A Will Eternal

“What’s going on in there!?!?” On the Wildlands side, the high-ranking necromancers were all shocked, and began to edge backward nervously.

Compared to the pressure radiating out from the area of collapse, the cultivators in the area were like bugs!

Meanwhile, as everyone outside looked on anxiously, the third level where Bai Xiaochun stood was also collapsing!

Apparently, the sepulcher itself was the reason why the entire labyrinth was collapsing; the instant Bai Xiaochun grabbed the bracelet, everything began to shake violently. Even the statues were starting to fall apart.

The head of one of the statues fell off, slamming into the ground and causing a spiderweb of cracks to spread out.

It was the same with the walls, and even the altar seemed to be crumbling. The golden light dragon was distorting, and slabs of stone were falling down from the dome-like roof up above, causing booms to ring out when the pieces hit the ground.

At the same time, dust rose up everywhere, making it difficult to see.

Bai Xiaochun’s expression flickered; all of these sudden developments had come completely without warning, leaving him totally unprepared. Just when he was about to start backing up from the altar...

In an area to the left of the altar, near one of the corners of the sepulcher, the light of teleportation glimmered, and a red, shadowy figure emerged.

Moments later, the nearest statue began to fall over, causing the shadowy figure to flick a sleeve and reduce the statue to rubble. As the dust flew about, the shadowy figure began to speed in the direction of Bai Xiaochun and the altar.

Bai Xiaochun immediately recognized who it was that had teleported into the room. “Mistress Red-Dust!”

Mistress Red-Dust’s expression was grim, and her eyes burned with anger. Just as Bai Xiaochun before, she was a bit disoriented. She had just finished her trial by fire, and then been teleported to this place to find everything collapsing. Although she wasn’t sure of exactly what was happening, when she saw Bai Xiaochun and the bracelet he was about to put into his bag of holding, she knew it was the deva soul. At that point, everything clicked.

She had not taken 1st place, Bai Xiaochun had. And he had reached the deva soul before her!

“How impudent!” she yelled. “You don’t even qualify to speak the name Mistress Red-Dust! How dare you steal the treasure of the sepulcher, Bai Xiaochun. Do you have a death wish or something?!?!” Her eyes burned with killing intent, and when her piercing voice stabbed into Bai Xiaochun’s ears, it felt like a sword was ripping into his brain.

He staggered backward as if he had been struck with a hammer, blood oozing out of the corners of his mouth. He suddenly felt frigid qi boring into him, causing his spine to arch. Shivering, and pupils constricting, he realized in that moment that he was only moments away from dying!

“I'm finished. Kaput!” He knew exactly how much the Wildlanders hated him, and remembered Mistress Red-Dust herself proclaiming a bounty on his head right outside the Great Wall. The way she was looking at him now, it almost seemed like she wanted to eat him alive.

In that moment of deadly crisis, his mind spun to come up with an idea. That idea came almost instantly, and without hesitation, he reached out with his right hand to wipe some of the text off of the stone stele!

His goal was to wipe away the text about the curse, but from what Mistress Red-Dust could tell, he was urgently trying to wipe away all of the words.

Her eyes widened, and she waved her hand, sending a gust of wind out to slam into him.

“Big Sis Red-Dust... let me explain!!” However, blood sprayed out of his mouth as he tumbled away from the stone stele. However, because he had been so close, he still managed to wipe away that one line of text....

It seemed obvious that he was trying to win her favor, which was really the only option he had at the moment....

In almost the same moment that Bai Xiaochun flew away from the altar, Mistress Red-Dust’s blow landed, and the altar was blasted into bits, leaving the stele hovering there alone.

Some of the flying rubble hit Bai Xiaochun, causing more blood to spray out of his mouth.

“She’s trying to kill me!!” Bai Xiaochun trembled as he fled, unable to stop thinking about the fact that he was essentially stuck in a small room with Mistress Red-Dust. She was like a raging, explosive dragon, and he was like a tiny bunny rabbit. There was no way she would calm down, and if she hit him with a deadly blow, he would be killed instantly....

He already regretted taking the deva soul, and regretted everything he had done in the trial of spirit enhancement. How could he have known that he would take 1st place?

“Let’s just hope that Mistress Red-Dust’s curiosity gets the better of her, and that she picks up on the fact that I was going to erase the script on the text, then finishes the job....” Over and over again, he prayed inwardly for that very thing to happen.

“I really didn’t take 1st place on purpose!” he called out in a quavering voice. “Big Sis Red-Dust, you have to believe me....” Even as the altar was destroyed, and cracks spread out into the floating stone stele, Mistress Red-Dust appeared in front of it. As she began to read what was left of the text, her eyes went wide, and she seemed to forget about drawing on the power of her cultivation base.

Seeing that Mistress Red-Dust had been distracted by the stone stele, Bai Xiaochun urgently began to speed around, looking for an exit. However, even as the sepulcher collapsed around him, no exit was there to be found.

“Dammit. Where’s the exit!! There’s got to be one around here somewhere! If the second generation arch-emperor went to the trouble of giving someone a deva soul, he had to provide a way out too. Otherwise what would be the point!?” Bai Xiaochun’s eyes were completely bloodshot. Finally, he let out a shout and used his Undying Hex!

The power of the Undying Hex could pierce through both spell formations and land alike, and although it hadn’t worked in the labyrinth, considering that everything was collapsing, he had to give it a shot here.

And yet, just as he was about to take a step, Mistress Red-Dust let out a cold snort, looked over at him, and waved her hand.

“Trying to run?!” she growled. Incredible power filled the sepulcher, sealing the entire place down and locking Bai Xiaochun in place.

It felt like a mountain was crushing down on him; his bones creaked and cracked, and he coughed up a massive mouthful of blood as the Undying Hex was interrupted.

Thankfully, he had a tough fleshly body. Before anything else could happen, he tossed out a heap of spirit enhanced magical items. There were dozens, some of them with threefold spirit enhancements, some with sixfold enhancements. All at once, he detonated them, creating a huge blast that pushed away the forces crushing against him. Without any hesitation, he fell back, moving away from that area as quickly as possible, feeling like he had just stepped away from the gates of hell.

“Big Sis Red-Dust,” he cried, “Just take the deva soul, alright? Why don’t we just talk things--”

Mistress Red-Dust turned to look at him. At the moment, there was no time for protracted consideration. She knew that Bai Xiaochun had wiped away some of the words on the stone stele, which would make it very difficult to completely understand the rest of the contents.

That was especially so concerning she had seen the extra information about how to use deva souls, which was something even she had never heard of. Clearly, that was information that could not be left behind for others to read. Without another moment of hesitation, she waved her hand, shattering the stone stele and destroying any words which remained upon it.

“Too late,” she said coolly. Then, she burst into motion, heading directly toward Bai Xiaochun. As of this moment, she had three reasons to kill him. One was the deva soul. The second was to prevent him from spreading word about the information on the stone stele. And the third was because she hated him. Therefore, it was without the slightest hesitation that she unleashed a deadly attack.