Chapter 1466 – Tragic Death Valley
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After Lin Ming arrived at Heavendevil City he didn’t immediately inquire for information on the emperor jade. Rather, he went to Heavendevil City’s Black God Fort to look at the missions within.
Every city in the Asura Road had correspondingly different missions. After completing these missions, one could obtain god runes as a result.
Lin Ming had already experienced the wondrous effects of high grade god runes. With such an opportunity for more in front of him he naturally wouldn’t let it go.
Heavendevil City was established over a massive area. From the point where Lin Ming entered the southern city gates, he was several hundred miles away from Black God Fort, which was near the northern city gates.
Lin Ming didn’t fly these several hundred miles. Instead, he walked the entire route. As they continued through, Lin Ming discovered that the closer he neared the northern gates, the more solemn and noble the architecture became. There was even a faint killing intent all around.
At the southern gates, both sides of the streets were lined with shops and bustling with many people; it was lively and prosperous. But near the northern gates, these sorts of shops, restaurants, and hotels had disappeared. All of these structures were replaced by fortresses!
These fortresses were built with large and heavy gray rocks. These rocks were covered with mottled dark red traces, clearly left behind by weapons or claws. Lin Ming could even faintly smell the scent of blood here, as if this entire area was an asura battlefield.
“These buildings are all built with heavenly limestone and fused together with the essence of darksteel iron, making it extremely firm. Even so, this stone has been made into such an appearance as if it were struck constantly with swords and sabers. Could there be frequent battles in the northern city area?”
Xiao Moxian asked from beside Lin Ming, a bit surprised. At this time, Lin Ming had already obtained the answer from Soulwhite.
He said, “Heavendevil City faces the endless Great Desolate and there are endless numbers of ancient vicious beasts that occupy the boundless wild. Every few years there is likely some event where vicious beast waves lay siege to the city. The southern city faces the cliff so the northern side is where the battlefield is.”
As Lin Ming explained all of this, Xiao Moxian looked at him with surprise. “How did you know that?”
Lin Ming rubbed his nose, not explaining. Beside him, Monster Prince Duyu snorted in disdain, “He is a native martial artist of the Asura Road, so it isn’t anything at all for him to know this. It’s not like it’s anything new.”
Xiao Moxian chuckled once before not speaking further.
The three of them soon arrived at Heavendevil City’s Black God Fort. Before they entered Heavendevil City they had changed their appearances once more. This was to prevent any of those ambitious people at Precipice Cliff tracking them and causing further trouble.
Heavendevil City’s Black God Fort was several times larger than the one in the City of Discord, and the martial artists here were also of a higher caliber. In the City of Discord there were many Life Destruction martial artists. But here, one rarely saw even Divine Sea martial artists. And even if one did see them, they were often the staff of Black God Fort who belonged to the common people of Heavendevil City.
Those who had the daring to adventure deep into the Great Desolate were mostly Divine Lords or above.
Lin Ming stepped up to the mission board. This mission board was the same as the one in the City of Discord. The various missions were listed along with a price tag. If one had origin energy runes they could trade them for a mission badge.
However, what surprised Lin Ming was that there were two rare blue soul level missions, and these two missions only needed a small number of origin energy runes to purchase. Moreover, although they had hung on the mission board for some time now, there were very few people who asked about them.
“Mm? How peculiar. Are these missions extremely difficult?”
Lin Ming traced his chin. He read over the content of the two mission badges.
The first rare blue soul level mission was to enter God Burying Ridge and obtain a god burying stone. At that time, the god burying stone would fuse together with the mission badge and one could obtain a god rune as a result.
The second mission was to hunt down 3600 high level vicious beasts within three years. The mission badge would absorb the monster energy of these vicious beasts. After fully killing them, one would also receive a god rune as a reward. If over three years passed then the mission would fail.
The difficulty of the second mission was easily understandable. High level vicious beasts were much stronger than ordinary Divine Sea martial artists, and to kill 3600 beasts in three years meant to kill at least three of them each day. There were many middle and late Divine Sea martial artists that came to adventure in Heavendevil City, and for them this mission would be nearly impossible to complete.
As for the first mission, that was simply to enter God Burying Ridge and obtain a god burying stone. The difficulties and mysteries of this mission were naturally located in God Burying Ridge.
What sort of place was that?
“Reporting to Master, this old servant has only faintly heard of God Burying Ridge before. However, I am not too sure of the details.”
Although Soulwhite had lived in the Asura Road for a long time, that didn’t mean he knew everything. The Great Desolate contained numerous secrets to begin with, and Soulwhite’s strength was originally far too lacking to come adventuring in Heavendevil City, thus he didn’t know much about this area.
“God Burying Ridge seems like it would be very fun to go to.”
Xiao Moxian was a young girl who didn’t fear the heavens or earth at all. The more mysterious and spooky a place was, the more it aroused her interest. As for Monster Prince Duyu, he had an extremely ugly complexion. This sort of place was obviously extremely dangerous. If he were to rashly go there with Lin Ming and Xiao Moxian then he would lose his life if he wasn’t careful.
Lin Ming inquired about the situation of God Burying Ridge towards the Black God Fort staff member responsible for issuing the mission badges. This staff member was an old imp man. As this old imp listened to Lin Ming’s question he was clearly impatient. After all, Lin Ming only had a late Divine Transformation cultivation. Going to God Burying Range was the same as a death wish to him.
The old imp simply didn’t want to bother with this little junior who was pestering him with questions out of boredom. However, this was his duty here, thus he reluctantly threw a jade slip towards Lin Ming that contained a brief introduction of God Burying Ridge.
