As the Universe Turns - Chapter 135

Chapter 135 Death Desert
Just after noon, the yellow sand on the ground was still boiling hot. In this endless desert, it was as if everything had lost its vitality. There was no more tree to be seen. There were only the rolling sand dunes, the occasional violent sand storms, and the bones buried beneath the sand.

Xiao Chen walked in the desert for three days and nights in a row. If Yue Manfeng hadn’t given him a magnet to guide him before he left, it was hard to guarantee that he wouldn’t have been lost in the yellow sand.

Most of the time, one’s cultivation level was not high enough to do whatever one wished. The heavens and the earth were boundless. People were like the wind blowing the dust. In an endless desert of death like this, countless cultivators died in it every year.

“Sand–Sand–”

As Xiao Chen walked over the boiling yellow sand, a strange voice suddenly came from a pile of withered grass. When he looked closely, he saw a brown rattlesnake about three meters long hiding in the grass. A pair of dark green and terrifying eyes were staring at the uninvited guest not far away.

To be able to survive in such a cruel environment was no ordinary poisonous snake. For the time being, it seemed that it was at least an exotic beast with a cultivation of three to four hundred years. Its poison was extremely ferocious.

There were taboos everywhere, especially in this desert of death. Xiao Chen didn’t want to provoke this poisonous snake in vain, so he chose to bypass it.

Another seven days passed. During these seven days, Xiao Chen rode his sword during the day. At night, he found some taller Shi Feng to rest in order to recover Genuine energy in time. Unknowingly, he had already arrived at the depths of the Death Desert.

This desert really seemed boundless. The deeper one went, the more strange skeletons could be seen. Some of those skeletons were buried in the sand, and some were more than ten feet long. They had already dried into fossils. However, what kind of ancient creatures were these? Xiao Chen had never seen or heard of it.

The deeper he walked into the desert, the more deathly he felt. It was like a lost world, like a place abandoned by the gods in ancient times.

How could there be such a boundless desert?

As for the records of the ancient lands of Xianyuan, the ancient books he had seen in Xuanqing Sect could only be traced back to 10,000 years ago.

At that time, demons were rampant in the mortal world, and the gods of the Three Realms enslaved mortals. Later on, mortals fought back under the leadership of the Azure Emperor. Later on, the Azure Emperor passed down the cultivation methods of others … There were only so many of them.

However, ten thousand years ago, even tens of thousands of years ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago, was there really no cultivator in the world at that time?

Or was it that everything had been annihilated with the end of an era? Just like this endless desert, just how many unknown past have been buried?

It was as if all the prosperous civilizations had been annihilated. Countless experts who had reached the peak of perfection and possessed heavenly magic power had also perished. That was an era when the Immortal God had perished. Everything had turned into sand and wind, leaving nothing behind for future generations.

Twilight fell, and Xiao Chen walked in this desert of dusk. He didn’t know why so many strange thoughts came to his mind, but he felt that the world he knew in the past was too small, just the tip of an iceberg.

Just like he had never known before, there was such an endless desert outside the Xianyuan Five Regions. He didn’t know that there was a place as prosperous as the Xianyuan Five Regions that passed through this desert.

Just as he was lost in thought, a wisp of seemingly invisible aura suddenly came from behind the undulating sand dunes in the distance. Although this aura was hidden very deeply, under his current divine sense, no matter how weak the aura was, it was difficult to escape.

“Someone?”

Xiao Chen’s expression immediately froze. He had been in the Desert of Death for ten days. Apart from the yellow sand that filled the sky, he had never encountered a single living person, not even the bones buried in the sand or the poisonous snakes and ants in the withered grass. However, the instant he sensed this, he was definitely a cultivator. Furthermore, he was someone with a high cultivation base.

In the next instant, he immediately concealed his aura. He took a step and hid behind a stone peak. The aura he sensed just now was not low in cultivation and there were quite a few people here. Before confirming the enemy and us, he must not let the other party discover his aura.

Hidden behind the rock for about half an incense stick of time, ten figures suddenly appeared on the rolling sand dunes in the distance. However, they were too far away to see who they were. He did not dare to rashly use his divine sense to explore them and only waited for them to approach.

After another half an incense stick of time, those people finally approached. Beneath the sandstorm, there were ten people wearing battle robes like him. They were probably not trying to cover up the sandstorm in the desert, but to conceal their identities.

Among the ten people, there were four old men, an old woman, three men, and two women.

Xiao Chen couldn’t help but wonder, who were these people? What are you doing here in the Death Desert? No, judging from their appearances and the direction they came from, could it be that these people were not from the Xianyuan Five Regions, but from the Northern Continent that Mistress Rakshasa had mentioned?

If these people came from that direction, could it be that they were about to cross this desert of death? However, if these people walked for a month before arriving here, would he have to walk for another month?

At this moment, he could only continue to focus on what these people were doing here.

When the ten of them got closer, they suddenly saw the old woman stop and muttered to herself with some doubt, “Should it be … here?”

The other nine people also stopped and carefully observed the undulations of the nearby sand dunes.

At this moment, an old man suddenly raised his hand, causing everyone to be on guard. Then, he said to a man behind him, “Give me the thing.”

The man did not say anything and immediately took out something from his sleeve and handed it to him. It looked like an ancient compass with directions and pointers carved on it.

The old man held the compass in his hand and injected a stream of spiritual energy into it with his two fingers. The needle on it immediately spun rapidly, as if it could not stop.

The few people beside him, especially the old woman and the two women, had expressions of disbelief on their faces at this moment. They stared at the compass tightly and sweat slowly dripped down their foreheads.

“Ding!”

The old man poured another stream of spiritual energy into the compass, and the pointer on it finally stopped.

“Qian Junan, Kun Wei Bei …”

The old man muttered something to himself. After a while, he smiled excitedly, “This is it! This is it! Found it, finally found it!”

The old man’s hands trembled with excitement. The rest of them were also excited. Looking at the yellow sand on the ground, it was as if an ordinary person had seen the gold all over the ground. They only wished they could turn the desert upside down.

At this moment, Xiao Chen was hiding behind a stone peak in the distance. He could clearly see this scene. He thought to himself, “These ten people’s cultivation levels are not low, and their origins are mysterious. What exactly are they looking for?”

He couldn’t help but feel a little curious. Could it be that there was an ancient ruin hidden beneath this endless desert of death?