Chapter 584: The Strange Mural

“There are roughly five murals in the entire Thunder God Temple. I’ve basically figured out the other four after years of effort. Only this last one remains. I estimate it will take another three to four years to fully understand it…”
The five people who had reached a cooperation agreement returned to the end of that passage. They stood in front of the mural at the passage’s end, listening as Master Guanghao explained in detail the mysteries of the mural.
Master Guanghao was also a cultivator who specialized in the path of thunder. Starting from the Yuan Ying stage, he would often come to Thunder Star to cultivate thunder magic. To date, he had spent at least seven thousand years there. He was undoubtedly one of the most familiar people with this planet and this Thunder God Temple.
There were various maps related to the Thunder God Temple—several drawn by him himself, along with countless others collected from others, at least a thousand in total. By cross-verifying with each other’s maps, they could complement each other’s strengths and cover for weaknesses.
In this world, although many people had some interest in exploring this Thunder God Temple, it was likely hard to find another person as persistent as Master Guanghao, willing to devote thousands of years to studying it.
Master Guanghao explained, “I was lucky. When I first discovered the first mural, by chance, I noticed its uniqueness, which turned it into a hobby. In my spare time from cultivation, I would come to the Thunder God Temple to explore it slowly…”
Su Che wasn’t interested in his mindset. All he cared about was the mural before him. Unfortunately, no matter what techniques he used, he couldn’t discern what made it so special. It was just an ordinary mural, even blurred due to the passage of time, with many details completely invisible.
Not only Su Che but even Lao He’s detection abilities, after probing several feet thick walls countless times, found nothing unusual.
“Enough. We’re new here. The effort we put in cannot compare to Master Guanghao’s. Let experts like him handle this.”
Su Che didn’t want to waste more effort on it. It wasn’t out of laziness but because he knew full well he couldn’t be smarter than Master Guanghao, who was already at the Mahayana stage. Moreover, with so much time and effort invested by Master Guanghao, his experience and insights far surpassed Su Che’s.

So, Su Che simply sat in the outer hall, meditating and resting in comfort, handling his own affairs, leaving the task of deciphering the mural to those four of them. For Guang Hao and the other two, having Su Che here gave them great peace of mind; they didn’t need to hide or worry about being found by those Witch Tribe warriors. In fact, Su Che knew that the Witch God was fully aware of their existence, but since these people were related to his own fate, the mighty Witch God didn’t bother dealing with them. Whenever he thought of the Witch God, Su Che would naturally think of Tian Yin: He wondered if Tian Yin, who had returned to the Immortal Realm, had already separated her original spirit from her body and infused it into that giant Witch form. What would Tian Yin, the mighty Witch renowned throughout the Immortal Realm, look like? Would she be a giant version of Tian Yin, thousands of feet tall? Her features would surely be completely different, right? After turning back into a Witch, after another few thousand years, would she still remember him? Would she still value their relationship? Although Su Che had confidence in Tian Yin as a “person,” if she turned back into a Witch and separated by thousands of years, it was truly impossible to predict what would happen in the future… In this way, over a year passed in the blink of an eye. Immortals were all excellent at killing time, so even the longest periods didn’t seem boring to them. Perhaps it was because of Su Che’s “fate” aura, or perhaps the wisdom of Princess Xue Yu played a significant role—deciphering this mural went particularly smoothly, taking only half of the estimated time. Today was the day when the task would be completed. “I hope this is the last mural needed to unlock the entire secret…” Guang Hao tightly held a small porcelain bottle in his hand, containing a potion he had prepared himself to solve the mystery. At this moment, his expression and movements showed both tension and excitement. After taking a deep breath, Guang Hao silently channeled his vital energy, turning the special potion in the bottle into a mist that was evenly sprayed over the mural, without any waste. Whoosh… As the mist covered the mural, a rather strange scene appeared before their eyes. The mural began to change dramatically, and the speed of the changes grew faster and faster. First, the originally blurred patterns gradually became clear, and many details that had long disappeared reappeared.

