Chen Changsheng madly sprinted the entire way, his boots shattering against the mountain path as he left in a cloud of dust. In a few moments, he had already arrived at the waist of the mountain.
He did not know how far he was from the Heaven Lake at the peak of Mount Han. He only knew that he had to hurry and run as far as possible.
But in the next moment, he stopped in his tracks because he felt that something was off.
He felt the stone bead heat up.
Thunder suddenly boomed through the mountains. Was that the sound of several hundred stones being forcefully moved and breaking through the air?
Soon after, there was the sound of a cliff collapsing.
The sound grew closer and closer. The stone pearl that the Heavenly Tome Monoliths had transformed into grew hotter and hotter, even becoming somewhat scalding.
Suddenly, all the sounds disappeared without a trace.
An object entered, or more accurately, barged into his eyes.
It was a square seal. He didn't know what kind of stone it was carved from, but he couldn't see anything strange about it.
The stone seal gently swayed in the wind.
The seal was tied to a person's waist.
It was that middle-aged scholar.
Then, Chen Changsheng saw the several hundred Heavenstones that followed the middle-aged scholar.
They covered the sky and covered the earth with an extraordinary aura. They were clearly extraordinary objects that tried to restrict his speed and trap him, but they seemed to be like the seal, becoming his ornaments.
This was a cliff, and on it was a shallow pit that had been dug out at some time to serve as a path. The stone pit was covered in moss.
Chen Changsheng was at the bottom of the cliff, and the middle-aged scholar was at the top of the cliff, separated by only a few dozen zhang.
"You humans love doing this sort of self-wrapping thing the most."
The middle-aged scholar looked at him and calmly said, "I don't know if the Heavenstone array sealing off the mountain is a trap, but I do know that it will seal you to death in this mountain."
Chen Changsheng did not respond, because it was meaningless.
He also did not feel despair in his heart, because it was meaningless.
His spiritual sense fell on the black stone pearl, and he prepared to enter the Garden of Zhou to temporarily hide.
He did not know if the middle-aged scholar had the ability to directly break through the spatial barrier of the Garden of Zhou — if his and Xu Yourong's original conjecture was correct, and this person had once infiltrated the Garden of Zhou, then it would not be safe for him to enter the Garden of Zhou in front of him. But behind him was a cliff. He had already entered a desperate situation, so he had to try.
To his shock, or perhaps to his surprise, he was not able to use the black stone to enter the Garden of Zhou.
Nothing had changed. He was still in front of the precipice of Mount Han.
Perhaps it was because the Heavenstone array of Mount Han had sealed off all space, or perhaps it was because the middle-aged scholar was so powerful that he could influence the laws of space at a sufficiently close distance.
In short, he had not been able to enter the Garden of Zhou and had lost his final trump card.
But he did not despair.
He raised the Stainless Sword, gripped the Vault Sheath, and gazed at the middle-aged scholar with a very calm expression.
That was an enemy he could not defeat, but so what?
A look of approval appeared in the middle-aged scholar's eyes. "You should know my goal."
Chen Chang Sheng nodded.
The middle-aged scholar said, "With a heart that cherishes talent, I will slowly eat you up."
Chen Changsheng replied, "I know the final move of the Mount Li Sword Style, and I also know Indiscriminate Destruction. Senior Su Li once taught me the Blazing Sword. I can burn myself into a pile of ash."
The middle-aged scholar smiled and said, "Are you going to threaten me with death? Although fresh prey tastes better, I don't mind being merciful and killing you first. "
Chen Changsheng replied, "But you still haven't killed me."
Yes, if the middle-aged scholar had truly decided to kill him, whether he had the Yellow Paper Umbrella, the Thousand Li Button, or that letter, he would already be dead.
The middle-aged scholar's smile gradually faded and he expressionlessly said, "In front of me, even if you want to die, it won't be so easy."
"I want to try."
In Xunyang City, when Wang Po confronted Zhu Luo, he had said these four words. He wanted to try and see if he could stab Zhu Luo with his sword. Today, in Mount Han, Chen Changsheng had also said these four words. He wanted to try and see if he could burn himself into ash before his opponent could.
The ten thousand swords hummed in the sheath, preparing for the final charge. The letter was clenched in his hand, ready to release the final sword at any time.
True essence flowed with difficulty through his severed meridians. A storm stirred in his sea of spiritual sense as he prepared for the final combustion.
When he made this decision, he was truly very calm.
Of course, it was hard not to feel some reluctance.
He still had many things that he had not finished.
… …
… …
Time slowly passed. The ten thousand swords still did not leave their sheaths, nor did he burn. He was still alive.
It was not because the middle-aged scholar had taken control of his body, but because two people had appeared in front of the precipice.
Two men walked out from the ivy at the edge of the precipice.
One of them had a head of white hair and a rather nervous expression. His eyes were especially filled with fear as he gazed at the middle-aged scholar. The other person had a face that seemed to have experienced the vicissitudes of time, but it was impossible to tell his age. He wore ordinary clothes and had a very calm expression, like a tourist who had come to explore the world.
But he was definitely not an ordinary person.
Because when he appeared, the middle-aged scholar no longer looked at Chen Changsheng, but at him.
Previously, by the stream, not even Liu Qing, Xiao De, or the Elder of Heavenly Secrets' Heavenstone array of Mount Han could truly move away the middle-aged scholar's gaze from Chen Changsheng. This was because the reason he had left Xuelao City after one thousand years was precisely Chen Changsheng.
To the middle-aged scholar, no one was more important than Chen Changsheng.
Yet now, he was looking at this tourist-like man with such earnestness.
The mountains and rivers on his face suddenly blurred and then vanished, revealing his true appearance.
Was this respect or vigilance? Just who in the world was worthy of his respect? Did he need to be vigilant? Tianhai? The Pope? Or the White Emperor?
No, this tourist-like man was clearly not one of the three Saints.
But to the middle-aged scholar, he was far more worthy of his respect and vigilance than the three Saints.
A chilly wind howled through the precipice. The night sky, torn apart by the several thousand Heavenstones, was still dim, and even seemed rather miserable.
For a very long time, no one spoke. The atmosphere in the precipice was extremely strange.
The middle-aged scholar and the tourist-like man silently stared at each other. Gradually, wind and thunder gathered where their gazes met and then gradually faded away like drifting clouds.
Chen Changsheng knew that the situation had finally taken a turn for the better, all because of this tourist-like man. But just who was this person?
He simply could not think of anyone in the world besides the Divine Empress, the Pope, and the White Emperor that could make the middle-aged scholar regard him with such importance, to the point of temporarily letting him go.
After some time, the middle-aged scholar finally spoke. His voice seemed incomparably sorrowful, even sorrowful. "As expected, you did not die."
The man faintly smiled. "Not even His Majesty died, so how could I die?"
The middle-aged scholar looked at him with some pity. "But in the end, he still died."
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