Talented Martial Hero novel Chapter 875

Briefly, there was an uncertain glimmer of light in the endless darkness.

Trying to shake off a headache, Darren opened his eyes—not that there was anything he could see.

"Where am I?"

Though his eyes were of little use in the dark, he had other ways of finding that out; he unleashed his spiritual sense. After spending a moment probing his surroundings, he found that he was in an enormous cave, one that stretched dozens of kilometers in every direction.

The whole place was silent and devoid of life. Aside from Darren, nothing so much as breathed.

In a way, though, he wasn't alone. There were many, many dead bodies.

His spiritual sense detected them easily.

'What is this place?' Darren wondered. 'These seem to be the corpses of the senior holy warriors.'

There was a great variety to them. Many were humans, but many others were of races Darren had never seen before. Most of them seemed to have been dead for many long years. There was little left except their bones, the tatters of their garments, and weapons or armors if they had any.

Darren speculated that these corpses must have been collected from all over the world by the Space-time Palace.

The purpose of that palace was to resurrect dead warriors in order to expand its own strength.

Taking some time to explore, Darren flew about the cave, choosing several corpses to examine more closely. There was an uncanny power that fluctuated around them, somehow altering the flows of time. It was strange, as though time itself had become a living entity, quietly shifting and moving about before Darren as though watching him. But really, the feeling was impossible to describe.

'Are these people left here because of the failure of resurrection?' Darren guessed.

He continued his investigations, inspecting what felt like thousands of corpses. In the course of it all, two in particular caught his attention in a special way.

'These two corpses exude a strong aura of ancient times, and the aura of thunder punishment, ' he observed silently.

Upon sensing the auras, he knew instantly that the two had once been tribulation holy warriors of ancient times.

Curious but careful, Darren released his blade and sword intents, hovering them over the remains.

He wasn't quite ready for what happened next.

There was a swirling whoosh, as of a sudden gust of wind.

Then a current of lightning, the color of blood, flashed from one of the bodies. It illuminated Darren's macabre surroundings for a split second, and a potent crackle of thunder bounced against the distant walls of the cave.

"What was that?!"

Darren was more than a little impressed. This person had surely died tens of thousands of years ago, and yet the thunder punishment aura that clung to his bones could still summon lightning.

What was even more interesting was that Darren had seen the same blood red lightning before.

This incident reminded him of the first lord of the Mythological Palace. The holy emperor with red hair in the portrait had released blood red lightning to punish an old man with his remaining spiritual sense.

'It is rumored that the first lord of the Mythological Palace was extremely powerful, so much so that he could even do battle with immortals.

Is he the holy emperor who once survived the tribulations?'

The mere thought of this and its implications set Darren's heart racing.

Barnes the Holy, a seven-tribulation senior holy warrior, possessed incredible combat power of his own. How terrifying it would be if a holy emperor, someone who had entered the Emperor Realm by surviving the tribulations, really existed in this world?

But in a moment Darren's awe passed, and he shook his head. 'I don't think so. An eight-tribulation senior holy warrior would be able to kill the genuine emperor, and level nine- or ten-tribulation ones might be able to kill the immortals. If there really was a warrior who had entered the Emperor Realm by passing through the tribulations like that, how could he have died at all?'

Setting the matter aside, Darren released his blade and sword intents again, holding them over the two bodies as before.

This time, the other corpse emitted the aura of tribulations.

A glowing blue rune shone above it, casting a warm glow to some distance, then faded away.

It wasn't as startling or as dramatic as the blood red lightning, but Darren could still feel that it was somehow stranger and more terrible.

'Was this one a tribulation holy warrior and also the rule cultivator?

Well, whoever he was, I should keep them safe.'

Darren put the two corpses in his Space Ring and made a mental note to study them later.

At this point, he was starting to think about how to get out of that cave.

However, he soon sensed that it was covered by a restriction, one far too powerful to break through. It seemed impossible for him to escape—at least, by any direct or obvious means.

'All right. Well, if I know I can't leave, I may as well cultivate here, ' Darren thought.

Since there seemed to be nothing hostile inside the cave with him, he was not in a hurry. The reason that the Misty Emperor, the Lord of the Space-time Palace wanted to capture him, was to threaten the human race into handing over the dark-spirit crystals. But those very crystals were being kept by Darren himself. If he found there was no other way, he could always hand over some of them while hiding the rest, and perhaps create a chance of escape that way.

Time passed, and Darren practiced in the dark by himself without being disturbed.