Chapter 1327: Heh, Now That's Interesting!

Below them, a whole herd of mountain-sized monsters crashed and tore at one another with astonishing force. Which one of these was supposed to be the Scorpion Emperor?

After staring blankly for a moment, Yuan Gang suddenly came back to himself. "I have a way to tell them apart. I should be able to summon the one that brought us in."

Hearing that, Niu Youdao and Yun Ji thought it over and relaxed. Good. Otherwise, if they truly could not get back out, they would be in trouble.

The few dozen giant birds had not been enough for these monsters to fight over. They were soon devoured completely, leaving only feathers scattered across the ground. A gust of wind swept them up and carried them away, no one knew where.

With the food gone, the monsters seemed to set their sights on the three people atop the tower. A mosquito might be tiny, but it was still meat.

Rumble, rumble...

The huge creatures began scrambling rapidly up the tower again.

The three of them were speechless, but they also noticed that one sand scorpion below had not joined in. It did not seem to regard them as prey.

Yun Ji pointed. "Looks like there's no need to summon it. That should be the one that brought us here. Look carefully. There's a bird feather stuck to its eye."

Amid the rumbling, Niu Youdao and the others found the scene both annoying and amusing. Before the swarm could reach them, the monsters had already thrown themselves into chaos.

Their bodies were simply too large, while the space near the top of the tower was too narrow. As they crowded and shoved one another, quite a few lost their footing and went tumbling back down, though some still managed to climb higher.

Yuan Gang suddenly jumped down one tier. "Hoh...!" He released a roar packed with emotion.

The instant the roar sounded, the monsters straining upward abruptly froze. Those that stopped in unstable positions immediately lost their balance and went rumbling back down, crashing into the desert below before using their tails for leverage to turn themselves upright again.

The one nearest the top hesitated for a while, then tentatively crept a little closer. Its enormous, hideous mouth slowly approached Yuan Gang, as though sniffing the scent on his body. The sight of one tiny human facing such a colossal, ferocious beast was enough to make anyone's heart tighten.

"Hoh!" Yuan Gang suddenly roared straight into its gaping maw.

The creature huffed twice and immediately began backing away slowly. Then it lost its footing while retreating and went rumbling down the tower, knocking a good number of those below it down as well.

After Yuan Gang's final roar, the monsters climbing toward them all began withdrawing.

Once he confirmed that he truly could control them and there was no danger, Yuan Gang started jumping down the tower tier by tier. No one knew what he intended to do.

Niu Youdao's gaze suddenly shifted. He noticed something unusual in Yun Ji's expression. "What's wrong?"

Yun Ji sighed. "There's something magical in Monkey's roar."

"Magical?" Niu Youdao paused, then smiled. "How so?"

Yun Ji frowned. "It seems to carry a kind of ancient, awe-inspiring presence, something vast and primordial. It makes him feel immensely great and towering. For no reason at all, it makes one want to worship him, even hail him as king. When he roars, it actually tugs at my emotions too. If my spiritual awareness had not awakened and I couldn't think rationally, there's a good chance his emotions and voice would control me."

Niu Youdao understood what she meant. She herself had cultivated from a serpent into human form, and some of the instincts of snakes, insects, and wild beasts remained within her.

Yun Ji looked back at Niu Youdao. "The first time I met him, I already sensed there was something unusual about him. It took me a while to grow accustomed to it. How can a human body give off such a strange and intimidating presence?"

"That..." Niu Youdao smiled bitterly. "I don't know either. Forget me—even he himself can't figure out what's going on."

Yun Ji asked, "What kind of hard external-conditioning art does he cultivate?"

Niu Youdao sighed. "Actually, it's very ordinary. He isn't the only one who trained in it. Nearly everyone from Small Temple Village practiced the same thing, all to strengthen their bodies. But he seems to be the only one who ended up like this. Oh, the others have all gone to serve under His Highness."

Yun Ji slowly shook her head. "Anything whose spiritual awareness hasn't awakened, anything incapable of rational thought... he seems to have the ability to command all kinds of animals. Incredible."

Niu Youdao did not discuss it too deeply with her. Seeing Yuan Gang apparently communicating with the swarm below, he jumped from the tower and flew downward. Near the ground he lifted slightly and landed as lightly as a feather.

Yun Ji flashed down after him and landed nearby.

Standing among the enormous creatures, Niu Youdao looked left and right. "What are you doing?"

Yuan Gang turned. "Master Dao, I tested them just now. Judging from the emotions they're giving back, it seems the one we called the Scorpion Emperor isn't the only one that can find the entrance and exit. These Scorpion Emperors all seem able to find it."

"Oh?" Niu Youdao was surprised. There was such a strange thing? "Don't tell me there's more than one Scorpion Emperor outside too."

"Their intelligence isn't high. Some questions can't be distinguished clearly through emotion alone."

"Uh... what are those two doing?" Niu Youdao's eyes shifted toward two monsters not far away.

Yun Ji said, "The one with a bird feather stuck to its eye is the one that brought us in. Hm..." Her expression changed. She instantly fell silent and slowly turned her head away.

Niu Youdao's expression became colorful as well. He had only just understood what he was seeing. The two monsters were brazenly mating in broad daylight, a sight hardly fit to look at, and the one that had brought them in was actually the passive party.

The one that had brought them here was female?

After taking a closer look, and now knowing what to look for, Niu Youdao and Yuan Gang carefully examined the others. Only then did they discover that the creatures were not all the same. There were males and females among them, with the males somewhat larger.

