Chapter 1825: The Bottom Layer of the Great Tomb

Zu'an followed Jing Teng down one level. This level was completely different from the one above; what met their eyes was a faint red hue, and the air was thick with the smell of blood.

"Be careful!" Jing Teng reached out to stop him, her expression unusually grave.

Zu'an followed her gaze. He saw some blood slowly flowing on the ground, and the red mist in the air must have emanated from this blood.

His gaze swept across the area, and he quickly found the source of the blood: a large door similar to the one above, except this door was already half-stained red.

The blood was seeping out from inside. Although the blood hadn't yet covered the entire floor of the room, at this rate, it wouldn't take long for it to gradually spread across the whole surface.

"Whatever you do, don't touch that blood, or the Blood Demon will drain you of your vital essence," Jing Teng warned again, worried he might be careless.

"Blood Demon?" Zu'an looked towards the red door, wondering if that was the name of the monster imprisoned inside.

"Why does it feel like it's about to break through the seal?"

It was as if this entire space was being corroded by the foul blood.

"There's a problem with the grand tomb's seal," Jing Teng said, her brow furrowed with worry. "That's why it found an opportunity. Given a bit more time, it might even escape completely."

She sighed. "Let's go. We'll leave this place for now."

With that, she led him further down. Zu'an followed her, discovering a variety of bizarre monsters along the way. These creatures, however, shared one common trait:

They were all uniquely hideous, inspiring both revulsion and dread.

Listening to the intermittent low roars, Zu'an couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you say these sealed monsters would fall into slumber to conserve energy? Why does it feel like they're having a party?"

Despite the thick prison doors and seals separating them, the occasional wisps of leaked aura still sent shivers down one's spine.

"Because they sensed a problem with the grand tomb's seal and saw hope of escape, they're gradually awakening," Jing Teng's expression became calm.

Zu'an's heart skipped a beat. Each one of them was an existence no weaker than the Ghost King, and many were even stronger. If they all swarmed out, wouldn't the whole world be doomed?

"Is no one managing the grand tomb's seal anymore? What about the beings who built this grand tomb back then?"

Jing Teng paused, then shook her head. "I don't know either. Perhaps they've already vanished."

As they continued downwards, Zu'an felt the pressure from all directions growing increasingly intense. The hairs on his body involuntarily stood on end.

The feeling was akin to being unarmed and thrown into a lion or tiger enclosure in his previous life.

Fortunately, Jing Teng didn't linger long on each level; they almost instantly entered the stairwell and continued descending without pause.

After what felt like an unknown duration, as they took the last step of the staircase, Jing Teng stopped. "Brother Zu, on some previous levels, you might have been curious to look at the monsters, but you absolutely must not look at the monster on this next level."

"Why?" Even without her warning, Zu'an could feel a sense of crisis in every cell of his body.

"Because if you so much as glance at it, you will die," Jing Teng said, her expression grave.

Zu'an questioned, "Are you mistaken? Do you mean that if *it* looks at *me*, I'll die?"

He recalled how Immortal Baopu had killed a clone of the Ghost King with just a single glance, and although it was a clone, its power was almost on par with the original.

"No," Jing Teng shook her head. "If *you* look at *it*, you will die."

Zu'an was bewildered.

Jing Teng explained, "It is an unseeable existence. Any creature that sees it will die. I cannot even tell you its name; if I speak it, I will die, and if you hear its name, you will also die."

Zu'an was genuinely shocked now. Such power, where merely seeing the entity or learning its name would result in death, was beyond his comprehension.

He couldn't help but ask Mi Li what was going on.

Mi Li's voice was also grave. "The laws and mysteries inherent in some beings are too advanced, more than creatures of lower worlds can bear. When you one day become powerful enough, you won't be crushed and killed by such disparate laws."

Zu'an couldn't help but sigh. "I used to think Zhao Hao was the strongest person in the world. Now, looking back, I was truly a frog in a well."

"Throughout thousands of years of history, Zhao Hao was indeed the strongest human recorded, and at the time, everyone even wondered if becoming an immortal was merely a legend, believing Zhao Hao had reached the end of cultivation." Mi Li replied, "The primeval energy of Zhao Hao's world wasn't strong enough, which limited the upper bounds of cultivation. It wasn't a problem with the humans of that world or with Zhao Hao himself."

