Chapter 1864: A Powerful Barrier

Lying flat in the coffin, Zheng Yang had a smile on his lips, his body still warm, as if he had just stopped breathing.

"Senior Brother..."

Thick poisonous gas seeped from every pore, and Wei Ruyan's hair flew up.

She was cold on the surface but warm at heart. Although she had just spoken harshly about Zheng Yang, seeing the corpse made her mind feel torn. If she knew the murderer, she would not hesitate to rush forward and tear them to pieces.

"Control your emotions!"

Zhang Xuan said in a low voice.

"Yes!"

Hearing her teacher's words, Wei Ruyan recovered and looked at the corpse in the coffin, still trembling uncontrollably.

"This is not Zheng Yang..."

Zhang Xuan's voice continued.

At first glance, he too was startled, thinking Zheng Yang had died. But after looking for a while, he immediately sensed something was wrong.

Because it was too real.

The corpse before him was exactly the same as Zheng Yang in life. In reality, after death, the spirit is severed, and no matter how strong, it cannot be exactly the same. Moreover, Zheng Yang, as his disciple, was extremely familiar to him. Even if dead, he would not be so peaceful; no matter how strong, he would bite off a piece of bone!

Most importantly... the other party had the Heavenly Dao true qi he left behind. No one could kill him silently without Zhang Xuan noticing.

"If it's not Senior Brother, then..."

Wei Ruyan was stunned, full of confusion.

The corpse before her, whether observed with the naked eye or touched by hand, was exactly her senior brother, with no difference. If it wasn't him, who could it be?

"It should be an illusion, an illusion that makes it impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood, even deceiving the Heavenly Dao..."

Frowning, Zhang Xuan paced back and forth in the stone chamber.

If the corpse of Zheng Yang had not appeared before him, he too would not have seen through it or realized it was an illusion.

The scene before him was too real, so real that even the Library of Heaven's Path could not detect it.

"Illusion?"

Looking around, Wei Ruyan pinched her face... it hurt!

"Dragonbone Divine Spear!"

Zhang Xuan called out softly.

Whoosh!

The divine spear flew in from the passage. With the spear in hand, Zhang Xuan immediately felt endless power spreading out. He raised the spear tip and fiercely thrust it at the stone coffin before him.

Boom!

The stone coffin was pierced through, and the stone chamber before them dissipated like foam. The next moment, they saw Zheng Yang lying slanted against the wall, motionless, presumably unconscious.

What lay before them was not a stone coffin but a huge barrier like a mirror.

The two of them seemed to have entered a mirror world, unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

"If it's an illusion, that means... the corpse of Saint Ran Qiu is also fake... The old master is not dead?"

After piercing the illusion, the Dragonbone Divine Spear spoke with an excited voice.

Seeing the old master's corpse before him had been too great a shock. Since all this was an illusion, could that corpse also be fake?

"The corpse of Saint Ran Qiu is real. It is precisely because of the powerful energy of his corpse that such an illusion could be created! If it were fake, it could not deceive the Heavenly Dao..."

Zhang Xuan shook his head.

Although he did not want to sadden the Dragonbone Divine Spear, facts were facts.

At the moment he pierced the illusion, he had already understood.

A formation that even he could not distinguish and that could deceive the Heavenly Dao required sufficient power to maintain, and the core of this formation was precisely the corpse of Saint Ran Qiu.

Only this second greatest sage under Confucius had such ability to create a perfect counterfeit that even he himself failed to detect it for a short time.

However, he was after all a clever man. Since the Library of Heaven's Path could not investigate, he knew that something must be hidden that even Heaven could not see. Coupled with the appearance of Zheng Yang's corpse, it was hard not to notice the problem.

"Ancient Sage... is he really dead?"

Falling to the ground with a thud, the Bone Dragon could not speak.

The corpse was real, which meant he was truly dead...

"It's still hard to say whether he is truly dead. The corpse is real, but that doesn't mean he is truly dead... For example, Emperor Yong's corpse was already buried, and his cultivation was passed on to Liu Yang. He was truly dead, but his soul was rescued by a deity from the heavens. That doesn't mean he cannot be resurrected!"

Zhang Xuan said: "When one's cultivation reaches the level of Ancient Sage Ran Qiu, dying is not so easy!"

The Ruthless One could revive even after being shattered into bones, let alone Ancient Sage Ran Qiu.

Even if the corpse is real, as long as the soul is not extinguished, it cannot be called death.

"This..."

Hearing this explanation, the Dragon Bone Divine Spear's somewhat confused eyes regained clarity, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"First, wake Zheng Yang. His strength is unconscious—something must have happened..."

With a flick of his finger, a stream of true energy merged into the student's body. After a moment, Zheng Yang slowly woke up.

This student of his had astonishing combat power and an incredibly strong will. For him to be knocked unconscious like this, he must have been stimulated by something, causing a violent fluctuation in his state of mind.

"Teacher!"

His face flushed, Zheng Yang came forward.

"You came to this underground palace first. What exactly did you discover that caused you to faint?"

Wei Ruyan couldn't help but ask.

"I..." Rubbing his head, Zheng Yang paused for a moment, his face reddening: "I saw a coffin similar to the one on the upper level. When I opened it, it contained Confucius's corpse..."

"Confucius's corpse?" Zhang Xuan frowned.

What they saw was Zheng Yang's corpse, and what Zheng Yang saw was Kong Shi's corpse...

Could there be a connection between the two?

"Whether there is a connection or not, it must be related to the barrier before us!"

After thinking for a while, unable to figure it out, Zhang Xuan knew that this place was definitely connected to Kong Shi. Since he was still some distance away from him, it was normal not to understand. He stopped dwelling on it and looked up at the massive barrier not far away.

If there was an answer, it would surely be behind this. Now, he just needed to figure out how to get in.

"Let's try!"

Raising his brows, he gripped the Dragon Bone Divine Spear tightly, let out a low shout, and thrust it forward again.

Whoosh!

The spear tore through space, splitting heaven and earth, and with a whistling sound, reached the barrier.

Boom!

A tremendous force surged over. Zhang Xuan's body stiffened, and he flew backward, his back slamming heavily against the wall. His face turned pale, and his breath seemed unsteady.

With just one strike, he had sustained considerable injury.

"It didn't work?"

Zhang Xuan was horrified.

With the Dragon Bone Divine Spear, he could even fight against a deity he had encountered before. Yet a full-force strike against an ordinary barrier left it completely unscathed and nearly made him spit blood from the recoil.

How formidable!

What exactly was this barrier, so terrifying?

"Master, let me try..."

Just as he was wondering, the voice of the Cruel One sounded in his mind.

"Alright!" Zhang Xuan nodded, turned his wrist, and released him.

This fellow, with his complete skeleton and having refined the straw cloak, now possessed combat power comparable to the initial stage of Breaking the Void. If he acted, perhaps he could truly break this barrier that even Zhang Xuan could not shake.