Chapter 356: Chapter 138: A Great Windfall, the High-Grade Ancient Treasure, Ten Thousand Souls Banner! Beginning Arduous Cultivation, "Demon Dragon Celestial Spirit Scripture

Deep beneath Dragon Ridge Mountain, it was profound and deathly silent.

The cavern was vast. Millennia-old stalactites hung from the ceiling, and occasionally, an ice-cold droplet would fall, striking the rock below with a crisp "PLINK."

The sound rippled through the utter silence, adding to the grim atmosphere.

The air was thick with the heavy scent of earth, mixed with the faint, ancient presence of something more.

It was a heart-pounding presence, now mingled with the burnt smell of Primordial Qi that had escaped after the Array was broken.

Lingkong Jade, the Divine Sacrifice Envoy of the Moon Worship Sect, stood there in silence.

Before her was a three-foot-square hollow in the ground.

The sides of the pit were as smooth as a mirror, as if meticulously carved by some invisible force.

The pit was empty, save for a layer of dust as thin as a cicada’s wing, shimmering with a faint Spirituality.

This dust was proof that something extraordinary had once rested here.

Lingkong Jade was dressed in a simple white gown. Her face, beautiful enough to topple nations, was now dark with storm clouds and frosted over with cold fury.

She had spent two full years and seven months, exhausting her mind and spirit. After countless deductions, she had finally located this ancient protective Grand Array within Dragon Ridge Mountain. She then forced it open, finding the secret cave where the "key" was buried.

But she never expected...

...that it would all be for nothing!

The "key" was crucial to the sect’s grand plan, rumored to be capable of moving heaven and earth. Yet someone had already beaten her to it, leaving only this glaringly empty pit.

The pit seemed to silently mock her two-plus years of toil and effort.

An indescribable, wicked fire suddenly surged from the depths of her heart, making her insides ache with its burn.

Lingkong Jade could almost hear the sound of her own sanity stretching taut, about to snap.

More than two years of anticipation. Countless days and nights of calculations and deductions. The full backing of the sect’s resources, and... the unimaginable personal price she had paid. In the end, all it had bought her was this empty pit before her eyes!

’A lifetime of anxious hope, wasted.’

’A moment’s joy turned to sudden sorrow!’

’Why?’

’On what grounds?!’

Lingkong Jade’s slender fingers clenched into a tight fist inside her wide sleeve, her nails digging deep into her palm.

Only the sharp sting of pain allowed her to suppress the frenzied Primordial Qi that threatened to erupt from her body.

A while ago, a violent tremor had shaken the earth beneath Dragon Ridge Mountain. At the time, she had dismissed it as a natural evolution of the Array, or perhaps an earth dragon turning over. Now, she realized it was clearly the commotion caused by the thief taking the "key"!

But she had long since enveloped the hundred-mile radius around Dragon Ridge Mountain with layers of the Nine Nether Spirit Locking Array.

Forget a living person—not even a bird carrying Primordial Qi could hope to enter undetected!

Even the world-renowned Demon Suppression Envoy, Yue Mankong, was currently suppressed deep within the mountain’s core, unable to escape!

’Who in the world could have done this, waltzing in right under my nose as if this place were completely unguarded?’

She spun around abruptly, her sleeves kicking up a chilly gust of wind.

The two black-robed attendants behind her trembled in fear, burying their heads even lower. They held their breath, terrified that the slightest sound would bring about their doom.

It was true that the Divine Sacrifice Envoy was as beautiful as a goddess, but when enraged, her methods were a hundred times more terrifying than an Asura from hell!

Lingkong Jade ignored her deathly silent subordinates, her cold gaze sweeping across the cave.

The cave wasn’t large, with only two narrow, branching paths.

She strode quickly down one of the paths.

The passage was only wide enough for one person, its walls coarse. After just a few dozen feet, it came to a dead end.

The end was sealed shut by powerful Earth Magic. The signs of fused rock were ancient and solid, clearly not a recent development.

The other path was the same.

"A Teleportation Array..."

Lingkong Jade’s fingers brushed against the rock wall as two cold words escaped her red lips.

There was not the slightest glimmer of Primordial Qi on the wall.

But no matter how subtle the remnants of the Array were, they could not escape the senses of a Divine Sacrifice Envoy.

The thief hadn’t entered through a normal route but had used a hidden Teleportation Array to arrive directly in this core cavern.

Lingkong Jade quickly inspected the rock walls at the end of both dead-end paths. Just as she expected, she found several Rune fragments in an inconspicuous corner. The fragments had almost fused with the rock and were accompanied by the faint, lingering traces of spatial fluctuations.

But they were only remnants.

The person who stole the "key" had completely destroyed the core structure of the Teleportation Array.

They hadn’t left the slightest possibility of repair or reverse-tracking.

The ruins of the Array were like a pile of rubble, offering her a second, ruthless mockery.

Lingkong Jade’s mood was far beyond "terrible."

It was the despair and fury of one who had spent years laying a careful plan, only to find the net empty just as it was being drawn in.

The feeling was crushingly heavy.

With a fierce flick of her sleeve, an invisible force swept up her two subordinates. The three of them blurred for an instant, and in the next moment, they landed in a hidden valley on the outskirts of Dragon Ridge Mountain.

The valley was shrouded in mist, a place that should have been brimming with Spiritual Mechanism. But now, because it was sustaining the Grand Array, the Spiritual Mechanism was in a state of disarray.

She had yet to calm herself when a black-robed man waiting outside rushed over, his voice filled with unconcealable panic. "My Lady! The Nine Nether Spirit Locking Array in Cyan Yang Ancient City... it’s been broken! The dozens of elites sent to reinforce Lord Ghost Moon... they’ve been completely wiped out! Ghost Moon and Zhang Yunpeng... are both dead!"

BOOM!

The news struck Lingkong Jade’s heart like a heavy hammer.

Her delicate body swayed almost imperceptibly, and the frost on her face nearly solidified, as if it might drip to the ground.

Losing the "key" was already a heavy blow.

Now, the entire operation in Cyan Yang Ancient City had collapsed. Dozens of painstakingly trained experts were lost, and even two of her more capable subordinates, Ghost Moon and Zhang Yunpeng, were dead... How could she possibly explain this to the Main Altar?

’Ghost Moon and Zhang Yunpeng are dead, so be it. Their skills were inferior, so there’s no one else to blame.’

’But... my Ten Thousand Souls Banner!’

She had poured countless hours of effort into that Ten Thousand Souls Banner, refining it with tens of thousands of living souls just to create its initial form.

That banner was a crucial tool she was relying on to fight powerful enemies and vie for a higher position in the future. And now, it was lost, too!