Chapter 218 : Chapter 218
Chapter 218: The Hope Zone Destroyed, the Traitors of Heavenly Emperor City!
【One month later, you and Xuanyuan Tianji reached the height of the five-thousandth step.】
【After entering the five-thousandth step, you found yourselves barely able to move forward. Every single step consumed an enormous amount of energy.】
【At the same time, the purple divine lightning had completely turned into black divine lightning.】
【When the black divine lightning struck your body, the pain made your brows knit tightly.】
【At your current stage, your True Dragon Treasure Body was already completely unable to keep up with the battering inflicted on your fleshly body by the black divine lightning.】
【However, there was also one piece of good news. Under the tempering of these five thousand steps, the strength of your fleshly body had advanced another step within the Mortal Shedding Realm, and the Spirit Bone Realm was no longer too far away.】
【After entering the five-thousandth step, you only advanced another ten stone steps before coming to a halt.】
【You knew that you had underestimated the Myriad Tribulations Stairway, or rather, overestimated the strength of your own fleshly body.】
【At present, after advancing only ten more steps, your entire body was already covered in blood, and even lifting your feet had become difficult.】
【What you had not expected, however, was that Xuanyuan Tianji was actually able to keep pace with you. In your impression, she should never have cultivated body tempering before.】
【But although Xuanyuan Tianji could keep up with you, she was faring no better at this moment. Her body was already covered in wounds.】
【Xuanyuan Tianji did not have the True Dragon Treasure Body to heal her fleshly body on its own, so she could only rely on medicinal pills to sustain herself.】
【In the end, you decided to withdraw for the time being and return to the Hope Zone in the Ancient Emperor Ruins to break through to the Second Tribulation Realm and prepare to complete the fusion with your External Incarnation.】
【After leaving the Fallen Immortal Abyss, your injuries and Xuanyuan Tianji’s had mostly recovered.】
【The two of you carefully made your way back.】
【The tenth year!】
【You and Xuanyuan Tianji successfully returned to the Ancient Emperor Ruins.】
【However, the instant you and Xuanyuan Tianji entered the Hope Zone, the expressions on your faces froze.】
【You saw that the Hope Zone before you had already been reduced to utter devastation. The Hope Zone, which had once been a paradise removed from the mortal world, was now shattered beyond recognition.】
【“What exactly... happened here?”】
【You had never expected that after spending less than a year cultivating in the Fallen Immortal Abyss, you would return to find the Hope Zone already destroyed.】
【And the only ones capable of doing this could only be the Eldritch Race.】
【But there was one thing you could not understand. The Eldritch Race had never taken the initiative to attack these hidden human enclaves before, so why had they struck this time? And how had the Eldritch Race even found this place?】
【In your view, although the Ancient Emperor Ruins was a famous place, the most dangerous place was often the safest place.】
【The Ancient Emperor’s inheritance was of no use to the Eldritch Race, so they had even less reason to come here.】
【As you thought about it, a possibility surfaced in your mind, one that made your scalp tingle.】
【And that possibility was—there was a traitor among the humans!】
【You and Xuanyuan Tianji immediately entered the Hope Zone and released your divine sense, searching for any survivors.】
【For an entire day, you and Xuanyuan Tianji searched throughout the Hope Zone from beginning to end, yet you did not see a single living person.】
【That only deepened your confusion.】
【If all the Tribulation Stage cultivators in the Hope Zone, or even the Mahayana cultivators as well, had died, you could understand that. But there had also been many mortals and low-level cultivators in the Hope Zone.】
【There was no reason for those people to have died as well. Even if they appeared before the eldritch beings, the Eldritch Race would not even bother to eat mortals and low-level cultivators.】
【“Strange!”】
【Xuanyuan Tianji had likewise noticed this anomaly.】
【She voiced her doubts, and they matched your own thoughts exactly.】
【“Wait! Something is wrong here!”】
【Just as you were about to leave, Xuanyuan Tianji called out to stop you and turned her gaze toward a place deeper within the Hope Zone.】
【“There may be a Barrier here!”】
【Following Xuanyuan Tianji’s gaze, you saw that the place she was looking at was the Hope Zone’s Elders’ Ancestral Hall, though it had now become a pile of ruins.】
【You looked through the rubble and down beneath it. Being sensitive to the Spatial Laws, you instantly detected something abnormal.】
【Without the slightest hesitation, you directly used Taixu Dragon Traversal to bring Xuanyuan Tianji flying beneath the ruins.】
【Sure enough, you passed through a layer of Barrier. This Barrier was both extremely well hidden and extremely sturdy.】
【You felt that if you had not possessed the Divine Power Taixu Dragon Traversal, there was no way you could have entered at all.】
【After entering the Barrier, you discovered that this was a dark and gloomy space.】
【The dark space within the Barrier formed a sharp contrast with the paradise-like scene outside it.】
【Not long after you entered the Barrier, a voice suddenly sounded behind you.】
【You turned around and discovered that it was actually Chen Shu.】
【The moment you saw Chen Shu, a look of astonishment immediately appeared on your face.】
【You asked Chen Shu what exactly had happened, and why the Hope Zone had been destroyed.】
【After hearing your question, Chen Shu’s mood turned somewhat low.】
【But very soon, you saw an expression of fury appear on Chen Shu’s face.】
【“It was those people from Heavenly Emperor City!”】
【“Those people from Heavenly Emperor City brought the Eldritch Race into the Ancient Emperor Ruins and destroyed our entire Hope Zone. All the elders were eaten by the eldritch beings!”】
【Chen Shu told you that she had only managed to survive by fleeing into the interior of the Ancient Emperor Ruins at the critical moment.】
【“The interior of the Ancient Emperor Ruins?”】
【Looking at the dark space around you, you finally understood why the Barrier here was so sturdy.】
【If this was the interior of the Ancient Emperor Ruins, then everything made sense.】
【And through Chen Shu’s words, you now knew that your earlier suspicion had been entirely correct.】
【The reason the Hope Zone had been destroyed truly was because something had gone wrong within the human race itself.】
【“Heavenly Emperor City...”】
【“Why would they do such a thing?”】
【You looked at Chen Shu in confusion. In your view, as a human force, Heavenly Emperor City had no motive whatsoever to do something like this. It brought them no benefit at all.】
【Once the Hope Zone was destroyed, you knew that Heavenly Emperor City would very likely be next.】
【However, Chen Shu’s next words dispelled all the doubt in your heart.】
【Chen Shu told you that the reason Heavenly Emperor City had brought the Eldritch Race to attack them was because Heavenly Emperor City had made a deal with the Eldritch Race.】
【Chen Shu told you that because the human population of the Qingxuan Realm had plummeted so drastically, the Eldritch Race had also realized the seriousness of the problem. Thus, the Eldritch Race had decided to begin a plan of captivity.】
【Chen Shu told you that after the people of Heavenly Emperor City learned of the Eldritch Race’s plan, they had taken the initiative to approach the Eldritch Race and seek cooperation.】
【The people of Heavenly Emperor City told the Eldritch Race that if they wanted to fully carry out the plan, then the people of Heavenly Emperor City had to be the ones acting openly on the surface, while the Eldritch Race could remain hidden in the shadows and directly enjoy Blood Prey.】
【“And what could they possibly gain from that?”】
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