In this strange place, Wang Xuan saw yet another divine bamboo used in transcendence rituals. Even though he was in excruciating pain, feeling as if his body was being torn apart, he couldn't help but let his thoughts wander. He speculated that this bamboo must be incredibly significant in the realm of the extraordinary. Otherwise, how could he have encountered two such mysterious bamboo boats?
Furthermore, during the pre-Qin era, the most powerful and enigmatic scriptures were also carved on this type of bamboo.
The pain was unbearable!
Wang Xuan had no time for further contemplation. His body was on the verge of being torn apart, and his blood was flowing freely. The demons and monsters behind him were relentlessly dragging him towards the platforms ahead.
"Can anyone tell me, where on earth is this place?" he shouted, hoping for an answer.
On the shore, beneath the hundreds of platforms, the creatures were packed densely together, their voices loud and constant. Yet, not a single person turned around, and none of the beings responded to him.
Frowning in pain and frustration, Wang Xuan wondered, is there no one here with a kind heart?
At the same time, he questioned what this place was. Were the events he was experiencing real or just illusions? But when he touched his own body, he could tell for sure that this was no illusion. The blood flowing from him and the strange transformations he was undergoing were all too real.
Finally, Wang Xuan took a step forward, heading toward the platform where the Golden-Winged Roc resided. He wanted answers, to understand what was happening here.
The demons behind him roared and tugged at him, but eventually, many of them let go and gradually disappeared. Only a ferocious bird let out a long, piercing cry. Wang Xuan glanced at its shadow on the ground—it looked like... a Roc!
"Brother, may I ask you something…" Wang Xuan greeted someone, intending to ask for guidance.
However, it was as if he didn't exist. The people there ignored him completely.
Unable to hold back, he reached out to pat the shoulder of a thin person, intending to ask for directions.
Silently, the person disintegrated into light and vanished.
Startled, Wang Xuan backed up, accidentally bumping into a woman, who also shattered into flowing light and evaporated.
He gasped. What were these people? Untouchable and unreachable.
Surely, he hadn't killed them, right? They couldn't have been real living beings?
Even as the thin man and the woman dissipated, their expressions remained exuberant, not showing any signs of pain.
At that moment, atop the grand platform, the Golden-Winged Roc, wrapped in golden light, suddenly opened its eyes. Instantly, the entire world seemed to freeze, and all sounds ceased.
It glanced at Wang Xuan, then closed its eyes again. A faint voice echoed, "Do you choose the path of the Golden-Winged Roc?"
Wang Xuan felt his hands heat up, energy surging through them. His arms extended, transforming into golden wings. At the same time, the red feathers, snake tail, horns, three heads, and multiple arms on his body all began to fade, replaced by golden feathers as energy swirled around him.
Was he being transformed into a Golden-Winged Roc? Thankfully, it seemed to be merely an energetic preview.
"No, I don't choose this!" Wang Xuan shook his head vigorously.
Though the Golden-Winged Roc was a top-tier creature in myth, possessing incomprehensible power, he didn't want to become a demon. He only wanted to remain human.
As he backed away, he heard the bird screeching behind him. Looking down at his shadow, he saw the large bird's shadow struggling and screaming, unwilling to fade.
The process of his transformation into a Roc stopped, and his body returned to its previous, blood-soaked state.
In the silence that followed, he observed the platform ahead. Many beings were transforming into Roc-like forms, but most of them exploded, their flesh and bones disintegrating completely.
Among the hundreds or thousands of creatures, only a few successfully transformed. Of them, only one was human.
"These mythical stories—are some demons originally transformed from humans?"
It wasn't just ferocious beasts and birds that could turn into demons; even humans could choose this path.
"Whether they succeeded or failed, these humans were all dressed in ancient clothing. These must be remnants from long ago," Wang Xuan concluded.
He also recalled what those young people had said. One of the keywords about this place was "vanished."
"The vanished past?" Wang Xuan murmured to himself.
Long-past events were manifesting here, but they still carried a certain extraordinary power. He believed that if he had nodded and agreed to transform into a Roc, he truly would have become a demon.
At that moment, the fierce bird behind him let out one final cry before it exploded and disappeared. There was no longer any shadow of it on the ground.
Then, the demons began to reappear behind him, pulling at him and causing his body to ache and bleed again.
