Chapter 1177: A Terrible Evil – The Plague of the Desert Palace

Watching that person completely covered in mercury, with mercury poured into his mouth, many present couldn’t bear to watch any longer and turned away.
Although Bi Xuan wanted to save him, considering the possible unknown dangers lurking in the mercury moat, he ultimately didn’t intervene, watching helplessly as his subordinate was engulfed by the mercury, leaving only a few bubbles.
Elder Qin sighed with emotion and cast a sympathetic look at Bi Xuan:
“…The dead are gone. Sir, let it go.”
“I won’t let them die in vain.”
A hint of pain flashed in Bi Xuan’s eyes as he said, “Just a mere mercury moat trying to stump me, Bi Xuan? How ridiculous.”
“It’s best if you can turn grief into fighting spirit, sir. But the moat is full of peculiarities—I suspect there’s more to it. Crossing it will likely require careful planning.” suggested Elder Qin.
Before he could finish speaking, Dong Fang Bu Bai snorted coldly:
“If that’s the case, stay here and keep planning. Having come this far together, I’ll take my leave first.”
With that, she unfurled her long sleeves, and three embroidered needles flew out from her robes, shooting toward the stone pillars on either side.
The needles silently pierced the pillars, leaving behind three red threads that led straight to Dong Fang Bu Bai’s hands.
Her expression remained unchanged as she took out three more needles and shot them straight toward the magnificent palace across from her.
Everyone was amazed.
Dong Fang Bu Bai’s Needle Transfer technique from the *Sunflower Secret Manual* differed from ordinary hidden weapon techniques—it used gentle internal energy that lasted longer. Combined with the light weight of the needles, they could easily reach distances unattainable by many other hidden weapons, allowing them to connect the main hall with the palace across.
But…
Some thought Dong Fang Bu Bai’s method was excellent, while others showed disdain:
With all the ingenious traps along the way and so many lives lost by experts at the Mythical realm level, if crossing could be done simply by setting up a few threads, it seemed a bit trivial for the creator of the Desert Palace to devise such a grand mercury moat.
The Thousand-Faced Fox stood low behind Happy, whispering to her while squinting to watch the needles Dong Fang Bu Bai shot.
Sure enough!
An unexpected scene occurred.
After flying over the mercury moat, the needles reached the palace across safely. But as they headed toward a pair of golden qilins outside the palace, the needles strangely passed through without any sense of impact.
“This…”
“What’s going on?”

Although it was far away, the crowd could still see that the flying needle did not fully penetrate the Golden Qilin but passed through as if it didn’t exist at all.
Dong Fang Bu Bai’s expression changed slightly! With a shake of his wrist, the needle that had pierced the Golden Qilin emerged smoothly from its body… landing intact in Dong Fang Bu Bai’s palm.
Boom!!
The crowd immediately erupted in chaos.
The flying needle did not return along its original path but pulled back from another part of the Golden Qilin.
“It’s fake.”
“…”
This time, not only Dong Fang Bu Bai realized it, but everyone else in the hall also understood what was going on with the mercury moat.
Wu Zun Bi Xuan stepped forward with a grim expression. Under the thoughtful gazes of the other Heavenly Dao masters, he flew above the mercury moat.
Whoosh!!
He dashed forward like the wind to a depth of about twenty meters in the moat… then returned to the hall using an extremely intricate swallow-shaped route.
The moment he landed, everyone in the hall saw Bi Xuan’s face turn extremely grim…
“How is it?”
“It’s indeed fake! The palace is fake—just a mirage hovering above the mercury river… And I can’t see the shore.” In response to Old Master Qin’s question, Bi Xuan answered through gritted teeth, confirming everyone’s judgment about the magnificent palace across from them.
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone’s faces turned pale.
After all that effort and countless life-or-death struggles to survive the Tian Gang Sword Formation, they found themselves trapped in another trap.
“How could this happen?”
When Bi Xuan said he couldn’t see the end of the mercury moat, everyone in the hall turned ashen, seemingly aging drastically in an instant.
“I wonder why, despite the legends of the Desert Palace spreading for hundreds of years, no one has ever managed to retrieve even a single treasure from it.”
“…”
“This Desert Palace is completely fake—there are no treasures at all. It’s nothing but a complete death trap!”
“It’s a shame we foolishly gave up everything to take this risk.”
No wonder they were all depressed and disheartened.
A hundred meters of mercury moat hadn’t broken their spirits, but the endless moat, combined with the deadly poison that killed anyone who inhaled it, made them feel trapped on a deserted island with no way out!
Even the several Heavenly Dao masters were in low spirits. Aside from the mysterious master wearing a fang mask, whose expression was hidden, everyone had furrowed brows, looking deeply troubled.
“Ten thousand years.”

