Star Odyssey

Chapter 1421: Reverse Growth

The Virtue Archives held a special position in the Perennial World. Even the four ruling powers hoped to send their youths to study in that place, but that was easier said than done. Much like the opportunities to observe the Liu family's Sword Monument, studying in the Virtue Archives was but a dream for many people.

Although the Virtue Archives tried to maintain a close relationship with the White Dragon Clan, it was just to remain on opposite sides to the Celestial Frost Sect. Well, the relationship between the Archives and the White Dragon Clan was better described as mutual acceptance rather than being actually close.

"Alright, after we finish our trip in the Dominion Realm, Long Qi will go to the Virtue Archives to study. At that time, I'll have to ask Brother Wen to help him quite a bit," Long Xi smiled as she spoke softly.

Wen Diyi replied, "It can be done."

Although Wen Diyi had only offered him an affirmative to the possibility, Long Xi's attitude towards him obviously became much better, and Long Tian also grew more enthusiastic. Long Tian did not believe that Wen Diyi actually placed any value onto Long Qi. After all, to Long Tian, Long Qi was nothing but the family's son-in-law, and was not particularly important.

Long Tian felt that Wen Diyi had only offered Long Qi an invitation to attend Virtue Archives as a way of showing favor to the White Dragon Clan. Sure enough, it had been the right choice to allow Wen Diyi to join the team to the Dominion Realm.

Lu Yin spread out his domain to probe the paths ahead of them. They moved forward underground, still following Long Tian's map towards a certain direction.

Elsewhere, Bai Shaohong and his party were also attacked by desiccated creatures.

The Withered Glory region was absolutely massive. After all, it used to be the domain of Progenitor Ku.

"The sect has long wanted to explore this region, but was delayed," a man said casually. Given his gentle demeanor, he did not seem like anyone exceptional. When he spoke, his eyebrows moved slightly, which was quite enchanting. This man was Bai Shaohong, the Celestial Frost Sect's Junior Progenitor.

Four people walked behind Bai Shaohong; three men and one woman. Shang Qing was among them. The other two men looked perfectly identical, and clearly were twins. There was also a beautiful woman who had a refined air to her. However, given the fact that she was part of Bai Shaohong's team in the Dominion Realm, she was clearly not an ordinary person.

"I heard that the Celestial Frost Sect has a secret technique that was inherited from Progenitor Ku. I was hoping to come to the Withered Glory region. It seems like Junior Progenitor Bai quite familiar with this place," the graceful woman said with a smile. She seemed quite pleasant.

Bai Shaohong answered with a smile, "It was only a matter of luck that allowed me to receive Progenitor Ku's secret technique. I don't actually know much about this Withered Glory region. Still, we can be considered to be at least a step ahead of the other three teams."

As he spoke, they faced off against a horde of countless creatures.

One of the twins stepped out from behind Bai Shaohong, though it was not clear what he was doing. The withered creatures became confused, and then eventually stopped attacking and scattered.

Shang Qing was surprised.

The woman praised, "If I saw that correctly, Brother Dongshan just used an inheritance from Progenitor Ku."

Bai Shaohong smiled. "Let's go. We'll visit the Voidsoul Palace first."

"We won't go where the map was leading us? That's where everyone else is headed," the woman wondered.

Bai Shaohong's mouth curved into a smile. "There's no rush. No one can take what belongs to me."

Some distance away, there was another group of people traveling a certain direction. They were led by an elegant woman who seemed particularly refined. She was wearing nothing more than ordinary clothes, but it was impossible to hide her noble bearing. The woman was not especially beautiful, and was quite ordinary, but anyone who saw her a few times would become fascinated.

There were people who claimed that a woman's appearance was not the most important thing, but her demeanor. This woman possessed an unparalleled temperament.

In the Dominion Realm, it would be difficult to hide her skin that was whiter than snow. This woman was Wang Su, the Wang family's Junior Progenitor.

Behind Wang Su stood Yuhua Mavis, Unseen Light, Nong Sanniang, and Crown Prince Gui Qian.

