Then, it did pass into the courtyard itself, apparently completely unaffected by the restrictive spells. Rumbling like thunder rippled out as he stretched his hand out about three inches into the courtyard. However, at that point, he could proceed no further and he slowly retracted his hand.
Many gasps could be heard from the crowd as they looked at Ji Yin, whose back was to them all, making it impossible for them to see his facial expression.
Meng Hao’s pupils constricted, and his heart trembled. As of this point, he was now aware of how incredibly powerful Ji Yin was.
“Let me in, and I’ll spare your life,” said Ji Yin. It was hard to tell whether his voice was that of a man or a woman. However, it was completely cold-blooded, and filled with a lust for battle.
Meng Hao smiled and wiped the blood off of his mouth. He then turned and walked over to the seriously wounded Song Luodan, who had already been restrained and tied up by his second true self.
Song Luo glared hatefully at Meng Hao, killing intent flickering in his eyes.
Meng Hao wasn’t in the mood for chattering, so he simply slapped Song Luodan in the face a few times, which of course cause his rage to surge even higher. Without another word, he took Song Luodan’s bag of holdings, rifled through them, and then finally then pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
“I won’t sign that thing even if you kill me!” raged Song Luodan, looking especially ferocious because of the scar running down his face.
“Won’t sign it?” Meng Hao responded coolly. He turned to look over at the swinging vine, from which the sounds of faint laughter and the drip of black blood could be heard. “Lily, weren’t you looking for a friend to swing with you?”
From what Meng Hao could tell, Inky and Lily had changed quite a bit ever since the crazy old man gave Meng Hao his approval.
As soon as Meng Hao spoke, the swing stopped moving. Then, the astonished Song Luodan flew up into the air, his body clearly completely out of his own control. Next, his body began to shrink; in the blink of an eye, he looked like he was seven or eight years old. Finally, he floated down to land on the vine, where he began to swing back and forth.
His expression was numb, but intense terror could be seen in his eyes.
At this point, the faint glow of dawn was just becoming visible. Soon, the strange phenomena inside the courtyard would disappear.
Killing intent flickered in the eyes of the crowd outside. This was especially true of the cultivators from Mount Sun and the Song Clan, and the various Chosen who were smitten with Fan Dong’er from the Ninth Sea God World.
Meng Hao frowned. After looking up at the sky, he walked back into the temple hall, where he looked around at the Dao Projections and the ancient bronze lamp. Finally, he sighed.
“49 days total, but only half of them have gone by. Obviously… there’s no way I can keep people out of this place for that long.
“There are simply too many of them outside. So far, I’ve only been able to stretch things out for two days….” He stood in front of the bronze lamp and looked at the flickering flame. During the day, the flame would go out, but after having observed the item for so long, Meng Hao knew that the flame itself wasn’t truly extinguished. The heart of the flame still existed.
The lamp itself only burned brightly at night.
Muttering, Meng Hao once again poured some blood into the flames, which hissed and then emitted a delicate fragrance that left him feeling enlivened after smelling it.
“I’m not supposed to let anyone come inside to touch the lamp and contaminate it with their aura. It’s… fundamentally impossible to meet that requirement.” Meng Hao sighed. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed completely unfeasible. Furthermore, the sky was almost bright….
Meng Hao could sense the killing intent coming from the groups outside the courtyard. He was like a thorn in their sides, someone blocking their path to good fortune. Furthermore, some of that killing intent resulted directly from him offending people.
“Well, if I have to ask for help from dad and mom because of something as trivial as this, then I’m not Meng Hao!” His eyes began to shine with a cold gleam. Before reaching Dao Seeking, he had not relied on any assistance from his father and mother. He had stepped halfway into true Immortality all by himself.
He had experienced multiple deadly situations, had battled the 10th Wang Clan Patriarch in the Milky Way Sea, had tread the narrow gap between life and death, had fought in the great war of the Southern Domain, and had risen to the pinnacle of prominence.
Those were all things that made Meng Hao feel quite proud of himself.