Chapter Eighty: The Floating Isle Altar

Shen Wan led the others along the edge of the cliff.

As they neared the first iron cable, he slowed his pace.

He did not know whether the colossal stone statues had moved on. To be safe, it was better to proceed with caution.

Shen Wan had forgotten which cable Gu Zhiping and Yun Yi had taken. Even after crossing more than a dozen, he still had not seen a trace of the statues.

Glancing at the floating mountains overhead, he suddenly felt as though he were the fool in the story.

If they were going up, why insist on finding the very cable those two had climbed? Any one would do.

Truly, intelligence can become its own undoing.

Shen Wan made a self-mocking remark and then stopped.

"Does anyone have a rope on them?"

He turned back to ask. Several people rummaged through their storage bags and produced more than a dozen ropes in all.

Binding demon cords, immortal-tie ropes, boundless whips...

Shen Wan did not care what any of those magical treasures were for. He crouched on the ground and tied them together one by one, pulling the knots tight.

He gave them a tug. Very sturdy.

"Brother Lin, take this end and climb up."

With that, he handed the rope to Lin Bunan, while the other end he gave to Zhu Qianqing, telling her to stand by the iron cable and not move.

Lin Bunan did not know what his young uncle intended, but he was obedient as ever and climbed onto the cable without a word.

Using a light-body technique, he ascended swiftly, stopping only when the rope went taut. Following his uncle's instructions, he tied the rope to the iron cable.

Seeing this, Shen Wan had the others go up first. Then he tied the other end of the rope around his own waist and began climbing as well, gripping the rope all the while.

When he reached the rope's end, he clung tightly to the iron cable and had the two of them repeat the process as before.

The iron cable was long, but the rope was limited.

Shen Wan feared that the rope's pull might throw the others' spiritual power out of control. If anyone fell from that cliff because of it, death would be certain.

Fortunately, the method worked. After shuttling back and forth more than a dozen times, they finally reached the top of the iron cable.

During the entire process, Shen Wan did not dare glance down even once.

Though the iron cable was thick and the footing broad, even a single look downward made it feel as though half his life were gone.

One after another, everyone stepped onto the suspended mountain and only then did they let out long breaths.

Of course, no one asked why Shen Wan had done it this way. Their uncle had his reasons.

When their feet truly touched the land, the towering structure hidden in the mist was revealed in full before them.

It was a tall pagoda, so tall that even with one's head tilted back, the top could not be seen.

The tower's body was hollow, and within it stood a stele. The stele was dark brown in color, its material impossible to identify, looking almost like metal.

It was four or five stories high, with four strange beasts climbing at its summit, as if suppressing it.

There was no elaborate inscription upon the stele, only a single dark-red character.

Looking around, three circular platforms were stacked atop one another in a stair-step formation.

Eight stone floor lamps stood in a ring along the edge of the platforms, four on the left and four on the right, arranged exactly like those of the Sky-Piercing Tower.

Beyond that, there was nothing else.

Shen Wan saw nothing remarkable about it. Aside from being larger, it covered about as much ground as the Heavenly Altar.

He had thought he might witness some wondrous marvel, and felt somewhat disappointed.

He pursed his lips and was about to call the others to follow him closer for a look.

He called out twice, but no one answered.

Looking at the others, he saw that all of them had their mouths slightly open, their eyes vacant, their expressions dull, standing frozen in place without moving.

"Hm?"

Shen Wan gave a soft sound of surprise. Why did they seem so different from what he saw?

Thinking it was because he himself was in a spiritless state, he did not pay it much mind.

He called several more times, but still no one responded.

He raised his voice further, yet the group remained utterly unresponsive, as if their souls had been torn away.

At last Shen Wan could no longer remain calm.

Following their gazes, he saw that all of them were staring fixedly at the boundary stele. Sure enough, there was something strange about it.

He hurried forward and, starting with Lin Bunan, covered each of their eyes in turn.

Lin Bunan only felt darkness fall before his eyes, as though his awareness had broken apart.

A strong wave of dizziness reverberated through his mind, dragging his entire body into a tilt.

At last his legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground.

Zhu Qianqing, Han Yuechan, and Zhao Dongsheng followed the same way.

