The expansive, eerie Taiping Dojo, filled with graves and tombs.
Xu Qing looked at the numerous additional corpses around the ruins of the altar, feeling inexplicably perplexed.
Could this be considered an unexpected delight?
In a year, the Taiping Dojo had turned into a sacred site for demon cultivators, and countless people and ghosts of all kinds had come here to explore during this time.
But strangely, the corpses around the dojo didn't seem recent; Xu Qing peered along the cemetery grounds on the periphery, not forgetting to send Straw Spirit Papermen back and forth to transport the corpses.
The pages of the Sutra of Salvation flipped, and the experiences of these skeletons before they closed their eyes appeared in Xu Qing's mind like a slideshow.
A golden treasure mace, a giant ten zhang tall, Yin Metal Qi...
As Xu Qing suspected, without exception, these skeletons were from half a year ago.
Xu Qing also saw beneath the dojo, where a golden-armored giant over ten zhang tall wielded a golden mace, slew or drove away all who attempted to invade the ancient temple.
During this time, an elder from the Yin River Sect and Qi came to investigate together. The two ancient ritualistic figures chanted an ancient curse upon seeing the golden-armored giant, causing the buried bones of a gigantic beast beneath the Ancient Yin River Dao to emerge and assemble into white-boned warriors with a bull's head and a horse's face, engaging in a contest of spells with the golden-armored giant.
The white-boned warriors, after being shattered by the golden mace, instantly reassembled like a tower made of sand.
When the white-boned warriors severed the arm of the golden-armored giant, its arm, seemingly made of gold and iron, transformed into a heap of burial coins, which then gathered at the wounded cut, restoring itself to normal in no time.
The elder and Qi seemed like apprentices taught by the same teacher as the golden-armored divine being, neither able to break the other's spell. After a half-day stalemate, the great witch and Qi simply abandoned the struggle against the golden-armored giant and left the Taiping Dojo.
Since then, people from the nearby Yin River faction, as well as cultivators and demons, all knew of this golden-armored giant in Taiping Dojo, and apart from this giant, there was nothing else of value in the dojo.
The bustling world seeks profit; the busied world competes for gain. This saying also applies to the Yin River.
Without any benefits to gain, the Taiping Dojo once again became a desolate place, ignored by all.
Xu Qing connected his spine to the earth, communicating with the Yin River's leyline, and this time he saw the cluster of Yin Metal Qi buried beneath the Taiping Temple. Apart from that cluster of golden energy, there was nothing else unusual in the entire dojo.
"Could the so-called immortal fate be that cluster of Yin Metal Qi?"
Xu Qing pondered for a moment, then took out the Ghost-slaying Treasure Sword, stepping into the abandoned temple where the Celestial Lord General was once worshipped.
At this time, the three divine statues on the altar had vanished, leaving only a bottomless pit in front of the altar.
Xu Qing approached the edge of the pit, peering down, and found the bottom filled with Yin Sha Qi, comparable to the tomb beneath the bone temple of the Demon Exorcism True Monarch.
"Strange, where did that Yin Metal Qi go?"
Just as Xu Qing was pondering, he suddenly realized he was shrouded in shadow.
"..."
Xu Qing narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze shifting instantaneously with the execution of the Two-Faced Three-Blade Technique.
Behind him, a golden bronze man, emanating an aura of resentment and deathly stillness, rose from the ground!
The golden man's form was immense, holding a pair of gleaming treasure maces, exuding a chilling light.
Xu Qing could feel the warlike and murderous aura emanating from the maces, as well as the highly condensed Yin Metal Qi. If used to craft a coffin, Xu Qing couldn't imagine how comfortable it would be to reside in it...
The golden-armored giant was unaware of Xu Qing's thoughts, believing it was about to successfully ambush Xu Qing. Yet when its golden mace descended, it found the small human in front of it suddenly pivot and slash with a sword, as if eyes had grown on the back of his head!
The golden-armored giant emitted a piercing whistle like an arrow through the air, akin to a fervently blown iron whistle, once more swinging its maces and leaping as if Mt. Tai was bearing down, heavily striking towards Xu Qing.
Xu Qing's scalp tingled, almost without hesitation, and decisively utilized the Divine Travel Celestial Scripture to teleport behind the golden man.
As the golden-armored giant wielded ten thousand weights of Yin Sha Qi towards the ground, Xu Qing's Ghost-slaying Treasure Sword had already layered the Celestial Spirit Axe Technique thirty times!
At this moment, the combined might of the ten thousand-weight golden maces and the thunderous axe momentum that cleaves mountains transformed into weapons of pure destruction, slashing forward without reservation.
Under such sheer brute force and destruction, a plume of dust and sand surged dozens of zhang high across the entire Taiping Dojo, with all the stone forests and ancient tombs being swept into the sky by the aftermath.
When the thunderous echoes settled, the Taiping Dojo, already a ruin, was razed to the ground, and at its center was a basin-like pit!
Xu Qing walked lightly in the air, overlooking the pit.
By now, the golden giant had disappeared, but at the base of the pit formed from the Celestial Spirit Axe and golden maces was piled tens of thousands of pounds of copper burial money.
Xu Qing frowned at the burial money.
Why was there such a thick corpse aura on these burial coins?
As Xu Qing pondered, the scattered burial money at the bottom of the pit began to stack up on its own, and within a blink of an eye, a golden-armored divine being was revitalized from the pile of burial coins.
Xu Qing, with eight incarnations, disrupted the golden man's attack, while simultaneously reaching for the Divination Mirror, directly shining it upon the golden-armored giant.
"Oh wow! This is a ninety-nine percent rare item, with plenty of history! But these people are truly down on their luck, stop looking, it's really heartbreaking..."
Xu Qing put away the Divination Mirror, but a smile appeared on his face.
As long as the Mirror spoke, the matter could be handled.
By now, half of the eight incarnations had been struck down by the golden maces, yet Xu Qing was completely unperturbed.