At this moment, this team was also being attacked by desiccated creatures. Unseen Light's utility with his domain far surpassed what Lu Yin was capable of, and Unseen Light was using it to protect the team from the attacks of countless creatures. However, a massive creature that looked like a mountain suddenly appeared, and Unseen Light's domain was not able to restrain this beast.

Nong Sanniang then took action. She somehow turned the fallen bark that littered the Mother Tree's branch and had accumulated over countless years into farmland, and the fields trapped all of the dry creatures within thousands of miles.

Wang Su looked around with a small frown. "Reverse growth. The power of Progenitor Ku is more troublesome than expected."

Nong Sanniang sighed. "There are rumors that Progenitor Ku unlocked the secret behind aging and immortality, which allowed him to be able to wither people to death, or grant them immortality. These creatures should have died long ago, but they were bound by the power of the dead Progenitor Ku."

"If that's the case, sounds like Progenitor Ku was a bit like those monsters," Crown Prince Gui Qian said, his voice low and gloomy.

Wang Su turned to look at Crown Prince Gui Qian. "Don't speak such blasphemy. The power of a Progenitor is something that cannot be understood, and your words could very well have just sentenced us to death in this place."

Crown Prince Gui Qian looked up at Wang Su. "Progenitors aren't that mysterious. Your Wang family has a Progenitor, and so does my Specter Abyss. A Progenitor is still a human, so it's impossible for them to know about everything, let alone a dead Progenitor."

Wang Su indifferently replied, "That just shows that you don't know enough about that level of power."

Crown Prince Gui Qian then stayed silent.

Nong Sanniang took the white towel off of her head to clean her face. She then wiped down her arms in a very carefree manner. "Let's go. Lead us to where the map guides us first, and then we can discuss Origin Matter."

The excursion teams from the White Dragon Clan, the Celestial Frost Sect, and the Wang family had all been attacked by desiccated beasts, and the team from Shenwu's Sky was no exception. However, it was clear that the team from Shenwu's Sky was having a more difficult time of things, because Junior Progenitor Xia Shenfei was actually sleeping.

Xia Taili's face was flushed with anger as she glared at a man who was being carried overhead by star energy. "Damn it, Brother, you stink! When are you not drunk? I can't believe that your actually drunk at a time like this. Just wait, when we get back, I'll make sure to tell Grandpa and see you confined for punishment. You actually got me hurt, idiot!"

Behind Xia Taili, Yao Xuan had a strange expression on his face. This was not actually because of the sleeping Xia Shenfei, but because of Wu Taibai.

Yao Xuan had never dreamed that Wu Taibai was actually an elite of Shenwu's Sky's 'Tai' generation. When Yao Xuan had seen Wu Taibai on the Shenwu Junior Progenitor Star, he had first been rather happy, as he had thought that the two of them could join forces to deal with the other people on the team, but he had quickly learned that Wu Taibai was originally from Shenwu's Sky, which had completely stunned him.

Yao Xuan was someone who always put on a calm demeanor. He was the crown prince of the Celestial Demon Empire, and he had learned to not lose his cool, and that was the essence of his way of imperial rule. However, he was completely stupefied at that point where he had learned the truth of Wu Taibai.

What left Yao Xuan even more confused was that Wu Taibai had not exposed him as a trespasser, which was quite interesting.

When Wu Taibai had first seen Yao Xuan, he had shown no signs of surprise and had acted as though he was meeting a complete stranger.

Apart from these three people, there was one more person on the team from Shenwu's Sky: Liu Hao. The four of them carried Xia Shenfei along in a very embarrassing manner. Behind them were endless numbers of the desiccated creatures.

…

Long Tian and his party proceeded smoothly for two days, using Lu Yin's domain to scout ahead. Finally, they were again attacked by creatures. These creatures were flies that grew from the skin in the piles of dead matter. On an individual basis, these flies were much weaker than the bats the youths had encountered before, but they had truly overwhelming numbers. They could compare to the terror ants Lu Yin had seen in the Lower Realm, and the swarm took on different shapes. The entire team was terrified, and they fled back to the surface of the branch.