"What... just happened?"

Zhu Qianqing clutched her chest, her heartbeat racing. Han Yuechan hurried close and hugged her arm, fear showing in her eyes.

Lin Bunan and Zhao Dongsheng were slightly better off, only gasping for breath, still shaken.

"You were all bewitched by the stone stele just now," Shen Wan said, crouching down, feeling this explanation was at least plain enough.

Lin Bunan steadied himself. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and even his voice trembled.

"The moment we stepped onto this land, the world before us had already become ruins. The ruins were piled with corpses as far as the eye could see, endless and boundless. Countless streams of blood rose from those bodies and were swallowed by the sky."

Zhu Qianqing looked at Lin Bunan, her cherry lips parting as she spoke in a terrified voice.

"So was I... a sky like blood, endless celestial fire falling from above and destroying the earth. It was right in front of me, and I felt my body being burned away bit by bit. It was unbearably painful."

At this, Han Yuechan actually began to tremble while still clutching her arm.

"Yes! Yes! And there was another person. He was very tall, very big, and as he walked, he picked up the corpses from the ground and stuffed them into his mouth. He... he saw me, and no matter how I ran, I couldn't get away."

As she spoke, she even let out a scream.

Shen Wan shuddered from the fright, then turned to Zhao Dongsheng.

That fellow had his mouth open for a long time and still could not force out a single word. Only after desperately suppressing the fear in his heart did he finally squeeze out a few broken syllables from his throat.

"He... was chewing me..."

"Uh..."

Shen Wan was speechless. What terrible luck this was.

He also understood the others' accounts. It was obvious they had all been hypnotized.

Hypnosis was something that could badly damage the brain. He feared that if they were not careful, the group might well turn into fools again.

Shen Wan hurried forward and grabbed Lin Bunan's hand.

At the same time, he instructed the others to do the same.

Recalling what had happened in the Tower of Ten Hells, Lin Bunan and Zhu Qianqing immediately understood what their uncle meant.

The other two did not understand, but they knew perfectly well what the Ninth Elder wanted them to do.

Glancing at Zhao Dongsheng on the right, Zhu Qianqing turned and dragged Han Yuechan to Shen Wan's left, casually taking hold of his sleeve.

Hm... it seemed she had been disliked.

Zhao Dongsheng awkwardly scratched his head and could only take Lin Bunan's hand.

Thus Shen Wan stood in the center, with the four of them on either side. Looking again at the scene before them, everything finally returned to normal.

What they saw was exactly what Shen Wan had seen.

"So this is the altar from the mural? Were we bewitched by it?"

Though he had already guessed as much, now that he truly saw it, the altar looked almost exactly like the one in the painting.

Shen Wan clicked his tongue and said, "This is the Boundary Ring. The whole clan of giant gods is inside."

The term Boundary Ring had come from the Great Oracle, though however he looked at it, Shen Wan could not see how this thing was a ring at all.

Clearly, naming things badly came in all forms.

Aside from this altar, the only other visible features on the entire floating island were a bit of vegetation along the edges.

The group linked hands and circled the altar twice, finding nothing unusual.

Doubts began to stir in Shen Wan's heart.

For such a tiny place, the tower had no stairs and no visible floors. How, then, had Yun Yi and Gu Zhiping simply vanished?

He led the four of them around once more, this time in reverse.

They checked the platform carefully, wondering whether there might be an underground chamber.

As expected, the platform was bare, with not even a single gap to be found.

Now Shen Wan was at a loss.

"Could those two have followed the iron cable on the opposite side and gone over to the ruins?"

That seemed to be the only plausible explanation.

He glanced toward the edge of the floating island.

Since there was nothing else to discover here, they would have to search on the far side of the cliff.

Having made up his mind, he was about to give the order when Lin Bunan suddenly lifted his head and cried out, "Uncle, look!"

Shen Wan was startled and quickly turned to look.

On the massive stele, Yun Yi and Gu Zhiping had somehow appeared as though out of thin air, slowly emerging from within the stone.

Their eyes were empty, their bodies tightly curled in on themselves, as if bound by something.

Before the others could react, a deep and hollow voice suddenly came from within the stele.

"Sacred Land of the Giant Gods. All who come here die."