Chapter 749, Mysterious Barrier
With his current strength, Yang Kai really didn’t need to put the people who had come to explore these Ancient Ruins in his eye. With his Soul Devouring Insects in hand, anyone below the Saint Realm was not his opponent.
However, because it was useful to have more people to explore the Ancient Ruin’s situation, Yang Kai had kept himself hidden and simply followed the crowd.
Now that he had a decent idea of this place’s dangers, Yang Kai intended to leave the group and act on his own.
He was very curious about the source of the Yang Attribute aura and wanted to check it out as soon as possible.
And now, his opportunity had come!
Yang Kai felt that Hai Wang Gu wouldn’t care about the life or death of an insignificant character like him.
However, to his disappointment, Hai Wang Gu actually shook his head firmly and said, “No no, how could we just abandon you here alone?”
It seemed like because Yang Kai had contributed a significant merit, Hai Wang Gu wanted to make a good impression to the crowd by showing some concern, quickly signaling to a nearby Hai Family cultivator, “Fourth Brother, you stay here and take care of him, after his condition stabilizes, catch up with us.”
The cultivator who was called out to quickly nodded and then stood next to Yang Kai, assuming a protective posture.
Yang Kai could only smile and nod, “Many thanks for Senior’s good intentions.”
Hai Wang Gu gently nodded, “Good, you heal up as soon as possible and then join the rest of us with Fourth Brother. We’ll be waiting for you two up ahead.”
Saying so, Hai Wang Gu turned around and led the others off.
Yang Kai was helpless and could only pretend to circulate a healing art as the Hai Family’s ‘Fourth Brother’ stood like a wooden stake a few meters away from him.
After half an hour or so, Yang Kai stood up again.
“How are you?” Fourth Brother bluntly asked.
“Moving about shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Then let’s go,” Fourth Brother quickly said, his face showing some slight signs of annoyance.
And so the two of them rushed forward, following the path Hai Wang Gu’s left behind and after about as long as it would take to burn a stick of incense, they caught up.
However, when Yang Kai saw the situation of the team, he couldn’t help feeling surprised.
There were originally about twenty people in this small exploration group, but right now, there were actually only thirteen, and each of their expressions was somewhat grave.
During the short time Yang Kai was ‘healing’, this team had obviously suffered from unexpected dangers. As for the seven or people who were missing, it was obvious what their fate was.
[I must be more careful… this Ancient Ruin is a sitting death trap!]
When he saw Yang Kai and the cultivator called Fourth Brother return, Hai Wang Gu simply nodded to them with a slightly ugly expression, not saying anything more.
“What happened just now?” The one called Fourth Brother walked over to another Hai Family cultivator and asked.
The latter, with a touch of fear still lingering on his face, whispered back, “There seems to be a lot of barriers and traps around this area, one of which was accidentally triggered, causing several of our group to die instantly!”
Fourth Brother paled and didn’t dare ask any more.
As they were speaking, a loud cry rang out from the distance.
Hai Wang Gu, who was sitting cross legged nearby, quickly opened his eyes and stared suspiciously in the direction it originated, muttering under his breath, “The Cheng Family’s signal?”
Saying so, he hurriedly stood up and waved, “Everyone come with me, it seems someone has made some kind of discovery!”
After a few minutes of hurrying along, Hai Wang Gu and his team came across a large group of people that had apparently gathered here upon hearing the previous signal.
And under the leadership of the Seven Family Alliance’s master, more groups were constantly appearing.
After they arrived here and saw the scene in front of them, everyone wore a shocked and excited expression.
Before everyone’s eyes was a large transparent ball of light which was constantly emitting a powerful energy fluctuation. It was impossible from this distance to tell what kind of material this ball of light was comprised of, but from the intensity of the energy it gave off, it was clearly a powerful artifact.
What’s more, it was still completely intact!
However, there was an invisible barrier separating blocking everyone’s way, so all the cultivators who were nearly salivating at the sight of the light sphere could only stare greedily at it.
One cultivator after another tried to approach the artifact but all of them were pushed back without exception, none of them even able to step within arm’s reach of the light sphere.
When Hai Wang Gu led Yang Kai and the others over, the scene was already incredibly lively, with at least several dozen people gathered around.
Upon seeing the light sphere, Yang Kai also became interested and secretly raised his alertness.
A familiar aura sudden emerged from the crowd, and upon sensing it, Yang Kai couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
The origin of this aura was none other than the Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Saintess, who was currently pursing her lips and staring towards him strangely.
Yang Kai quickly put his vision aside and pretended to not see her.
Not having suffered any harm along this dangerous path, Yang Kai noted that she had some skill. She still had a carefree expression upon her face and her beautiful eyes flashed with excitement and anticipation, apparently quite happy at the moment. It seemed that this adventure to the bottom of the sea had allowed her to experience a kind of enjoyment she had never felt before.
[This silly girl!] Yang Kai silently thought to himself.
“Brother Cheng, what’s going on here?” Hai Wang Gu stepped forward and asked another Second Order Transcendent old man.