Wang Xuan had an idea. He stepped toward the second platform. As he had expected, the crowd of demons dispersed, leaving only one shadow of a demon behind him, roaring.
On the platform, the towering thousand-armed true god, shrouded in a glowing mist, spoke, "Do you choose the path of the Thousand-Armed True God?"
In an instant, countless arms sprouted from Wang Xuan's sides, all moving at once, making him feel dizzy just watching them!
"No!" he shouted, retreating quickly.
He saw that the creatures beneath the platform were all transforming, growing multiple arms. In the end, only seven creatures succeeded.
One of them was an old monk, truly human, who grew eighteen arms and, shrouded in misty light, gradually disappeared into the distance.
"Could the origin of the Buddhist three heads and six arms, or the thousand-hand deity, be something like this?" Wang Xuan wondered.
The other failed beings all exploded, their bodies utterly destroyed, leaving only bloodstains on the ground.
Even though these were remnants from the past, Wang Xuan couldn't help but feel shocked by the scene. It was too brutal—thousands of powerful beings, reduced to nothing.
This time, after the shadow of the Thousand-Armed Demon behind him roared, it completely vanished from the ground.
Now that Wang Xuan had gained some confidence, he began approaching one platform after another, continually refusing their offers. Each time he declined, the number of demonic shadows behind him diminished.
"You can take our path. The strongest species in the world can transform into human forms, and you can reveal your true form at will, as you desire," a great demon in a purple mist spoke from one of the grand platforms, seemingly having noticed Wang Xuan's attachment to his human form.
"I refuse!" Wang Xuan still declined, and soon, another demonic shadow disappeared from behind him.
Finally, on one platform, a man appeared. He looked ethereal, his aura transcendent, surrounded by white mist. He exuded an air of detachment, like a true immortal.
"Would you walk the path of the... Human Demon?" the man asked, with a gentle smile, gazing at Wang Xuan with particular interest.
The Human Demon? Even this wasn't truly human!
Wang Xuan felt a subtle shift within him. Outwardly, he remained unchanged, but internally, he was in turmoil. He gasped in shock, realizing that the internal structure of the demons resembled humans on the surface but was utterly different beneath. Of course, this was all energy transforming, without affecting his flesh and blood.
By now, Wang Xuan no longer hesitated—he rejected everything. Whether they appeared human or not, all of these creatures were demons. Even when presented with the so-called "Human Immortal Clan," upon closer inspection, their internal makeup bore no resemblance to that of humans.
As he traversed hundreds of high platforms, encountering countless mythical races, he rejected each one. By the time he reached the end, there were no longer any shadows of demons behind him.
Looking at himself, although his body was covered in blood, he had fully returned to his human form.
"This is the Demons' Secret Path!" Wang Xuan whispered to himself, understanding that he had just turned away from it.
Suddenly, he smelled the scent of medicine—a fragrance coming from his own blood. Could it be the medicinal properties of the blood grapes he'd eaten earlier, now being expelled from his body? The unexpected change made him realize that he could purify such influences in this way!
Though the towering platforms still loomed overhead, the vast number of creatures beneath them had disappeared, and the coastline was now silent. Even the ocean had calmed, no longer surging with waves that reached the heavens. At that moment, a boat made of Divine Bamboo drifted ashore.
"Get on the boat!" A sudden voice rang out, startling Wang Xuan. He quickly looked up.
To his surprise, a man had appeared on the golden bamboo boat. Dressed in a straw raincoat and holding a fishing rod made from the same Divine Bamboo, the man sat at the bow, his back facing the shore. The voice wasn't spoken aloud but transmitted directly into Wang Xuan's mind.
"Why should I get on the boat?" Wang Xuan asked.
"Aren't you the one who refused the various supreme paths of the 'True Form'?" The man sounded perplexed.
Wang Xuan immediately understood that the "True Forms" he referred to were the likes of the Golden-Winged Roc and the Human Immortals—powerful, mythical beings.
"If you won't walk the supreme path of the True Forms, then as a mere human, your only option is the Path of Transformation. Still not getting on the boat?" The man in the raincoat didn't turn around.
Wang Xuan felt bitter. He had been deceived by those aliens. Now, it was confirmed—this place was indeed the Secret Path of Demons!
