"Is this the only passageway?" Luo Yu asked.
Zhen Fu'er nodded, "The young master will know once he goes down."
Luo Yu looked at the passageway that resembled a wild beast's gaping mouth, not hesitating. With his superb skills and boldness, he led the two women down.
The moment he stepped into the corridor, a thick, ancient aroma assaulted his nostrils, and the surrounding temperature seemed to plummet dozens of degrees, as if he had stepped into The Yama's Palace of the Underworld.
He had yet to clearly see the scene ahead.
With a bang, the passageway behind them vanished, and the light from the outside could no longer be seen.
Before Luo Yu could speak, Zhen Fu'er's voice came from beside him:
"Do not panic, young master. This passage to the great tomb maintains its opening for only ten breaths. One merely needs me to deploy the seal again to reopen it."
Luo Yu nodded.
He wasn't alarmed. He had quickly memorized Zhen Fu'er's hand movements, and even without her, he could replicate the seal.
"It's too shabby down here, not even a lamp," Luo Yu shook his head repeatedly. Fortunately, his eyes could see in the darkness, so he wasn't affected.
"Shua!"
A flash of white light appeared. Bai Xiao'e held her cellphone, turning on its light, but it only illuminated the nearby area.
The corridor was very narrow, with the three of them nearly pressed against each other.
The walls seemed to be piled up with Yellow Soil and bore clear traces of carvings by sharp tools. When Luo Yu reached out to knock, it surprisingly felt like metal.
The steps underfoot were laid with green bricks, faintly bearing dark red traces.
"There is no danger here; the young master can simply go down," Zhen Fu'er said from the side.
Luo Yu nodded but didn't let down his guard, activating his Domain and staying vigilant to the movements around him, prepared for any mechanisms.
However, after descending a few hundred green steps in the corridor, there truly was no danger.
Exiting the corridor, the surroundings suddenly opened up.
Luo Yu's eyes were instantly drawn to the sight before him. A giant archway stood directly in front, with a dark yellow stone door shattered, obviously broken by an external force.
To the sides, there were two smaller arched stone doors on each side, two on the right side broken, the other two intact,
"Where do these five stone doors lead?" Luo Yu turned to Zhen Fu'er.
Zhen Fu'er replied, "According to ancient tomb standards, the main door leads to the main chamber, and the four doors on the sides lead to the side and auxiliary chambers."
"I initially came out through the farthest stone door to the right, and fortunately, I didn't encounter any dangers along the way."
Luo Yu looked closely and indeed noticed that the other two broken stone doors had been smashed from the outside in, only the one Zhen Fu'er pointed at had been broken from the inside out. However, he also noticed a doubt.
"Miss Zhen said that the Pre-Qin techniques cannot be cultivated in modern times, so how could one break through these giant stone doors."
Zhen Fu'er replied, "Young master, I've been able to sleep for two thousand years without dying; shattering a stone door should be pretty normal."
Luo Yu was astonished.
That explanation made so much sense.
Zhen Fu'er elaborated, "Although qi refining can't be practiced nowadays, the residual power of qi cultivation in the body can still be used. It's just that once you use a bit, that bit is gone; it can't be replenished."
"However, in recent years I've shifted to practicing martial arts. Although it's slower to progress than ancient Heroic Spirits, I've also reached the Second Rank."
Luo Yu nodded, then pointed at the other two damaged stone doors, "Did you two break these?"
Zhen Fu'er nodded.
"Xiao E and I wanted to enter here to explore, but we encountered dangers. If I hadn't been able to use some of the Qi Refiner's abilities back then, I'm afraid both Xiao E and I would have been buried inside."
Luo Yu pondered for a moment and came up with a terrifying guess.
"You came out from one of the chambers; in the other four chambers, surely there aren't ancient people yet to revive?"
Zhen Fu'er shook her head, "That shouldn't be the case."
"Xiao E and I, after triggering a mechanism before, made quite a noise. If there were people inside the chambers, they would have probably been alerted by us already."
Luo Yu said, "Is it possible that they are waiting for you to break in before dealing with you both?"
"Ah!" Bai Xiao'e shuddered, "It's creepy enough around here, let's not scare people, okay?"
"Hahaha." Luo Yu laughed, and although he remained cautious at heart, he wasn't too frightened, for after all, he was suppressed by the Power of Heaven and Earth.
Even if there were formidable beings in the tomb, they probably couldn't exert any force above the First Rank Summit.
Back in the Tiger-Dwelling Mountain Secret Realm, the Mountain Lord clearly had a cultivation level above the First Rank, but in the end, he could only display the strength of the First Rank Summit and ended in defeat.
"Let's first check out the side chamber; the danger must be lesser there. After understanding a bit, it won't be too late to explore the main chamber."
