Nine Astra Skies

While the Golden Sun Condor continued its journey to the Capital City, Ye Chen continued to inspect below with his Astral body.

Chirp! The Golden Sun Condor suddenly alerted. It was slightly trembling.

The Golden Sun Condor was trying to hint that there was danger up ahead and if they should take a detour. Whatever it was up ahead, it had terrified the Golden Sun Condor greatly.

"Big Brother Ye Chen, there seems to be something over there." Little Wingsy pointed toward the direction of the mountains.

Ye Chen and Little Tanuki directed their gaze to the direction Little Wingsy had pointed at. In the mountains far away, they saw what seemed to be a building. It was a magnificent looking structure. The building was hidden within the thick forest as only a small part was slightly exposed. It was difficult to notice the building unless you were looking closely.

Little Wingsy's eyesight was distinctly better than Ye Chen and Little Tanuki.

Sensing the Golden Sun Condor's fear, Ye Chen wondered what kind of place it was.

"Little Tanuki, should we go over and take a look?" Ye Chen asked.

Little Tanuki's eyes fluttered as she looked at Ye Chen. She was not sure if she wanted to go as she felt they would face dangers if they headed over.

Little Wingsy stared ahead. He had an eager look on his face, obviously very curious about the place. Little Squido seemed to have sensed Little Wingsy's excitement and responded by waving his three arms, seemingly dancing around. Looking at Little Wingsy and Little Squido's expressions, Ye Chen made up his mind and said, "Let's go. If we're careful, there should be no problems."

Ye Chen's Astral body was capable of detecting any dangers ahead. If he felt that something was off, he could just immediately retreat.

Although the Golden Sun Condor was still slightly afraid, upon receiving Ye Chen's orders, it continued to fly toward the building's direction. They hovered above it for a moment while Ye Chen inspected it using his Astral Body. It was only then that he had realized just how large the building was. He was not sure what the building was as a large portion of it was built into the mountains where several thousand meters of the mountain had been dug out. He could hardly fathom the scale of this project.

Ye Chen's Astral Body was able to vividly chart its outline as well as some of the building structure. As the Astral Body was trying to enter its central core area, there seemed to be a layer of restrictive spell protecting it. Ye Chen was unable to go further.

The inner core structure of the building seemed to have some sort of restrictive spell set up by a powerful individual to prevent outsiders from prying inside. Ye Chen's Astral Body patrolled the hallways within the outer section of the building and saw several rooms which had plenty of jars placed within. These jars were sealed tightly. He wondered how many years they had been there. The jars were not spirit artifacts but the materials used to construct the jars could rival a Tier Two or Three spirit artifact. They were covered in a thick layer of dust. Ordinary people would not be able to tell if there was anything special about them. Several rooms had some Tier Two to Three longswords scattered around, most of them were damaged and some of them were evenly split in half. The split was clean.

Ye Chen's Astral Body continued to explore the building. The outer section of the building was built like a maze with plenty of traps laid around. It seemed to be very dangerous. Even though there was a restrictive spell laid around the central core area, there was still an intimidating aura exuding from it.

Compared to this aura, the Purple-fire Astra Lion's aura had only paled slightly.

There must have been something incredible hidden deep within this building.

It was not possible to set foot within the restricted area. As for the jars, they only had to navigate around several traps and cross another hallway to get to it. Ye Chen was not going to take any unnecessary risks but if it was not going to cost him much effort to get to it, then why not go for it? Besides, these Tier Two and Three spirit artifacts were just within his arm's reach.

Ye Chen pondered for a moment. Then, he had the Golden Sun Condor land on an open field beside the building's entrance.

At the building's entrance stood a magnificent door made of stone. It was half-closed. Six pillars stood on both sides with the pillars about fifteen meters tall. These stones must have endured many years of passing. They were corroded out of shape and thick vines covered the pillars.

Beside the pillars laid a slab of stone tablet. Several texts were etched onto it. After ripping off the vines covering it, Ye Chen was able to read the text "Nether Palace".

A gust of chilling wind rushed past the entrance carrying an eerie chill, making them feel uneasy.

There was no telling what in the world was hidden in this place.

"Little Tanuki, we're just gonna check out the first hallway, then come back out. We're not going further inside," Ye Chen said. There was too much unknown in this world. If Ye Chen were to be too careless, these risks would cost him his life.

"Hm," Little Tanuki responded and proceeded to leap inside.

"Little Tanuki, be careful of the traps!" Ye Chen called out. Then, he thought that would not be necessary as Little Tanuki knew far more about traps then he did.

