The normal bones had already decayed into dust, while this corpse was still perfectly intact. Furthermore, judging from the shape of the bones, it was obvious that they had belonged to an extremely powerful being in life. Anything such an individual carried would definitely be an extraordinary treasure.
Duan Tiande was the first one who was unable to hold himself back anymore. His figure flickered, and he instantly arrived near the corpse through the shadows. His long and slender sword flicked toward Wu Liang’s wrist to make him let go.
Ma Huang moved at the same time. With a wave of his cloak, he turned into blood and quickly shot toward the two of them. He reached out toward the pendant in Wu Liang’s hand.
Right at that moment, Wu Liang threw out two yellow talismans from his hands. Even as Duan Tiande and Ma Huang’s attacks landed, the talismans instantly neutralized them. Then, Wu Liang took the chance to curl up and roll along the ground. He was like a meatball, bouncing far into the distance. His speed left the observers speechless.
The other fiend race experts reacted one after another. They all used their movement techniques to chase after him.
Even Princess Suolun was no exception. She thought about how she owed Zu An a huge favor. Even though he hadn’t made her return anything, such unclear conditions were the toughest to settle. If Zu An really did propose something… excessive, what could she do? As such, she wanted to get the pendant, then give it to Zu An. That way, the two of them could be considered even. Meanwhile, Prince Yin Sha was her personal bootlicker, so he naturally followed along without any hesitation.
Only Zu An’s party was left. His companions were stupefied. Yun Jianyue asked, “Aren’t you going to chase after them?”
Zu An shook his head and said, “Forget it. That fat daoist probably brought all this about through such hard work just for that pendant. I don’t know whether he still has something up his sleeve. Let’s not stick our heads out amid this liveliness.”
He wanted to find the item that would help Yu Yanluo break through, then leave the place as quickly as possible. After all, the powerful presence that had been watching in the foggy forest was still present. He felt as if he were in a ‘sword of Damocles’ situation, so he wanted to avoid clashing with that fellow as much as possible.
Yan Xuehen asked curiously “Were any of you able to see clearly what kind of item that pendant was?” She was seriously injured, so her skills were far from their peak. It was difficult for her to see much at such a distance.
Yun Jianyue replied, “It was a dark golden item, and it was shaped pretty strangely. It didn’t seem like a jade pendant or a treasure, but rather… Rather…”
“More like a claw,” Zu An concluded.
“Right, just like a claw!” Yun Jianyue exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. She immediately felt a sense of relief to have found the most fitting description.
“Claw?” Yu Yanluo asked, stunned. “How could something that was treated so seriously be a mere claw?”
The group had been going all out against each other. If they found out that all they were fighting over was a claw, what kind of expressions would they have then?
“It isn’t a normal claw. It’s a bit like… ahem, a Gold Snatching Charm from my hometown. It’s rumored that some tomb raider clans use pangolin claws to make such charms, and they’re used to ward off evil…” Zu An told them a bit about the folklore of the gold snatchers.[1]
“Pangolin?” Yu Yanluo thought of something and explained, “The Pangolin race does indeed excel at robbing tombs. Because they often excavate ancient tombs, they often find treasures and secret methods, which is why their cultivations are quite high. However, because they cultivate methods they found from several different tombs, what they learn is quite mixed. If they aren’t careful, they might end up messing up their own cultivation by mixing incompatible things.
“Apart from that, tomb raiding is considered rather disgraceful among both the human and fiend races, and many such tombs still have their descendants alive in this world. Having their ancestors’ tombs excavated naturally results in a huge grudge. That’s why the pangolins are enemies with almost everyone else. Many years ago, something caused them to incur the wrath of the other fiend races, resulting in them becoming a common enemy to the others. After that matter, they were heard of less and less, to the point that even if there are any survivors now, they wouldn’t dare to reveal their identities.”
Yan Xuehen was moved by Yu Yanluo’s information. She said, “I have heard the legend of the pangolins too. Just now, the fat daoist’s entire body curled up into a ball and he moved by rolling, which resembles one of the pangolins’ rumored secret escape arts.”
The group had already arrived next to the remains. Yun Jianyue pointed at the corpse’s hand and tailbone and said, “That is indeed the case. Look…”
They hadn’t been able to see it clearly when they were still far away, but now that they examined it up close, they all saw that the remains were male. However, he was quite a bit shorter than an ordinary person, and his fingers were especially slender and long. The tips of those fingers were also somewhat sharp. Apart from that, the tailbone area stuck out a bit, as if the individual’s tail hadn’t completely disappeared due to evolution, so it clearly wasn’t a human skeleton.
