Marquis Nanlong stuck the final formation flag down at the corner of the pond. He wryly smiled, slapping his hands together, and said, “How is it? Are you done with your preparations? With these spell formations placed down, even if a ma.s.sive problem occurs, we’ll be able to deal with it. Anything further would be a waste of time.”

Lu Weiying chuckled and said, “I would rather waste a bit more time than encounter any surprises. If there are truly only secret treasures hidden behind the gate, then that will be for the best. But if there is something else there, a little more preparation will be better. Although I covet ancient treasures greatly, I view my own life to be more valuable.”

When Marquis Nanlong heard this, he shook his head and said little further.

At that moment, Lu Weiying finished placing down his final formation plate and activated his restriction, creating a layer of indistinct white mist around them. Lu Weiying nodded with satisfaction and turned his head to look at the stone gate glowing with crimson light.

Marquis Nanlong had already grown somewhat impatient at this point. When he saw that Lu Weiying had finally finished, he immediately took a storage pouch from his waist and flung it into the air. Suddenly, white light poured out from it to reveal the crystalline remains of the ancient cultivator.

“The Blood Curse Gate is quite strange. Breaking the gate’s restrictions requires either the essence or flesh of the caster. The flesh is obviously gone, but a bit of the cultivator’s essence should still be present in his bones.” Marquis Nanlong spoke with a heavy voice. Then he spat out a golden flying sword and reached out to the floor as he clenched his hand into a fist. The bones suddenly floated off the ground and rose to twenty meters in the air.

Marquis Nanlong flicked his finger and launched a white spell seal, striking his golden sword at its center. As it hummed, the sword trembled and the tip suddenly burst with blinding golden light.

Soon after, the sword tip grew brighter until it released a ball of golden light. The ball of light then shot out and struck the bones that were floating in the air, the golden light suddenly ruptured.

Countless streaks of sword Qi suddenly wrapped all around the skeleton and completely enveloped it. An instant later, bone dust drifted down from the sky.

Light flashed from Marquis Nanlong’s eyes and he flung his sleeve. A mist of golden light shot out and swept up all the translucent grains of bone. As for the golden sword Qi in the air, it had already disappeared.

Marquis Nanlong nodded when he saw that the golden light had swept up the entirety of the translucent bone dust and turned to look at Lu Weiying. When Lu Weiying saw this, he knew what Marquis Nanlong wanted him to do. He clapped his hands together and took out a white flag. With a slight shake, winds began to gather around the flag.

By then, Marquis Nanlong had already sat cross-legged and formed a hand gesture. With a m.u.f.fled incantation, various-colored spell seals flew from his hand and struck the golden mist that enveloped the bone dust. Under the influence of the spell seals, the bone dust within the golden mist began to slowly revolve.

The translucent bone dust gradually twinkled with various colors causing it to grow extremely bright.

At that moment, Lu Weiying launched a probing strike at the stone gate. Rather than commanding an attack with his spell flag, he launched several fireb.a.l.l.s towards the stone gate from his other hand.

The fireb.a.l.l.s roiled through the air as they grew close to the stone gate, crimson light wildly flashed and came to life, condensing into a large ma.s.s of scarlet light and taking the form of a three-meter-tall ghost face that was identical to the one carved on the stone gate. After it consumed the fireb.a.l.l.s that were about to strike the gate, it flickered and immediately disappeared.

When Lu Weiying saw the scene, he grew alarmed and with some hesitation, he pointed the flag at the stone gate. The wind dragon that had condensed around the flag then screamed through the air as it charged at the stone gate.

The ghost face reappeared and its mouth gaped open. A beam of light was shot out of its mouth, engulfing the wind dragon and dragging it into its mouth. Fury and alarm momentarily appeared on Lu Weiying’s face.

Lu Weiying and Marquis Nanlong couldn’t help but glance at each other in dismay.

Marquis Nanlong sighed and slowly said, “The Blood Curse Gate is truly quite odd. Let’s just dispel the restriction in accordance to the method Master Cang Kun described.”

Lu Weiying rubbed his chin and could only nod. Although he had more powerful attacks, the ghost face was truly bizarre. He wasn’t willing to overreach himself and potentially ruin this matter. Given Master Cang Kun’s magnificent reputation in the past, his method of dissolving the restriction should prove better.

