Shi Lang was moving the drone closer and closer to the source, when he found many people sitting in a meditative stance but their eyes were open. He managed to confirm that they were only staring in the distance. He could not tell what they were doing. Suddenly, it clicked to him as he mumbled, "They are like the trees."
The drone moved further and Shi Lang followed through the mapped route slowly, carefully checking for any disturbance. He set the AI installed in the battle suit to take control if he spends more than five minutes in one place and guide him outside the effective range.
After traveling for ten hours, Shi Lang found himself standing before a spot that scared the hell out of him. He spotted a few dozen men and women standing on their feet as they looked into the distance. He regained his composure and stopped the drone from moving any further as he followed the trail.
When he reached the spot where everyone was gathered he felt chills running down his spine. He could not tell what was happening, utterly clueless, that was the word that Shi Lang used to define himself. No matter how many times he tried to look for an explanation he could not find one.
Every time he thought he had come up with something the feeling would go cold and the logic will delude him. He boosted all his sensors to the max level to find anything that could be marked as a source but for miles, he could spot nothing. He stood on the ground and patted his feet while thinking about the situation.
He looked at the faces of the living mannequins around him and thought, "What are they looking at if it is not the source? The laws of time froze them in their places. Since they are frozen, does that mean their souls are also frozen?"
He rubbed his chin and suddenly came up with a really daunting idea. He moved closer to one of the people and locked his gaze with them. Shi Lang thought for a bit and re-issued the commands to the AI, and took a deep breath as he said, "Lords, Amelia will kill me if I screwed this up."
He channeled a shred of his soul energy toward the old man before him and tried to get inside his soul sea. However, it was not that easy, he met great resistance from the person, and a voice echoed in his mind, "Who the hell are you?"
Shi Lang smiled, this was a good news. He replied, "I apologize if I disturbed your cultivation senior. However, I am looking for the secret realm that has no fixed location. Can you tell me where should I go?"
He did not wish to reveal his real intentions to someone he did not know till a few seconds ago. The old man asked, "I will give you the answer if you can get me out of here."
Shi Lang thought for a moment, and asked, "Sir, are you not cultivating? How can I get you out of here when I do not even know what is going on here?"
They used a circular motion to drill through the ground quickly, and after a few hours they stopped and pinged Shi Lang. The snow was layered and the difference went back to seven thousand years. Shi Lang sucked in a deep breath. Even if this was the world of cultivation, seven thousand years could be considered ancient.
Now he became even warier of the old man who talked to him. He approached the spot where the drones were drilling and waited for half an hour before it was confirmed that under two hundred kilometer of ice, there was a cavern.
Shi Lang took out Raksha from his space ring and the sword spirit materialized before him. She said, "You finally decided to bring me out after so many days."
Shi Lang shrugged his shoulder and said, "I was afraid because of Allure's presence. Also, did I not rely on you to slay those two guys?"
Raksha snorted and said, "What are we doing in this frozen graveyard?"
Shi Lang smiled and said, "Under us is a place where a Phoenix rests. I do not wish to disturb it but if I managed to learn the Dao Laws of Time, we will have less trouble for the war to come."
Raksha nodded, and then she asked about how deep did the cavern lay. Shi Lang told her everything and the lady waved her hands into a triangle and cut the ice directly with lightning energy and evaporated the ice to nothing but steam.
Shi Lang waited for the steam to clear up before he put Raksha back and jumped inside the hole with his arms crossed before his chest. The speed of his fall was super sonic. However, he did not try to slow down, because using spiritual arts to break his fall could look disrespectful to the Holy Beast.
As he approached the end of the hole, he dug in the two daggers at an angel. The friction caused his speed to slow down and he landed on the floor with a dull thud. Shi Lang did not need any source of illumination, night vision was enough for him to navigate through the tunnel.
The size of this place was massive, he seemed to be an ant in this massive tunnel. He gulped and just as he took a step forward, an ethereal voice echoed in his mind, "Who dares to come here and disturb me?"
Shi Lang sensed a pressure like nothing before and quickly bent one of his knee and answered, "Senior, my name is Shi Lang, I have come to the north searching for a ruin."
He raised his head and his soul shivered in fear. This was not ordinary fear but a primal fear that originated from the core of his being. Just when he was about to say something, the reason for that fear charged at him.