“The heavenly lightning already cracked the seal around the mausoleum. What is he waiting for?” Yang Jian stared, eyes wide, at Gu Li. Gu li was still just standing there, key in hand but not yet inserted into the lock.
Yang Jian had considered the possibility of other barriers that they couldn’t see, which was why he’d opened his third eye a long time ago. The Great Sage wasn’t idle, either. His fiery eyes surveyed their surroundings, but he hadn’t discovered anything out of the ordinary.
The protective coating was gone, and there were no other seals. Yet Gu Li still just stood there, motionless. It was natural that they’d wonder.
“Don’t you think this guy knows a bit too much?” Pu Jingwan glanced at Gu Li. “He knew the situation here a long time ago. He knew the location of the final key fragment, and knew that experts would rush over to the mausoleum. Even if he’s one of heaven’s chosen twin emperors, don’t you think that’s a bit much?”
It was true; Gu Li really did have access to lots of information others didn’t know about.
The others didn’t know why, but Ye Zichen did. He knew that this was because the Outsider Gu Li stood behind him.
The Outsider Gu Li lived in the First Era, and had been through everything he and Ye Zichen had been through.
All he was doing now was sharing his experiences, in their entirety, with the current Gu Li.
When he recalled the Outsider Gu Li, he couldn’t help but remember what the Outsider experts had told him.
The First Era had been destroyed!
Even at his current level, Ye Zichen didn’t even dare imagine how powerful the Outsider Gu Li’s cultivation boundary was. With an expert like that to protect them, how could the First Era possibly have succumbed?
It was just too shocking!
He couldn’t help but glance over at Gu Li. He suddenly recalled something someone had once told him. He didn’t remember who it was, but they’d said that Gu Li was nowhere near as wicked as he thought, and that in the future, his true foe would be someone else.
At the time, Ye Zichen hadn’t taken those words seriously at all. He didn’t think he could ever get along with Gu Li.
But look at the current situation! He was standing here, in the same place as Gu Li, and he’d even handed the precious Divine Mausoleum key fragments to his once mortal foe.
Who had told him that? Was it the white-robed Gu Zichen? Or was it the First Era’s Secretariat Star, Han….
Ye Zichen’s gaze suddenly grew solemn. He didn’t know why, but for some reason, he couldn’t remember the Secretariat Star’s name. He racked his brains, but all of his memories, including the man’s identity, were vague. He couldn’t even remember where the man was from.
“Who was he?” Ye Zichen couldn’t help but press himself for answers, but no matter how hard he thought, everything he’d once known about the Outsider Han Nan had been wiped away.
“It was erased,” Venerate Spirit Treasure muttered to himself. He saw what Ye Zichen was trying to do, and he couldn’t help but grimace.
If Ye Zichen couldn’t remember anything about the Outsider Han Nan, it meant the First Era really had been destroyed. Han Nan no longer existed.
It was as if the destroyed First Era had never existed. If it had never existed, how could he possibly remember it?
“Look! Gu Li’s moving.”
This exclamation caught Ye Zichen’s attention even as he racked his brains in an attempt to remember Han Nan. He glanced toward Gu Li and saw that he was indeed moved. He’d gently placed the key into the lock, and he was twisting it to the lift.
The lock clinked, the clear, soft sound reaching all of their ears. However, the gate showed no sign of opening.
Gu Li took several steps back. He even stood in a dark, out of the way corner, cleaning the entire path leading up to the mausoleum’s main gate.
“The space is trembling.”
Yang Jian’s senses were quite acute, so he noticed the waves in the sky. When the others looked up, they saw that four pitch-black vortexes had formed in the space above the mausoleum.
All four lit up, and stayed that way for quite some time.
This light was dazzling too; it practically obscured the blinding red light the initial barrier had released.
The light originated from four stars.
Within each of the four pitch-black vortexes, a star appeared. All four glowed with brilliant light.
Suddenly, Pu Jingwan pointed up at the sky. “Hurry up and look! The Milky Way appeared, but the Four Great Auxiliary Stars are missing.”
The light of the North Star, the Emperor Star, was so bright, they couldn’t possibly ignore it. However, its radiance only highlighted its solitude; the space where the Four Great Auxiliary Stars usually shone was completely empty.
“Could it be….” Yang Jian’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he looked at the stars glowing within the vortexes. The Auxiliary Stars had disappeared from the Milky Way, yet four stars had appeared here in their place. Didn’t that mean that these four stars were, in fact, the Four Great Auxiliary Stars?
The stars could actually change locations on their own. Moreover, they’d appeared right in front of them!
Back in the Modern Realm, when men confessed their feelings, they’d often say stuff like, “So long as you desire it, I’d even pluck the moon out of the sky and give it to you!”
But everyone knew that this was just lovers’ prattle. Who could possibly pull the moon down from the heavens?
Plucking the stars and capturing the moon was impossible, nothing but a distant fantasy. That wasn’t just true for the ordinary mortals of the Modern Realm, those without a trace of spiritual power. Even rulers like Ye Zichen couldn’t possibly do such a thing.
And yet, the stars were now so close, it seemed they could reach out and touch them.
When the Four Great Auxiliary Stars appeared in the sky, those within Venerate Spirit Treasure’s barrier couldn’t help but feel shaken. The stars’ appearance proved, too, that opening the mausoleum required the four Great Auxiliary Stars.
As starlight spread from the Auxiliary Stars, Ye Zichen, as the Emperor Star, recognized their light for what it was.
The light of the Emperor Star was pure gold. The light of the Four Great Auxiliary Stars was pure, brilliant silver, while the Fated Stars shone a deeper, greyer silver. As for the ordinary stars of the night sky, all of them shone a faint, silvery white.
Brilliant silver shone down from the four stars, but it stopped before touching the ground. It seemed to condense and hover in mid-air. Then, it condensed and formed four human figures.
Even though Ye Zichen had already opened his celestial eye, he still couldn’t see clearly just who those figures condensed of starlight were. But at that moment…
The four starlight figures put their right hands to their chests, then knelt in the air. All of them faced the same direction. Even more shockingly, all of a sudden, the former Howling Valley was bright with starlight.
Countless other figures of pure, condensed starlight had appeared. All of them knelt on one knee, just as the Four Great Auxiliary Stars had, like ministers and commanders bowing to their king in ancient times.
At their forefront was a woman. Her face was unclear, but unlike the others, she didn’t kneel. She simply bent at the waist, but she was looking in the same direction as the other stars…
As for the target of this display of obeisance? It was none other than Ye Zichen!
