“Survive? Is the secret passage that dangerous?”
Gu Qing Shan asked.
The giant answered in his thunderous voice: 「 Over a hundred million years ago, the secret passage was cleaned out by numerous Combatants, leaving very few danger spots remaining 」
The snow-white hawk continued: 「 However, too much time has already gone by, it was only recently that the curse was slowly lifted. Even we do not know for sure how things are inside, everything must be explored once again 」
The time of a hundred million years is enough to turn the deep ocean into a vineyard.
In other words—-
Who knows what could be inside?
Without power, what am I supposed to use to explore this passage?
With that in mind, Gu Qing Shan tried asking: “Gods, since we’re allies, can you loosen the conditions and return my power to me?”
The four statues shook their heads at once.
The giant replied: 「 A pledge is a pledge; it cannot be impeded. Even we cannot violate it, after all, this is a fixed spell set up to prevent any unexpected outcomes 」
Gu Qing Shan sincerely spoke:
“I will be frank, the Fire God is already dead, the Earth God had also left this world, as for the Wind God and Water God——- I have never even heard of your whereabouts”
“At this point, the only one remaining within the space vortex and this void is me, a rookie Earth God”
“As allies, you should at least be able to loosen a little bit, right? At least, if I happen to run into any irresistible situations, you can’t just let me lose my life”
The four statues silently listened.
The snow-white hawk replied: 「 The pledge cannot be violated, however, we have certainly predicted such a situation and made preparations on a smaller sale 」
Gu Qing Shan silently smiled and said nothing with an expression that depicted he was carefully listening.
But then, the four statues didn’t say anything else and started to chant a mystical incantation in unison.
Their voices gradually grew louder and louder, as if summoning something.
The dirt and stone that was within the four Pillar Gods’ encirclement slowly began to move.
Cr-crak.
With a tiny noise, the dirt at the very center of them all sunk down as a small spherical rock floated up.
The spherical rock hovered in mid-air, clearly displaying the innumerable sides on its surface.
——it looked almost like a cut diamond, but the sides were far smaller and much harder to observe.
“What is this?” Gu Qing Shan curiously asked.
The giant answered: 「 An Omni Stone. A natural artifact created by Reality itself, it is non-sentient, soulless, and has no strength by itself, the only artifact that can bypass the pledge of the four Pillar Gods 」
「 And now, it is yours 」
Gu Qing Shan received the spherical rock with his hand.
As he received it, the snow-white hawk continued: 「 Numerous people of unknown origins have gathered at the entry point of the secret passage, waiting for the time to arrive 」
The giant urged him: 「 Go quickly, one hour later, Reneedol’s curse of Primal Chaos will thoroughly fade away, everything will depend on you now 」
Saying so, the four statues returned to silence, completely motionless.
Gu Qing Shan was surprised, carefully observing the statues, then at the spherical stone in his hand.
Lines of glowing text appeared on the War God UI:
[Omni Stone, the treasure of the void]
[This is a precious artifact that was naturally manifested from the space vortex, capable of imbuing its wielder with power]
[Note: The Omni-Stone will continuously imbue you with various abilities. Specifically, it will do so once every hour, and one ability each time]
[After every hour, the previously imbued ability will vanish as your new ability replaces it]
[You’ve obtained the Omni Stone]
[For the next hour from now, you will obtain a new ability]
[Power of the void: Shadow Strike]
[You’ve grasped Shadow Strike and can split into at most three afterimages to deceive other people]
[Attention: The ability imbued by the Omni-Stone is completely random, both the strength and characteristic cannot be predicted ahead of time]
——what a strange thing.
Gu Qing Shan began to confirm his own status.
The War God UI needs Soul Points.
Without Soul Points, neither [War God Skills] or [War God Intelligence] will be usable.
Title Skills… can still be used.
Gu Qing Shan set his Title to [Shen Wei General], which passively increased the speed of his sword.
“Earth sword, what’s your situation?” Gu Qing Shan asked.
The Earth sword replied: 「 As you don’t have Soul Points, I’ve given up on everything else and choosen to keep [Sanctuary] 」
[Sanctuary] was a passive ability that could be used as he wished without any need for Soul Points.
“So even you have to obey the pledge of the Pillar Gods?” Gu Qing Shan asked in surprise.
The Earth sword replied: 「 Of course, all entities with a soul or sentience are required to obey the pledge—— and I want to tell you this, that wasn’t just the pledge of the four Pillar Gods alone, the power of the pledge was buffed by the power of several other powerful entities 」
The Chao Yin sword dejectedly let out a short ‘oong’.
It naturally kept its ability to control the sea, but since Gu Qing Shan had no Soul Points, this ability was unusable.
