“Step, Step…..”
“Crash, Crash….”
Sounds of incomparably heavy footsteps came from behind the altar. Hearing that, Ning Cheng forcibly tried to calm down and look at the source.
A giant, about ten feet in height, walked in his direction step by step. Each time its foot fell on the ground, it caused everything to tremble.
What shocked Ning Cheng, even more, was the sad state of this giant. This giant had a huge hole in its chest and no heart. It looked like someone had torn out its heart, spilling fresh blood down its chest. Moreover, this giant only had one arm, and huge chains seemed to bind the only arm along with its two feet. Every step the giant took, those chains would make crashing-like sounds.
One of its eyes sockets had no eye at all, utterly empty like an empty hole, while the other eye looked blind. As for the empty eye socket, it kept dripping black blood. Only the word ‘miserable’ could describe the state of this giant.
“I offered my blood as sacrifice, give me back my heart…..”
“I offered my blood as sacrifice, give me back my eyes….”
……
As the giant walked up to the altar, it kept repeating the same two sentences over and over again.
Ning Cheng subconsciously looked back at the blood lake directly opposite to him and the altar. His gaze immediately focussed on that giant heart above the blood lake. Did that heart belong to the giant?
By this time, that giant had already walked up to the altar. However, the giant showed no care about the altar; instead, he reached out to grab the heart suspended above the lake. At the same time, he kept calling out, “I offered my blood as sacrifice, give me back my heart….. I offer my blood as sacrifice, give me back my eyes…..”
However, it looks like whoever created those three chains locking the giant’s body had created it for a specific length. The single arm of the giant could only reach the edge of the lake, and could not advance by even a tiny bit.
Looking at the giant’s body, desperately reaching out to grab the heart suspended over the blood lake, deep and mournful feelings started to rise up in Ning Cheng’s heart. It even gave birth to the thought of helping the giant get his heart back. Or rather, help the giant cut off and free it from the three chains binding it.
However, Ning Cheng didn’t lose his mind. He can’t even protect himself right now and already had difficulties staying alive in the middle of this altar and the lake of blood, let alone try cutting off those three chains. Besides, when it came to those three chains, he might not be able to cut it off even in peak condition.
At this time, the altar suddenly gave out a groaning sound, similar to the sound of a horn one would hear in a battlefield. That groaning sound immediately made Ning Cheng even more uneasy, but he had no way of stopping it.
When the groaning sound emerged, the giant turned even more desperate to grab the heart. It tried to inch and claw its way forward, but the chains binding it kept pulling it back like a taught iron wire.
Maybe because the giant struggled too much, but Ning Cheng suddenly felt a familiar aura from it. It was as if he had encountered a similar aura somewhere in the past.
Not waiting for Ning Cheng to think about it carefully, the dark red insects in the blood lake started to swarm out once again, seemingly under the effects of the groaning sound.
It’s just that these insects now seemed to follow an order, and did not rush towards Ning Cheng. However, Ning Cheng’s expressions quickly changed. He was an array formation master; meaning, he was proficient with array formations. As such, he immediately understood what these insects were doing.
These insects were arranging themselves into a top-notch blood-draining array formation. Once this array formation took shape, it would immediately draw every scrap of blood in the surroundings into the blood lake. In other words, even the blood inside a body would face the same fate.
What a vicious son-of-a-bitch! This bastard even controlled these insects to arrange themselves into setting up a blood-draining grand array using the sound from the altar. Although Ning Cheng felt angry and outraged, he could not find a way to counter it.
“Ka-Ka…..” As the insects continued to arrange themselves, the array formation finally took shape.
A horrifying suction suddenly erupted. Ning Cheng quickly materialised the shadow of the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort, but that shadow could not last for even a moment before it dissipated under the suction force.
Immediately following that, the Essence Blood in his body, without any control, started to seep out of his skin and bones, moving towards the blood lake.
“Weng…. ” While Ning Cheng continued to resist, the blood within the giant’s body rushed out like a blood bridge and poured into the blood lake.
This sight made Ning Cheng even sadder as he looked at that the tortured giant. He also understood that the existence who locked this giant up had not only kept it confined here but even continually extracted blood from this giant’s body.
At this time, Ning Cheng understood the origins of the blood in this blood lake. It turns out, the blood filling the blood lake came from this giant.
The roar from the giant turned even more melancholic and quick, “I offered my blood as sacrifice, give me back by heart…… I offered my blood as sacrifice, give me back my eyes….”