"Scorpion Emperor? If we're going to insist on giving the one that brought us in an imperial title, shouldn't it be the Scorpion Empress instead?" Niu Youdao suddenly asked Yuan Gang.

Yuan Gang bared his teeth and had no answer.

Yun Ji cut in. "I think I understand what's going on with the Scorpion Emperor outside."

Niu Youdao made a questioning sound. "I'd be glad to hear your insight."

"The outside world should be where the female scorpions go to bear and raise their young."

"Why do you say that?"

"Remember the nature of the sand scorpions in the Boundless Desert? Sometimes when they're starving, or when one of their own kind is injured, they'll eat each other."

Niu Youdao looked doubtful. "I still don't follow. Explain it clearly. What do you mean?"

Yun Ji sighed. "If they're too small, they could easily become food for other sand scorpions here. But there doesn't seem to be as much food outside as there is here. You saw those flocks of giant birds earlier. The outside world can't support creatures of this enormous size, though smaller ones can scrape by."

Niu Youdao suddenly understood. "You mean that after a female scorpion becomes pregnant, it leaves this place and hides in the Boundless Desert to give birth. Once the young have grown large enough, they return here because they need more food?"

Yun Ji nodded. "That's what I mean. Don't forget how keen the sand scorpions' sense of smell is in the Boundless Desert. Even in a dry desert, the faintest trace of blood can draw them. The reason sand scorpions can find the entrance and exit to the Fifth Domain should be related to their sense of smell. They can smell the aura of this world leaking through the passage into the outside world, and that's how they locate the entrance so precisely."

Niu Youdao and Yuan Gang looked at each other. The explanation made perfect sense, and they could hardly disbelieve it.

Niu Youdao clicked his tongue in wonder. "A few words from you, and suddenly the fog lifts!"

Yun Ji shook her head slightly. "You're flattering me. I understand the habits of other animals better than the two of you. Judging something like this isn't difficult for me."

Niu Youdao and Yuan Gang both felt as though they had just been given a lesson. Niu Youdao could not help laughing. "Looks like letting you come along wasn't a bad thing after all. Otherwise, we might never have figured out why these sand scorpions move back and forth between the two worlds."

Yun Ji looked faintly disdainful. "You give me too much credit. If you spend long enough thinking about something, is there anything that brain of yours can't eventually work out?"

Niu Youdao cupped his hands to her, then looked around and sighed. "It seems Li Ge truly made full use of the environments in both worlds. Not simple at all."

Yun Ji looked up at the top of the tower. "A single formation can determine the connections among all Five Domains. Just this one thing is already extraordinary."

That reminded Niu Youdao of something. He flashed back to the top of the tower and crouched there to inspect it closely.

Yun Ji and Yuan Gang followed. Standing beside him, they watched without knowing what exactly he was studying.

Yuan Gang asked, "Master Dao, have you figured something out?"

"No." Niu Youdao probed around inside the recess with his fingers, occasionally checking it with spiritual power. He muttered, "There doesn't seem to be anything special about it. Just placing a token here can activate the formation eyes in the other four domains?"

Yun Ji said, "From the traces left by various things, it's obvious Shang Song and his wife's realm was far beyond ours. Some things aren't for us to understand. Since they arranged it this way, there must have been a reason."

Neither she nor Yuan Gang knew what Niu Youdao was thinking.

Niu Youdao had opened the Shang Mirror before and knew it concealed a secret. Now he wanted to understand the relationship between the token and this formation. If the formation itself contained no special underlying mechanism, then the token must contain one. If he could understand the reason behind it, perhaps he could make use of it someday.

"Hm!" Niu Youdao suddenly patted the square stone set at the very summit. "Look. This isn't ordinary stone. It's extremely hard, and it doesn't seem to be merely sitting on top. It feels like it runs straight down through the structure."

Yun Ji immediately placed a hand on it and probed with spiritual power. Yuan Gang slapped it a few times, then drove one hard punch into it.

The instant his fist landed, a low hum seemed to sound in the sky. All three immediately looked up and saw faint mist gathering overhead in an instant.

"This thing can cause the qi of Heaven and Earth to fluctuate when struck!" Yun Ji warned.

Seeing this, Niu Youdao abruptly drove a palm down.

Bang!

The mist overhead thickened, and faint rumblings of thunder appeared within it.

"Look!" Yun Ji suddenly pointed below.

The two men followed her gesture and saw the swarm of giant monsters below react as though badly frightened. They desperately burrowed into the desert in a panic.

Before long, every one of them had disappeared. Even the one that had brought the three here was gone.

"Heh, now that's interesting!" Niu Youdao's curiosity only grew. He looked up at the sky, then struck the stone with another palm.

The causal relationship was obvious. The greater the force applied to the stone, the more pronounced the strange phenomenon in the sky became.

So he struck it again and again, gradually increasing the force with every palm.

Soon dark clouds covered the sky, and lightning and thunder gradually began to appear within them.

Now the three understood why the sand scorpions had been afraid. It looked as though rain was coming, and sand scorpions feared water.

Niu Youdao's face was full of interest. He wanted very much to know what would happen in the end, so he suddenly increased the force and slammed another palm onto the stone.

Bang!

Thunder exploded. A bolt of lightning abruptly split downward like a sword.

Niu Youdao's expression changed drastically. He flashed aside to escape, but he was too slow.

This time he learned firsthand what it meant for thunder to be too swift even to cover one's ears. The brilliant bolt struck him squarely on the spot, instantly charring his entire body black. Only the tip of one foot remained touching the ground, his whole body still poised in the act of taking flight, but he had failed to get away in time. He swayed on the verge of collapsing.

[End of Chapter 1327]