No one had expected the gold tower to be so fragile. Zhan Moke did not have much power left nor did anyone sense anything dangerous.
The gold tower broke simply like that, the same as before it broke. Even Ding Ning did not sense anything unusual.
Ding Ning frowned deeply.
Failing to sense any unusual presence meant true danger.
**
Shen Xuan also could not sense anything strange either.
When the energy sea burst, no cultivator could survive. Watching Zhan Moke’s drooping head, he knew this last person of Tianliang only had his last moments left.
But at this moment, he suddenly looked up. There was a patch of peach flowers falling from the sky above. His eyes widened. The patch of flowers covered his eyes. He reached out and grabbed the pink flowers falling towards him.
How could there be peach flowers here?
Even though he could sense the patch the peach flowers existed in his perception, and he could even sense the minute changes in the air currents created by the flowers, he still believed this was an illusion.
But when he grabbed on to the flower, it was still real. The weight, warmth and moisture of the flower all reminded him that this was real.
Shen Xuan’s pupils contracted violently. After the first flower, there were countless more. He saw the peach flowers fall down, the entire sky turning pink. Then the falling flowers grew around him.
To his shock, he could sense his cultivation rapidly dropping. Even more, he could sense his body changing. Then, he unconsciously reached out his hands.
He saw two hands.
His arm that had been destroyed during the Great Floating Water Prison battle was as good as before, its skin extremely smooth.
“What kind of restrictions are these!” He could not help but shout.
Yet Ding Ning and the others were not in the surroundings.
He started to stiffen. He remembered this peach forest. He saw he was still wearing his current clothes but his body was one of many years ago. He unconsciously reached to his chest.
He touched two letters. One was an order from the Warden’s Office and the other from the woman here.
When his finger touched the two letters, his body trembled violently. If he had not accepted the order from the Warden’s Office and stayed behind for this woman, then what would it have been like today?
His body trembled violently, and his throat quickly stiffened. He could not make a sound.
He saw the beautiful figure at the other end of the peach forest. His gaze started to blur. He wanted to stay. Yet all the peach flowers started to fly up. All the peach trees became peach flowers and flew up.
The woman’s face grew clearer in this moment, every change in her expression entering his sight. Then he saw his hands growing smaller. The woman’s figure disappeared from his eyes. His clothes grew large, his cultivation was still dropping and his body was growing younger and smaller.
He saw himself become a youth, then a child who had not yet cultivated. Then his sorrow turned to endless terror. Because time seemed to go backwards, he was still becoming younger.
He could not stand up and fell down in his clothes. He became a baby, and all of his consciousness started to disappear. He could only hear his crying.
The cry of a newborn.
When Shen Xuan saw the peach flowers fall, Zhan Moke only had a breath left. But when he exhaled, he did not die.
His eyes were not filled with pink, but purple. He saw that giant purple tree which had rotted away once again appeared in front of him.
“As expected, amazing.” In this moment, he felt happy, and cheered with power that came from an unknown place.
In the next moment, he saw the wounds on his body disappear. He started to become young. He stood in the Wuzhi palace. He put on a bone coronet. This was the most respected shaman bone coronet of the Wuzhi.
He turned around. Behind him was the temple of the shaman. He passed through the majestic temple, smiled at the devout attendant and entered the deepest secret room. In the secret room, there was a bloody body nailed to a wooden frame.
“My beloved sister, what restrictions are under the ancestral mountain?” he continued smiling and said gently to the body which was so disfigured its gender could not be made out.
“The ancestral mountain will punish you.” The bloody body cursed.
“I am already punished.” He said expressionlessly, “Even my own older sister wants to kill me.”
“That is because you want to open the ancestral mountain…you want to become a demon—”
“Just because I want to open the ancestral mountain, my sister wants to kill me … Sister, you are also a demon.” He laughed scornfully. “I have been forced to treat my sister like this … I have become a demon long ago, and the curse of the ancestral mountain, did it not go out of existence long ago?”
Zhan Moke was suddenly in pain. Not because of the incoming death, but because he saw himself growing smaller, and the bone coronet disappeared. He saw an even crueler scene of someone being killed by a thousand cuts.
A female shepherd of his age was being killed. He knew this shepherd. He had met her when patrolling around the ancestral lands.
He had warned the shepherd. She had respected the ancestral lands greatly, and would not enter. He knew the day she entered the ancestral lands, there had been a great sand storm and the tent of the shepherd and her family was dozens of miles away. So she had gotten lost in the sand storm and accidentally went into the ancestral lands.
He had stated the reasons but could not change the iron laws of the ancestral mountain. He could only watch the shepherd die.
“The ancestral lands are a sin.” He thought of the past Tianliang slaughter, thought of the fate his ancestors carried and slowly spoke to within.
Then he saw himself become a child, and then an infant. Before his conscious blurred, he laughed. Almost all of the restrictions had been destroyed. Even if he, Ding Ning and the others died here. Even if this goad tower had not yet shown its power.
In the end, more and more people would come. They just had to face this last hurdle. Someone would obtain the elixir in the end.
Then the ancestral mountain … maybe it would no longer exist?
When he became an infant and fell in his clothing, Ding Ning was also turning into an infant. Unlike Shen Xuan, he did not feel terror.
“So it is the Two Lifetime Flower.”
He seemed to see something, and his expression grew strange. Then he stood up as an infant, and his body started to grow. He coughed violently, blood coming out of his mouth.
The Last Flower remnant sword hanging from his side flew up again as a ruler straight sword light.