“Kacha….” A cracking sound emerged and the shadow of Ning Cheng’s Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort once again cracked apart under the suction forces.
Although feeling tired and exhausted, Ning Cheng once again condensed the Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort’s shadow and shouted at the giant, “You must not forcibly take your heart, you can’t grab it right now. You’re only letting the blood lake suck away your blood. Go back quickly. But before you go back, I’d like to ask you to do me a favour. Tear apart void here and let me go. As long as I, Ning Cheng, remain alive, I will come here one day to help you regain your heart.”
The giant suddenly stopped its actions of wanting to rush into the blood lake and looked at Ning Cheng through the empty eye socket.
Seeing the giant’s reaction, Ning Cheng shouted even louder, “You can believe in me. As long as I live, I will definitely help you.”
“Many years ago, I helped someone like you. But he never came back to help me…..” The giant spoke slowly with a hoarse voice devoid of any emotion.
Ning Cheng froze, he didn’t expect someone to cheat the giant in front of him. It immediately made him angry. That son-of-a-bitch not only cheated this giant, that bastard would also be the reason of him dying here.
Just when Ning Cheng wanted to explain, the giant suddenly spoke up, “I will help you….”
With those words, the giant raised his only hand and grasped at the void before pulling down. A tear appeared in space in front of Ning Cheng, and a spacial wind edge shot out from the torn void.
After the giant tore the space open, it then ignored Ning Cheng and once again tried to reach the blood lake to grab its heart, “I offered my blood, give me back my heart….. I offered my blood, give me back my eyes…..”
Ning Cheng’s spirits immediately lifted and shouted at the giant, “I’m leaving. You should really stop trying to force yourself to grab the heart. Listen to me and go back quickly. One day, I promise to come back to help you. This Ning Cheng vows to never break this promise….”
“Katcha….” The shadow of Everlasting Blue Thunder Fort broke apart once again, while the void, torn apart by the giant, also started to close up. Ning Cheng did not dare to delay for an extra moment. After saying this, he quickly rushed into the void torn open by the giant.
“Boom….” Ning Cheng had just disappeared when the void torn open by the giant completely closed. The blood lake and the altar along with the giant behind it also disappeared.
Ning Cheng remained standing within the chaotic space. Despite the spacial wind edges striking his body, Ning Cheng stood there for a full incense stick worth of time before he murmured to himself, “As long as I Ning Cheng do not die, I will return here one day to kill those disgusting insects, destroy that Altar of Forefather’s Library and cut off those three chains!!”
With those words, Ning Cheng silently looked back. At this moment, he felt his own incomparable insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Even though his cultivation had reached the middle-level of Heaven Seated Realm, he was still an ant within the vast universe. There were still countless powerful beings much stronger than him out in the vast universe.
Ning Cheng brought out the Starry Sky Wheel and prepared to leave when he suddenly stopped. At this moment, he managed to recall why the aura from the giant felt so familiar.
It was because of an eye, an eye nailed to the bottom of a lake.
The lake called White Robe Ghost Lake, within the Forsaken Lands. At the bottom of the White Robe Ghost Lake, somewhere in the endless desert of the Forsaken Lands, was a blue eye nailed to the bottom of the lake by a strange dagger, making it so that no one could move it at all.
At this time, when he compared the aura from back then to the aura he sensed from the giant, he finally understood that the blue eye also belonged to the giant.
Ning Cheng immediately felt excited as he thought back to Princess Mann from Yaren City. Princess Mann had a crystal dot on her forehead which gave off the same aura as the blue eye beneath the lake.
Back then, Ning Cheng had thought that Princess Man wanted to search and prepare a body so that the eye could take over it. But now, he finally understood that Princess Mann’s body had already come under someone’s control. However, the entity who took possession of her body was not the eye at the bottom of the lake, but someone else who wanted to refine the eye at the bottom of the lake into her third eye.
That fellow possessing Princess Mann’s body definitely had some lofty ambitions. To actually want to refine one of the giant’s eye as their third eye.
Ning Cheng suddenly felt some regret in his heart. He should have killed that Princess Mann when he had the chance. Although Ning Cheng felt sure that Princess Mann wouldn’t manage to refine the third eye so quickly, Ning Cheng also knew that he now owed the giant a lot. If Ning Cheng wanted to help the giant, Ning Cheng had to carry it out to the end. That eye, he must bring it back to the giant at any cost.