Ye Chen brought Little Wingsy and Little Squido with him and stepped into the gates of Nether Palace. The moment they stepped in, they felt the temperature drop. The hallway was built extremely wide where a five or six-meter-tall giant could easily walk through it. There were several luminous pearls etched upon the walls on both sides, glowing with a faint white light.

Ye Chen's Astral Body delved deeper inside. Waves of bone-chilling screeches were echoing in his ears like countless screaming vengeful spirits.

Ye Chen took a deep breath, pushing down the uneasy feeling in his chest. He followed Little Tanuki closely.

"Little Wingsy, stay behind me. Watch out for the traps, don't set them off. The places I've stepped on are safe," Ye Chen reminded in a low voice.

Little Wingsy was not worried about the traps. Thanks to Little Squido and his natural resistance, regular traps could not hurt them at all. Still, he listened to Ye Chen's advice and stuck behind closely, not missing a step.

As they walked through the darkness, there was a glow of dim, green light. It resembled the will-o'-the-wisp described in folklore.

If the will-o'-the-wisp came in contact with a person's skin, it would scald the skin. Ye Chen slapped at them and with a "bang", the will-o'-the-wisp quickly scattered.

Passing through a narrow and long passage, they had entered an open hall section. Ye Chen had already been here with his Astral body previously, but after being here in person, he was still in awe. The hall section's diameter was several hundred meters, the roof was a good twenty or thirty meters tall. The hall seemed to be a council hall as it was lined with rows of tables and chairs.

The tables and chairs were abnormally large. The chairs were about three to four meters tall where only a five or six-meter-tall giant would be able to sit on it. The table set in the middle was about fifty to sixty meters long and up to fifteen meters in width.

The hall was squared-shaped, each wall and the roof were covered in murals. The murals seemed to describe the construction of Nether Palace as well as the lives of the giants.

These giants lived their lives in the vast forest and hunted mystical beasts for a living. The mystical beasts - even the largest and most powerful ones - were prey of the giants. These giants were on the top of the food chain within this region. They continued to thrive within this jungle until one day, the skies had turned gray and a disaster came upon them. A seemingly demonic and giant monster came down from the sky and started to devour everything. The trees touched by this monster instantly wilted, rivers dried up, and the earth became barren.

Facing the circumstances, the giants began to fight back. Under the leadership of an almighty figure, they overcame the monsters. They then began to build this palace and suppressed the monsters within the palace.

After countless years, the whereabouts of the giants were unknown. However, Nether Palace still stood here. These murals seemed to contain a profound message. As Ye Chen scanned through them with his Astral Body, he felt as if he was right there, among the giants. They could slay a terrifying mystical beast with just one punch from their mighty fist and they could easily lift several tons of heavy objects. They did not need any training and yet their body was built as resilient as the mystical beasts. Even a Daemon King Rank combatant would be no match for these giants.

Ye Chen was among them, watching these giants around him. His height was barely enough to reach their waists. The vision only flashed by in front of Ye Chen for a moment. When he had awakened, he was so shocked that color drained from his face. These murals seemed to be able to take someone back to the ancient world of the past. Whoever drew these murals must have been masters like Senior Tian Yuan.

The murals revealed an ancient and distant era, up to several hundreds of thousands of years ago.

That endless time and space appeared to have been drawn into these murals.

Ye Chen took a deep breath, not letting himself be absorbed within these murals anymore, and caught up to Little Tanuki.

Little Wingsy followed behind Ye Chen, his tears were dripping down and he looked very sad.

"Little Wingsy, what happened to you?" Ye Chen looked back at Little Wingsy and asked puzzlingly. After Little Wingsy looked at the murals, he felt full of sadness for some reason he did not know.

"I saw many Winged Serpents like me and they were eaten by the giants. Even when I returned to my original form, I still couldn't defeat them," Little Wingsy wept and asked, "Big Brother Ye Chen, were all of my clansmen eaten by the giants? Am I the only one left?"

Transform into his original form? Little Wingsy did not transform earlier at all! Ye Chen suddenly realized that Little Wingsy must have been referring to the visions from the murals. It seemed like different people would see different visions from the murals. It was mysteriously fascinating.

Little Wingsy's clansmen must have been the ancient mutated Winged Serpents. Despite Little Wingsy's age, his body was already that of Daemon King Rank. How powerful would a full-grown Winged Serpent be? However, even those Winged Serpents were only good enough to be the giant's food. It was then that Ye Chen realized just how powerful the giants were.

"Little Wingsy, those are just illusions, don't take them seriously. Even though I don't know where your clansmen are now, if it's possible, I'll find them together with you." Ye Chen comforted Little Wingsy.

"Hm." Little Wingsy nodded. He wiped the tears from his eyes and balled his small fists tightly. If his clansmen were truly eaten by the giants, then he would train and become stronger to defeat the giants!