Heavenly Dao Engine
Chapter 1210 - 1210 700 Collective Coma_2

Chapter 1210: Chapter 700 Collective Coma_2 Chapter 1210: Chapter 700 Collective Coma_2 Since these ten people were not dead, Qi Tian could not possibly ignore them. Even if it was not for the sake of their lives but for their equipment, Qi Tian could not just look the other way. However, it was impossible for Qi Tian to go over and lead them out of the Inner Underground Palace one by one.

This was the Inner Underground Palace, fraught with dangers at every turn. One careless move could lead to enormous trouble, and Qi Tian did not want to invite significant trouble upon himself while trying to rescue them.

The positions of these ten people were various distances from Qi Tian. To expedite their rescue and avoid unnecessary accidents, he directly took out a rope. This was quite a remarkable artifact, which he casually threw out.

One end of the rope was held in Qi Tian’s hand, while the other end stretched out continuously. Soon, it had bound the ten people together like stringing candied haws, and then with a pull from Qi Tian, the rope tugged them along as he dragged them out of the Inner Underground Palace.

The whole process was extremely smooth, with no mishaps encountered, which was somewhat unexpected for Qi Tian, but it was undoubtedly a good thing, so he did not delve into it further.

Qi Tian did not rush to revive these ten individuals; instead, he used the Heavenly Dao Engine’s energy-sensing function once again to perform a thorough inspection of them.

Qi Tian had used this method more than once to inspect everyone in the team, and each person had one or several three-dimensional images stored with him.

Now, Qi Tian was conducting another inspection to compare with the previously stored three-dimensional images to ensure they carried nothing unclean or were not possessed by anything unclean. These two types of accidents are common troubles for cultivators, and if one carelessly overlooks them, the final outcome would not be optimistic.

Discovering such situations might be complicated or futile for others, but for Qi Tian, it was much simpler. By now, he had almost entirely understood what each element in the three-dimensional images scanned by the Heavenly Dao Engine represented.

By analyzing the elements on the newly scanned three-dimensional images, Qi Tian could basically determine that these ten people carried nothing unclean. They had not become carriers for such impurities, nor had they been possessed by them; they were still themselves.

This put Qi Tian’s mind at ease considerably. He then started to administer treatment, feeding them some rather precious medicinal pills, after which the ten people slowly came to.

While waiting for them to awaken, Qi Tian selectively treated several Princes and some of the stronger companions, then had these individuals help treat those who had yet to regain consciousness. As for those who had bled from all orifices and died under the spiritual pressure of the black heart, Qi Tian could only have someone collect their bodies into a Storage Bag, planning to deal with them later.

This encounter with the black heart had caused considerable losses to the entire team. Including Xia Xiaoming, over twenty people had died, and more than a dozen others had suffered severe mental trauma, beyond simple recovery through ingesting medicinal pills. They needed a long period of rest, and there was even a possibility they would never return to their original state.

Excluding those individuals, the number of people now capable of moving, including Qi Tian, was only just over seventy. In other words, in the few short days since they left the Eastern Capital City, their losses had already nearly reached half.

Such personnel losses were anticipated by everyone beforehand, and the several Princes, including Qi Tian, had experienced even more severe casualties in the past. They all calmly accepted such outcomes.

Qi Tian gathered the five Princes and called over the recovered Vanguard Team. Together with the Princes, he began to inquire what exactly had happened to them in the Inner Underground Palace. What were those sounds of combat and other noises coming from inside? Did they encounter an enemy? If they did, why were they all unscathed, without a single injury?

A barrage of questions was hurled one after another, leaving the ten members of the Vanguard Team struggling to keep up.

Although the ten members of the Vanguard Team were overwhelmed by the questioning from Qi Tian and the Princes, they dared not say anything otherwise. With great patience, they carefully and in detail responded to their queries.

After this exchange of questions and answers, Qi Tian was surprised to conclude that the ten members of the Vanguard Team had not been able to see clearly the enemy they faced, nor the kind of being they encountered. They couldn’t even describe to Qi Tian what the Inner Underground Palace looked like—whether it was round or square. They saw nothing; upon entering the Inner Underground Palace, they had fainted in a grandiose fashion, knowing nothing.

As for the sounds of combat, howling, and various other noises that Qi Tian and the others heard from the Outer Palaces, the ten members of the Vanguard Team had no idea about any of it. They also dared not assure Qi Tian that these sounds weren’t made by them. The only thing they could confirm was that they didn’t recall making such noises.

This kind of situation does exist in the Cultivation World, where many secret methods can produce such effects. Of course, whether the ten members of the Vanguard Team had been subjected to such secret methods remained unknown.

Confronted with these outcomes, Qi Tian and Emperor Jianwu each couldn’t help but sigh. No one had expected that after outfitting the Vanguard Team with so many precious equipments in hopes they would serve as an effective Vanguard, they would fail to accomplish anything at all. It was a sheer waste of their time and energy.

The only consolation now was that the ten members of the Vanguard Team had returned intact, with no physical injuries and, for the moment, no apparent mental issues. More importantly, they brought back all the magical artifacts they had carried with them, minimizing their losses.

Qi Tian and Emperor Jianwu engaged in a discussion, trying to infer what might have happened to the Vanguard Team inside the Inner Underground Palace. Was their claim of becoming unconscious as soon as they entered the palace credible? If not, what was the truth? On the other hand, if it was credible, what could have caused such a situation?

Emperor Jianwu and the others were inclined to believe it was possible that upon entering the Inner Underground Palace, the Vanguard Team might have encountered the same kind of spiritual oppression they had faced, or perhaps even more powerful and sudden, without any warning. It wasn’t impossible for the Vanguard Team to collectively fall into unconsciousness suddenly.

Qi Tian largely agreed with the judgment of Emperor Jianwu and the others, but he felt that it couldn’t possibly be that the black heart entity, using spiritual oppression from the outset, had knocked out all members of the Vanguard Team; because such an action did not explain the various sounds they had heard in the Outer Palaces.

The black heart entity could only unleash spiritual oppression and couldn’t create those sounds. Qi Tian suspected that besides the black heart entity, there might be another presence in the Inner Underground Palace they hadn’t yet discovered. This being might be as powerful as the black heart entity, and like it, another Nascent Soul Stage existence.