chest.

The shape was covered in hair all over its body, giving off a foul, rancid smell, with a thick, viscous liquid dripping slowly from its fur and breaking the silence outside the stone chamber.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit reacted at once, circulated his true qi, and immediately sent a palm strike into the dark shape.

The shape seemed to sense the danger and let out a piercing wail like an infant's cry, then became a blur and shot back in retreat.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit immediately turned to check on Zhao Kuang.

Zhao Kuang suddenly gasped several sharp breaths, like a drowning man just pulled from the water.

Then, seemingly coming back to his senses, he quickly looked down at his own chest and patted himself over in a panic.

But aside from finding his hand covered in the foul, rancid fluid, Zhao Kuang found himself apparently unharmed.

"What... was that thing?"

Though the danger had passed without incident, Zhao Kuang still could not conceal the lingering shock, and took several quick steps back away from the stone chamber.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit frowned slightly, glanced at Zhao Kuang who appeared to be all right, then instinctively looked back at Li Musheng.

Li Musheng's expression throughout remained completely undisturbed. To all appearances he was entirely unaffected by what had just happened.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's thoughts shifted. He knew well enough that trivial matters like this were not worth troubling Li Musheng over.

He turned his head back, firelight glowing in his palm, and launched a Fire Cloud Divine Palm strike that in an instant covered the entire expanse of the stone chamber.

Clearly he had no interest in investigating further. He intended to simply wipe out whatever lurked in the chamber in one blow.

But the moment the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's palm landed, it seemed to trigger some mechanism, and the entire stone chamber began to shake violently.

Almost simultaneously, hundreds upon hundreds of piercing infant-like cries rang out together, the sharp sound at least ten or a hundred times louder than what the dark shape had produced earlier, almost enough to pierce through one's eardrums.

And in the crimson firelight of the Fire Cloud Divine Palm blazing through the stone chamber, Zhao Kuang and the others finally saw the full interior of the chamber clearly.

There was no passageway through the stone chamber. Only an enormous blood pool at its center, filled with a reddish-brown viscous liquid in a semi-dried state.

On the walls of the stone chamber all around were carved small, densely packed holes, roughly the size of a dog's burrow.

From those holes, withered, desiccated heads covered in red fur were now poking out, every one of them wailing shrilly at the people outside.

The piercing cries these things produced were strong enough to crack stone and split metal, though not quite enough to harm the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit and the others.

Even so, the few people outside the chamber, for all their experience in the world, were taken aback by the sight before them.

"Are these... actually real infants?"

Zhao Muning at Li Musheng's side spoke without thinking, shock rising in her eyes.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit and Zhao Kuang were visibly more composed than she was, though even they had their brows deeply furrowed at this moment.

The infants emerging from the holes in the chamber walls, covered in long fur, looked to be somewhere between one and three years of age. Their skin was desiccated and shriveled, their bodies twisted and contorted, emitting piercing shrieks with considerable penetrating force, though they did not appear to be alive.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit had killed countless people over his years in the martial world, but his victims had almost always been martial world experts. Striking down infants who could not defend themselves, let alone ones that had been turned into something this grotesque, was something he had never done.

He turned suddenly to look at Zhao Kuang beside him, contempt and revulsion clear in his eyes, "I have learned something today. I had no idea that the Great Xuan imperial palace was hiding a den of demons beneath its surface."

Ordinary infants could not naturally possess the speed that dark shape had shown, nor produce an attack in the form of a sonic cry. Everything before them was clearly the result of human intervention, and the methods used were without question demonic arts.

Faced with the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's words, Zhao Kuang swept his gaze over the holes in the chamber walls and said nothing, though his expression shifted in visible and complicated ways.

"This has nothing to do with me."

Zhao Kuang turned back to look at Li Musheng and spoke in explanation.

The moment his words fell, the withered, red-furred infants poking their heads from the holes began pouring out all at once.

In an instant they became a stream of dark blurs, bringing with them a wave of rancid stench, surging out of the stone chamber toward the people outside.

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's eyes darkened, and he launched an enormous palm strike without hesitation. In an instant the entire stone chamber blazed with fire and rolling crimson waves.

He clearly had no intention of holding back against whatever these things were.

The oncoming dark blurs slammed into the Fire Cloud Divine Palm and were stopped within the stone chamber. One by one they burst apart, dissolving into clouds of brownish blood mist.

"Consider this your deliverance."

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit looked at the scene before him with an expressionless face.

