đź“– Chapter 997 - Sealed Ruins!
The visit didn’t last long, and soon, the Senate Chairman personally saw Wang Baole off. It was already late at night on Earth, and as Wang Baole walked the streets under the bright moon and cool night breeze, his expression was rather complicated.
He wasn’t the only one on the street; people would sometimes pass by him in groups of twos or threes. However, Wang Baole wasn’t reflected in any of their eyes. He seemed to be existing in a separate world, a desolate and gloomy one, which also corresponded to his current mood.
He thought of Zhao Yameng and Zhou Xiaoya.
The Senate Chairman had explained to him about Li Wan’er’s disappearance. Due to certain circumstances, she wasn’t selected for Operation Dark Swallow. This made Li Wan’er feel ashamed and unresigned, so… having accessed some of the Federation’s secrets, she traveled to a certain set of ruins on Earth.
Eventually, she disappeared in the ruins and was never heard from again.
This information, coupled with Wang Baole’s memory of the Starfall Realm, served to confirm his guess. In his mind, the figure of the masked woman had already completely overlapped with the familiar Li Wan’er.
“Why didn’t she tell me? Is it that she couldn’t say anything, or that she wasn’t willing to?” Wang Baole shook his head and put away his thoughts. No matter what, they would definitely meet again out in the starry sky. After thinking about it, Wang Baole informed the Senate Chairman about his meeting with Li Wan’er in order to let the older man rest at ease.
At the same time, the Senate Chairman also mentioned that of those involved in Operation Dark Swallow, Kong Dao wasn’t the only one who hadn’t returned yet. There was also no news of Li Wuchen.
However, just like Kong Dao, Li Wuchen’s life-detecting lamp hadn’t been extinguished yet, so he was most likely still alive. Although Wang Baole had a mind to investigate, he also understood that everyone had already embarked on their own path of cultivation. All he could do was wish them well.
“As for those ruins…” Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. The existence of the ruins was a hidden danger. After all, although the relationship between the Moon Star Sect and Earth was unknown, in the end, the Moon Star Sect was clearly extremely powerful. In comparison, the current Federation was just too weak. Thus, there was a vast imbalance between the two sides.
This imbalance meant that the Federation was unable to hold any initiative.
“In that case… those ruins are better off sealed!” A bright light flashed through Wang Baole’s eyes. His eyelids slowly shut, and his divine sense erupted outward, covering the entire Earth to search for all the ruins.
With the eruption of his divine sense, everything on Earth was instantly transmitted to his mind. He saw innumerable houses illuminated in the cities, and countless people experiencing the joys and sorrows of life.
When he witnessed the scene of all these different lives, Wang Baole was touched deeply, and ripples formed deep in his mind. Then he saw the endless wasteland, which used to be littered with ferocious beasts. Now, though, there were hardly any of those ferocious beasts to be seen.
Even if there were still a few remaining, after years of suppression, they had all changed their ways and become harmless to human beings. This was the only way they could survive.
Wang Baole also saw the vast ocean and even the mysterious depths of the sea. The enormous sea beasts at the bottom of the ocean all trembled in terror as Wang Baole’s divine sense swept over them.
“There are no more secrets here…” Wang Baole murmured. He saw spirit qi slowly germinating and spreading throughout the Earth.
Although this spirit qi was weak, it was constantly growing. With the coming of the Spirit Inception Era, Earth’s spirit qi no longer came solely from the fragments of the ancient bronze sword. Instead, it gradually appeared from within the planet itself.
It could be imagined that even without any external help, Earth would become a planet rich in spirit qi once tens of thousands of years passed.
After sweeping the entire Earth, nine places finally emerged in Wang Baole’s mind!
They were the locations of nine ruins!
These nine ruins were scattered in seemingly random spots all over the Earth. However, Wang Baole could faintly sense the traces of a spell formation from their locations.
And there were three places in particular that weren’t recorded in the Federation’s classified files. In other words… the Federation hadn’t noticed them!
They were all located at the bottom of the ocean.