He muttered to himself, "I'm already human. Why would I need to get on?"
He wasn't confident. What if this man was a powerful demon planning to swallow him whole as blood food? The events of today had been nothing short of bizarre.
The man in the raincoat remained calm, still facing away from him, and said, "Humans and other beings can walk the True Form Path of demons, so naturally, both can also walk the Path of Transformation. Even if you are human… I think you can still tread this path."
Wang Xuan wasn't sure if it was just him, but the man didn't sound entirely confident either.
With a deep breath, Wang Xuan decided to board the boat. After seeing so many strange beings today, what more could faze him?
But as he approached, the man suddenly spoke with a hint of distaste, "In all my years ferrying people and demons, I've met those who smelled of orchids and musk, or exuded a celestial fragrance. Even the weakest of new cultivators don't reek like this."
Hearing this, Wang Xuan almost wanted to punch him!
But then he took a sniff and had to admit—after escaping from the belly of that serpent, he hadn't exactly had a chance to clean himself up.
This man was certainly direct, to say the least.
"Wait a minute… you're not even a cultivator? Just a mortal? How did you make it this far without dying?" The man in the raincoat spoke again, though once more his words were a mental transmission.
Wang Xuan quickly realized that by "new cultivators," the man was referring to those who had just stepped onto the path of the extraordinary—in ancient times, this was merely the beginning of cultivation.
"Interesting," the man said, "I sense a strong presence of the Inner Landscape within you. Now I understand."
The man urged him aboard again, and then added, "It seems your family's Patriarch has looked after you quite well, guiding you into the Inner Landscape multiple times."
The man seemed amazed, silently sensing something. Then he suddenly whipped around and exclaimed, "Don't tell me… you've obtained an Inner Landscape Relic?"
"What's that?" Wang Xuan asked, puzzled.
"A treasure formed when a Grandmaster-level expert accidentally dies and refines a corner of the Inner Landscape into a relic embedded within real-world objects."
Wang Xuan was astonished. "A miniature Inner Landscape?"
"You could think of it that way," the man nodded, finally turning to face him.
Yet Wang Xuan didn't see a person—there was only an empty raincoat. Inside, there was nothing but darkness, with a faint mist swirling around.
"Surprised?" The mist within the raincoat stirred, eventually coalescing into a vague, human-like face.
"After all this time, do you really think any beings—human or demon—are still alive here? Everything you see is just the remnants of extraordinary power, holding to an ancient promise. I am merely a fragment of that power, a ferryman guarding this place."
The man began to adapt to modern speech, speaking more casually as he grew familiar with Wang Xuan's language.
"Anyway, I can take you to trade. There are many who would be interested in an Inner Landscape Relic."
With that, the boat made of Divine Bamboo began to move, gliding across the calm sea.
"Who would I trade with?" Wang Xuan asked, his curiosity piqued by the ferryman's mysterious nature.
"You'll see soon enough." The boat moved like a stream of light across the vast ocean, heading deep into the distance.
The ferryman casually glanced at the short sword Wang Xuan carried, and said, "That dagger of yours seems to have some merit. Would you like to trade it with me?"
Though his tone was nonchalant, Wang Xuan had a gut feeling that the dagger was far more valuable than the ferryman let on.
"Not interested in trading it just yet," Wang Xuan replied.
The ferryman nodded, unfazed. "According to an old agreement, I've brought you here. Now, you may conduct your trade with them."
"Who are 'they'?" Wang Xuan asked, seeing no one around.
"Patience," the ferryman replied. With a flick of his wrist, he cast a fishing rod made of Divine Bamboo, its line and hook soaring into the night sky.
Wang Xuan was speechless. Was this man seriously fishing in midair?
To his amazement, the fishing line never fell back down, seemingly caught on something invisible.
A moment later, the sky began to glow, an ethereal light appearing high above.
Wang Xuan was stunned. What had he just seen? Was that a celestial curtain? Were there immortals beyond it?
How powerful was this ferryman to cast a line straight into the domain of the immortals? He must be at the level of a Feathered Immortal!
"Someone's interested in trading with you," the ferryman said.
Wang Xuan had a thousand questions, but he held them back. He had no desire to deal with the ancient beings who had left behind such massive pitfalls in the past.
Yet, here he was, about to trade with… immortals? The ferryman had made contact with them for him!