Leaving the Auspicious Cloud Cape with Bu Jingshuang to send everyone back to the Tongyou Stronghold, Shang Xia started to head back alone.

The pillar of light in the distance grew bigger in his sight as he flew closer.  0

Without the snowstorm Shang Xia summoned before, the pillar might seem a little thinner than it was, but it wasn’t obstructed by anything anymore.

“This is strange… Those people might not have the Crimson Soul Tablet to absorb world origin like I do, but their speed of absorption shouldn’t be this slow either. It has been some time since we left and the pillar of light is still shining bright. Aren’t they just waiting for others to come fight them for it?” Shang Xia frowned and he couldn’t understand what was going on.

Because of that, he deliberately slowed down and he was no longer in a rush to show himself to fight for world origin. Concealing his aura, he started to move slowly in the direction of the light pillar.

Back when Shang Xia saved Yan Su’er from her predicament, he distracted them by heading to the pillar and sucking up a third of the world origin it emitted. However, he didn’t check on the Crimson Soul Tablet’s condition after he was done as the situation was too urgent.

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Now that he wasn’t in a rush to get back, he turned his attention to his sea of consciousness only to be greeted with a shocking sight. The Crimson Soul Tablet was glowing red, and as he inspected the tablet from all 4 directions, he discovered that 3 faces had been perfectly restored. Not a trace of its previous damage could be seen. The only crack that remained was on the first face of the tablet. It was pretty intense as the crack spanned the entire face with no signs of healing at all.

Shang Xia couldn’t understand why that was the case. A third of the world origin contained in the pillar of light wasn’t a small amount! Moreover, the world origin contained in the light pillar was extremely pure and refined! It was countless times better than whatever world origin he absorbed during the Origin Tide in the battlefield between the two worlds back then.

According to Shang Xia’s estimations, such a huge influx of world origin would at least be able to restore the first face of the tablet. Even if it couldn’t restore most of it, at least the crack should start to show signs of closing up. He thought that at least a third of the crack would be gone but from the looks of it, the world origin didn’t seem to affect the first face of the tablet at all. Something seemed strange and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Where in the world did the world origin he absorbed go?!

Shang Xia continued to observe the Crimson Soul Tablet and he examined the glow that was covering its entire surface.

Is this where all the world origin went?

As the thought flashed through his mind, Shang Xia tried to touch the layer of light that surrounded the tablet but to no avail.

An impulsive thought filled Shang Xia’s mind suddenly and his divine perception landed on the cracked face of the tablet before burrowing its way in.

“Boom!” 

Shang Xia felt as though his divine perception had fallen into a bottomless abyss and was swallowed by some strange beast without so much as dregs of it being left. His entire body trembled as beads of perspiration filled his forehead.

Unable to suppress the fear that was spouting in his heart, Shang Xia felt it pounding wildly in his chest. Only after inspecting the tablet again and making sure that he was in no danger from what just happened, his divine perception once again covered the tablet. To be more exact, he sent it back into the ‘bottomless abyss’ through the crack. With his previous experience, Shang Xia managed to suppress his emotions as he tried to inspect what was in the crack.

The further his divine perception extended, the more Shang Xia realized what was going on. The bottomless abyss wasn’t actually an abyss. Instead, it resembled a crack that formed naturally inside a mountain due to multiple factors from its environment. 

The more he looked through the crack, the more he realized that it was spreading out in all directions on the surface of the tablet. It resembled some sort of natural maze that was created by the world.

Finally, Shang Xia was struck by an epiphany. The crack didn’t extend all the way to the abyss. What he was looking at was the insides of the Crimson Soul Tablet!

The giant ridges were the cracks that existed on the surface, and the more Shang Xia examined it, the more he realized the extent of damage the Crimson Soul Tablet suffered. Even the insides were damaged!

The world origin he absorbed in the past might allow the cracks on its surface to recover, but that didn’t mean that it would restore the damage to the core of the tablet. Because he absorbed so much world origin from the pillar of light, it seemed as though the core of the Crimson Soul Tablet was finally starting to recover. Other than sealing the crack on the second surface of the tablet, a huge portion of the energy was probably used to repair the insides!

If Shang Xia only cared about restoring the cracks on the tablet and ignored repairing its core, the strange treasure that Shang Xia hadn’t fully wrapped his head around would definitely suffer a ton of hidden damage in the future. 

Also, if he restored the cracks on all four surfaces before discovering the damage to the Crimson Soul Tablet’s core, he might not even have discovered it! 

Going back to why the first face of the tablet wasn’t restored, Shang Xia had nothing to do with it! It was probably a move by the tablet itself to prevent Shang Xia from missing the crux of the problem. Also, the power that devoured Shang Xia’s divine perception in the tablet was in no way weak. He was only able to barely withstand it after entering the Martial Extermination Realm and that was why he only discovered its damage now.

As his refinement of his extermination origins grew stronger, so did his divine perception. Shang Xia understood that he would eventually be able to withstand the devouring power within the Crimson Soul Tablet after he got stronger and stepped through the gates to a higher power.

