Chapter 8: The Creation of Heaven and Earth Stele
The rolling yellow sand is rampant in the air, this is a desert, can't see the end, Xiao Yi's feet are deep in the yellow sand, no warmth, only bone-piercing cold.
A chill pervaded the air, the sky was dark and gloomy, cultivation was suppressed, all that could be relied on was a body tempered through a thousand hardships. This was something Xiao Yi had long understood, it was the power of this ancient battlefield, irresistible, appearing only briefly, every fifty years it would manifest for just one month, after which, no matter where one was, they would be expelled by the ancient battlefield, waiting for the next fifty years, or perhaps the next cycle.
Unable to distinguish the direction, and not seeing anyone else, Xiao Yi vaguely understood that Shi Taiyi and the other three might have already entered this ancient battlefield. Without hesitation, he walked forward into the desert, facing the yellow sand.
After walking for dozens of yards, Xiao Yi saw a skeleton in the sandy ground. The skeleton did not belong to the human race, and there were wing bones on its back, but they were already badly damaged, with scars from knives and swords all over, making it difficult to distinguish which tribe it belonged to.
Later, Xiao Yi slowly got used to it, because after that, every few steps he took, he could see the dusty bones being blown by the strong wind. A bleak atmosphere spread in the air between heaven and earth, the desert was endless, Xiao Yi didn't know how many people were buried in this ancient battlefield.
There were also some swords, some belonged to the human tribe's warriors, and some belonged to the alien tribe, but most of them had weathered away, until some were buried underground, becoming fossils. When the yellow sand was blown up, those fossils also crumbled into powder, and there were no more traces in this world.
For a whole day, Xiao Yi was numb, he saw countless bones, except for the human race, the bones of other tribes were indeed strange and varied. Xiao Yi's mind was shaken, he didn't know how many tribes had taken action that day, this ancient battlefield buried too many people.
It wasn't until noon on the second day that Xiao Yi saw a black shadow in the distance, which grew larger as he approached. Finally, what appeared before him was an ancient stone monument.
The stone monument was as black as ink, extremely large, about three zhang high, as if cast in gold and iron, with a layer of cold metallic luster on its body. The aura of vicissitudes was diffused, but there were no words on the monument. It stood upright in the vast desert, Xiao Yi stretched out his hand to touch it, and suddenly felt a chill that pierced through his bones, straight into his marrow, as if it was not a stone monument, but a block of ice frozen for thousands of years.
"Is this the creation of the stone tablet?"
Xiao Yi's eyes flickered with an unusual light, regarding this lost ancient battlefield, Shi Zhi Xuan had once told him something, being sealed was only one part of it, the most important thing was that the opportunities and fortunes hidden in this ancient battlefield were contained within these stone tablets.
Break the stone tablet and get creation!
This is Shi Zixuan's voice, in this ancient battlefield, there is no reliance, the only thing that can be relied on is one's own constantly tempered body, the increasingly solid flesh is the only means of obtaining opportunities.
"That year, Shi Gong and Huo Li Qianfu were just ordinary soldiers. They spent a whole month breaking through a ten-zhang-high stone monument. Inside the monument were two martial arts manuals: one was the Flame Dragon Fist, and the other was the Barbaric Elephant Great Strength Manual's Blood Volume."
"This stele is only three zhang high, I'm afraid it can't compare to the one that Stone Master broke back then. However, who exactly erected these steles in this place? Is there really nothing under the stele? Why has this ancient battlefield been lost in the Pan Lei mountain range for fifty years? Where did it disappear to?"
Xiao Yi shook his head, with too many mysteries, this ancient battlefield buried too many lives, not just humans, but also many other tribes that Xiao Yi didn't recognize. After countless years, their corpses had all weathered away, and even the strongest couldn't sense a single thread of aura. Compared to time, they were still pitifully weak.
The wind whistled past his ears, yellow sand danced in the air, Xiao Yi no longer cared about so much, he took a deep breath, gazed at the three-zhang stone tablet in front of him, and suddenly punched out.
Boom!
A three-zhang stone stele shook violently, Xiao Yi's fist landed on it, as if striking a large drum, emitting a fierce rumbling sound. The air within several zhangs of the stele shattered, revealing a vacuum world.
There was no fluctuation in his battle aura, only pure physical strength. As Xiao Yi's cultivation deepened, it became even more solidified. Even Xiao Yi himself couldn't quite grasp the extent of his physical body's solidity. At least after fighting against Huo Li Qian Feng, Xiao Yi understood that ordinary human physical attacks probably could no longer cause him any harm.
Blood energy surged, and on the pitch-black stone monument, with Xiao Yi's fist as the center, a web-like crack spread out. Suddenly, the entire monument exploded with a loud bang, revealing a purple-black beast skin. Reaching out to grab it, the beast skin fell into his hand. Xiao Yi gazed at it for a moment before putting it away in his bosom.
On the dark purple beast skin, a second-rate martial art named Purple Cloud Palm was branded. However, in Xiao Yi's current eyesight, this Purple Cloud Palm is not bad, but it's just ordinary among the second-rate martial arts and has no great use for him. It can be used to enrich the clan's martial art hall instead.