"Primeval energy?" Zu'an's heart stirred.

"You can understand it this way: the stronger the primeval energy, the more abundant the spiritual qi in that world, the faster cultivators will progress, and the higher the potential ceiling their talent can reach. It's like the secret realm you experienced in the Demon Imperial Mausoleum; that world possessed very powerful primeval energy, and even beings like immortals and the Heavenly Court existed there."

"The world this current secret realm is in also clearly has more advanced primeval energy than your world. However, I can sense that this world isn't complete; something must be wrong with it," Mi Li explained.

Zu'an was somewhat surprised. "How do you know so much?"

"How could I be your master if I didn't know this much?" Mi Li rolled her eyes. "I'm going back to sleep. Don't call me unless it's important."

With that, she fell silent.

Zu'an had countless complaints in his heart. This woman slept all day; he wondered where she got so much sleep from.

However, he also understood her intention: he shouldn't always rely on her, or he would never truly grow.

They soon arrived at the next level, which was much larger than the "prisons" they had seen before.

The door imprisoning the entity was less a door and more a pillar reaching to the sky, its top extending somewhere beyond the reach of the naked eye. Standing before it, one felt incredibly small.

Zu'an felt goosebumps all over his body, as if an inexplicable temptation was urging him to go and take a look.

Just then, Jing Teng softly urged, "Move!"

She pulled him, and they jumped into the stairwell on the other side. Only then did Zu'an catch his breath, wondering if that was what it felt like to confront higher laws and mysteries.

Next, Zu'an couldn't help but look at Jing Teng. "Why do you know so much? Where are we going if we keep going down?"

Jing Teng sighed. This time, she didn't evade the question. "Because I used to live here too. Didn't you promise to help me find my true form before? My true form is down there."

Zu'an was speechless.

He was utterly disheveled. He knew that the deeper they went into this grand tomb, the more powerful the sealed monsters became with each descending level. And now Jing Teng was telling him her true form was even further down?

Wouldn't that mean she was even more powerful than the unspeakable entity they had just encountered?

Just then, Jing Teng tilted her head and gave him a sinister smile. "Are you regretting it now? Are you afraid I'll eat you?"

Zu'an sighed. "Well, we're already here, what can be done? Rather than being eaten by you, I'd prefer to be swallowed by you."

Jing Teng paused. "Is there a difference?"

Suddenly, her face flushed red, and she gave him a coy glare. "You pervert!"

Zu'an smiled, took her hand, and kissed it. "People say I'm a gigolo, thinking it's a deep insult. But to me, it's a compliment to my charm. If you truly are such a powerful being, then I'm definitely going to live off you from now on. Whenever we encounter enemies in the future, whether it's Zhao Hao or the Ghost King, you can just slap them dead."

Jing Teng burst into laughter at his teasing. "You're really quite roguish! I wonder how Miss Qiu and the others came to like you."

"So how did *you* come to like me?" Zu'an asked, shamelessly leaning closer.

Jing Teng's face flushed, and she immediately turned her head away, though the corners of her mouth involuntarily curved upwards.

As they spoke, they took the final step down the staircase. They had expected an even more gloomy and terrifying illusion below, but instead, their eyes were met with a bright scene.

Before, it had been dark everywhere, but here it was incredibly bright.

The ground was like deep blue seawater, yet there was no trace of water when they stepped on it.

Zu'an looked down, seeing faint tiny yellow stars on the ground, each connected by thin yellow lines, forming complex patterns.

Suddenly, something flashed past them. Zu'an's guard immediately went up, and he was about to counterattack, but then he realized with astonishment that what had floated by was a tiny shooting star.

He wanted to investigate what these stars were, so he mustered all his focus and reached out to touch one, thinking he would instantly teleport away if anything felt wrong.

To his surprise, his hand passed directly through the star, as if it didn't exist.

Only then did he notice that shooting stars were occasionally flying past him, and above, the sky was filled with countless stars. Bathed in starlight, everything appeared breathtakingly beautiful, devoid of any imagined gloom or terror.