Chapter 125: Dare to Ask Heaven If There Are Immortals

"Don't ask questions. Let's just get out of here first." The purple-clad girl's eyes were filled with terror.

The lakebed was dim and very dark. Ye Fan's body glowed faintly, like a beacon suspended in the water.

The enormous bronze hall ahead, mottled with green rust and comparable in size to a city, unsettled him. A very peculiar fluctuation emanated from it.

Ye Fan pulled the purple-clad girl back. Undercurrents surged, and among the broken walls and ruins behind them, seven or eight waxy corpses floated up, appearing very eerie. "Faster!" the purple-clad girl cried, looking at him pitifully with tearful, pale eyes.

Ye Fan was not a reckless person, so he naturally wouldn't take risks in such an uncertain situation. He surged upward through the water, aiming to leave the lakebed.

However, just above them, a terrifying and heart-stopping aura descended, overwhelming them both with fright. A vast shadow, like a cloud blotting out the sky, slowly drifted past.

Ye Fan could barely withstand it; the precious light radiating from his body instantly extinguished, and the purple-clad girl almost suffocated. Both were pressed down by a powerful force, falling heavily to the lakebed. "What was that?" Ye Fan wondered, his mind filled with alarm. He extended his powerful spiritual sense, but it was like a clay ox entering the sea – the space above was hazy, as if a colossal creature had swum past.

Unwilling to give up, he took the purple-clad girl and swam in another direction, then resurfaced. But the same thing happened again: the space above was murky, like a terrifying black hole spewing strange demonic energy, or as if a great mountain had descended.

The immense, suffocating pressure felt like a mountain. Ye Fan was jolted as if struck by the Thunder God's hammer, and he plummeted again, unable to ascend. "What in the world is that? Is it a living creature?" His expression was grim, sensing a terrible omen.

The purple-clad girl's divine power was sealed, and after continuous exposure to the terrifying pressure, she was now nearly unconscious, leaning weakly against Ye Fan. "Wake up," Ye Fan urged, shaking her. "It's over, we can't escape," she whispered, her face bloodless, her lively eyes now filled with utter dread, completely devoid of their former playfulness.

The colossal shadow, like an ancient beast from the dawn of creation, was boundless, covering the entire surface of the lake, making ascent impossible. Ye Fan tried to find the hidden river to return the way they came, but he couldn't locate it. "Don't bother looking," the purple-clad girl said, her voice tearful and her expression despondent. "That's a river without a source, also called the River of the Underworld. Once you leave it, there's no trace; you can't find it again."

With all directions blocked and no way to leave, Ye Fan stopped trying. He calmed himself and asked in detail, "What exactly is going on? What kind of place is this, and what is the origin of the Bronze Immortal Palace?"

The purple-clad girl's face was mournful, and her large eyes welled up. "Wuwu... I don't want to die! I'm so smart and beautiful, peerless in the world, and I haven't even made a name for myself across the Eastern Wasteland yet. How could I end up in a place like this?" "Less narcissism, tell me quickly," Ye Fan said, tapping her smooth, jade-like forehead without ceremony.

"The Bronze Immortal Palace has only appeared a few times in ancient records. Its origin is mysterious; no one knows its past. Once you stumble into it, there's no way out..." the purple-clad girl sighed.

"Are we really going to die here?" Ye Fan felt uneasy.

"It's the tomb of supreme powerhouses. Every time it appears, it shakes the Eastern Wasteland, and peerless figures rush towards it like moths to a flame, regardless of the consequences."

"Why?" Ye Fan asked, puzzled.

"Legend has it that this magnificent bronze hall was forged by an immortal. For endless ages, almost no one in the Eastern Wasteland has achieved immortality, so those who stand at the pinnacle of the immortal path naturally find its allure irresistible."

Ye Fan gasped. This Bronze Immortal Palace seemed to have a formidable background.

"Tell me more in detail."

After her initial fright, the purple-clad girl had calmed down considerably, though her expression remained somewhat despondent. Wrinkling her delicate nose, she said, "It appeared as early as before the Desolate Ancient Era..." "That ancient..." Ye Fan's heart tightened. If that were true, the Bronze Immortal Palace would have existed for half of the Eastern Wasteland's recorded history. "The legend says it was forged by immortals, but there's no basis for it. For endless ages, it has only appeared four or five times, burying many supreme figures."

According to the purple-clad girl, the Bronze Immortal Palace was extremely mysterious. This ruin could move beneath the Eastern Wasteland, appearing in different regions each time, drifting westward with the boundless River of the Underworld. "Legends aren't always true. There must be a way to escape," Ye Fan pondered, furrowing his brows. Then he asked, "Think carefully again, is there anything you might have missed?"

"What I know about it, I've seen in ancient texts, and there are only a few scattered records." At this point, the purple-clad girl seemed to remember something and said, "It seems there's a..."

The purple-clad girl had occasionally heard a legend: in a certain era, when the Eastern Wasteland was extremely prosperous and produced many astonishingly talented and brilliant figures, the Immortal Palace reappeared. At that time, a group of peerless individuals joined forces and retrieved a corpse from the bronze hall.