Very quickly, everything fell still. Under the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's single palm strike, every last one of the "infants" in the holes had been "delivered" and dissolved into blood mist.

Only once the stone chamber was completely silent did the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit lower his hand.

"You demon-sect Crown Prince. Where do we go from here?"

The Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit fixed Zhao Kuang with a cold look, and Zhao Kuang shook his head, "I have said already, this has nothing to do with me. It is my father's doing."

"Honestly, I had no idea the palace harbored something like this. But without my father's permission, this kind of demonic method could not possibly exist here."

At those words, Zhao Muning looked at Zhao Kuang with a complicated expression, "Our father is the ruler of a nation. How could he have any dealings with demonic arts? Could there not be some other explanation?"

At those words, Zhao Kuang glanced back at her, and a sudden cold laugh left his lips, "Seventh Sister, you have been away from the palace so long. How much do you actually know about it? Or about our father?"

As he said this, a hard glint appeared in Zhao Kuang's eyes, "I remember our father once told me that as a ruler, anything that can be turned to one's use, whether good or bad, may be used."

"What does a mere demonic technique amount to? Is what the court has done with the three great demonic sects not already common knowledge throughout the martial world?"

Zhao Muning's expression became extremely unpleasant. She was well aware of the entanglements between the Great Xuan court and the demonic sects. But the sight of those holes filled with densely packed infants had been something she had not expected, and she did not know when it had come to this, that the Great Xuan imperial palace itself had seemed to become a demonic den.

And one of such deranged and horrifying proportions.

With that thought, Zhao Muning looked instinctively toward Li Musheng.

But she could not find a single ripple of emotion on his face. He appeared entirely indifferent to everything before them.

"For someone like you, sir, with martial cultivation as lofty as yours, have you long since come to see ordinary people like us as no different from ants, our lives and deaths beneath your notice?"

Zhao Muning did not know why, but she suddenly looked at Li Musheng and asked him that.

The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted it.

Everything happening here was inside the Great Xuan imperial palace, and it was very likely connected to her father. Her relationship with her father was distant, but she was still a member of the Great Xuan imperial family, and blood ran thicker than water. On every level, she had no standing to ask Li Musheng something like this.

At that, Li Musheng glanced at her, "Though there is no one in this world I cannot kill as things stand, I am actually not someone who enjoys killing."

As he said this, Li Musheng narrowed his eyes slightly, "Even so, you were right about one thing. In terms of martial cultivation, I do see you about the same as I would an ant."

At those words, Zhao Muning's expression went visibly blank. Li Musheng continued, "Do not worry. You are different from your father. I will not kill you."

Zhao Muning's eyes held on Li Musheng, her expression shifting and unreadable, and she said nothing more. For a moment she did not know what she was thinking.

"My father has very likely already been cultivating demonic arts, and the fact that we have made it this far means we cannot be far from where he is in retreat."

Zhao Kuang spoke up on his own, paying no attention to Zhao Muning and her apparent hesitation. That something as simple as a room full of dead infants could unsettle her this much was because she was a woman. Any prince would have nothing but contempt for that.

He then immediately resumed searching, looking for the next mechanism that would let them proceed, intent on reaching the Great Xuan emperor's retreat as quickly as possible.

With the evidence of his father cultivating demonic arts in hand, Zhao Kuang had already thought through how he would force him to abdicate, so that he could take the throne for himself.

But after searching for a while, Zhao Kuang's gaze inevitably fell back on the stone chamber.

"There does not appear to be a mechanism outside. We will have to go in. That may be the only way to reach the next location."

At those words, the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit frowned slightly, but struck out with a palm regardless, dispersing the blood mist still drifting through the stone chamber.

But at that very moment, the blood pool in the stone chamber suddenly parted on its own, revealing a dark staircase descending straight down into the earth.

At the same time, a dignified and aged voice rose slowly from deep beneath the ground, "Is that Kuang who has come? Father seemed to hear Kuang's voice just now."

At the sound of that voice, Zhao Kuang's entire body went rigid without thinking, and his head snapped toward the staircase below.

"It is Father Emperor."

Zhao Muning also came to herself at once, turning her head sharply toward the depths below the stone chamber.

At the sight, a flash of delight crossed the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's eyes. He turned immediately to look at Li Musheng, "Young hero, all this effort has not been wasted. We have finally found that dog emperor."

But the moment the Crimson Cloud Evil Spirit's words left his mouth, his expression shifted abruptly. He looked down suddenly at his own two hands.

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