The princess agreed with Li Qiye's statement and stared solemnly at the gigantic monument.
This place was covered with skeletons clearly from an ancient age. However, there were still some recently deceased corpses here – the ones with only skin left.
While everyone was fixated on the amazing monument, a powerful old man commented: “This is an amazing altar, one could refine gods and devils with it.”
This was an influential character; many cultivators nearby nodded and agreed with this perspective.
“Should we do it? If we can bring this altar back, it might become our sect's defining treasure.” A young expert couldn't help wanting to try and push forward.
“No rush, wait and see.” His senior stopped this hot-blooded youth and shook his head: “This monument is sinister. Earlier, River Dragon King wanted to try; that's his withered corpse right there.” He pointed at a pile of bones. There were dried-up remains there wearing a dragon robe, clearly a king when he was alive.
“Even the River Dragon King died?” The youth took a deep breath because he had heard about the king's legends growing up.
In fact, many experts tried to obtain this monument for themselves and faced the same miserable consequence.
Just like that, the second wave had to be prudent in order to avoid having their vitality drained.
“I doubt anything will happen now.” One expert lost his patience. This was a white-haired old man with a purple dragon robe. The embroidered dragon had five raised claws, looking quite majestic. The old man's eyes were brimming with radiance with violet pupils.
“Violetcloud King wants to take action now.” Someone murmured, recognizing the old man's identity.
“He's a master from the devil race with incredible imperial arts. Looks like he's here with imperial weapons too.” Another person commented after seeing the bold man.
This particular king was relatively famous in Pure. He came from an imperial lineage of the devil race and was quite powerful himself. The change of color in his pupils was an identifying factor.
Members of the devil race had a unique characteristic. Normally, their pupils had a dark blue color. After reaching a certain power level, they would turn violet. The darker the shade, the more powerful. There was another rumor that people with the Bestowment bloodline would have golden pupils.
This king took a deep breath and slowly walked forwards the altar. He had released his vitality, resulting in a deafening explosion. This vitality turned into a violet energy before transforming again into a roaring dragon. It coiled around his body and protected him.
The crowd watched with bated breath, wondering if he could actually be successful.
“Buzz…” A series of quiet buzzing came about. As he inched closer, his vitality started to lose control. Strings of blood flew out of his body as if a powerful force was sucking him dry.
“Stabilize!” The king roared and became resplendent with an imperial aura. He had activated the art of a Grand Emperor, creating continuous dragon cries. Boundless imperial symbols of many layers appeared on the dragon coiling around him.
“Boom!” It was trying to stabilizing the situation and stopped his vitality from being drained.
Sure enough, the sucking process actually stopped. It seemed that his peerless imperial art was effective.
The crowd praised him after seeing this and thought to themselves, 'that's an imperial art for you, possessing magnificent power.'
“Buzz.” While the king himself heaved a sigh of relief, his vitality suddenly erupted like a storm with strings of blood shooting out. Earlier, it was a slow process like a silkworm weaving its silk. Now, it resembled a blood-sucking force.
In just a second, his body dried up with wrinkles everywhere. He became several decades older in appearance after losing half of his vitality.
“Activate!” The once-confident old man was finally scared. He roared and used more imperial arts in order to escape but he found that it was useless. There was a matchless sucking force pulling him forward.
“Again!” The aghast old man took out an imperial item of the prenatal Violet Force level.
“Boom!” It turned into an armor, intending on stabilizing his vitality.
Blood still shot out of the armor just like before. This Grand Emperor's armor was useless like a net trying to stop water from flowing through.
“No!” The king became horrified but it was too late.
“”Ah!” All of his blood was drained at a rate much quicker than before. This suction force was terrorizing and took all of his blood as if his body was a sieve. One would think that something had pierced countless holes in his body. Only skin and bones were left of the king.
All of his blood started flowing from the altar down the gaps to the monument. With a buzz, all the blood suddenly disappeared without a trace as if it had been devoured by the monument.
Even an imperial artifact couldn't protect him to the horror of the crowd. The mass began to weigh themselves, thinking whether they were stronger than River Dragon King. Even if they were stronger, they didn't have an imperial weapon anyway.
The princess composed herself after watching this scene: “It's too strong, he couldn't even fight back with an imperial weapon.”
“It has nothing to do with strength.” Li Qiye shook his head: “It's due to a disparity in power between him and the imperial artifact; this nullified its effectiveness. If he were to use his own dao weapon, it would have been better. Before this altar, one needs a delicate balance between the defensive artifact and their own power in order to protect the vitality using the true fate.”
“What kind of logic is that?” She asked.
“You need to ask the person who created it and what they wanted to do.” Li Qiye chuckled in response.
The mass became silent after seeing the death of River Dragon King. It was suicidal to attempt anything after this clear example.
“How amusing.” Someone suddenly broke the silence. His voice wasn't loud but each word struck a mental chord like a heavy piece of metal.
An old man wearing a gray robe was standing on a peak. When he opened his eyes, everyone felt time passing by faster. He looked imposing enough to suppress an entire domain.
“High God Shangguan.” Someone shouted with reverence.
Another cultivator from the same generation became envious and said: “Shangguan Tu has finally crossed through that boundary after waiting for one generation to become a High God.”
He was from the previous generation with decent talents. It took him this long period but he still managed to overcome the Dao Celestial realm to become a High God with one totem.
“The High God is about to try.” Someone cried out.
In the eyes of the spectators, Shangguan Tu was still a High God despite having only one totem. He was still much stronger than someone at the Dao Celestial realm. They wanted to see whether he could do something to this stone monument.
Shangguan Tu's eyes lit up to become as bright and scorching as a sun. There was no doubt that he was very interested in this monument.