The loud signal just now had been sent out by this person. The Seven Family Alliance had long resided on the nearby island chain and had developed some special methods to contact one another, so Hai Wang Gu knew exactly who was calling for help the moment he had heard the previous shrill alarm.
There were a lot of people gathered around who had the same questions as Hai Wang Gu and all the other Transcendents nearby Old Man Cheng were repeatedly raising their voices.
“Hold on for a moment, when everyone has gathered, I’ll explain,” Old Man Cheng spoke.
The crowd hesitated a moment before nodding, settling down and waiting.
Time passed by quickly and more teams arrived one after another. Apparently, all the groups who had been exploring nearby had heard the signal and were converging here.
As more and more teams gathered, the group quickly swelled to over a hundred in number.
After waiting for a while and seeing no one else arriving, Old Man Cheng finally spoke, “Good, it seems no one else will be coming.”
“Brother Cheng, can you explain what’s going on now, why did you suddenly call all of us here?”
“Of course! It’s for that artifact!” Old Man Cheng smiled and pointed towards the light sphere not far away, “This artifact’s power cannot be measured, and its function is also completely unknown. When my team first arrived here, we discovered that there was an invisible barrier preventing anyone from approaching it. About this, all of you must have already clearly seen. With just the strength of my Cheng Family’s team, we are unable to break this barrier though, so I decided to ask everyone nearby to assist us!”
Hai Wang Gu’s brow wrinkled before smiling wryly, “Brother Cheng, there is no problem with us working together, but there is only one artifact after we break this barrier, who gets to keep the artifact?”
“Everything is open for discussion!” Old Man Cheng did not respond directly and instead pointed back to the light sphere, “Behind this light sphere is a grand palace, if my guess is correct, this place should be of significant importance to the ancient Sect which once stood here. Otherwise, an artifact of this grade would not have been placed here. As long as we break the barrier in front of us, there will definitely be gains for all of us. Who knows, perhaps there will be even better and more powerful artifacts stored deeper inside.”
“All of that is just your speculations!” Hai Wang Gu frowned.
“But there is definitely value in trying!” Some people agreed with Old Man Cheng.
The many masters gathered quickly entered into discussions and soon reached a consensus.
Hai Wang Gu had raised some doubts just now, but it was undeniable that the attraction of this artifact was quite big.
After reaching an agreement, everyone quickly made preparations.
Each of the Transcendents here was leading a team of between ten to twenty cultivators.
Hai Wang Gu returned to Yang Kai and the others with the resolution the Seven Family Alliance masters had come to just now.
“Everyone needs to contribute their strength to see if we can break this barrier. If we can break it, not only can we harvest that mysterious light sphere artifact, but we will also be able to search the palace behind it. There will definitely be many benefits inside so each of you must not hold back.”
“Rest assured Old Hai, we’ll do our best to live up to your expectations!” Someone immediately shouted out excitedly.
Hai Wang Gu nodded with satisfaction.
A moment later, everyone had been arranged into their positions.
More than one hundred people stood not far from the invisible barrier, each of them holding their breath, secretly preparing.
Old Man Cheng stepped forward and called out, “Everyone must act according to my commands. This defence barrier is somewhat strange, it seems that unless we use all our strength to instantly break it open, it will simply recover and we will have to start all over again.”
Everyone nodded.
Old Man Cheng swept his eyes over the crowd once before slowly raising his hand, his expression solemn. Everyone gathered around all began to condense their True Qi, preparing to attack.
A moment later, Old Man Cheng lowered his hand towards the barrier.
As soon as he waved his hand, a barrage of powerful Martial Skills and artifact attacks flew towards the barrier.
*Hong long long…*
The entire Ancient Ruin shook.
There were only a few Transcendents among the cultivators gathered here, less than ten in total, while the rest were all at least Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh Stage masters. However, with so many powerful attacks being launched at once, the power that erupted was quite substantial and literally shook the earth around them.
Countless attacks landed on the invisible barrier simultaneously, creating a myriad of ripples on its surface, like a thousand stones had been tossed all at once into a calm lake.
The invisible barrier seemed to be extremely flexible thought, so even after being struck by so many attacks, although it distorted quite fiercely, it did not break.
After everything calmed down again, expressions expression became dignified.
The wave of attacks just now obviously was not enough to break this mysterious barrier.
Old Man Cheng clapped lightly to gather everyone’s attention before shouting, “One more time. Please don’t hold back, it is to everyone’s advantage to break this barrier. None of you want to waste time here, right?”
He saw that though the previous attack was indeed powerful, most of the cultivators gathered here had not really used their full strength; obviously, these people had underestimated the strength of this barrier.
Hearing Old Man Cheng’s words, the cultivators that had held back just now didn’t dare repeat their mistake in hopes of getting lucky and prepared to give their all in the next strike.
After waiting for everyone to prepare again, Old Man Cheng once more raised his hand before sweeping his eyes across the crowd pointedly, everyone he stared at fully condensing their True Qi in response.