At the same time, with Wang Baole’s current cultivation base, he was unable to sense any unusual fluctuations coming from these nine ruins. Everything about them seemed just the same as any other set of ruins.
However, these seemingly unassuming ruins were the sources of too many disappearances since the start of the Spirit Inception Era.
“The Moon Star Sect… are they enemies? Or friends?” Wang Baole narrowed his eyes. Taking a step forward, he disappeared from the street. When he reappeared, he was already outside the first set of ruins!
These ruins were buried deep in the ground. Above them was a mountain range, where countless ferocious beasts used to gather. When Wang Baole arrived, however, the mountains were completely desolate. Although the peaks were still covered in greenery, it was impossible to hide the pervasive aura of death.
It was obvious that there had been a war between ferocious beasts and cultivators here, many years ago. The entrance to the ruins was a ditch that had mostly collapsed, although it was still barely possible to pass through it. A spell formation had been placed around the entrance to the ditch, and Wang Baole immediately recognized it as the work of the Ethereal Dao College. The mist coiling around the spell formation may as well have been the college’s signature.
“Did the supreme elder seal this place…?” Wang Baole directly bypassed the spell formation and stepped through the ditch, not slowing down until he was deep in the ruins. The ruins were completely empty; aside from bare earth, all he found was traces of a destroyed spell formation.
This spell formation had clearly existed for a long time already, and there were even signs of erosion in the marks carved on the ground. With Wang Baole’s cultivation base, he could immediately tell that this formation was used for teleportation, and it covered the entire ruins. Now, although it appeared to have been destroyed, it actually still contained some remnant power. It was just that the range had been reduced.
After firmly memorizing the structure of the formation, a bright light flashed through Wang Baole’s eyes. The nine Ancient Planets appeared behind him, fusing into the Dao Planet. He lifted his right hand and gently pressed it toward the spell formation.
The ground instantly shook, and the spell formation trembled violently. Cracks appeared on it, more and more, spreading faster and faster. Finally, rumbles sounded out, and the entire spell formation seemed to be ripped apart by a pair of giant invisible hands. It split into four pieces.
A huge amount of spirit qi that could even be seen by the naked eye instantly erupted from the destroyed formation. Spreading in all directions, it rapidly disseminated into the world.
Once that happened, the spell formation could be called well and truly defunct!
After confirming that he hadn’t missed anything, Wang Baole turned and left. Next, he went to the second set of ruins, then the third, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth!
These five ruins were all scattered in different places on Earth. They were found in rivers, deep underground, in primeval rainforests, and other such places.
Their appearances were also different. For example, in the river, there was a boulder that didn’t look very large, but in fact carried a divine ability that made the inside as big as a world.
The one deep underground was a subterranean city, and the one in the primeval rainforest contained an altar dedicated to some unknown god.
All these ruins were recorded in the Federation’s files, so there were traces of seals on each of them. However, to Wang Baole, these seals were far from perfect. Thus, he just directly destroyed the teleportation formations in all five of the ruins.
Regretfully, although these five ruins seemed mysterious, Wang Baole was unable to find any clues inside. It was as if everything was destroyed the moment the ruins were found.
In the end, Wang Baole set his sights on the bottom of the ocean. There, there were three ruins that weren’t recorded by the Federation, and were indeed completely unknown to humanity!
One of them was a huge rotting whale tens of thousands of meters long. Half of its body was buried in the mud of the seabed, and the exposed part gave off endless deathly aura, causing the surrounding sea to turn pitch black.
Another was a temple covered in seaweed. There were traces of damage on it that seemed to stem from the changes in the world!
In front of the temple, there was the statue of a cultivator. The statue’s face was blurred, but the stone sword on its back still exuded a mighty and fierce aura. All the sea beasts that had come near over the years were already piles of decaying bone.
The last set of ruins was a mountain!
There was a stone gate at the foot of the mountain, and runes were engraved on it. There was a strange power contained in the runes that allowed anyone who saw them to understand their meaning.
Sea-Suppressing!