Luo Yu fully demonstrated what was called strategic contempt but tactical priority.
"Tiny Droplets!"
Luo Yu first went through the corridor from which Zhen Fu'er had emerged. True enough, there was no danger along the way. After seven or eight minutes, they entered one of the side chambers.
In the side chamber, there lay a large luminescent pearl. In the very center, a two-meter-long, one-meter-wide crystal coffin was placed there, vaguely emitting a chilly breath. Peering inside, it was all damasks and brocades, undecayed for a thousand years, but there were no jewelry or burial artifacts.
"I awoke from this very place initially, and then groggily followed the passage to the outside world," Zhen Fu'er said.
Luo Yu narrowed his eyes and said, "Then how did you know the technique to enter and leave this place?"
Zhen Fu'er shook her head: "I don't remember. I was very panicked when I was trapped here, and the technique just instinctively activated. Maybe it's related to the memories I've lost."
Luo Yu was speechless, he had no idea how much of what the other party said was true or false; everything could be blamed on unclear memory.
"Let's go, check the other tombs," he said.
The three of them walked back and entered another side chamber through a damaged stone door, where the floor was scattered with broken and sharp crossbow bolts, the tips of which were emerald green, clearly poisoned.
Luo Yu found out that this was a trap that the two women had triggered before.
Continuing forward, they witnessed a bizarre scene. Zhen Fu'er didn't have to remind him, Luo Yu had already stopped in his tracks.
Two rows of clay soldiers, three meters tall and about five meters wide, stood neatly in the passage of the burial chamber, equipped with various weapons such as swords, halberds, great spears, and crossbows.
Zhen Fu'er's complexion worsened: "Each of these soldiers possesses strength not inferior to First Rank, and it's extremely difficult to pass through this narrow tomb."
"Sister Zhen and I were trapped here before, unable to move forward. Right, these soldiers can't be smashed, they can automatically restore themselves," Bai Xiao'e added.
"Can't be smashed?" Luo Yu raised an eyebrow and activated his Eyes that Break Delusion to observe. Indeed, he noticed something peculiar – wisps of white vapor and blood energy entangled around the soldiers.
"I'll try, you two wait here," he said.
Luo Yu first released the Five Emperors' Domain, with all five domains superimposed together at the same time, fortifying him with plenty of buffs before he slowly stepped forward.
"Step!"
The footsteps echoed in the underground tomb.
"Gurgle, gurgle!"
It seemed like nothing had changed, but Luo Yu had already noticed that the eyes of the two rows of clay soldiers had moved.
Cha.
Definitely something odd.
Luo Yu took another step forward, and the two rows of soldiers began to wriggle as if they all came to life.
When Luo Yu was between the two rows of soldiers, swords, halberds, and sharp arrows attacked him from all sides, sealing off any escape and forcing him to face the assault.
"Damn!" he exclaimed.
Luo Yu was well-prepared, naturally unafraid; the forces of the Five Elements within the Five Emperors' Domain surged together – metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
He unleashed the power of First Rank Summit.
"Boom!"
In an instant, dozens of clay soldiers shattered into fragments.
But in the blink of an eye, all the clay soldiers came together as if magnetized, instantly rejoining and lunging at Luo Yu again.
"This is ridiculous," Luo Yu remarked as he witnessed the soldiers' revival, calling it perverse.
Each of these clay soldiers possessed strength above First Rank; if they could revive indefinitely, it would be death by attrition for anyone.
And the same would happen to him.
"Boom boom!"
Luo Yu, determined to prove this wrong, shattered the group of soldiers over ten times, only to discover something even more terrifying.
The soldiers could actually absorb his power during the battle, using it to grow stronger?
"This is bad," Zhen Fu'er and Bai Xiao'e also turned pale as these soldiers were far more abnormal than they had imagined.
"Do you think that just because you can't be killed, you can't be controlled?" Luo Yu couldn't bear the thought of dying without achieving his mission, especially falling at the very first hurdle—it would be too embarrassing.
"Swish, swish, swish!"
A green light flashed in front of him, and eight Bronze Jiuzhou Dings flew out, whirling, except for the one that sealed Qin Qi, which he did not bring out.
"Five Emperors Overcoming The World Fist!"
"Boom!"
An enormous burst of light from his punch obliterated the ranks of soldiers, turning them into severed arms and broken bodies scattered on the ground.
Luo Yu seized the moment.
"Collect!"
The eight Bronze Great Cauldrons expanded, sucking in the debris of all the soldiers, stopping the peculiar attraction they had for one another and blocking their ability to regenerate.
Bai Xiao'e and Zhen Fu'er were astonished, they hadn't expected Luo Yu to instantly think of such a tactic to counteract the soldiers.