As for the jade gourd pendant Adorable—–
Xiu xiu xiu~
It smugly boasted from the void of space.
Gu Qing Shan sighed in relief.
It simply snuck through the four Pillar Gods’ statues without being detected, and so wasn’t under any restrictions.
[Spotless Jade] was truly an impressive ability, not even the real Earth Creator managed to notice it in the Age of Old.
“There, I’m starting to feel a bit more confident now” Gu Qing Shan muttered.
He began making his way into the passage.
…
Gu Qing Shan was walking speedily through the passage.
Since there was no light here, he needed to be careful.
Due to losing both spirit energy and inner sight, he was basically a normal person right now.
Fortunately, there weren’t any turns here.
Of course, Gu Qing Shan was cautious of running into a fake disguised wall like before.
But as he made his way through, he found nothing suspicious.
——-which made sense, because any entity who came this far would have all of their abilities sealed, leaving only a single one left.
Most likely, none of the other people had the mind to do something as boring as deceiving others that way.
Even if they wanted to, digging a fake tunnel to disguise the real one after they had lost their powers would surely consume a lot of their stamina.
Meaning it was a waste of effort for very little results.
Time slowly passed.
The darkness was finally dispelled by a faint light.
The exit was in sight.
At the end of the passage, there was a small stone square.
Numerous luminous stones were engraved into the walls and floor in order to provide light.
Quite a few people were already waiting here.
They had split up into various groups that gathered at their own corners, obviously from different forces and organizations.
At the end of the square was a black mass of light.
This black mass of light had obstructed the passage and made it so that no one would make it through.
Noticing a new person arriving, everyone turned to Gu Qing Shan.
All of a sudden, a smug voice chuckled:
“What a sharp one, so you managed to notice my trap and actually made it here”
Gu Qing Shan followed the voice.
Only to see 7-8 cultivators standing together with one of them declaring that.
They’re all wearing masks.
—–this kind of outfit clearly showed that they were people from that parallel world.
Which means, it was them who made that fake passage that led me into the death trap under the sea?
Gu Qing Shan silently took note of this but didn’t show anything on his face.
Everyone is clearly waiting for that black mass of light to fade away in order to enter the secret passage.
Under this situation, not only am I alone, but I’ve also lost the majority of my power, so it would be best to remain patient for now.
Let’s wait until it’s time to enter before anything else.
With that in mind, Gu Qing Shan remained silent and randomly looked for a spot to wait.
But the situation didn’t play out as he had thought it would.
The voice from before spoke up again:
“This guy is alone, but I doubt that he’s the same as that girlie who gained the right to survive through power”
Gu Qing Shan was a bit surprised.
His gaze swept through the square and discovered the ‘girlie’ that they mentioned.
Su Xue Er.
Su Xue Er was here.
One of her arms was dyed red in blood, cautiously leaning on the wall to watch her surroundings.
Gu Qing Shan’s gaze met with hers.
Su Xue Er quickly averted her gaze.
——-Gu Qing Shan was currently using a disguise and was standing in the shadow, so Su Xue Er couldn’t recognize him right away.
Not too far in front of her, there were several masked corpses.
Quite obviously, a battle had transpired just earlier.
Gu Qing Shan turned his gaze.
Only to see several lone corpses all around the large square.
——they were most likely people who came to explore this passage alone.
Aside from Su Xue Er, the other loners have already been purged.
It made sense; everyone here had been turned into ordinary people with only a single ability to their name.
The secret passage was about to open, leading to the Dusty World that was possibly full of precious treasures.
At a time like this, using the advantage of numbers to eliminate the number of competitors would naturally be beneficial.
Gu Qing Shan’s gaze swept through Su Xue Er several times.
Her spirit seems to be good, still full of fighting spirit, she was just injured, blood dripping down her arm.
Every person here can only keep a single ability.
Most likely, Su Xue Er kept a powerful combat-type Card.
That’s why she doesn’t have a way to heal herself.
Looking around, it was clear that the others were occasionally sneaking glances at her, most of which contained ill will.
—–her injuries are gradually worsening.
Gu Qing Shan lightly scowled.
He turned his gaze and stared straight at the group of masked cultivators.
They injured Su Xue Er.
Gu Qing Shan wielded both swords in hand, silently adjusting his breathing.
I currently have an ordinary person’s body, so it’s not quite as easy to kill people as before.
Suddenly, a voice spoke up from another group.
Their leader declared: “You’ve already killed enough, this person is ours to kill, everything he has belong to us”
The leader made a gesture.
His subordinates scattered and headed towards Gu Qing Shan.
