Sword Among Us

Chapter 1176: A Catastrophic Object, Evil in the Desert Palace

When they saw the tragic scene of the person having mercury pour into his mouth, quite a number of people in the hall could not bear to continue watching the sight, so they turned their faces away.

Bi Xuan might have wanted to help, but when he thought about the possible dangers lurking in the moat, in the end, he did not take action. He could only watch his subordinate being drowned by mercury, and only a few bubbles were left.

The old zither player sighed in a lamenting manner and gave Bi Xuan a pitying look. “He is already dead. Martial Paragon, please don’t take this to heart.”

“I won’t let their deaths be in vain.” A hint of pain flashed in Bi Xuan’s eyes. He said, “It’s just a mercury moat. It’s a joke if whoever made this thinks he can use this to make me give up.”

“It’s good that you can turn your grief into fighting spirit, but there are many strange things about this moat. I believe that there are other peculiar things in it, and we might need to take some time to form a plan if we want to jump over the moat,” the old zither player suggested.

Before he finished speaking, Dongfang Bubai spoke with a cold huff, “If that’s the case, you can stay here and take your time to make your plans. We’ve been companions all this way, and I will be taking my leave first.”

Once he finished speaking, he flung his arms, and the people saw three embroidery needles fly out of Dongfang Bubai’s sleeves. They shot into the stone pillars by the sides.

The flying needles sank into the stone pillars quietly, and only three red threads connected them to Dongfang Bubai’s hands.

His expression remained the same. He brought out another three embroidery needles and threw them toward the golden palace.

The people’s gazes turned bright.

Dongfang Bubai’s Needle Tide, which was in Sunflower Manual, was different from the other normal hidden weapon methods. The qi required was gentle and could last longer. The flying needles were also light, so they could easily reach distances many hidden weapons could not. They could absolutely connect the hall with the palace across them.

However, while there were people who thought that Dongfang Bubai’s method was good, there were also people who had derision appear on their faces.

They had run into many traps and ingenious mechanisms along the way. Many of the elites in Myth Realm had died because of this. If Dongfang Bubai could pass through it safely with just a few threads, then the creator of the desert palace might seem to have made a toy, despite the fact that he had spent so much money creating this mercury moat.

Thousand-faced Human Fox bent his back and stood behind Happy. While he sent private messages to Happy, he watched Dongfang Bubai throw his flying needles over with narrowed eyes.

Just as he expected, something unexpected happened.

Once the flying needles passed by the mercury moat, they safely reached the palace across them.

However, just when the flying needles were about to pierce into the golden Qilins outside the palace, the flying needles shot through them in a bizarre fashion, as if they had landed on nothing.

“This is...”

“What’s going on?”

Even though they were far away, the group could still tell that the flying needles did not sink into the golden Qilins. Instead, they shot through as if they were not there.

Dongfang Bubai’s expression changed slightly.

He flicked his wrists, and the flying needles which had pierced through the golden Qilins shot back out of the Qilins’ bodies before they came back to Dongfang Bubai’s hands completely undamaged.

Boom!

The elites instantly burst into a ruckus.

The flying needles were not dragged back based on the trajectory they used to get there. Instead, they shot through another part of the golden Qilins and came back.

“They’re fake.”

“...”

This time, Dongfang Bubai was not the only one who understood. The other people in the hall also understood what was going on with the mercury moat.

Martial Paragon Bi Xuan took a step forward with a dark expression. While the others in the dao of paragon watched with contemplative expressions, he jumped to the air above the mercury moat.

Whoosh!

He jumped approximately 65 feet over the mercury moat.

Then, in a very profound manner, they returned to the hall like a swallow returning to its next.

At the instant he landed, the people in the hall could see that Bi Xuan’s expression had already turned really dark.

“How was it?”

“It’s fake, just as we expected! The palace is fake, and it’s just a mirage that is formed above the mercury river. Also, I couldn’t see a shore.” Bi Xuan practically hissed his answer when he heard the old zither player’s question. He confirmed the people’s judgment regarding the golden palace.

Right after he finished talking, the people’s faces turned pale.

They had been working for a long time, and after experiencing countless life and death situations, they finally survived Great Sky Force Formation, and yet, they ended up still being in the trap.

“How could this be?”

When the people in the hall heard Bi Xuan say he could not see the end of the mercury moat, their faces turned as pale as ash, and they instantly looked much older.

“No wonder. The legends of the desert palace have been circulating for hundreds of years, but no one has ever truly taken even half a treasure from the desert palace.”

“...”

“The desert palace is fake! There are no treasures in there! It’s just a death trap right from the start to the end!”

“And yet we’ve foolishly given up on everything to take risks over here.”

It was no wonder why they were so dejected.

A mercury moat that was 328 feet long was not enough to cause them despair, but a mercury moat with no end in sight that was coupled with a poison that could kill right when a person breathed it in?

The group could not help but feel despair, as if they were trapped in a lone island with nowhere to escape.

The elites in the dao of heaven also felt dejected. All of them had frowns on their faces and looked troubled, aside from the mysterious swordsman with the fanged mask, because his face could not be seen.

“Ten Thousand Years.”

