The Nine Cauldrons

“Gu Yong, please.” The forty-nine innate experts all stared at Qing Hu Island’s men.

At this point, if he still lied and argued, he would be insulting the intelligence of everyone present.

“Since you all want to go, good.” Gu Yong immediately walked towards the bottomless pit. When he walked to Teng Qingshan’s side, he stopped and scrutinized Qin Lang sternly as he said, “Qin Lang?”

“I am just a nobody. There’s no need for Gu Island Lord to remember my name.” Teng Qingshan smiled.

“You are quite good!” Gu Yong had said the four words with deep meanings, accompanied by an icy glow flashing in his eyes.

“Everyone, follow me down there,” Gu Yong said and leapt into the bottomless pit.

Whew!

Zhao Danchen, Yuwen Liufeng and the other innate experts jumped down one after the other. Within the bottomless pit, there was a horizontal pole, a long length of rope tied to it, reaching down to the bottom of the pit.

“Let’s go down.” The King of Beasts Wu Hou jumped down, and the rest of the innate experts followed behind him. Whilst descending, everyone was canceling the falling impact through the use of the rope. Within a while, all sixty-one innate experts had arrived at the bottom of this seemingly Bottomless Pit.

......

“This godforsaken place is completely dark.” The sixty-one innate experts vigorously advanced through the waterway. There was no light, and many innate experts could not adapt to the completely dark environment. Most had formed a glowing air-bubble with the Innate True Origin, and by relying on the air-bubble’s light, they could barely see ten zhang away.

The men of Qing Hu Island were leading the way.

“This Gu Yong must be feeling very terrible now. Right now it will be hard for them to get Emperor Yu’s Treasure, compared to before, when it could have easily been theirs.” Of course, Teng Qingshan couldn’t stand by while the men of Qing Hu Island obtained Emperor Yu’s Treasure. “When we arrive at the Heavenly Flood Palace, it will be easier to kill Qing Hu Island’s men in the confusion of battle, when all sides fight for the treasure.

If he sneak-attacked by himself just as he’d done in the beginning, it would be too difficult to find a suitable chance. Especially concerning the Golden Dan Innate Experts... If he simply relied on himself, he probably wouldn’t find a chance to kill a single Golden Dan Innate Expert.

But now......

Teng Qingshan was in the midst of a large group of innate experts. He could take advantage of a crisis, or make the opposition’s forces fall into an even worse situation. It would be very easy to kill a great number of Qing Hu Island’s experts.

“The underground lake is just ahead. This lake is very big,” Gu Yong said apathetically, forming a glowing air-bubble with his Innate True Origin and diving into the water.

Sixty-one lanterns were advancing in the endless darkness at the bottom of the lake. To hide his own special ability, Teng Qingshan also formed a glowing air-bubble with his Innate True Origin...... However, when compared to other people’s air-bubbles, Teng Qingshan’s was slightly smaller.

On the silent bottom of the lake, fish swam away in fright when they noticed the approaching sixty-one lanterns. However, some powerful demonic beasts sneak attacked again and again. Several innate experts on Teng Qingshan’s side had been caught off guard and injured. Once everyone knew what to expect, becoming cautious, no other major incident took place.

If ordinary demonic beasts dared to obstruct, they would be courting death.

“Gu Yong and his men haven’t said how big this lake is. I thought it was only a few li wide,” said Liu Xiu, the white-cloaked young man, cursing softly.

“Same. The air in my illuminating air-bubble has decreased.

Liu Xiu sneered and said, “We can only try to fight less and save more air.”

During fierce fights, the usage of oxygen would increase.

Of course, the innate experts of the nine prefectures had no actual knowledge of oxygen, but they knew that......risking suffocation was deadly. Humans needed to breathe air.

‘Eh?’ Teng Qingshan cast a glance downwards and noticed an enormous blurred creature only sixty zhang away, and what seemed to be a large number of python-like shadows surrounding the creature. Teng Qingshan scrutinized carefully and as he approached the creature, he finally managed to see it clearly. It was an enormous blue creature lying at the bottom of the lake, taking up an area of thirty whole zhang. It was as if a small mountain had been placed there. The most terrifying thing was its floating tentacles, as thick as water tanks.

Each tentacle could be compared to a huge python of thirty zhang in length.

Teng Qingshan took a deep breath.

‘This demonic beast! A demonic beast of this size? It looks like a deep-sea octopus, but its tentacles are a lot more astonishing than octopus tentacles.’ Teng Qingshan glanced at Qing Hu Island’s experts, who were leading the way, and an icy glow flashed in his eyes as he thought, ‘This is a great chance....... If someone were to die first, it would definitely be them!’

Swimming through the dark and gloomy lake, the other experts could only faintly see their surroundings. This was also due to the great number of people crowded together.

“What smell is this? It smells so bad,” an innate expert complained.

Teng Qingshan was constantly watching the demonic beast underwater.

Everyone, be careful.” Gu Yong, who was in front, scanned the surroundings as he muttered, “This smell is horrible...... Last time, we didn’t smell——” Before he was able to finish his words...

“Ahh!”

A painful howl suddenly rang out.

Gu Yong immediately turned and saw the white-haired Elder Wen of his Qing Hu Island entwined by a... thing, as thick as a water tank. Elder Wen was currently being strangled to death. His body was being twisted like fried dough, his eyes popping out and blood flowing out from his seven orifices. The image was so appalling that one could hardly bear the sight of it.

“A python!” someone yelled.

“Evil creature!” a roar sounded.

Xiu! A brilliant radiance flashed in Zhao Danchen’s hand, and the light of the sword slashed the ‘python’ despite its thickness. A puchi sound was heard as the python was cut in two. One part of its broken body was twitching, while the other extremely long body part had suddenly shrunk.