“Go!” Marquis Nanlong softly shouted before he pointed to the ball of golden light in the sky. It hummed and glowed magnificently before sweeping towards the stone gate.

Crimson light flickered and the ghost face reappeared. But as the golden light approached the ghost face, it merged with the bone dust it was carrying and transformed into specks of white light before sticking onto the ghost face.

When the ghost face touched the specks of light, it suddenly began to dissolve into grey smoke, and the grey smoke soon enveloped the entire stone gate.

Howling ghostly wails loudly erupted from the center of the smoke and crimson light flickered without end. Thick crimson tentacles began to emerge from the mist and do their utmost to strike at the ground nearby as if the gate were coming to life. But in the blink of an eye, the grey smoke that enveloped it also disappeared.

When Marquis Nanlong saw this, he shouted, “It’s now! Act!” He then pointed at the golden sword in front of him and he grasped his hand in an incantation gesture. The entirety of the spiritual power in his body was poured into the flying sword through a spell seal and the golden sword tore through the air in a blinding streak of light.

Lu Weiying’s face turned gloomy and he poured a majority of his spiritual power into the flag before tossing it out. In a flicker of white light, the flag transformed into several wind dragons, all whistling towards the stone gate.

In the blink of an eye, the golden streak of light and the wind dragons entered the grey mist and a world-shaking tremble appeared as the gales, golden light, and crimson light intertwined, resulting in a chaotic explosion.

Gales wildly blew away the grey smoke that obscured the sight of the stone gate. When Marquis Nanlong saw what was behind it, he narrowed his eyes and saw that the crimson light had disappeared as if the restriction was completely dissolved.

After looking around, Marquis Nanlong spotted his small golden sword embedded halfway into the stone gate. Sending a command with his spiritual sense, the small sword flew out from the stone gate and covered itself in a meter long streak of golden light before wildly slas.h.i.+ng at the gate.

With violent rumbles, golden light brightly s.h.i.+ned and chunks of the stone gate were crushed while the smell of blood filled the air.

But when Marquis Nanlong and Lu Wieying clearly saw the fragments from the stone gate, their expressions had changed.

The crushed fragments of stone seemed to resemble men and they seemed to be bleeding with black-tainted blood, the source of the b.l.o.o.d.y smell. The scene was truly awful to behold.

Although the stone gate had been shattered, the two cultivators hadn’t discovered anything extraordinary. Rather, there was a dark flight of stairs that led deep into the earth.

“Let’s go! I can clearly see that the Blood Curse Gate is a mysterious treasure in of itself.” Marquis Nanlong looked at the path below and called out to Lu Weiying. He then began to walk down in large strides.

Lu Weiying stood in place for a long while. He glanced at the black-blooded remains of the Blood Curse Gate and the pa.s.sage that led underground. With a tense brow, he let out a long sigh and followed after Marquis Nanlong.

To Lu Weiying’s surprise, the pa.s.sageway was rather short. It went down only about sixty meters before they arrived at an underground hall. The hall was only about thirty meters in length and was completely bare apart from an offerings table at its center.

When Lu Weiying entered the hall, Marquis Nanlong was already standing at the center of the hall and was staring at the items on the table, his mind completely blank.

Lu Weiying bewilderedly walked to his side and also felt his heart become completely shaken.

“Heaven Essence Fruit! If I am correct, once one of these is eaten, it can extend one’s lifespan for a hundred years. That purple mushroom is the legendary Heavenmend Mushroom. It should be over ten thousand years old. It should have the power to progress one’s cultivation by several tens of years worth of time. That sparkling golden bamboo should be Golden Lightning Bamboo, one of the three divine woods. And this...” Lu Weiying woke up from his amazement and began to mutter without sense. He didn’t seem to believe all the items that were laid before him and he unconsciously took a few steps forward to look at them closer.

In Lu Weiying’s excitement, Marquis Nanlong coldly said, “Fellow Daoist Lu, if I were you, I wouldn’t act so rashly. Do you truly believe that the spirit medicines would just sit here ready for the taking? How about examining our surroundings?”

“Brother Nanlong, that does make sense.” Lu Weiying woke up from his excitement and glanced around him in alarm.

Lu Weiying eventually discovered a few talisman characters written on the walls and felt a wave of shock. “Yi! This seems to be the legendary Sanctuary Guardian Formation, a Buddhist spell formation. Why has it appeared here?”