Immediately afterward, the figures in the scene began to move one by one—singing, dancing, slaughtering pigs, slaughtering sheep—vividly portraying a bustling sacrificial ceremony.
Are moving portraits that strange?
No. For cultivators, it’s just a trivial trick. Any kind of illusion or magic is a thousand times, ten thousand times more realistic than this; it’s easy to create such illusions that make people feel as if they’re truly there, even to the point of losing themselves.
But then, the figures in the scene suddenly transformed—turning into monstrous creatures with grotesque faces, sharp fangs and claws, and pairs of demonic wings on their backs. What they were slaughtering were no longer pigs or sheep, but humans or other advanced beings.
“Demons?”
Su Che’s heart stirred, and he immediately sent this transformation to Old White Demon in the Immortal Prison for identification, to determine which kind of demons these were.
“Huh?”
To his surprise, Old White Demon, a demon god from beyond the realms, showed a puzzled expression and murmured, “What kind of demons are these? I’ve really never seen them before.”
The term “demons” is merely a general label with no clear definition. It doesn’t mean that just because someone looks ugly or terrifying, they’re demons.
In the vast universe, many advanced beings have terrifying appearances but extremely pure and kind hearts, and they never take the initiative to harm others.
Of course, calling them ugly or terrifying is based on human aesthetics; conversely, those races might also find humans ugly and repulsive.
But at this moment, the grotesque creatures depicted in this mural weren’t only killing humans but also various other beings in extremely cruel ways—not just slaughtering them, but torturing them to death.
If they treated other beings as food merely to kill and eat, to satisfy their hunger, it might still be understandable. This is akin to humans killing other animals—it’s a natural law, a necessity for survival within their species.
But the slaughter depicted in this mural was purely for the sake of enjoyment through torture. It could be felt that those demons were extremely excited and delighted.
“Old White, just from these scenes, these demons seem very similar to your Outer Realm Demons—they regard killing as the highest pleasure.”
Old Black asked in the Immortal Prison, “Could it be that they’re actually transformed versions of your Outer Realm Demons? You just refuse to admit it.”
“Judging from this mural, they don’t seem like Outer Realm Demons.”

Lao Bai said in a deep voice, “Although the Outer Heaven Demons are extremely evil creatures, they wouldn’t waste food like this. Instead, they should devour these beings whole—skin, bones, and even souls… Hmm, they wouldn’t simply take pleasure in torturing them. This is truly a waste!” As an Outer Demon God, Old Demon Bai didn’t find these scenes cruel; he just thought it was a waste, not in line with the ways of the Outer Heaven Demons. The world is full of wonders, and Old Demon Bai couldn’t identify the exact origin of the demons depicted in the mural. Su Che didn’t really care either. If he couldn’t identify them, so be it. It didn’t matter what kind of demons they were—as long as they could uncover the secrets of the Thunder God Temple, that would suffice. Finding one’s own opportunity was what truly mattered. Su Che had an intuition, a vague sense that this opportunity might be related to the specific functions of the sixth layer of his Immortal Prison… For this reason, Su Che attached great importance to this “opportunity.” From the conversations between Guang Hao and Xue Yu, it could also be inferred that these four experienced Mahayana-level powerhouses, with combined experience of over a hundred thousand years, also didn’t recognize the exact origin of the demons depicted in the mural. However, none of them paid too much attention. After all, the universe is vast, and even in this spiritual realm with a history of just a few million years, there were too many creatures they hadn’t seen or explored—so it wasn’t surprising. About fifteen minutes later, the mural before them completely stopped changing, settling into a final image: humans and countless other beings rising up in resistance, forming a united army to fight bloody battles against those demons. This proved that these demons, like the Outer Heaven Demons, were common enemies of all living things and could not coexist peacefully with any being. “It should be done now…” Master Guang Hao said excitedly, “At this point, we can basically be sure this is the last mural!” Su Che remained silent, not joining in the conversation nor fully understanding what he was talking about. Could solving the last mural truly unlock all the secrets of the Thunder God Temple? Su Che didn’t bother to ask further. After all, since these matters were his responsibility, he just needed to follow him. At that moment, all five of them, including Su Che, showed a slight change in expression. Because right after Master Guang Hao said those words, they sensed a strange fluctuation coming from some deep place within the Thunder God Temple.

A very slight fluctuation, one that might be overlooked if not paid close attention to, yet it couldn’t hide from the extremely keen senses of those present.
“See? I was right—it really worked!”
Guanghao, who was over twenty thousand years old, immediately let out a cheer, without pretending to be solemn or concealing his joy.
“Follow me, fellow cultivators!”
Well-accustomed to the Thunder God Temple, Guanghao seemed to have identified the source of that subtle fluctuation. He took the lead, guiding everyone swiftly through the labyrinthine complex toward the deepest areas of the temple.