Waa~~~

An ear-piercing noise sounding like a baby’s cries suddenly rang out. This loud and shrill sound even made the innate experts wish to cover their ears.

“Everyone, watch out!” Gu Yong shouted.

Boom! Boom!

The water suddenly surged forcefully as many long, huge thick tentacles crazily wound around the innate experts, like huge pythons.

“So many pythons!” The innate experts all moved and transformed into afterimages as they attacked those ‘pythons’.

“Pythons?” Teng Qingshan shook his head secretly. Because the range of the innate experts’ vision was too small, they could only see the tentacles...... They couldn’t even see twenty zhang ahead of them. If they could, they would realize that all those were actually tentacles, and parts of a monster’s body.

Xiu! Xiu! Xiu!

Sword shadows and illuminated sabres flashed. When some Golden Dan Innate Experts such as Gu Yong and Zhao Danchen attacked, the tentacles would break apart completely. If it was the True Dan Innate Experts attacking, they could only injure its tentacles, unable to break them off completely. However..... there were too many experts and, even more, there were around ten Golden Dan Innate Experts!

Instantly, those tentacles all broke.

“That python wants to escape.” Seeing the broken body of the “Python” recoiling rapidly, everyone knew that the “Python” didn’t die and immediately went after it.

However, as they pursued, they realized in horror... That all the ‘Pythons’ they had just slashed were actually tentacles and it seemed like..... each tentacle was at least thirty zhang long, while the parts they had hacked off were just a few zhang long.

Waa~~~ The shrill cry of a baby sounded again.

All the broken or intact tentacles forcefully quivered the water surface.

Xiu! The enormous creature instantly dashed far away, disappearing from the sight of all the innate experts.

The lake was still dark and gloomy!

And, in this moment, the innate experts were slightly afraid.

The old long-eyebrowed monk frowned and looked towards Gu Yong, saying, “Gu Island Lord, what lake is this? Why are there so many demonic beasts? And this demonic beast...... If I had encountered it alone, even I myself would lose my life.” This demonic beast had twenty-three tentacles. If one were to face this monster in a fight, the creature would attack with all twenty-three. Like this, even a Golden Dan Innate Expert would die.

However, the monster had been rather unlucky to encounter so many innate experts, and a large number of its tentacles had been instantly cut.

“This is Heavenly Flood Palace.” Gu Yong looked aghast as he replied, “Qing Hu Island only knows that...... there are many demonic beasts in this Heavenly Flood Palace. When Qing Hu Island was here last time, we lost a Law Enforcing Elder, and now, another one died. This job of leading the way...... I would request you all to lead the way! We will give you guys the direction. Qing Hu Island will not be taking the front anymore.

Of course, Gu Yong felt anguished to have lost two elders.

Yet, he had no idea that......

Someone among that group of people had noticed the demonic beast before it attacked. If that person had told them, then they wouldn’t have lost anyone.

‘Unfortunately, it was just a True Dan Innate Expert who died. With the ability of that demonic beast, it could easily have killed a Golden Dan Innate Expert, if it had encircled and attacked one person with all its tentacles.’ Teng Qingshan had no compassion for the men of Qing Hu Island. For him, it was best if Island Lord Gu Yong and the other Golden Dan Innate Experts all died! That would be ideal!

“You guys tell us the directions, and we lead the way?” The innate experts of the other great sects looked at Qing Hu Island’s men.

“Gu Yong, you and your men are the ones who know this place the best!” The King of Beasts Wu Hou said. “How do we know that you guys haven’t intentionally led us on a perilous path, in order to take us to a dangerous place?”

“Let’s compromise,” Gu Yong said with a deep voice. “Let the Qing Hu Island’s men mix in with your people.”

The experts of each sect glanced at each other. Everyone understood that they still needed the men of Qing Hu Island to lead the way, so they couldn’t ask for too much.

“That’s good too,” everyone agreed.

......

As the sixty-one innate experts advanced, they were a terrifying force, dashing madly along the way, and then finally arriving before the doors of the Heavenly Flood Palace.

“This Heavenly Flood Palace is definitely at least a dozen li wide,” Gu Yong said. “We only took glimpses of it last time, thus, we do not know the true size of this Heavenly Flood Palace.”

“Phew! Only people like Emperor Yu and Heavenly Emperor Qin Ling could build such a big palace underwater.” Many innate experts gasped in awe.

“Yes. Emperor Yu’s Treasure must be inside.”

Most experts were sure of it.

Teng Qingshan glanced at Gu Yong and thought, ‘I wonder if this Gu Yong will tell the innate experts about the Golden Dragon Turtle! If we recklessly enter the Heavenly Flood Palace, we would be easily attacked by the Golden Dragon Turtle. With the Golden Dragon Turtle’s ability......even the Golden Dan Innate Experts won’t be able to defend against it.’

“Gu Island Lord, lead the way.”

The many innate experts looked at Gu Yong and his men once again.

“Hmph.” Gu Yong put on a stern face as he replied, “Everyone, when we entered the Heavenly Flood Palace last time, we encountered a demonic beast soon after stepping in. We realized that there were many demonic beasts in the palace, and thus, we temporarily retreated. Even so, we still lost an elder. Finding Emperor Yu’s Treasure in Heavenly Flood Palace was too difficult! As for this Heavenly Flood Palace, we only know that Emperor Yu’s Treasure is inside, but we have no idea where it is...... We don’t know the way, so, naturally, we can’t lead the way.”

‘It looks like Gu Yong is keeping the existence of the Golden Dragon Turtle a secret.’ Teng Qingshan sneered. Unfortunately......not only the men of Qing Hu Island knew about it, but Teng Qingshan was also very much aware of its existence.