They looked around once they emerged, and they found weapons stabbed into the branch of the Mother Tree, as well as countless bones. Long Xi was surprised. "A battlefield?"

They had emerged right in the middle of the ancient battlefield, and they saw corpses laying on the ground far into the distance.

Moving any of the bones caused them to turn to dust, and the white bones disintegrated, as did the clothes and even the weapons. It was clear that this place was ancient.

"In ancient times, powerhouses were always on the frontlines when fighting against those monsters. This Withered Glory region where Progenitor Ku lived was at the edge of the Dominion Realm, and they constantly had to fight off the monsters' attacks. Half of those on the ground are human, while the other half are those monsters," Wen Diyi emotionally explained. He sounded as though he was reminiscing about the ancient times.

Long Xi quietly responded, "Without the protection of our Progenitors, we humans would never have reached our current status."

"What's that?" Lu Yin saw a stone tablet that stood some distance away, so he moved towards it.

Long Tian had already moved close, and he read the writing on the tablet: "The Voidsoul Army which was under Progenitor Ku. The entire army died here, and someone erected this monument to pay homage to them."

Lu Yin was shocked. A powerful Progenitor had led this army, and yet all of the troops had perished. The Progenitor had most likely had met a bad ending as well.

When Wen Diyi saw the stone tablet, he suddenly thought of something, and he touched the monument, causing it to turn to dust.

Long Tian and the others did not react. While they did not know what Wen Diyi was thinking, they felt they should follow along.

Elsewhere, at the edge of the battlefield, Wang Su and her team were also looking at the weapons that had been stabbed into the branch, as well as the bones that turned to dust when touched. All of them looked very somber.

"An ancient battlefield. There should be something that was left behind here," Crown Prince Gui Qian commented.

Wang Su casually replied, "During the ancient times, humanity was at an absolute disadvantage. Humanity lost far more of those ancient battles than we won, and even when we did triumph, only less than one person in 10,000 would survive. Despite that, we still managed to defeat those monsters. Any idea why?"

Nong Sanniang sighed. "Because they brought their enemies down with them."

Unseen Light and Yuhua Mavis did not understand what was being discussed.

Wang Su continued, "Once humans realized that they were doomed to lose to the war, they developed a tactic of mutual destruction. Even if they couldn't win, they could still force a draw. This sacrifice is how we were able to continuously defend this Perennial World and how descendents like us came into being. If we ever chance across these battlefields, avoidance is the the best choice for us."

"Let's avoid this place. If anyone accidentally enters this battlefield, the trap will be triggered that will guarantee mutual destruction; no one will be willing to retreat when that happens," Nong Sanniang said.

Crown Prince Gui Qian had no objections. Nobody would turn away from any opportunity available in this place, so he did not doubt the Junior Progenitor's words as being true.

However, just after their retreat was agreed upon, an invisible energy shot into the sky no more than a hundred meters away from the team. Where the energy touched down, the branch was quickly withering, and the barrier that had appeared started moving towards the youths, as though the barrier was shrinking.

Wang Su was shocked. "Attack!"

They all attacked in unison, but were unable to break through the invisible barrier. Yuhua Mavis threw a punch, but the force of her fist was eroded by the force that made up the barrier, and even her bones were exposed. This startled her, and she quickly retreated.

"Don't be reckless. This is the power of Progenitor Ku. Run!" Wang Su shouted as she started rushing deeper into the battlefield.

Nong Sanniang was furious. "Someone must have reached the center of this battlefield! Are they an idiot? This is going to hurt us."

Unseen Light felt that he was just too unlucky. They had only been a hundred meters away from where the barrier had appeared, and they had intended to leave, but now they were trapped instead.

Was there any way to survive the power of a Progenitor?

Although the humans who had fought monsters during the ancient times had been brave and had rather died together than suffer defeat, these youths were not monsters, nor did they want to die.