In the shattered stele, Xiao Yi searched for a moment and even dug open several feet deep. He found that under the stele, a skeleton was buried. The skeleton was not of the human tribe, but it was very complete. Xiao Yi saw that this was a skeleton of the Blood Tribe, with blood-colored wing bones stretching out to two zhang long. The ferocious tail bone had been cut off halfway, and even in its eye sockets, the dark red pupils still existed, only thoroughly dry and withered. Only a faintly thin, almost imperceptible evil aura was emitted, slowly dispersing as the corpse was exposed, eventually disappearing silently into dust.
"What lies beneath the tombstone is a foreign tribe, but what remains on it is our clan's military strategy." Xiao Yi's eyes had a hint of blue mistiness, "Could it be that our ancestors did this, and what was their purpose?"
Xiao Yi walked away, heading towards the distance. The rolling yellow sand couldn't harm him in the slightest, and as soon as it landed on his body, it was bounced off. Half an hour after he left, beside the shattered stone monument, the air slightly rippled, and two figures that seemed somewhat ferocious slowly condensed, finally materializing.
Two pairs of black bat wings fluttered, each pair unfolding to a width of nearly three zhang, with handsome yet somewhat eerie faces, dark red eyes, fierce and slender, and arrow-tipped black scaly tails - these were two blood clansmen.
An evil and cold aura spread out, two pairs of bat wings unfolded, within several meters around them, the wind and sand found it hard to penetrate, with the two as the center, a patch of still land was formed.
Staring at the shattered monument and the excavated tomb, two blood clansmen's eyes suddenly burst forth with a cold, icy light.
"With great difficulty, we've captured the aura of our ancestors' spirits, avoiding those powerful humans who guard the mountain below. We've entered this lost ancient battlefield to awaken the suppressed and lingering spirits of our ancestors, allowing them to revive once more. However, this ancient battlefield has its own laws, and our cultivation is restricted, making it impossible for us to conceal our true forms. These soul-suppressing steles are also naturally restrictive to my Hundred Realms Clan, so we must rely on the help of these humans to break the steles. I hope they won't disappoint us."
"All these years, it's not just my clan that has sensed the suppression of the Tianbing Road by the Lei Jian Bing Department. The Xian tribe's garrison general must have also detected something in this place. However, the Lei Jian Bing Department is not simple either. This time, there are very few humans who have entered the ancient battlefield, and even if we wanted to infiltrate, it would be impossible. It seems that they too have discovered some secrets, but haven't fully grasped them yet. Otherwise, only one young man at the Bone Forging Realm's peak would not have come alone. But missing this opportunity in these fifty years, I fear that next time, we won't have such a chance again."
Two blood clans exchanged a glance, the next moment, their bat wings fluttered, although they couldn't control the air, but their speed reached an astonishing level, only to see two black light beams shooting out, tearing through the air, and plunging into the rolling yellow sand.
The three days passed quickly.
In these three days, Xiao Yi walked in the vast desert and found two more stone steles. One was five zhang high, and the other was only two zhang high. The five-zhang-high stele contained a top-notch second-class martial art, while the two-zhang-high stele had a human-body blood sword. However, it had been too long since its creation, and as soon as the blood sword was exposed to the air, it cracked open and became a useless sword.
Similarly, under these two stone tablets, Xiao Yi also excavated the corpses of alien tribes, all belonging to the Xian tribe. It is unknown how many years have passed, but these corpses were scattered by the wind. However, in that last moment, Xiao Yi still caught a glimpse of an astonishing aura, and he understood that the alien tribes buried under these stone tablets were not weak.
This also gave him some expectations. To say, the Xiong Xiang Da Li Jue was only able to obtain the Lian Xue Juan, and once he had fully cultivated it, he could only change his cultivation method. If it were a top-notch martial art, that would be fine, but if it were an inferior one, then the solid foundation laid down by his bitter cultivation in the Lian Xue realm would be meaningless. Moreover, in today's Xiao Yi's view, although the Xiong Xiang Da Li Jue was only a top-notch martial art, its foundation-building effect was quite frightening. Although he didn't know how to evaluate martial arts, it probably wouldn't be much different.
Xiao Yi wanted to see if he had the opportunity to obtain the "Bone Tempering Volume" of the Barbarian Elephant Great Strength Technique, or another technique that was at least not inferior to a first-class martial art. As for the "Heavenly Fist Locking Art", it was a purely military strategy, and in the spiritual world, there was only the transmission of fist intent, but no cultivation method, which explained the way of using force to defend against force, rather than a technique for accumulating internal energy.
Now, Xiao Yi suddenly realized that the military tactics initially had a distinction between repair methods and war methods. When it reached the second-rate and first-rate realm, they merged into one, and when they reached the realm of military law, they split again and transformed, specializing in their way. The principle behind this is indeed profound and profound, belonging to the wisdom of ancient ancestors, making him feel a sense of reverence for the first time.