Gou Zai Fei Men made up myths

"Qingyun slays the demon... and seals it here..." Shen Mo repeated these words in a low voice, each word carrying immense weight.

The ancestor he fabricated, "Qingyunzi," had the name "Qingyun" in his Daoist title! And one of the ancestor's main "achievements" was slaying demons and monsters and pacifying the Southern Region!

All of this subtly corresponds to this ancient mural once again!

Is it a coincidence? Is it cause and effect? ​​Or... is there an invisible hand manipulating everything, leading him and the Qingyun Sect step by step into this pre-arranged game?

Cold sweat unknowingly soaked Shen Mo's back. Even with his current level of mental cultivation, he felt a pang of fear at this moment.

This Reincarnation Palace is far more bizarre and more... dangerous than he imagined! It not only concerns ancient secrets, but also seems to have some terrifying, inextricable connection with him and the Qingyun Sect!

"Sect Leader, do you recognize the characters on this mural?" Zhao Qingyan, with her keen perception, noticed Shen Mo's unusual behavior and asked softly. Shi Tie and Su Xiao also cast questioning glances at her.

A Yuan seemed particularly terrified of the dark vortex in the center of the mural, shrinking behind Shen Mo and not daring to look at it for long.

Shen Mo slowly stood up, dusted off his hands, his face expressionless, his voice devoid of any emotion: "Some ancient seal script, incomplete. It roughly says that in ancient times a demon caused chaos, and was killed and sealed here by a senior master known as 'Qingyun'."

He deliberately concealed the connection between "Qingyun" and "Liuyun", as well as the similarity between the magic weapon and the "measuring ruler".

"Qingyun?" Shi Tie scratched his head. "That name... it sounds familiar. Where have I heard it before?"

"The founder of my Qingyun Sect was called 'Qingyunzi'."

Zhao Qingyan spoke slowly, her beautiful eyes sparkling with wonder as she looked at the azure figure in the mural. Her gaze was filled with astonishment and a strange awe. "Could it be... that this mural depicts someone related to the founder of my Qingyun Sect? This... how is this possible? Our founder lived a thousand years ago, and this mural..."

She looked at the ancient and mottled marks on the mural, and the rest of her words were left unsaid, but the meaning was clear—the mural was so old that it was far older than when the Qingyun Sect was founded!

A flicker of shock crossed Su Xiao's cold eyes, but she remained calm and said in a low voice, "Perhaps it's a coincidence. Throughout history, countless people have had the same Daoist or Buddhist name. The name 'Qingyun' is not unique to this group."

"But that magical artifact..." Zhao Qingyan pointed to the "Measuring Ruler" in the hand of the Taoist priest in blue in the mural, her tone somewhat excited, "Its form and description are so similar to the 'Measuring Ruler' that our sect's ancestral master carried as recorded in our sect's scriptures!"

Shi Tie stared wide-eyed at the mural, then at Shen Mo, and said in a muffled voice, "Sect Leader, what... what's going on here? Could it be that our ancestor was really a powerful figure from ancient times, reincarnated here to establish a sect?"

Shen Mo smiled bitterly to himself. He wished it were as simple as "reincarnation." But he knew that things were probably a million times more complicated and bizarre than that.

But he couldn't reveal a single thing, at least not now.

"The world is full of wonders. Perhaps it is only similar in appearance, or perhaps there is a real connection, but the time is too long to verify."

Shen Mo said calmly, changing the subject, "Now is not the time to investigate. This place is dangerous; the murals and the pool are eerie, so we shouldn't linger. A-Yuan, sense where the 'way out' from here is. And where is the source of that 'fragrance'?"

When A-Yuan was called upon, her body trembled. She quickly closed her eyes and focused intently on sensing. After a moment, her face paled, and she pointed to an inconspicuous, shadowy, narrow passage on the other side of the stone chamber:

"Over there... the fragrance is coming from over there... it's very strong... but... there's something scary moving over there... sleeping... shall we... shall we go around it?"

"A sleeping thing?" Shen Mo's eyes narrowed. Something that could terrify A Yuan like this was no ordinary creature.

He scanned the narrow passage with his divine sense. The passage was dark and thick, as if it could absorb all light. His divine sense had only penetrated a few feet when he felt a chilling cold, as if he had been licked by something cold and slippery. He quickly withdrew.

"Let's go the other way," Shen Mo said decisively. Since there was a choice, there was no need to disturb the unknown terror.

He took one last deep look at the figure of the Taoist in blue robes on the mural, imprinting it firmly in his mind, then turned around and led the group out of the eerie stone chamber, returning to the main fork in the road.

The journey that followed was even more winding and unpredictable.

The sense of disorientation in time and space became increasingly intense. Sometimes, even after walking forward for a long time, turning around revealed a completely different scene behind you. Other times, passing through an archway felt like traversing a vast distance, placing you directly into another unfamiliar area.

Sometimes, one would suddenly hear the clashing of metal and the deafening shouts of battle, and see the afterimages of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and the fall of immortals and demons. But when one looked closely, everything was as usual, with only the deathly silent passageway and the broken walls.

The group proceeded with extreme caution, as if walking on thin ice. Relying on A Yuan's increasingly faint and intermittent intuition and Shen Mo's subtle perception of spatial fluctuations through the Myriad Laws Source Pearl, they struggled to navigate the labyrinthine ruins of the palace.

During this time, they encountered several dangerous situations.

Once, Shi Tie accidentally stepped on a seemingly ordinary floor tile, which instantly caved in. Dozens of pitch-black, foul-smelling poison arrows shot out from both walls with lightning speed. If Su Xiao hadn't reacted quickly and used his shadow power to distort the trajectory of the arrows, and if Zhao Qingyan hadn't activated the protective array in time, someone might have been injured.

On another occasion, as they passed through what appeared to be an empty hall, Ah Yuan suddenly screamed, pointing to a broken giant pillar in the center of the hall, saying that the pillar was "bleeding, looking at her."

The group was filled with suspicion and took a detour. Not long after they left, they heard a teeth-grinding chewing sound and the scraping sound of something being dragged behind them, which sent chills down their spines.

The further in you go, the denser and purer the deathly aura of reincarnation becomes, and it has begun to condense into a faint gray-black mist that slowly drifts in the air.

Within the mist, some more solidified, seemingly sentient spirits began to appear. They were no longer aimlessly wandering, but instead emitted piercing shrieks and actively attacked living beings, devouring their life force.

Although they were not strong and could be easily cleaved apart by Shi Tie's axe blows, their sheer number made them impossible to kill, causing endless trouble and greatly depleting everyone's spiritual energy and mental strength.

A-Yuan's condition worsened; her face was bloodless, and her eyes were unfocused. She was only able to hold on by the pure spiritual energy that Shen Mo channeled into her to protect her heart meridian.

Her senses were sometimes accurate and sometimes not, clearly indicating that the environment here was putting a great strain on her special soul.

"Sect Leader, this can't go on." Zhao Qingyan swallowed a "Spirit Recovery Pill," her face pale. Maintaining the formation to resist the erosion of death energy and the harassment of yin spirits was extremely taxing. "A-Yuan is about to collapse, and our spiritual energy is more than half depleted. We must find a relatively safe place to rest as soon as possible, or... find a way out."

Shen Mo remained silent. How could he not know? But this place was like a huge maze, with spatial folds and illusions superimposed on it, making it impossible to discern directions.

Where is the way out? Where is the safe place?