King of Creation
Chapter 192 - 189: War Fortress

Chapter 192: Chapter 189: War Fortress

According to Elder Zhongli Jing, the Demon Soul Hall is a magical space inherited from ancient times and has another name—War Fortress!

The War Fortress was the headquarters of the Ancient Demon God’s army and is an extremely powerful war machine capable of both attack and defense.

Even if enemy forces implemented a dagger operation, infiltrating the inside of the War Fortress, they would be unable to destroy the opposing command system. Inside the War Fortress, without a Passing Jade Token, one would encounter illusory realms one after another, as if in a maze.

It is said that if there was someone commanding from within, the War Fortress would be an even more terrifying war machine, capable of both offense and defense.

However, with the fall of the Ancient Demon God’s race, the secret techniques to control the War Fortress were lost as well.

But even with no one in control of the Demon Soul Hall, that is, the War Fortress, relying solely on the automatically operating formations, not much had been discovered besides the War Soul Blood Flag over the twenty times it was opened in a hundred years.

All of this was slowly accumulated by the top entities of various countries, who explored and sought secrets, even venturing outside the Black Dragon Domain to find information about the race of Ancient Demon Gods.

In the beginning, no one even knew the true name of the Demon Soul Hall.

At this moment, a straight pathway glowing with dazzling blood light extended endlessly inward like a corridor, with both sides bordered by a resplendent light curtain resembling a starry sky, but this starry sky was the color of blood.

It was once tested that by walking straight into the blood-lit pathway just upon entering the Demon Soul Hall, even if one flew at high speed for seven days and nights, they would still not reach the end.

The magic of the Demon Soul Hall was evident from this alone.

"The moment of hitting it big has arrived!"

Having walked a hundred or so steps forward, Ye Zhen turned to the left and stepped forward towards the starry sky light curtain.

Whoosh!

A ripple spread across the starry sky light curtain, and Ye Zhen’s figure disappeared within the blood-lit pathway.

If someone now arrived at the place where Ye Zhen had just vanished, made the same left turn, and stepped through, they would definitely fail to follow Ye Zhen’s tracks.

That’s one of the miraculous aspects of the Demon Soul Hall. Once a part of the formation was activated, the entire Demon Soul Hall would shift like the stars in the sky, and all other places would undergo corresponding changes.

This is why it’s necessary to split up upon entering the Demon Soul Hall; coordinated movements are fundamentally impossible.

A single door, three meters high and two meters wide, appeared where Ye Zhen was, with a Blood Crystal Slot placed on one side.

He casually took out a storage ring, his Divine Sense surged into it, and he took out a thousand of the most common Demon Soul Blood Crystals stored within, and placed them in the Blood Crystal Slot.

Opening a single palace door required at least one thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

Sizzle!

The palace door shone with an intense blood light, and opened on its own. As soon as it was wide enough for a person to enter, Ye Zhen stepped through.

Bang!

The moment Ye Zhen stepped through, the recently opened door behind him suddenly shut.

Even though he was mentally prepared, seeing the empty hall with only a desk, a low table, and an empty armor stand, Ye Zhen could not help but feel a bit disappointed.

In the past hundred years, the Battlefield of Demon Souls had been activated more than twenty times, and had been swept through by Martial Artists more than twenty times. Elder Zhong had already explained that the likelihood of finding anything within the first level of the Demon Soul Hall was extremely slim.

Even on the second and third levels of the Demon Soul Hall, the probability of finding anything of value is very low. He advised that as soon as a teleportation channel was discovered, one should immediately head to the next level without squandering Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

Ye Zhen took a look; even the drawers of the desk had been pulled open and were starkly empty, cleaned out thoroughly.

Regrettably, this hall did not have a teleportation channel to the next level, only another connected single door.

After throwing down a thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals, the palace door immediately opened. Ye Zhen seemed to have entered a storage room, but it was completely empty.

After five continuous attempts, wasting five thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals in the process, Ye Zhen finally found a teleportation channel in a room resembling a general’s silent chamber, though each room was as clean as if licked by dogs.

"It seems like my luck is rather poor!"

Elder Zhong had told Lik Shi that upon entering the Demon Soul Hall, finding the War Soul Blood Flag first on the Ninth Layer was influenced by two major factors: luck and the number of Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

Someone with good luck might just open a palace door with a thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals and step right into the second layer. Others might spend five or six thousand, or even ten thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals, and still be wandering around the first layer of the Demon Soul Hall.

Luck is out of one’s control, but the number of Demon Soul Blood Crystals, the second factor, can be managed.

If you’re unlucky but possess enough Demon Soul Blood Crystals, you can still counteract the bad luck and advance to the next layer.

This is why within a hundred years, the Phantom Divine Empire managed to amass the War Soul Blood Flag eight times.

The Martial Artists of the Phantom Divine Empire were the strongest, hunted many Demon Soul Blood Crystals, and their War Soul Blood Flag was essentially won through the expenditure of Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

The same was true for the Southern Barbarian Tribe that was besieged by the Four Countries.

Even with the Four Countries working together to prevent the Southern Barbarian Tribe from seizing the War Soul Blood Flag, aside from the final moment, their efforts would yield no results.

It’s said that each time when entering the Demon Soul Hall, each Martial Artist of the Phantom Divine Empire could be allocated as many as twenty thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

Twenty thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals equal twenty opportunities, and this does not include the one or two chances from their privately hoarded Demon Soul Blood Crystals.

For the Martial Artists of the Black Water Kingdom, it’s very common to have seven or eight thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals; having ten thousand is considered very good performance. Like this time, each person having thirteen opportunities is probably the best yet.

