Chapter 154: The Sinister and Enchanting Stone Statue

The armless and headless stone statue had only one arm, posing in a very strange gesture.
"Hey, Big Uncle, do you recognize this?" Tang Tian and Bing communicated secretly.
"Never seen it." Bing shook his head, though his tone carried a hint of surprise. "These stone statues are indeed bizarre; there seems to be martial soul fluctuation."
"Martial soul fluctuation?" Tang Tian hadn't noticed it. Prompted by Bing, he reached out to touch the stone statue, closed his eyes, and began to sense it.
*The martial soul is very faint, but what a wicked and enchanting martial soul...* Tang Tian felt a chill run through him. It was his first time sensing such a cold, eerie, and wicked martial soul. By now, he knew for certain that this armless and headless stone statue was far from ordinary.
Gu Xue widened her eyes, watching Tang Tian curiously with his eyes closed. She could not figure out what about this stone statue could possibly attract him.
Seeing Tang Tian open his eyes, Gu Xue asked with curiosity, "Is there anything special about the stone statue?"
"Yes!" Tang Tian said with a solemn expression. "It has a martial soul."
"It has a martial soul?" Gu Xue was instantly stunned. "A stone statue has a martial soul?"
"Yeah, and it's a very sinister, chilling martial soul." As Tang Tian spoke, he examined the fracture on the statue. The weathering on the broken surface was not severe, meaning it probably hadn't broken too long ago. Recalling what Gu Xue had mentioned earlier about many people coming here thirty years ago, Tang Tian guessed whether the other parts might have been broken back then.
As soon as this thought popped up, Tang Tian's spirits lifted. "Let's look around. We might just find its arm and head. This stone statue doesn't seem like standard cargo."
Hearing this, Gu Xue became deeply interested and said without hesitation, "Then let's search for them and piece it back together. Look at its hand; it's carved so beautifully."
Tang Tian glanced at it and nodded. "Indeed, it is very beautiful!"
That intact arm was indeed exquisite. Although Tang Tian knew nothing about artistic aesthetics, his gaze was involuntarily drawn to that hand—it was extraordinarily graceful.
Furthermore, he had a lingering premonition that this peculiar gesture was not as simple as it seemed...
He could not quite put his finger on what made it extraordinary, but his intuition was exceptionally strong. He had been captivated by the gesture at first glance, and if not for Bing's reminder, he might not have even detected the faint martial soul fluctuation emanating from the statue.
Tang Tian and Gu Xue then began searching through the ruins.
Before long, they suddenly heard Gu Xue's joyful cry, "Over here!"
Tang Tian's spirits soared, and he hurried over. It was indeed an arm. Judging by the style, it was an exact match for the stone statue. Paying close attention, Tang Tian noticed it featured an entirely different gesture.
The two ran back to the stone statue and tried to piece it together, only to find they had an extra piece left over.
"This doesn't belong to this one." Tang Tian's spirits lifted even higher. "It looks like there's more than one stone statue here!"
"It seems like a rather remarkable discovery," Gu Xue said, brimming with joy. She looked as though she had stumbled upon a great treasure, her face full of delight and curiosity. What made her happier than anything else was that this remarkable discovery was shared with Tang Tian.
"Let's hurry and search to see if there are other stone statues!" Tang Tian was also filled with anticipation, suddenly feeling that this could genuinely turn out to be an extraordinary find.
The two of them earnestly began their search.
"There's one here!"
"I found one!"
...
They buried themselves in the rubble to search. Past noon, the two had practically raked through the ruins several times over. Aside from those buried deep beneath the ground that were impossible to thoroughly sift through, the surface was practically cleared of any missed items.
The recovered fragments piled up into a small mountain.
Neither of them felt tired. Looking at this pile of debris, they treated it as a mountain of treasure. They enthusiastically began piecing things together. In this aspect, Gu Xue's talent vastly outshined Tang Tian's. Before long, Tang Tian abandoned the effort and stood by as a spectator, realizing he was nowhere near as fast as Gu Xue working alone.
Five incomplete stone statues.
Yet, placed together, even Gu Xue could tell they were extraordinary.
"What era do these ruins belong to?" Tang Tian asked Gu Xue.
"I don't know." Gu Xue shook her head. "Many people have been here, but no one knows what era these ruins are from."
Although the five stone statues were incomplete, standing together, the surrounding temperature plummeted abruptly. A chilling aura lingered around the two of them.
Gu Xue's face paled somewhat, and she subconsciously stepped closer to Tang Tian.
Tang Tian's expression also shifted slightly as he casually nudged Gu Xue behind him. Clearly, the martial soul on each individual statue was very weak, but when the five statues were gathered together, the martial soul aura suddenly surged in strength.
Something was amiss!
The aura grew stronger and stronger, and the unease in Tang Tian's heart escalated rapidly. Disregarding everything else, he abruptly grabbed Gu Xue and forcefully hurled her backward.
He roared, "Bing!"
Bing, operating the saber-toothed tiger mecha, appeared by Tang Tian's side. Thrown far away, Gu Xue performed a swift aerial glide to put more distance between them. She knew her strength was meager and that she could not help; the most important thing was not to become a distraction for Tang Tian.
Her face was etched with tension.
On the field, the momentum of the five incomplete statues continuously escalated, and a sinister, enchanting aura billowed outward in waves. Tang Tian had an illusion that the five broken statues were coming to life.