Lin Ming sank his divine sense into the jade slip, soon finding the information he wanted.
God Burying Ridge was an area that spanned a radius of tens of thousands of miles. This was a danger zone that had existed since time immemorial, and countless rumors had leaked out over the last several hundred million years. If an ordinary martial artist were to enter there was basically no path for them to return. Even for peak geniuses, chances were higher that they would end up dead then surviving that dangerous land.
And within the center of God Burying Ridge was a red mountain range. Within this mountain range was an unfathomably deep valley called Tragic Death Valley.
The reason this valley had this name was because out of all those who had ever been seen entering, no one had ever emerged. A tragic death, a death in vain, the meaning of Tragic Death Valley was that those who entered would die without any meaning or value at all. There were many mystic realms where one had nine chances of death and one chance of survival, but if one safely emerged, chances were they would obtain a massive lucky chance.
However, Tragic Death Valley was different. There were no known lucky chances within Tragic Death Valley. Tragic Death Valley was a place where people entered but never emerged. It was an absolute death zone with no hope at all.
In the rumors that were passed down for several tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years, it was said that several Empyreans died in Tragic Death Valley! Tragic Death Valley was one of the most famous danger zones in the entire Asura Road, because it was an absolute death zone.
“Even Empyreans died there?”
Lin Ming asked, his mouth agape. He didn’t know how many Empyreans there were in the Asura Road, but if it were similar to the Divine Realm then there would be several hundred of them. Every Empyrean was a peak genius that had massive destinies gathered upon their bodies. They were all outstanding individuals that had stepped over the bones of countless other martial artists in order to complete their own road to becoming an Empyrean!
Such a person could not be underestimated!
Once a martial artist became an Empyrean they would rarely encounter fatal disasters in their remaining long lives. But now, Lin Ming learned from this jade slip that many Empyreans perished in Tragic Death Valley.
This sounded like a bedtime folk tale.
“Empyreans died there?”
Even the playful Xiao Moxian who didn’t fear anything was still shocked silly. This was a place where even Empyreans died. It meant that no matter how talented one was, no matter how great of a heroic young elite they were, or even if they were a first class martial artist like the Good Fortune Saint Son, they were still nothing but a joke in front of Tragic Death Valley.
This also meant that Tragic Death Valley was a forbidden zone that no one could enter.
Lin Ming thought for a moment and then said, “We definitely cannot go to this Tragic Death Valley. Even if the rumors are exaggerated and even if Empyreans didn’t perish within, it still isn’t a place where we can survive. As for the surrounding God Burying Ridge around Tragic Death Valley, that is still a place where we can go. Of course, we’ll have to make arrangements and think of a plan beforehand.”
The dangers of God Burying Ridge were much lesser. According to the jade slip, God Burying Ridge was a place where ordinary martial artists would die without a doubt and where peak geniuses would end up more unlucky than lucky.
Lin Ming firmly believed that whether it was him or Xiao Moxian, they couldn’t be described as mere peak geniuses.
If they really did die in God Burying Ridge then this mission was too abnormal. It was simply sending any and all heroic young elites to their deaths.
“You want to go to God Burying Ridge?” Monster Prince Duyu’s complexion sank as he heard Lin Ming’s words. He simply didn’t want to go to such a dangerous place. If he was together with Lin Ming then he would become a lightning rod that attracted all the bad luck onto himself.
He no longer had the heart to continue with the Asura Road smelting trial. At the very least he didn’t want to continue onwards with Lin Ming.
“Don’t joke with me. Didn’t you read the jade slip? It said that this is a place where even Empyreans die. If you want to go die then don’t drag us along with you.”
Monster Prince Duyu said, wanting to pull up Xiao Moxian as a shield. But, it was clear that he would be disappointed.
Xiao Moxian jeered, “Can your courage be any tinier? The area where Empyreans die is Tragic Death Valley. It’s good enough as long we don’t go there. The blue soul level mission we have is only restricted to God Burying Ridge.”
As Xiao Moxian spoke, Monster Prince Duyu’s complexion became increasingly ugly. He had actually been called lacking in courage by Xiao Moxian; this made him feel very aggrieved. He simply didn’t want to go along with Lin Ming.
At this time, Lin Ming wasn’t bothering with the dispute occurring between Xiao Moxian and Monster Prince Duyu. He continued looking through the jade slip; there were unexpectedly maps that included God Burying Ridge and Tragic Death Valley.
These maps were extremely rough. This was because in all of these years, no one had ever been able to fully explore God Burying Ridge, thus this map had been slowly pieced together and filled in with speculations over time before becoming barely legible.
Of course, there were likely some people in Heavendevil City that had detailed maps of God Burying Ridge. But, one didn’t need to be a genius to know that these maps would be expensive; they wouldn’t be easily seen by others.
Lin Ming was also only casually looking; he didn’t expect that this map would have any great value.
However, as Lin Ming continued looking, he began to frown. Some outlines of this map were clearly familiar!
As Lin Ming recalled the lines within the emperor jade, he let out a long breath. He had come to a conclusion. The Great Desolate God Trove listed in the emperor jade had an 80-90% chance of being located in God Burying Ridge!
There was also an enormous chance that it was located in Tragic Death Valley, the legendary zone of no return!
“Is the Great Desolate God Trove in Tragic Death Valley?”
Lin Ming was stunned.
If even Empyreans couldn’t return from this place, how could he possibly go?
