The amber light illuminated the metal door plastered with talismans. A red laser scanner swept from top to bottom.
Gu Jianlin walked around the corner, stared at the door, and whispered with his lips: "AIE-567. This is the warehouse. There are two guards stationed nearby, their strength presumably not too formidable. I'll take them out quickly."
"Can't you use the barrier of the Lock of Nonexistence to make them ignore us?"
Gu Jianlin shook his head: "What are you thinking? The Lock of Nonexistence erases your transcendent characteristics and diminishes the presence of a real person. On a crowded street, they wouldn't notice us because of all the people. But here, we need to tread carefully and evade their senses."
"The sounds we make and the commotion we cause will be subjectively ignored by them. Only with maximum liberation can we create a domain where others can't see us."
He explained: "However, within the domain, people can still see each other."
As he said this, his shadow had already vanished along with the Lock of Nonexistence.
In an instant, the two guards stationed by the door were struck hard on their necks, collapsing unconscious against the wall.
Simultaneously, his shadow, like a phantom that didn't exist, phased effortlessly through the infrared scanner, merged into the talisman-covered metal door, and triggered no movement.
The infrared beam shut down, and the talismans on the metal door dimmed.
The door was pushed open from the inside.
Perfect. They were able to deactivate these mechanisms from inside the warehouse.
Gu Jianlin and Tang Ling darted inside like two thieves, shutting the door swiftly.
Secret infiltration is the kind of thing you see plenty of in Hollywood blockbusters—but it was their first time doing it themselves.
In comparison, they found slashing their way through more straightforward.
Within the dark warehouse, Gu Jianlin quickly felt out the light switch and flipped it on.
In that instant, Tang Ling suddenly took a step back and bumped into his back.
Gu Jianlin froze for a moment, noticing the tension in her slender body. She was even trembling slightly.
For someone with her detached, indifferent personality, this was exceedingly rare.
"Turn around and take a look. You'll understand."
Tang Ling said softly.
Gu Jianlin turned and looked, and his pupils quaked.
The sight illuminated by the lights was an altar surrounded by ancient stone walls carved with patterns of ghosts and gods. Rows of pill furnaces filled with ashes encircled the area.
The enormous Eight Trigrams altar had staircases forged from bluestone on all four sides and, atop them, lay an Eight Trigrams array.
At the array's core, there were four empty coffins.
And above the dome hung countless coffins in dense clusters.
These coffins were transparent, and inside them lay an incalculable number of corpses.
Their faces were youthful, their expressions eerie.
Gu Jianlin and Tang Ling exchanged a glance. This scene instantly reminded them of the underwater palace at Black Cloud City!
Though that place had been extensively excavated and surveyed multiple times and even flattened by warriors of the Dawn Combat Sequence, most dangers had long been eradicated, yet one mystery remained unsolved.
That mystery being—where had Xu Fu gone?
The Qilin Immortal Palace was an Ancient God Realm, whose master was the Qilin Venerable.
Two and a half thousand years ago, after the apocalyptic battle, Xu Fu personally witnessed miracles, received blessings from the gods, and then built his tomb at the seabed's depths, becoming the Gatekeeper.
Yet now, the Gatekeeper was gone—neither living nor dead.
Even after the Qilin Immortal Palace fully opened and major forces worldwide entered the Ancient God Realm to explore it, the Gatekeeper remained missing—a truly baffling situation.
After all, there wasn't just one Gatekeeper.
Xu Fu hadn't gone alone—he brought three thousand child boys and girls.
So many people couldn't possibly vanish into thin air.
"Uncle Mu mentioned once that someone in the underwater palace claimed to have seen shadows of the child boys and girls, along with an elderly figure resembling Xu Fu in his Daoist robe roaming in the darkness. While it remains but a legend, it's hardly baseless."
Gu Jianlin murmured quietly: "Now, we've found it."
Tang Ling's eyes turned solemn. She circled the altar, lowered her gaze to inspect the pill furnaces, then took in the scenes depicted on the surrounding rock walls, staring at the ghostly images carved there.
From her pocket, she retrieved a single-lens monocle and slipped it on, the lens instantly fogging over.
This was evidently a divination-equipped device.
"This is an enormous alchemy matrix. In ancient terms, it's simply an array. It may be a priest's ritual array, but I've never seen such a sinister configuration. If this truly is the so-called Penglai Ascension Array from the demigod servant you subdued, then it represents forbidden human transmutation techniques."
Her gaze turned icy: "From ancient times to today, this has always been taboo."
This drifted into Gu Jianlin's blind spot: "What is human transmutation exactly?"
"In simple terms, it's the use of living humans as sacrifices to construct an alchemy matrix."
Tang Ling pointed to the wall paintings: "Look."
Gu Jianlin raised his head instinctively, his brow furrowing and an unpleasant chill running down his spine.
The murals on the wall depicted living humans being thrown into alchemy furnaces, surrounded by ghosts and gods chanting blood-drenched spells. From the flames emerged swirling smoke, coalescing into faintly human forms.
"That's human transmutation—a secret technique abolished during the Pre-Qin Period. It forcibly refines living humans thrown into alchemy furnaces, stripping their bodies and extracting their souls. Using special forbidden techniques, it condenses their souls into a unified spiritual state, thereby evolving them into a new form of life."