"It's said that was the corpse of an immortal..." Ye Fan was astonished. "Are there really immortals?!"

The purple-clad girl shook her head. "This matter isn't recorded in ancient texts; it's just a rumor circulating in the Eastern Wasteland, and its truth is unknown."

"Where did that immortal corpse end up later?"

"It seems... it was divided equally between the Holy Lands and the Desolate Ancient Clans."

"Something like that happened..." Ye Fan's heart could not be calm. No wonder it was called the Bronze Immortal Palace; it truly seemed to have some connection to immortals. He immediately thought of the Ji family and said, "So, did your Ji family get a share of an immortal's corpse?" "It's said that endless ages ago, my family obtained an immortal's arm, but the elders in the family vehemently deny it. Anyway, I've never seen it." "Even if it's true, they would definitely deny it. There's no way they'd let a little girl like you know." "Hey, hey, hey, little brother, don't talk like an old man. You're not older than me!" The purple-clad girl shot him a displeased glance.

Ye Fan chuckled, pinching her delicate nose. "I, an old man, have lived for over a hundred thousand years. How can a little girl like you compare to me?"

This magnificent bronze hall, comparable to a city, was grand and imposing, mottled with green rust, and etched with the marks of time. Ye Fan circled it a few times but dared not venture inside.

It had appeared in the Eastern Wasteland several times, burying supreme figures from multiple eras. Its true origin remained unknown, and no one had ever truly emerged from it alive, making it increasingly mysterious. Ye Fan, with focused eyes, gazed at the waxy corpses in the ruins, hoping to find some clues from them.

"These corpses could very well be the peerless powerhouses of yesteryear..." The purple-clad girl kept wriggling her body. "Let me go! Let me look for clues too!"

Ye Fan's heart was far from calm. If these truly were supreme powerhouses from ancient history, he might find invaluable treasures among them. He peeled away the wax from one corpse, immediately revealing a lifelike human body. It was a beautiful Taoist nun, as if sleeping peacefully, incredibly vibrant.

However, in just an instant, the rosy-faced Taoist nun shriveled, then her flesh withered and turned into a skeleton. The water currents swayed, and the white bones disintegrated, leaving nothing behind. "This is..."

"The power of time is the most terrifying; no one can resist it unless they become an immortal." The purple-clad girl looked astonished. "This corpse has existed for endless ages. It was preserved until now only because it was enveloped by mysterious energy. Once its true form was exposed, it naturally couldn't last."

Ye Fan continued to strip wax from several corpses. Each time the waxy layer came off, a lifelike ancient figure was revealed, but within moments, they would turn to dust, leaving nothing behind.

He found some scraps of bronze and iron on the ground, which were powerful spiritual artifacts of the ancients, but they had completely shattered under the erosion of vast time. "These are people from before the Desolate Ancient Era. Who knows how many tens of thousands of years they've been here? Nothing could possibly remain..." The purple-clad girl cried out again, "Let me go! Maybe I can find some valuable clues!"

Ye Fan stripped the wax from dozens of corpses, but the results were always the same: once exposed, they would instantly turn to ash.

Just then, Ye Fan felt another strange fluctuation emanating from the enormous bronze hall. He said gravely, "This is bad. We must leave quickly!"

He lifted the purple-clad girl and surged upward, attempting to force his way out, but a powerful force began to pull at them. "Oh no, run!" the purple-clad girl screamed. She realized they were being pulled backward towards the bronze hall, about to sink into it.

Ye Fan was startled. His Sea of Bitterness and Spring of Life surged, pouring out all his divine power, but he still couldn't break free. The bronze hall seemed to possess a strange magical power, pulling them in. *Thud!*

They fell heavily to the ground, now inside the bronze hall. It was endlessly vast and indescribably quiet, dim and vaguely visible within.

No entrance could be found; it was like entering a desolate Gobi desert, utterly devoid of life. Time seemed to have stopped here, like the end of the world. "I don't want to die! I, Ji Ziyue, am of unparalleled grace and beauty, reigning supreme in the world, and I haven't even become an immortal yet! How can I perish here...?" "Can you stop being so narcissistic?" Ye Fan truly gave up on her.

Faint mist swirled, very hazy. Inside the vast bronze hall, there was no end in sight; it felt like the beginning of creation. *Crack!* A shattering sound came, and the purple-clad girl shrieked, "What did my foot hit?"

On the ground lay a snow-white skeleton, fractured in many places, quietly prostrate. With a slight touch, it crumbled into bone powder. "This person must have been incredibly powerful in life. Without being enveloped by mysterious energy, their bones actually remained," Ye Fan said, greatly surprised. He squatted down to examine it closely.

On the ground were a few dried, blackish-red, blurry blood-characters. They held an indescribable allure, as if condensed from the very essence, qi, and spirit of that powerful being, etched there to convey a profound emotion. "I dare ask the heavens, are there immortals?" Only these few words remained, indicating that before this person's death, they were filled with regret and unwillingness.

The person whose white bones remained was undoubtedly a peerless powerhouse from countless ages ago. Yet, at the moment of death, their heart was filled with confusion. One could imagine their profound sense of loss and the regret of not being able to dispel the clouds and see the clear sky.