Even though there were many kinds among the fiend races, most of them still more or less resembled humans. Of course, they all still had some of their races’ unique traits too. Even for those born as different monsters, they normally took human form after just a few years. After all, this was a world of cultivation, and human bodies were the closest to the dao. Those who wanted to cultivate practically all had to retain a human form.
Meanwhile, for many beasts, no matter how strong they were, they could still only be called beasts. Apart from their lack of intelligence, their inability to turn into a human form like normal fiend race cultivators was another important reason.
…
“This seems to be a legacy of the Pangolin race,” Yu Yanluo said. She was the one who understood the fiend races the most out of the group. After examining the remains for a bit, she voiced her conclusion. “I remember that the last time the Pangolin race became prominent was a hundred years ago. Back then, there was an exceptional old ancestor named Chuan Shan. His cultivation was even greater than that of any of the ancestors before him, and whenever he set his hand to the task, he would always find a top-level tomb. The various races had already had him on their wanted list for a long time, but not only were they unable to find him, he instead managed to successfully excavate quite a few of their ancestral tombs as revenge.
“That caused quite the uproar, and his bounty rose by another order of magnitude. However, for some reason, he suddenly vanished. People all said that he must have failed because of some kind of miscalculation or inattentiveness and died within some formidable tomb. Don’t tell me this is him?”
The others were all shocked when they heard the story. Yun Jianyue and Yan Xuehen carefully examined the remains before speaking. “Based on the remains’ condition, this person might have been a pseudo-grandmaster, or perhaps someone who had just broken through into the grandmaster rank. These are just bones, though, so it’s hard to say for sure.”
“Around the grandmaster level, huh…” Zu An muttered, and his expression grew serious. He continued, “Even someone with such high cultivation died here, and he was someone who frequently entered all kinds of tombs. He definitely didn’t lack experience or ways to protect himself, so just what kind of being was able to kill him?”
Afterward, he went to turn over the corpse. He wanted to see what the cause of death had been. Suddenly, however, his eyes narrowed. He moved the corpse aside and dug into the dirt underneath, taking out a book. It seemed to have been woven out of golden silk.
The women were shocked. Even the bones nearby had decayed, and yet this book was still fine. It was definitely extraordinary!
“Huh? What’s written in this book?” The women had quite extensive knowledge, but the characters were too strange, and were entirely different from any characters they knew.
However, Zu An was startled. He couldn’t be more familiar with such characters. He had already seen them several times in secret dungeons, because they were the characters used in ancient China. As he had Mi Li for a teacher, he was already well-versed in reading such lesser seals. He exclaimed, “One drop of heaven’s essence!”
The women were bewildered when they heard him read the words. What in the world was he saying?
Zu An turned the title page and saw that apart from the main text, there were some smaller annotations. They were clearly notes the corpse had made when he was still alive.
The notes roughly indicated that he had obtained the book after risking his life, but unfortunately, he couldn’t recognize the characters. He felt deep regret over that fact. Still, he was a genius, and by combining all the things he had learned in his lifetime, he was able to gather some superficial knowledge from some of the diagrams and the way the characters were written. That had allowed him to far surpass his race’s seniors, enabling him to become successful in every endeavor.
He had even been able to find numerous ki stone mines and various wondrous places containing great beauty and resources. He had obtained far more resources than anyone else, so his cultivation had shot up tremendously, allowing him to even surpass his race’s ancestors. The more he realized how formidable the book was, the more vexed he had become that he couldn’t read all of its contents…
“It was Ancestor Chuan Shan after all,” Yu Yanluo said when she saw the inscription toward the end. Ancestor Chuan Shan had placed a claw stamp over his signature. It was clearly shaped like the pendant the others had fought over earlier.
“It’s a pity that we don’t know what this book is about. Judging from how Ancestor Chuan Shan described this book, even I’m getting a bit tempted,” Yun Jianyue said regretfully.
Zu An gave the title page a look. He slowly read out, “To those who desire the knowledge of the three fundamentals and countless schools of thought, one must first observe the emperor’s record and divine arts…”
1. These are references to the novel series ‘Ghost Blows Out the Light’. ☜
