Lin Mu was bracing for the impact for the explosion but it was completely stopped by the shield and thus he didn't have to do anything. The peak master waved his hand again, and the shield disappeared.
"Let's continue," Yi Deng said.
Everyone walked ahead and finally arrived in a large chamber that had the blood sludge pool. They could sense the pungent and foul smell even after the explosion Had wiped out most of it.
The supreme elder had a frown on his face as he looked at the blood sludge pool.
"This is even worse than I thought… the number of sacrifices this must have required…" The supreme elder muttered.
"Umm… this is just one of the blood sludge pools." Lin Mu spoke.
The supreme elder's eyes went wide as he capped his head back to look at Lin Mu.
"What did you say?" The supreme elder asked again.
"There are more of them… ten more." Lin Mu answered.
"Heavens! This…" Peak master had an utterly horrified expression on his face.
Wu Hei and Lin Mu realized that this must have been even worse than they had thought before. Perhaps their perception was skewed from the very start and they were severely underestimating what the implications of this were.
"Senior… I don't feel good about this…" Lin Mu spoke to Xukong.
"Just be ready for anything…" was all Xukong could say to him for now.
While Xukong could tell that Lin Mu was anxious he knew that the boy had enough abilities to save himself. And if push came to shove, there was still the final gambit that they could play. But it was not something they wanted to waste here.
Lin Mu internally nodded his head and observed the two elders.
"Ten more blood sludge pools like these… how many beasts and humans were sacrificed for this? And how many years has this continued for?" Yi Deng muttered with shock.
The supreme elder looked at the small troughs that were coming from the wall and went to the blood sludge pool. He walked up to the wall that they came from and touched them.
"There is a barrier behind it from what we've seen before. The 'gate' to what we think is the main room is in the other tunnel." Wu Hei said in a straight tone.
He was trying his best to maintain a calm look but even he was getting a bit overwhelmed by the Revelation. Wu Teng was the same while Qing Yuan Tiu also had a serious expression on her face. The two disciples of the Tri cauldron peony sect were just watching on looking shook.
"That's it no more waiting, we're heading there right now!" The Supreme elder declared.
The others nodded in agreement and they went back to the location where the path split and chose the other tunnel. The path was heading lower into the ground and the two elders could sense it clearly.
"No wonder it stayed hidden for such a long time… it is located over a hundred meters underground." Yi Deng said after assessing the depth.
Their progress was halted by the gate that had finally appeared in front of them.
"This was the farthest we ever went, and could not do anything to the barrier that is placed on it." Wu Hei spoke.
"I take care of it, you all stand back. Yi Deng protect them." The supreme elder ordered.
He then walked up to the gate and placed both of his palms on the door. Closing his eyes he focused on the gate and waves of spirit qi started coming from him.
Lin Mu was closely watching him and wanted to perceive it better using his spirit sense but knew that it could be problematic and thus avoided doing that. He could still feel the spirit qi fluctuations coming from the supreme elder and knew that he was working hard at finding a solution.
About ten minutes passed and nothing had happened till now.
"Supreme elder should we-" Yi Deng was about to suggest something seeing that nothing was happening but was interrupted by a wave of energy that shook everyone.
~WEENG~
~HONG~
Multiple formation runes appeared on the gates as they started to crumble and fade away one by one.
"It worked! He did it!" Fa Lao said with excitement.
"So we would have really needed a nascent soul realm cultivator to open this in the end…" Wu Hei muttered to himself.
~crackle~
~Deng~
After all of the runes had disappeared, the gate split from the middle and finally started to open. The dust that had been covering it all these years started to fall from it and clouded the vision of the people who were here.
The supreme elder opened his eyes as a few beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
'That formation array is terrifying! Never would I have thought I would see one like that here, the formation arrays of the Yao clan were indeed powerful.' The supreme elder thought to himself.
Lin Mu and the others finally got a clear look at the large chamber that had a bloody scent spread through it. The roof of the chamber was very tall, being above hundred meters, and they could see that it was at least five hundred meters wide as well.
There were multiple tunnels arising from the chamber, and no one could tell where they all lead to. But the most eye catching thing was none other than the massive blood pool in the center of the chamber. It was a hundred meters in radius and multiple troughs connected to it.
One could see that these troughs came from the walls and fresh blood trickled from them. Looking at the bloodstains that have covered the sides of the troughs, one could tell that there was a time when they were overflowing with blood.
The blood pool in the center was about ten meters deep, but only a quarter of it seemed to be filled as of now. In the very center of the blood pool though was a man sitting in a cross legged posture, floating over the blood as if it was solid.
"Seems like I finally have some visitors…"