Finally uncovering a part of the mystery, Shang Xia retracted his divine perception and sighed heavily while looking at the crack on the first face of the tablet.

Even though he only inspected it for a split second, Shang Xia was sure that restoring the core of the tablet was going to be much more difficult than the cracks on the surface. The amount of world origin he would require would be massive!

He was afraid he was going to be on the hunt for world origin for a long, long time.

What in the world is the Crimson Soul Tablet anyway?!

…

Finally throwing the matter of the Crimson Soul Tablet to the back of his mind, Shang Xia continued to advance in the direction of the pillar of light. Before he knew it, he was merely 200 miles away.

Several fluctuations that didn’t seem too powerful brushed against him and he could tell that a battle was happening to his left, tens of miles away. With a sudden thought, Shang Xia carefully started heading over.

“Is that a formation?!” Shang Xia gasped in shock. However, he quickly noticed something strange about it. “No, that doesn’t seem right. It seems to be a trap made up of countless restrictions!” 

Shang Xia muttered to himself before making his way over slowly.

The closer he got, the clearer the fluctuations.

“There really is a battle among Martial Extermination Realm experts! However, the restrictions from before aren't really a trap! It seems to be a double layer formation with intricate restrictions working within… The way they set it up is truly amazing! Not only did it trap a Martial Extermination Realm expert within, it can also suppress the shockwaves and energy fluctuations of the battle!” Shang Xia muttered to himself. The closer Shang Xia got to it, the more wary he became.

If the enemy could set up a trap like that, they definitely had the ability to set up another one. If he stepped into it unknowingly, things would get messy.

At the same time, he sighed to himself. Not too much time had passed since he left with Yan Su’er, but those people had already laid down such powerful formations around the pillar of light. They definitely had extremely powerful foundations and a ton of resources if they were able to act so quickly.

Aboriginal cultivators of the Manyu Continent would never be able to do something like that. To them, mid-grade weapons were like absolute treasures. They couldn’t possibly take out so many resources to lay down a double layer formation in such a short amount of time.0

If Shang Xia had a strong suspicion that Cen Yu and Liu Yu were from the mysterious third faction before, there was no room for doubt anymore. Now that he had seen the double layer formation, Shang Xia was certain that they were part of the mysterious third faction.

Realizing they were from the mysterious third faction was one thing, but with the strange actions they were taking, Shang Xia wondered what their goal was.

With a multitude of thoughts running through his mind, Shang Xia decided to shatter the formation to see how things would play out. Raising his palm, he sent his Four Constellation Palm barreling straight for the intricate double layer formation.

Shang Xia was extremely familiar with his Four Constellation Palm at that point. Every time he refined his Four Seasons Extermination Origins a little more, he would grow stronger. The power his Four Constellation Palm contained grew with him.

“Pop…”

There wasn’t a heaven-shaking explosion when Shang Xia’s Four Constellation Palm slammed into the formation. The basic light barrier that protected the formation dissolved quickly and the energy fluctuations it concealed quickly filled the surroundings. 

This time, a blast that shook the earth was produced and the Snowy Peaks Mountain Range that was around the formation started to crumble.

Destroying the suppression layer wasn’t the only thing Shang Xia’s Four Constellation Palm did. It struck directly into the eye of the formation and even though it failed to shatter the formation completely, its effects were apparent. With the endless cycle of the four seasons, the formation seemed to age rapidly and its potency was no longer as great as before.

…

To be able to last so long in the double layer formation, the Martial Extermination Realm expert who was trapped was no weakling. He quickly discovered the weakening formation and knew that his chance to break out had arrived. Pushing his inner qi to the limit, he smashed a hole directly through the formation to escape.

A loud explosion resounded through the skies when the expert broke out from the formation. He looked to be in an extremely bad state and he quickly swept his gaze across his surroundings. He didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t stop him from raising his truncheons to assume a defensive stance. He yelled in the direction of the formation, “Bitch! Who the fuck are you?! How dare you plot against me? I was almost done in by your nasty schemes…” 

The screen of light that formed the other formation layer where the man broke out from flickered and a familiar face appeared.

Liu Yu glanced at her surroundings suspiciously before staring at the first layer of the formation that had been greatly corroded. Her expression turned extremely ugly.

When Shang Xia saw Liu Yu emerging from the second formation layer, he was equally as shocked. At the same time, his curiosity about the other person who emerged peaked.

Liu Yu was no weakling. She was an expert at the fourth layer of the Martial Extermination Realm. Even though she was a little timid and frequently failed to catch the best opportunity to make her move, she was merely a little weaker than Yan Su’er.

From the looks of both parties when they emerged, Shang Xia could tell that even with the help of the formation, Liu Yu could barely gain an upper hand against the other cultivator. That wasn’t all. The expert who emerged after detecting the weakening of the first layer broke out with his own strength! It was clear he wasn’t weak at all.

Instinctively, Shang Xia concentrated even more to conceal his presence.