Woof! Woof!
Marble hell hounds chased after Fang Yuan. They were cut to pieces once they reached a few feet away from the Sword Saint.
Behind Fang Yuan, piles of dogs littered the stairs to the Timelord's palace. Yet even with having such an easy time, he was nervous.
'This person was a Celestial, someone who lived for hundreds of years and dominated the world. His actions and achievements were left in history, preserved in this place.'
'It was only in the 3rd opening of this place when the Sect found the history of Edward Chambers. Funny, how hidden this great cultivator was from the world even though he killed countless...'
Edward Chambers was a cunning man, he used loopholes in time to wipe his traces and kept all information on him to a minimum. By the time he was done, his name was erased from the annuals of history and no one bothered him. There were even some in the Ancient City who didn't know him, but still, no one dared step into his palace grounds.
The Palaces in the Ancient City were built like churches, massive with fewer windows and more design-focused. The rays of the sun brought more than enough light even with fewer windows and the majority of them didn't even need windows, using different types of spirits to get airflow.
Some of these artificial spirits were still alive, if one was lucky they might find one in one of the many empty buildings.
Before Fang Yuan knew it, the hell hounds were all dead and he stood before a door with an hourglass marking it.
'Here goes nothing.'
...
In the depths of the city, Cain licked his wounds, the healing was slow.
Pant Pant
"Phew, to think that Inquisitor is so powerful. To not even be a cultivator....what was that ritual they used again?"
No matter what, spiritual tools need spiritual qi to activate. The Inquisitors were mortals, they never even entered the harnessing stage, yet they could use the spiritual tools of high Tiers.
It was a secret not many knew, a ritual. The mortals would worship heaven, and heaven would bless a few, allowing them to instill spiritual qi in the air into the tools they use.
This meant the Inquisitors could use as much spiritual qi as they wished, as long as the environment could sustain the expense.
With a single spiritual tool, the Inquisitor could fight 10 men, with numerous, they could decimate armies.
"This place is filled to the brim with Spiritual Energy, in this place, the Inquisitors' are like untiring warlords, they have trained for years, their endurance is beyond most cultivators and even when they become exhausted they surely have countermeasures."
Spiritual Tools were hard to acquire, but with the rich Weapon Master Sect, the Imperium had a surplus. A single Inquisitor was better than an entire Sect.
The only weakness the Inquisitors have is their mortality, otherwise, they would dominate the world. But without mortality, they would never be able to gain the powers heaven blessed them with.
"In two more hours, I will have fully recovered, once that happens I will beeline it to the center. I must get my hands on the knowledge this place holds, only in the center will I find complete information!"
Cain did not know of Inheritances like Edward Chambers or anyone similar, all he knew was the center held the core of the City. That was where he would find his answers.
"I just hope the mist will hold on a bit longer..."
...
"Sect Leader, the southern area has been cleared out. There's no word from the Demon Sealing Sect but we've been contacted by the Immortal Sect, they wish to team up and hunt the Imperial Demon." A Beast Master Sect Elder reported the situation to his leader.
After his fight with Cain, the Inquisitor left, but this didn't mean the other powers in the city knew of Cain's defeat.
The Elder looked at his Sect Leader, he knew this man well, he was one of the Elders who knew the Sect Leader before he achieved such a position.
Once, the Sect Master was weak, chubby, and an alcoholic. But now, all the Elder saw was a giant of a man, strong and authoritative. However, he did lose something, the jolly smile he would hold on his face when he was younger was slowly chipped away until only an emotionless face was left. It all started when his master died.
'To think I've come so far, now I'm even in this place....' The Beast Master Sect Master thought silently as the Elder waited patiently to the side.
"Elder, tell the others to join the Immortal Sect in their endeavor, one less Demon will better the world." He declared with a righteous tone.
'But no demon could ever compare....' The Sect Leader became lost in thought once more.
...