But Happy refused to believe that this was a trap that guaranteed certain death. He frowned and sent a private message to Thousand-faced Human Fox to see whether he had seen something like this before.

He had a scowl on his face. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“What do you mean?” Happy had a thought in his head.

Then, he heard Thousand-faced Human Fox explain. “Logically speaking, the level of danger in mausoleums should not be this high!

“The first death trap is the black sandstorm that only occurs once every fifty years. This is already a test that normal people cannot pass. The second trap is the trap where there is only one sliver of chance to succeed within an area of ten steps. Then, there were the consecutive death traps which can kill armies. The third is the ancient beasts when the sand started rising. The fourth is Great Sky Force Formation. Each of them are harder to deal with than the last. If it were not for the fact that we had a lot of people in the dao of heaven with us, we would practically be unable to get here.”

“Are you saying...?”

Happy could gradually decipher the meaning in Thousand-faced Human Fox’s words, but he was not quite sure.

He spoke with a grave look on his face, “Logically speaking, the difficulty in Great Sky Force Formation is already enough to kill most of the elites in the world. The person who created the desert palace should not have the need to continue creating such large traps. This is already much more dangerous than the most dangerous mausoleum I have ever encountered.”

Happy nodded in secret when he heard this.

Great Sky Force Formation alone had killed a large number of elites in the peak of Myth Realm. If the seven elites in the dao of heaven had not come together at the same time, the formation could kill all groups who ventured here with only two to three people in the dao of heaven. The difficulty in this was already astonishing!

The more Thousand-faced Human Fox spoke, the graver he sounded, “Right now, the mercury moat we’re facing is so large that you seldom see something of this scale. In fact, you can say that it’s one of its kind. Yet there is a poison and a mirage above it. No matter how I look at it, this is a death trap that cannot be solved.

“This doesn’t make sense. All the people who create mausoleums will not create certain death situations, but this is already something that guarantees death. The people who create this mausoleum cannot possibly have placed all their treasures in a certain death situation. There’s no meaning in it. Unless...” When he said this, Thousand-faced Human Fox’s expression suddenly turned incredibly sour.

Happy felt his eyelids twitch, and he quickly asked, “What’s your guess?”

Thousand-faced Human Fox switched between shades of red and white for a while before he turned around with an anguished look and said bitterly, “The person who created the desert palace is just repeatedly creating death traps that are even more difficult to break. The purpose behind it can only be that some sort of secret is hidden in it. Perhaps he doesn’t want something to be found. In other words, the legend of the desert palace is a mistake in itself. There is no treasure hidden in the desert palace.”

When he heard this, Happy could not help but suck in a sharp breath. He widened his eyes slightly. “Are you saying that the desert palace was built to hide treasures, but to hide something?”

“During ancient times, there were a few catastrophic objects that caused the world to be in unrest. The world of wanderers was drenched in blood, and the citizens lived in destitution. There’s a big possibility that the person who built the desert palace wanted to suppress the item at the bottom of the desert palace so that it would never appear in the world again!” When he said this, many of the questions in Thousand-faced Human Fox’s mind were cleared. He spoke faster, “This explains why the palace was built in the desert and chose a place where the black sandstorm will rise once every fifty years... It also explains why there is a continuous stream of traps in the palace...” When he said the last part, Thousand-faced Human Fox was already laughing bitterly.

“I’ve been stealing for my whole entire life. I didn’t expect that there would come a day where I would fall for traps in the place I’m stealing...”

He was one of the four Divine Thieves in the Chinese plains, but he was now cornered in the desert palace.

“Do we really not have a single chance?”

Happy was a little ill at ease because of Thousand-faced Human Fox’s explanation, but he remained calm. Not a single hint of impulsiveness or uneasiness could be seen on him.

He had indeed wondered about how great would the difficulty of a quest in a forbidden land be, but he refused to believe that it was a quest that guaranteed certain death.

As long as there was a chance, he would not give up!

When he could no longer rely on Thousand-faced Human Fox, he could only take action himself and search for an exit and a way to solve this problem. Relying on his NPC follower to clear the quest was in itself a bug, and it was not practical.

“The goal of the person who created the desert palace must be to trap everyone here and kill them.” Thousand-faced Human Fox shook his head slowly.

“The black sandstorm happens once every fifty years. Once it starts, it will definitely be covered in sand once more within twenty-four hours. It’s quite impossible to clear a trap that is even more dangerous than Great Sky Force Formation within that period of time. Besides, I feel that this isn’t the most dangerous trap just yet. When we see the catastrophic object sealed in the desert palace, that will be the time when the most dangerous trap will appear...”

The more Thousand-faced Human Fox spoke, the more dejected he looked.

When he saw this, Happy frowned a little before he said with a smile, “Since what’s contained in the desert palace isn’t a treasure but a catastrophic object that once caused blood to pour all over the world in ancient times, based on your personality, you’ll definitely not be able to die in peace if you die before seeing the true face of the object. Do you want other people to find that you died for an unknown reason before you can even discover the item sealed in the desert palace when they discover your corpse on a later date?”

Thousand-faced Human Fox’s eyes lit up, and an intense look burned in his eyes.