347 The Past of Monoliths and Swords

As the black rock landed on the monolith base, it turned into a black HeavenlyTome Monolith. A distant and ancient Qi exuded from the monolith, and slowlyfused into one with the Qi from the ten other monoliths. The formation that washidden in a relative position to it seemed to undergo some subtle butdefinitely important changes with the arrival of the Qi. The surroundings of the mausoleum quieted down slightly, and layers of rock nolonger fell from the surface of the stone pillars. On the surface of the blackstone monoliths that were already revealed, a gloomy, cold light glowed. Atleast several hundred thin dimensional cracks flowed between the stone pillars. The line-like dimensional cracks that floated between the stone pillars wereactually extremely terrifying. They were like dark abysses, and would rip aparteverything that approached them. Once something was swallowed by the cracks, itwould be sent to void space, and endure an eternal and endless drift ofloneliness. Fortunately, the cracks were currently bound by some sort of power,and no longer drifted about. In the whistling, violent wind, the clear cry of the baby peng resounded. Thecry was so happy that it was full of the delight of a successful revenge. Inits past life, it was Zhou Dufu’s mount, and it had once seen its powerfulowner suppress the proud stone monoliths with its own eyes. Now it seemed likedéjà vu, so how could it not be proud of itself? Chen Changsheng’s gaze retracted from the dimension cracks, and looked at theeleven stone pillars in the surroundings of the mausoleum. Using Xu Yourong’smethod of deduction that she had mentioned before, he did the calculationagain, and confirmed that the formation could control the storms of energybrought upon by the appearance of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths. At the sametime, it confirmed that his memory and the idea that seemed mystical were notwrong. When he viewed the monoliths in the Mausoleum of Books at night before, theseventeen monoliths formed a star chart. However, it was always incomplete, sohe was unable to break through the threshold, until the last moment, when theblack rock that he had obtained from the Pavilion of Ascending Mist gave off abright light, and filled in the star chart. Only then did he truly comprehendthe true meaning of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths, and break through to the upperrealm of Ethereal Opening. An immeasurable amount of starlight washed over the mausoleum. At that time,he was in a condition where he was in a mental journey, and did not know whathad happened in his own consciousness at all. After what had happened, heforgot about the usage of the black rock even more, and only had an extremelyvague and blurry impression. Fortunately, he still managed to remember it inthe end, and receive verification. The black rock in the Pavilion of Ascending Mist, behind Wang Zhice’sportrait… was a Heavenly Tome Monolith. With this, the greatest secret of the Mausoleum of Books, as well as thegreatest secret of the Garden of Zhou, which could even be considered as thegreatest secret of the continent in the past thousand years, finally revealed amajority of its truths before his eyes. Although the stories that occurredbetween the once-peerless experts were already forgotten and buried inoblivion, he had already managed to see some truths. Many years ago, Zhou Dufu took twelve monoliths from the Mausoleum of Books.The matter itself was already extremely universally shocking—no one understoodhow he did it, nor how he could preserve the monoliths outside of the Mausoleumof Books. It was also an extremely outrageous matter. The Heavenly Tome Monoliths were the sacred objects of the Heavenly Dao.Within the monoliths hid something that did not belong to this world, whichcould be called violent energy. The Qi and energy originated from anotherworld. To this world, it was like countless sparks, while the mountains,rivers, oceans, trees, beasts, and humans—all the existences of the world—werejust a pile of dry firewood. As soon as dry firewood and fire met, countless flames would definitely form.Fortunately, when the Heavenly Tomes descended many years ago, a type ofrestriction formed naturally, which connected them with the earth as one,allowing them to rest quietly using the energy of the thick earth. As a result,in the Mausoleum of Books, the energy could be kept calmly within the stonemonoliths. Once it left the Mausoleum of Books, the Qi that was incompatiblewith the world would naturally come out of the monoliths, and set everything inthe world alight. The distant, ancient Qi seemed peaceful, but to this world,it represented destruction. As a result, the monoliths could not leave the Mausoleum of Books. Zhou Dufu instead did exactly the opposite, and he even succeeded. A HeavenlyTome Monolith was lost outside for some reason, and he brought the remainingeleven monoliths into the Garden of Zhou. Even though the Garden of Zhou wasseparated from the world, even though his powers were close to miracles, he wasstill unable to conceal the Qi of the eleven monoliths, to prevent their Qifrom coming in contact with the real world. As a result, he used astonishingmethods and his genius-level intelligence and came up with an extremelyfantastic method—he created a formation with the eleven monoliths. The formation was a type of subtle and clever imitation of the Mausoleum ofBooks, or put straightforwardly, a shrunken version of the Mausoleum of Books.Xu Yourong could use such a short time to understand the connection between thestone pillars, to understand the wondrous method Zhou Dufu had used before,because she had studied the Mausoleum of Books and the Heavenly Tome Monolithssince childhood. Relying on such a formation, Zhou Dufu let the Qi of the eleven monoliths thathad left the Mausoleum of Books forcefully restrain each other without end. Hecreated his own independent world, and used the seemingly weak balance to stopdestruction from occurring. In order to protect the balance from beingdestroyed by people, he left countless terrifying monsters in the Plains of theUnsetting Sun. If matters really did continue as such, perhaps after Zhou Dufu’s death, withthe flow of time, the Garden of Zhou’s rules may have slowly collapsed, and themausoleum may have crumbled. However, the Heavenly Tome Monoliths hidden in theeleven stone pillars would remain undiscovered, quietly enduring the wind andthe