Happy wasn’t convinced it was a trap with no way out. Frowning, he sent a message to ask the Face-Shifting Fox if it had encountered such a situation before.
The latter frowned deeply:
“It shouldn’t be.”
“What shouldn’t be?” Happy’s mind stirred.
Soon, the Face-Shifting Fox began to explain: “Normally, the danger level of any tomb shouldn’t be this extreme!”
“The first death trap is the black storm that occurs once every fifty years—a test that ordinary people can’t even pass… The second is a series of death traps every ten steps, capable of killing entire armies… The third is the sandstorm filled with ancient monsters… The fourth is the Tian Gang Sword Formation… Each one is more difficult to handle than the last. Without our numerous experts in the Way of Heaven, it would be almost impossible to enter.”
“You mean…”
Happy gradually understood what the Face-Shifting Fox was saying, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
The latter said solemnly, “Normally, the difficulty of the final Tian Gang Sword Formation alone is enough to defeat all the heroes in the world. There’s no need for the creator of the Desert Palace to devise even more elaborate traps. This place is a hundred times more dangerous than the most perilous tombs I’ve encountered.”
Happy nodded in agreement.
Just the Tian Gang Sword Formation had already claimed many elite warriors at the peak of mythology. If not for the seven experts in the Way of Heaven acting together, it could have wiped out any team with only two or three such experts… The difficulty was already astonishing!
The Face-Shifting Fox’s tone grew increasingly grave as he continued:
“The scale of this Mercury Moat is unprecedented in the world—almost unique… On top of that, there are poisonous gases and mirages in the air. It seems… this is a hopeless dead end.”
“That doesn’t make sense. No one who creates a tomb would design a trap that guarantees death. Yet this situation clearly has a fatal element… It seems impossible for the creator of this tomb to hide all his treasures in a dead end—there’s no point in doing so, unless…” At this point, the Face-Shifting Fox’s expression turned extremely grim.
Happy’s eyelids twitched as well. He hurriedly asked, “What have you figured out?”
After his face turned pale and blue alternately, the Face-Shifting Fox turned to him bitterly and said, “The creator of the Desert Palace is constantly devising more difficult death traps. The only purpose is to hide some secret… Or perhaps he doesn’t want anything to be found. In other words, the rumors about the Desert Palace might be wrong—there might be no treasures at all in it.”
“…”

Hearing this, Kai Xin couldn’t help but gasp in shock, his eyes widening slightly. “You mean the real purpose of the Desert Palace isn’t to hide treasures, but to conceal something else?”
“In ancient times, several extremely dangerous objects caused chaos in the world, leading to bloodshed and suffering among the people. It’s likely that the creator of the Desert Palace intended to seal these objects deep beneath it, preventing them from ever reappearing!” As he spoke, many of the doubts in the Thousand-Faced Fox’s mind were resolved, and his speech grew faster. “This explains why the palace was built in the desert, and why it was chosen in a place hit by the Black Storm every fifty years… And also why there are endless traps in the palace…” By the end, the Thousand-Faced Fox could only smile bitterly:
“All these days hunting geese, and yet even I, the Thousand-Faced Fox, have been caught off guard by one!”
One of the four greatest thieves in the Central Plains had instead found himself trapped in such a desperate situation as the Desert Palace.
“No chance at all?”
Kai Xin was disturbed by the Thousand-Faced Fox’s explanation, but he remained calm on the surface, showing no signs of impatience or anxiety.
He had thought the difficulty of a forbidden-zone mission was high, but he didn’t believe it was a mission with certain death…
As long as there was a sliver of chance, he wouldn’t give up!
When even the Thousand-Faced Fox couldn’t be relied on, he would have to take action himself, find his own way out—relying solely on NPC companions to break through was itself a bug and unrealistic.
“The creator of the Desert Palace must have intended to trap everyone here and let them die…” The Thousand-Faced Fox shook his head slowly. “The Black Storm comes once every fifty years, and once it starts, the area is buried under sand again within 24 hours… It’s almost impossible to decipher traps more dangerous than the Tian Gang Sword Formation in such a short time… Moreover, I have a feeling this isn’t the most dangerous part. When we see the deadly creatures sealed in the Desert Palace, that’s when it gets truly deadly…” The more he spoke, the more despondent he became.
Seeing this, Kai Xin frowned slightly before speaking again, smiling. “Since what’s buried in the Desert Palace isn’t treasures but those deadly creatures that caused chaos in ancient times, wouldn’t you want to see their true faces before dying? With your personality as the Thousand-Faced Fox, you’d surely die unwillingly… Do you really want future generations to find your remains and realize you died without even knowing what was trapped in the Desert Palace?”
“…” The Thousand-Faced Fox’s eyes lit up, filled with intense enthusiasm.