Taking into account the one or two thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals they have privately stashed, each person has up to fourteen or fifteen chances of exploration—and this time, the Black Water Kingdom indeed had the opportunity to find the War Soul Blood Flag first.

Although securing the War Soul Blood Flag first didn’t guarantee ultimate ownership, those who found it first always had a much bigger chance.

Of course, these kinds of limits didn’t apply to Ye Zhen.

The total amount of Demon Soul Blood Crystals Ye Zhen possessed, he himself had never counted, but it was a lot, a lot.

Think about it, an eighteen thousand-strong Demon Soul Legion rolling over, directly crushing any Blood Demon Soul Army below fifty thousand.

Sometimes, there were so many Demon Soul Blood Crystals that Ye Zhen couldn’t even pick them up fast enough, and he could only select the higher-level ones, like those from Ten-man Generals or Hundred-man Generals, to collect.

Ye Zhen felt a tremble of blood light around his body, and suddenly, he appeared in front of a palace gate, with the ancient seal character ’two’ on one side of the door indicating that this was the second layer of the Demon Soul Hall!

A thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals thrown into the Blood Crystal Slot still yielded no reward.

Ye Zhen’s luck was still pretty bad, having entered six large halls in a row before he found the passage to the next level.

If Ye Zhen didn’t have so many Demon Soul Blood Crystals, and had only the ten thousand or so allocated to his team, then Ye Zhen’s journey would have ended right here.

"I hope their luck isn’t as bad as mine...."

Ye Zhen initially wanted to take out tens of thousands more Demon Soul Blood Crystals, to give the others a bit more of a chance.

But after some thought, Ye Zhen reigned in that idea.

He alone had gathered seventy thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals, which was already dazzling enough. Any more, and it might just spell trouble for himself.

The third layer...

The fourth layer...

After spending twenty thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals, Ye Zhen stepped into the fifth layer of the Demon Soul Hall.

"I hope my luck will be better this time...."

After throwing in another thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals, Ye Zhen flashed into the large hall of the fifth layer, which from the fourth layer onwards, seemed to be a Silent Chamber.

Most were rest areas for officers of the Demon Soul Army or other special individuals, with a basic structure that was all the same, or rather, it would be more appropriate to call them rooms.

"It’s even cleaner than a dog’s licked clean eh...."

In this room, even the regularly arranged furniture had largely disappeared, now that he was on the fifth layer, the situation was even worse than what Elder Zhongli had described.

Ye Zhen guessed that if the Battlefield of Demon Souls opened a few dozen more times, all the treasures inside the Demon Soul Hall, except for the War Soul Blood Flag, would be swept clean by the exploring Martial Artists.

After scanning the room and finding nothing, Ye Zhen was about to move toward another door on the left when suddenly, the blood-colored radiance of the door flared up, and a figure abruptly stepped into the room.

"A disciple from the Sword Origin Sect?"

"Ye Zhen?"

The Sword Origin Sect disciple who had coincidentally entered the palace gate was first stupefied and then burst into overjoyed laughter, "Our entire sect wants to kill you to avenge our deaths, and I didn’t expect to encounter you here, haha, die!"

Cling!

The long sword was unsheathed, and within the frosty white sword light, there was faintly the sound of a tiger’s roar. The sword momentum condensed into one in that instant, and seemed like a white tiger pouncing towards Ye Zhen.

"Tiger Roar Sword Technique!"

The most famous techniques of the Sword Origin Sect were the Four Symbols Sword Techniques, the Sect Guardian Sword Skills. Under the Four Symbols Sword Technique, there were the White Tiger, Azure Dragon, Xuanwu, and Vermilion Bird Sword Techniques.

This Tiger Roar Sword Technique, derived from the White Tiger Sword Art, was extremely formidable, and not to be transmitted to anyone but the elite disciples.

Ye Zhen’s gaze slightly condensed, his Sword Vein Divine Power surged within him, and the terrifying sword momentum that had just condensed into a white tiger pouncing on him was, in Ye Zhen’s eyes, decomposed into dozens of sword lights of varying strength.

With one sword strike, Ye Zhen scattered the Sword Origin Sect disciple’s sword light, stepped forward, activated the Wind Cloud Sword Technique, and a hurricane-like sweep of sword light rolled over the disciple’s body. As for the disciple’s Protective Gang Qi, it was directly shattered.

After the hurricane of sword light swept past, the Sword Origin Sect disciple was pierced with at least a hundred bloody wounds, with no fewer than five of them at the heart and forehead.

Even as the Sword Origin Sect disciple lay dying, his face still bore a trace of elation.

Struck dead with a single sword!

"Overestimating your abilities!"

Since Ye Zhen reached the peak of Spirit Summoning Realm, his Spiritual Power became extraordinarily pure, and the last trace of True Yuan was refined and vanished, allowing Ye Zhen to fully unleash the power of the Wind Cloud Sword Skill.

With the support of his Sword Vein Divine Power and a Low-Grade Artifact, how could he be resisted by someone executing a Lower-grade Earth Level Tiger Roar Sword Technique.

With a scoff, Ye Zhen casually took the Sword Origin Sect disciple’s Storage Bracelet and stepped towards another palace door.

On the fifth layer, Ye Zhen’s luck was still quite bad.

He didn’t find the upward passage in three consecutive halls.

Quite normally, Ye Zhen threw another thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals into the slot of the palace door in front of him, stepped through as the door opened, glanced around, and then froze.

There was something!

On the rack for holding armor, there was actually something! (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)