rain for all of eternity. Yet, there were no matters that were eternal in the world. In fact, just a fewyears after Zhou Dufu had entered the Mausoleum of Books to steal monoliths, aman secretly entered the Garden of Zhou with the intention of stealing thestone pillars. Just based on level of cultivation and battle prowess, the manobviously was not as great as Zhou Dufu, but in other aspects, he was moreoutstanding than Zhou Dufu in the hearts of everybody. The man was Wang Zhice. Perhaps because of Emperor Taizong’s order to discover the whereabouts of themonoliths, or perhaps because he wanted to prove some idea he had, Wang Zhiceentered the Garden of Zhou. Through some unknown method, he retrieved one ofthe Heavenly Tome Monoliths from a stone pillar, and turned it into a blackrock mystically. Zhou Dufu naturally discovered this, and then problems occurred. Of the eleven monoliths, one was missing. This meant that the formation thathe had spent all his efforts on was destroyed. It could be imagined that the Garden of Zhou back then was the same as thepresent time, full of storms of energy and whistling whirlwinds that wreakedhavoc. Zhou Dufu obviously could use his peerless strength to forcefully suppress theeruption of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths, but it was the same as the very start.He could not stay between the monoliths forever, so he needed to fix theformation, or in other words, he needed to find another Heavenly Tome Monolith. Very obviously, the imperial family of Great Zhou and the Orthodoxy that hadalready experienced it once would not give him another opportunity. Perhapswhen he sat on the mausoleum and contemplated, he saw that there was still asword that was unwilling to yield in the sea of grass. Perhaps it was ChenXuanba’s Dragoncry Sword, or perhaps it was the Holy Maiden Sword from SouthStream Temple. Anyway, it allowed him to think of a method. Since it was very difficult to find another Heavenly Tome Monolith, he couldonly find a replacement object.  Of course, the replacement object needed to be powerful, and needed the powerthat was equal to the Heavenly Tome Monolith. The replacement object Zhou Dufu chose was sword intent. He used ten thousand swords to replace the Heavenly Tome Monolith. With that, the Garden of Zhou slowly recovered its peace. The Plains of the Unsetting Sun became peaceful once again. There were no more people that had found the mausoleum, much less any persondiscovering the secrets in the stone pillars. Until a certain year later on, the soul of a sword separated from its body,and its body drifted out of the grassland along the pools of water. It passedthrough the small lake, and arrived in the Garden of Zhou’s other side. Itdrifted along the cold lake, and was washed into the forest next to the riverby the water. It was taken by Su Li. As a result, an additional umbrellaappeared in Wenshui, and the umbrella was currently in Chen Changsheng’s hand. Chen Changsheng took the umbrella into the Garden of Zhou again. To the tenthousand sword intents in the grassland, it was a return. Without thesuppression of the ten thousand sword intents, the formation was destroyed. TheHeavenly Tome Monoliths appeared, and began to destroy the world. However, whowould have thought that he also brought back the Heavenly Tome Monolith thatwas lost outside? To the Garden of Zhou, it was a true return. It was possible that it was a story from years ago. Of course, it was onlyChen Changsheng’s conjecture. At that moment, he did not know about the truesecret of the Yellow Paper Umbrella. There were still many details that werenot clear enough in the story he had imagined. Why did Wang Zhice only takeaway one monolith all those years ago? Was taking away one monolith the limitof his ability, or did it mean that his original intention of taking away themonolith was not for searching, but to destroy the formation and as a result,to destroy the Garden of Zhou? Or perhaps, he even wanted to use such a methodto deal with Zhou Dufu? No one knew what Wang Zhice was thinking all those years ago, and there wasalso no one who knew whether a world-shaking battle had occurred in the Gardenof Zhou all those years ago. According to the records of history, Wang Zhiceand Zhou Dufu never battled. According to rumors among the people, they weresworn brothers. However, who knew? Those experts that had once crisscrossed thecontinent, that virtuous predecessor who once blanketed the capital in theradiance of the stars—how they had met and how they had battled was beyond ChenChangsheng’s understanding, and even beyond his imagination.     The baby peng passed through the terrifying dimension cracks, and flew back infront of the main entrance of the mausoleum. Chen Changsheng stared into its eyes and did not say anything. It understood,its eyes became gloomy and it thought, this is a transaction. Since I havealready completed my part, just why should I continue to help you? Also, theway you look at her is lifeless. If I can’t fly out in time, what will happen? Yes, it was still a little too late. The stone pillars no longer flaked rocks, and the Heavenly Tome Monoliths nolonger gave off clear light. The distant and ancient Qi had been retracted backinto the black rock once again, but the world of the Garden of Zhou was alreadyriddled with gaping wounds. The countless storms of energy continued to ripapart the sea of grass and mountain ranges. Most terrifyingly, the skycontinued to collapse without stopping. The monsters in the grassland seemed tofeel a sliver of a chance to survive, and currently ran wildly in the directionaway from the mausoleum as if their life depended on it. However, the mountainranges far away had also already collapsed. Who knew whether they could escapebefore the world was destroyed? Chen Changsheng turned around and looked at Xu Yourong. Xu Yourong already felt the changes that occurred outside, and her gaze on himwas full of shock. Zhou Dufu arranging eleven Heavenly Tome Monoliths into a formation wassomething she could understand. She had told Chen Changsheng how the problemcould be solved, but she had not thought that Chen Changsheng would actually beable to solve the problem. It caused her to be very shocked, and even slightlyat a loss—why would he have a Heavenly Tome Monolith? It was just that she could not say that in time, so she did not say anything. The Heavenly Tome Monoliths quieted down. They needed to seize the moment andleave, leave together.