Chapter 143 Secret Diagram
It was completely silent under the scarlet sunset. Vines curled around the bluestones, the forest birds returned to their nests, and dead leaves drifted through the air.
The old madman was lying on a large piece of bluestone facing the setting sun. His old eyes were filled with endless longing and sentiment. Two tears upon his old face were especially striking.
This was originally a world-shaking peerless expert. Six thousand years ago, there was almost no one who was his match within the Eastern Wastelands. But he was now curled up here, his dried up body shivering with cold, appearing pitiful and sympathetic.
“Senior…” Ye Fan walked up and squatted down below the bluestone, gazing at the old madman. He had a similar emotion within him, but he didn’t know how he could help the old man.
The old madman raised his head and looked at him, before once more looking back at the red sun that was on the verge of completely setting. It was like nothing in this world could attract his interest. That blood-colored red sun took up his entire mind.
“That year, the sunset was like blood, the blood of the Celestial Jade. That day, everything withered and the Celestial Jade fell…” The old madman had lived for so many years, but he was now incessantly crying.
“Senior, the past cannot be changed. Let the dead rest. Try to move on a bit,” Ye Fan comforted him.
The sun completely set, descending below the mountains.
The moment the blood-colored sun disappeared, its dazzling rays appeared within the old madman’s eyes. They pierced through the void, his sadness becoming completely restrained, jumping up and sitting down.
He was like a whole different person. He was like an exceptionally sharp, sheathed sword. The mountain ridge went completely silent, all the animals trembling with fear.
Ye Fan felt a powerful pressure. If his physical body had not surpassed a spiritual treasure, his bones and muscles might have already broken. The close madman was like a mountain, the pressure coming from him completely unimaginable.
“Their aura…” He fixed his gaze on Ye Fan, grabbing his arm, his gaze becoming extremely abstruse.
Ye Fan shivered. This old madman was too frightening. This pressure made it so he was unable to struggle at all, far surpassing any other cultivator he had seen before.
He immediately thought of the Ancient Desolation Forbidden Land, the Celestial Jade sacred lady, the endless white skeletons of the nine sacred mountains, and those Desolate Slaves. The “their”’ the old madman was referring to was most likely them.
However, over a year had already passed. Their aura should have long since been washed off, but the old madman was still able to sense it; such a spiritual perception was terrifying.
The old madman waved his hand over Ye Fan’s body, and the image of the Celestial Jade sacred lady immediately appeared. She stood in midair as if she were alive, possessing bright eyes and white teeth, her figure graceful, her appearance like jade, an absolute and incomparable beauty. She seemed vivid and alive, practically perfect.
Ye Fan was stupefied. What kind of divine ability was this? With a gentle wave, the old man managed to capture a practically living image of her. It was unheard of.
With another wave of his hand, the endless skeletons appeared. All those white skeletons he had seen upon the nine sacred mountains now had their images appear in the air above them.
Suddenly the old madman grabbed his own head, painfully howling like a lonely wolf.
“HAHA…” He then raised his head upwards and laughed, seeming to become crazy.
Not an immortal, but a mad Devil!
Crying one second, then laughing the next, he was just like he was when Ye Fan met him the first time, completely out of control, pitiful and sad.
The Celestial Jade sacred lady was a peak beauty, capable of causing even the stars to lose their luster as she stood in midair.
The endless sinister skeletons seemed as if they had truly descended here, surrounding the old madman, an extremely weird and chilling image.
Beside him, Ye Fan felt as if he truly had returned to the Ancient Desolation Forbidden Land, once more meeting that peerlessly beautiful Celestial sacred lady, as well as those skeletons.
With an oppressed howl, the old madman suddenly raised his head to face the Celestial Jade sacred lady and those skeletons, his eyes emitting two bright rays that carved a character within the air: Dao.
He then slowly and powerfully drew strokes with his hands. All of the figures were engraved within space, becoming a huge picture.
Inside were the endless white skeletons, mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and at the very center was the Celestial Jade sacred lady in her pure white clothes, her black hair waterfalling behind her, vivid and lifelike.
“This…” Behind him, Ye Fan was amazed. Using space as a picture and engraving spiritual charm onto it, what kind of method was this? He had never heard of such a thing, but today he had personally witnessed it.
A Dao’s aura moved with the old madman’s hands’ strokes. A character was carved within that picture: Immortal.
It was completely bright and resplendent!
That Immortal symbol had a strange magic to it, causing the light of all the figures within the image to dim. In the end, only the Immortal character was left, the surrounding images fading away, even the most central Celestial Jade sacred lady becoming vague and indistinct.
Mist flowed out of the image, the Immortal character overflowing with a Dao charm, giving people a feeling of an endless Grand Dao, a natural Dao.
The old madman reached out one finger and placed it on his own forehead.
The huge image within the sky turned into a brand that rushed into his head. All kinds of different emotions appeared on his face.
Ye Fan’s heart shook. What was the old madman doing?
The image appeared on the old madman’s forehead. The figures within were becoming fainter and fainter, leaving only that bright and resplendent Immortal character.
