chsdbacks Chapter 82 Ancient Monsters!
Chapter 82 Ancient Monsters!
From the thirty-sixth to the fiftieth floor, the strength of the gatekeepers began to increase significantly. They were no longer simple projections of apostles, but composite enemies incorporating the Soul Scream Law of Morgana, each attack affecting both the physical body and the soul simultaneously. But for Jiang Chen, the difference was minimal. He didn't need to unleash his Sword Domain or unleash the full power of his Blazing Heaven Flame; he simply used the most basic sword finger and palm techniques to defeat these gatekeepers one by one.
By the time he cleared the fiftieth level, the number of grayish-white light spots in his sea of consciousness had exceeded one thousand. The ripples had seeped into deeper areas of his memory—the grief of losing his first loved one in the cultivation world, the loneliness of facing millions of souls alone on the ancient battlefield, the fear of being tormented by the Heavenly Dao during his tribulation and ascension, nearly losing his mind and spirit. But Jiang Chen still didn't stop him. He was waiting.
From the fifty-first to the sixtieth floor, his crushing speed even increased. He no longer waited for the gatekeeper to make a move, but instead took the initiative, killing the gatekeeper in the first instant. He wanted to use a faster pace to force Morgana to speed up her reading of him.
Upon clearing the sixtieth level, Ripples touched upon an even deeper, more forgotten area. A thousand years ago, he carried the last hope of the Qingyun Sect into the lair of an ancient demon god, only to discover that his master had already been possessed by the demon god. The moment master and disciple recognized each other, his master's sword pierced his chest. He knelt on the ground, blood gushing from his chest, soaking the white inner robe his master had given him. He called out "Master," and the other responded with a black sword aura piercing his heart. That was the closest he had ever come to death on his thousand-year journey of cultivation, and the last time he allowed himself to shed a tear.
The grayish-white light trembled slightly at that moment. The array of 1,500 soul fragments faithfully transmitted this ripple back to Morgana, who was far away on the hundredth floor.
At this moment, deep within the Apostle's Hall, a slight smile played on Morgana's pale, almost translucent face. Something stirred within the black void of her eyeballs, like an undercurrent in an abyss finally finding a rock to cling to.
Sixty-first floor. Sixty-second floor. Sixty-third floor.
Jiang Chen continued his crushing assault. He felt the ripples penetrating deeper, piercing through millennia of battle memories, through countless life-or-death struggles, through the unparalleled glory of ascending to the pinnacle of the Immortal Emperor, and through the endless pain of being torn apart and reassembled in the temporal turbulence before his return from shattering the void. He followed the ripples, sinking down with them.
Floor 65. Floor 66. Floor 67.
Nearly.
The 68th floor. The 69th floor. The 70th floor.
Arrived.
The moment the guardian of the seventieth floor fell, the soul mirror array composed of grayish-white light dots completed its final piece. Eighteen hundred fragments covered all explorable areas of his sea of consciousness. His millennia of slaughter, his millennia of solitude, his millennia of indifference—all were seen through by Morgana. But Morgana was not satisfied, for she sensed something even deeper buried within Jiang Chen's heart, like a door sealed layer upon layer by true essence at the very depths of his sea of consciousness. She could see that door, but she could not open it.
So, in the final moment before the guardian of the seventieth floor was killed, she mobilized the power of all 1,800 soul fragments, converging them into an extremely thin and sharp soul spike, which she thrust towards the door. The door shattered.
Jiang Chen stopped in his tracks.
He stood at the edge of the abyss, frozen for a full three breaths. He felt the ripples seeping into every crevices of his memory; he felt the fragments of Morgana's soul greedily reading the most hidden images.
So...did she find it?
What is the existence that can make me feel endless fear?
Jiang Chen smiled slightly and stepped onto the next floor.
Everyone was stunned by the absolute dominance displayed in the live stream.
They didn't know that Jiang Chen's past memories were being read inside; all they knew was that the entire journey had been a smooth, easy push!