He felt as though something in the dirt beneath his feet was about to burst through. He quickly sidestepped, and—whoosh—a phantom silhouette burst from the earth, flashing past his face. It was a fragment of stone.
Bang!
The stone shard snapped onto one of the statues, fitting into a missing gap with absolute precision.
Tang Tian's pupils contracted sharply, yet he felt not a shred of fear, but rather an eagerness to try. "They don't look very easy to deal with."
Bing's nonchalant voice echoed from within the heavy armor of the saber-toothed tiger. "Consider this a practical combat exercise. However, don't summon me out for no reason in the future. As a chief instructor like me, my appearance fee is very expensive. Ghost Claw is quite qualified as a hired thug."
"I think it's better to conserve soul cores," Tang Tian said honestly. "We're very poor!"
Bing was left speechless.
Puff, puff, puff.
Fragment after fragment, drawn by a powerful suction force, erupted from the earth like a torrential storm and plunged neatly into the five broken statues.
The cracks on the five stone statues were mended at a visible speed. When the final piece embedded itself, what stood before Tang Tian and Bing were five flawless stone statues.
The five statues possessed distinct expressions and poses: one seemed to smile while holding a flower, another stood with a finger raised, and a third held a half-closed palm with three fingers pointing toward the sky. Their demeanors and hand gestures were entirely unique.
Yet, the moment all five statues were completed, the wicked and chilling aura suddenly surged, and a wave of compressed air exploded outward.
As the aura swept over his body, Tang Tian felt a chill strike his heart. This presence was exceptionally cold and bizarre, attempting to burrow into his body like a living venomous insect.
Tang Tian circulated his true strength, and with a snap, the chilling aura was blasted apart, forming a pocket of air around him.
Radiating an eerie, mesmerizing glow, the five exquisitely crafted yet sinister stone statues seemed alive, involuntarily drawing Tang Tian's gaze.
Taking a single glance, Tang Tian felt dizzy and lightheaded. He immediately grew vigilant and snapped back to his senses.
The god-like youth's expression plummeted instantly, and he roared furiously, "These five bastards don't look like anything good! How dare they try to charm me? You guys are dead!"
Bing was not as optimistic as Tang Tian; he treated the situation as a formidable battle. A single glance revealed that the origins of the five stone statues were extraordinarily profound, their respective martial souls entirely different yet subtly linked.
If he were at the peak of his strength, he would have had not a single worry; scum like this could have been ground back into dust with a single finger.
But with his current strength...
He shook his head inwardly. That momentary impulse a few days ago when he used the Blue-Red Cross Sickle had taken him days to recover from. He needed to use powerful techniques sparingly.
His experience far exceeded Tang Tian's. The five stone statues before them were ancient, yet they had remained well-preserved and were now reawakened—such entities were undeniably formidable.
Yet, which constellation could possibly produce such an eerie, wicked aura?
Bing pondered silently. He had a complete blank spot in his history spanning from the downfall of the three great legions up to the present day. He knew nothing of the dynasties that had risen or the powerful constellations that had emerged.
Suddenly, one of the stone statues opened its eyes. Its carved face wore a smiling expression, possessing a softness akin to a woman's skin accompanied by a hint of allure.
Almost simultaneously, the other four stone statues snapped their eyes open, wearing expressions of laughter, crying, joy, and anger respectively.
Statues turning into living beings was utterly spine-chilling.
A warning alarm suddenly went off in Tang Tian's heart, and he shouted angrily, "They're coming!"
"Take care of yourself!" Bing shouted back in anger.
Boom!
Tang Tian accurately parried a hand that materialized out of nowhere. Its five fingers were shaped like a flower's petals, and a sweet fragrance wafted into his nose. Tang Tian felt his blood surge turbulently, his footing turned weightless, and he stumbled back several steps.
Another stone entity appeared behind him unannounced, its index and middle fingers held together like a sword, stabbing straight toward Tang Tian's back.
Tang Tian felt a stabbing chill, his hair standing on end as if needles were piercing his spine. Without even thinking, he dropped into a crouch, and a chilling sword qi grazed past his spine.
Reacting with extreme agility, Tang Tian threw his right leg out in a sweeping hook.
A fierce crescent saber kick, wreathed in a wisp of mist, lunged directly at his opponent.
Puff!
The kick struck the stone entity, but to Tang Tian's astonishment, aside from staggering slightly, the stone figure suffered not a single scratch.
Dammit!
Tang Tian had never imagined that his incomparably sharp crescent saber kick would fail to leave even a mark on the stone being.
Whoosh!
A five-fingered, flower-shaping hand thrust toward the back of Tang Tian's head, its bone-chilling air threatening to pierce his skull.
Tang Tian took a deep breath, and his hands hidden near his waist covertly unleashed the White Bird Vortex!
Countless white swirling qi vortexes erupted from Tang Tian as the center, blasting outward in all directions.
Taking advantage of the moment, Tang Tian dropped flat to the ground, dodging the stone figure's piercing finger. The instant he hit the floor, he pushed off with explosive force, shooting forward like an arrow released from a bowstring.
Before he could even steady himself, however, the stone figure clung to him like a shadow, refusing to let go.
Hiss!
A dazzling, snow-white blade light suddenly blossomed.
Clang, clang, clang!
Seven consecutive strikes landed on the stone figure, and finally, a crack appeared on its previously unblemished body.
Seizing this breathing room, Tang Tian finally managed to get a clear look at the stone entity before him.
His pupils contracted! (To be continued)