“Is he trying to cut off the past or allow himself to remember it forever?” Ye Fan was secretly amazed by this old madman’s shocking techniques.
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A long time later, the old madman finally calmed down.
He gently placed his hand onto the large bluestone, misty light immediately flashing and a mysterious design appearing.
Without a doubt he had done this for a reason, and not just randomly or crazily.
Ye Fan gazed at it with divine light gathering in his eyes. The design covered by misty light was extremely profound and difficult to understand.
He seemed to have once seen it before, feeling that it was very familiar.
“The mysterious footwork!”
This design’s Dao Glyphs were very profound and difficult. He had once memorized the old madman’s footwork, but compared to these complete Dao Glyphs, the difference was huge. This was the true mysterious footwork!
Ye Fan was completely bewildered. The old madman had taken an image from him and gave him a diagram in exchange, as if wanting to clear a debt.
Right now he couldn’t waste too much time thinking about it. Collecting his mind, he memorized the mysterious diagram. The misty light rushed into his eyes, turning into a diagram that carved itself within Ye Fan’s heart.
This diagram was exceptionally profound and complex. Ye Fan had only tried reading through it once before he felt completely dizzy. His realm was too low and he was unable to comprehend the most profound Dao Glyphs.
“This kind of footwork is definitely a kind of supreme secret art!”
Just at this moment, the bluestone shattered and turned into powder that blew away, nothing remaining of it.
The old madman rose and walked deeper into the mountain. Ye Fan followed him, confused. This senior might be crazy, but he would occasionally be sane, so he definitely didn’t come to the Taixuan Sect for no reason.
This was an empty and wild mountain that was even more barren than Zhuo Peak. This mountain wasn’t a main peak, and there were no members of the Taixuan Sect here.
After about ten more kilometers, the old madman suddenly stamped his foot, and a short hundred-meter tall mountain split open as if it had been hacked apart with a huge hatchet by a god.
Behind him, Ye Fan was stunned. Just one stamp of the old man’s foot was already this frightening.
The mountain was split in two halves, and the old madman directly walked in.
Inside it was very misty, looking like a completely different world.
“Who dares intrude into my Taixuan precious land?” a loud shout suddenly rang out.
Ye Fan stopped, not daring to continue forward as several figures flew out of the mist and blocked the old madman.
Bright rays charged towards him. It was possible to see a powerful iron seal, a net that could cover the heavens…all kinds of powerful spiritual weapons were releasing powerful auras.
However, the old madman merely waved his sleeves to turn all those precious treasures into dust. There was not the slightest suspense as all the lights darkened and he strolled in without using the slightest strength.
The seven or eight Daoists who had flown out of the mist were all shocked, but before they could do anything to react to this the old madman lightly sighed, and they all fainted.
These were all white-haired Elders of the Taixuan Sect, but in front of the old madman, they were no more than ants.
If the old madman wished to kill people, a sect as powerful as the Taixuan Sect would immediately become a wasteland, and probably no one within the Eastern Wastelands could stop him.
The old madman directly walked into the mists ahead. Ye Fan was amazed. Those old men had all merely fainted, but he didn’t have any misgivings as he quickly charged forward as well.
The dense mist dispersed, and a sky full of stars appeared. They had arrived at a valley.
There was a huge platform here with many Dao Glyphs carved into it. There were even more ancient characters which indicated each part of the Eastern Wastelands.
Domain Gate!
Ye Fan was startled, immediately realizing that this was an important land of the Taixuan Sect – the Domain Gate!
If I can supply it enough Source and activate the Dao Glyphs, I can traverse the void! Ye Fan quickly charged forward. It was his greatest wish right now to traverse the void to the other end of the Eastern Wastelands.
Taixuan Sect, Ji Family, Flickering Light Sacred Land, all of these were in the Eastern Wastelands’ southern area, but the Jade Lake Sacred Land was in the northern extremity. No one was capable of saying just how far such a distance was.
Even cultivators who could fly would require several years of bitter flying to travel that far. This was truly a headache. Without a Domain Gate, the Eastern Wastelands was simply too large.
In this area, other than the Ji Family and the Flickering Light Sacred Land, the Taixuan Sect was the most powerful force.
But they weren’t a Sacred Land, and thus their Dao Glyphs could at most bring him to the central area of the Eastern Wastelands, and not the northern extremities.
The old madman walked up to the platform and instead of using the carved Dao Glyphs, he personally took action and quickly carved endlessly profound glyphs onto the platform.
He was just trying to use the huge amount of Source here. He was completely capable of carving his own Dao Glyphs. The old madman had actually come to the Taixuan Sect to traverse the void!
Where was he trying to go? Ye Fan wished he knew the answer.
“I should leave the Taixuan Sect, but should I go with the old madman or not?”
Such a peerless figure was definitely someone he wanted to follow. But he didn’t even know where the old madman was going. If they were to end up within the areas forbidden to life, like the Ancient Desolation Forbidden Land or the Ancient Genesis Mine, their endings would be horrible.
A living fossil like him definitely wouldn’t be going someplace that could be guessed with common sense.