"Wow, that's incredible... They didn't give the enemy any chance to fight back at all!!"
"Up to now, Jiang Chen's clothes aren't even a speck of dust!"
"None of these apostles' attacks touched Jiang Chen's body!"
The live stream was flooded with comments, and in the Dragon Kingdom Awakeners Association, powerful Awakeners such as Ye Wuhen and Zhou Tianze were gathered together. Everyone in sight was shocked.
The absolute crushing victory certainly demonstrated Jiang Chen's strength, but what terrified them even more was that what Jiang Chen had shown so far seemed to be only the tip of the iceberg of his full power!
They were increasingly looking forward to seeing what kind of impact Jiang Chen would have on them in the upcoming battle!
The silver light of the teleportation array dissipated behind him. Jiang Chen stepped into this level of space. The sensation beneath his feet was no longer the cold stone bricks or the ethereal light streams he had felt before, but rather soft, damp earth. He stopped.
This is a forest.
Towering ancient trees pierced the greyish-white sky, their dense canopies almost completely blocking out all light. Only a few streaks of dark green light pierced through the gaps in the branches, casting dappled, constantly shifting shadows on the ground. The air was thick with the scent of decaying leaves and damp earth, intense and real, so real that it seemed impossible for the Apostle's Temple to create an illusion. Insects chirped in the bushes, and in the distance, the crisp sound of some large creature snapping dead branches echoed from the shadows of the trees. Something fluttered its wings on the branches overhead. Everything was so similar, so much like the primeval forest he had entered the Qingyun Mountains for his trials a thousand years ago.
Jiang Chen tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding trees. His divine sense spread out like a tide, perceiving every inch of the structure of this space.
Instead of creating an illusion, Morgiana did something far more clever: she materialized the deepest memories from the depths of his consciousness into a tangible physical entity. This forest was the demon beast forest he first entered a thousand years ago as a Foundation Establishment cultivator; it was the true starting point of his millennia of slaughter.
Then he heard that voice.
A very low, deep breathing sound came from the deepest part of the forest. The breathing was so loud that each inhale could bend the surrounding trees inward, and each exhale could stir up a stench of decaying leaves. It was not the breathing of an ordinary monster; it was the awakening of some ancient behemoth, so enormous that it defied all reason, a creature that had slumbered for countless years.
The trees were swaying, the bushes were trembling, and the branches overhead were swinging wildly as if blown by a gale.
The decaying leaves were swirled up by the air currents, forming a dark green vortex. The aura surged from the depths of the forest, carrying a sense of oppression that made Jiang Chen's body instinctively tense for a moment.
This feeling was strangely familiar. It was the uncontrollable tremor that welled up from the depths of the soul of that young man who was only at the Foundation Establishment stage a thousand years ago when he first faced a true ancient demon beast.
Jiang Chen looked in that direction, his expression unchanged.
The forest was collapsing. Ancient trees were uprooted, and soil and rubble tumbled from between the broken roots, crashing to the ground with dull thuds. A colossal beast rose from the depths of the collapsing forest.
It was incredibly tall. So tall that the treetops only reached its knees, so tall that when it stood up, its head almost touched the dome of this space. Its body wasn't made of flesh and blood, but rather pieced together from countless dark blue rocks and black scales, with dark red, magma-like light surging from the gaps between each rock. Its head resembled both a dragon and a crocodile, with densely packed, gleaming white fangs of varying lengths embedded in the jaws.
Its eyes are two sunken black holes, and something burns deep within them—two miniature stars imprisoned in rocky eye sockets, decaying in the process. Two rows of bony spikes stand upright on its back, each spike tens of meters long, forked at the end, like a withered giant tree.
Its breath was the same foul wind that had just swept through the forest.
With each heartbeat of its own, the ground trembles, the air hums, and the surrounding space twists and turns with fine ripples. Its very existence is an unbearable weight for this space.
Ancient monster, Primordial Dragon Elephant!!