I Am Your Natural Enemy

Wen Yan heard what Fourth Great-uncle Master said, but he didn’t get too nervous.

Being able to force Bai Jiahui, at the peak of her Six-Tails period, into a desperate situation, only shows that this opponent isn’t weak.

But Bai Jiahui obviously isn’t the type that’s overwhelmingly strong in pure combat; being stronger than peak Bai Jiahui doesn’t really mean much.

The most important thing is still what abilities the other party has. Rank and that sort of thing aren’t that meaningful.

Back then, when Thirteenth Ancestor fought in peak tournaments, the ones he encountered were definitely stronger than what’s around now.

According to what Bai Jiahui said, when the Last Dharma descended over there, it was much more severe and intense than here, as if everything plummeted overnight.

With the Spiritual Qi Resurgence, more and stronger things are reviving over there.

The upside is that the once-powerful creatures come back quickly.

But on this side, after decades of slow infiltration, everything is being revived bit by bit, gradually accelerating.

The good thing is, all the creatures and everything else have gotten used to the process, so the danger is much lower, but the bad thing is that the once-powerful creatures can’t revive as fast.

Think about it, take the mythical beings Wen Yan has seen so far.

King Guilong is one, but among his generation, he was actually like a junior, not even fully evolved into Azure Dragon yet.

Mountain Lord? Already got killed twice before.

Glutton? Got split into five parts, epic-level debuffed.

Only Water Monarch, who shouldn’t have revived now, probably did so because Wen Yan, that time he returned from the Styx River, stepped right up to Water Monarch’s doorstep, and because of Scorching Sun, startled him awake.

And in the Great Wilderness, according to Tong Si, those legendary creatures and Night Vigil Deities had already been around for several years.

The progress in Great Wilderness is definitely faster.

But none of them are at their former peak state, so each side has both advantages and weaknesses.

According to Wen Yan’s estimate, the dog that’s trying to come after them now definitely isn’t as strong as the one from back then.

”Fourth Great-uncle Master, did you notice anything else here?”

”Sixteenth Ancestor left quite a lot of things, all recorded in the tomb.

Some of them specifically explain things left behind by Thirteenth Ancestor.

Luckily, those melon-peel tomb robbers aren’t interested in murals or stone inscriptions and the like—stuff that’s hard to steal and even harder to sell.

Otherwise, maybe nothing would’ve been left behind at all.

The burial items left in this grand tomb aren’t extremely valuable or worthless; right from the start, they were probably meant to make it look like it’d already been robbed.

So even if some tomb robbers came later and saw nothing valuable, they’d just think they got here too late.

The most valuable things are actually the informational records.”

”What kind? Is there anything I can use?”

”There are some. You can take a look and study them later.

The most important record here notes how to activate the power of this Layered Tomb itself.

With the Spiritual Qi Resurgence, much of this tomb’s power has begun reawakening.

All you need is a Taoist who can follow instructions by the book, and the tomb’s power can be unleashed.

Just get familiar with these. If it involves setting up a ritual altar, you wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

But there are some annotations by Sixteenth Ancestor at the back, including how to use Scorching Sun.

Some are pretty well-suited for you. I’ll sort them out and teach them to you later.

If you try reading them on your own, you’ll probably understand maybe 80% at most.”

”Oh...” Wen Yan responded honestly, not bothering to contradict.

It’s not like he hasn’t read plenty of original texts before; with just the original, he can get about 80% of it—close enough.

But it’s that missing bit that might twist his whole understanding all the way to Grandmother’s home.

Ever since he started learning hand seals and finger seals and the like, he’s understood deeply what it means for a tiny mistake to throw you a thousand miles off.

Better to just give up struggling this time—if he gets something stuck in his head the wrong way, it’ll be really hard to fix it later.

”Does any of this have anything to do with that dog thing?”

”Probably not much. This portal should be related to the Tu Shan Clan.

But as for what exactly happened back then, the records here aren’t very clear.

There was an earthquake, relocation, construction of the Layered Tomb, alterations of various things—after all that, a lot ended up lost or damaged.

The only thing for sure is that dog and the fox clan are natural enemies.

That dog also has a high chance of being able to use this portal to get here.

Fox tribe, portal, that dog, the tomb, Thirteenth Ancestor, Sixteenth Ancestor, and so on—it’s all connected.”

As Fourth Great-uncle Master spoke, he pulled Wen Yan into the tomb to show him in person.

Wen Yan looked at the neat and hardly weathered stone inscriptions; aside from a few characters, he could recognize nearly all of them, but reading them all together still gave him a headache.

As usual, the pronoun usage in here was a mess—it drove him mad.

”This dignified finger refers to a type of hand seal, adapted from a story.

It says Savior Heavenly Master descended into the human world and by chance encountered many farmers working at night in the pitch dark, stealing a march on the timing of the heavens.

So he pointed to the bright moon, illuminating the earth so that those people, who couldn’t see a thing at night, could use the moonlight to see clearly.

Back when Thirteenth Ancestor blessed Bright Moon, he probably used this technique too.

This is also why Thirteenth Ancestor offended so many—he pissed off over half the Divine Land water system, and quite a few people besides.

But in the end, he didn’t really offend any other demons, which is one of the reasons why.

Lots of Demon Kin worship the moon—many demons need to worship the moon to gain intelligence and awaken spiritually.

Zombies too—those that absorb lunar essence have higher intelligence and are more peaceful.

And many ghosts, too.