"I underestimated this inheritance, no wonder no one has ever gotten it before!" Fang Yuan dodged an attack from an ancient beast long lost to history. Its head stuck in place, its body lost in time.
Adorned on the walls of a long hallway, there were many beast heads, all of them still alive. The only difference was they were in stasis, without their bodies. By some strange means, they could act as traps, attacking trespassers with their unique attacks.
Fang Yuan had already passed three heads, one was a hellhound, another a black jaguar, and the last was a lizard that breathed green fire.
There were still 12 more heads to pass, each was a different creature, some were big, others were small with the tiniest head being that of an ant. Fang Yuan had his work cut out for him.
One head, another, five heads, ten heads. Fang Yuan passed ten more heads in the span of half an hour.
The last two heads were strange, one was a phantom, and the other was a rhino. For the phantom, it had the appearance of a hawk with no skin, only bones.
The rhinoceros had one sleek black horn with white stripes on it.
"Here we go."
Fang Yuan entered the zone of the phantom, its beak opened and a shrill scream came from it.
This was the extinct Soul Bone Hawk, it used sound to crush the souls of its prey and ate the remains.
As the sonic attack hit him, Fang Yuan clutched his ears but it didn't help, the pain went on. He fell to his knees, blood leaking from his ears.
'I...must....continue!'
Pushing his body under the sonic pressure, Fang Yuan made a step, then another. Before he knew it, he was one step away from the Soul Bone Hawk's attack zone.
The hawk noticed and instilled its screech with a ghostly blue light. As the light hit Fang Yuan, he began to bleed from his orifices and collapsed forward. He exited the zone of attack and fell to the floor unconscious.
Six hours later, he awoke on the cold marble floor, his injuries healed.
"Just like every other time, I was healed once I passed a head...is this the power of time?"
Each head held a deadly attack, Fang Yuan would have to sacrifice himself each time to pass, some worse than others. But the Time Lord's inheritance wasn't so venomous, each time he succeeded, he would recover to his peak state to charge through the next challenge.
The inheritance wasn't about being powerful but surviving, making it through the challenges with pure willpower, and having the ability to do so. All while having the challenger's cultivation suppressed.
Fang Yuan couldn't use his harnessed souls, and his status as a cultivator was even suppressed to the minimum, if anyone saw him they would think him a Harnessing stage greenhorn.
"One more, I can do this!" Determined, Fang Yuan pressed on to the last head.
The rhino roared as its horn mixed with black and white, sending out a powerful beam. Fang Yuan dodged, his senses told him not to touch the beam at all, even grazing it gave him the premonition of imminent death.
Unbeknownst to him, the Rhino was one of the rarest creatures in the Spirit Lands, the Life and Death Rhinoceros. It was a beast with control of life and death, it had a death beam and a life one.
In the early ages, the Rhino's horn was used to create many armaments', like the Ying Yang Armor excavated from the spiritual stone mine.
All life-and-death rhinos were at the 8th tier, never reaching 9, they were incredibly hard to kill and their power was in their horn. But luck was on Fang Yuan's side, this Life and Death Rhinoceros was only an infant, if it was an adult he would be dead as soon as it attacked.
The older the rhino, the more they could manipulate the beam, old rhinos could turn the beam into a frequency, and any living thing in a certain field would die in an instant.
Fang Yuan found this head the easiest, he just had to dodge and pass unscathed, taking him less than a minute. Of course, it was the hardest in knowing that if he got hit he would have died. Fang Yuan's back was drenched in sweat but such evidence vanished as he passed the challenge.
"Now for the last test." He pressed on.
Fang Yuan went forward into a long hall. Soon, he saw light and a gate, on the other side was a colosseum, one made of black marble. The gate rose before he got there, halfway open and still going up.
"Do I have to fight this time?"
Entering the Colosseum, the gate promptly shut. The side's gate began to creak open.
Fang Yuan saw many eyes.