It looked a little under six meters.
An ordinary person’s height was a bit over one and a half meters, so you could say it was roughly twice as big.
If you doubled a person’s height, how big would that person become?
You might think they would simply be twice as tall.
But if you see it with your own eyes and compare, you realize that kind of rough guess is absurd.
Unless they were stretched long vertically, a person twice as tall was also twice as wide, and their torso was twice as thick.
And so the volume was eight times in total.
If the average person weighed around a hundred-thirty pounds, someone twice as tall would weigh roughly a thousand hundred pounds.
An eightfold difference truly made the terracotta warriors look like giants.
Yi-gang used True Samadhi Fire like a torch and examined the terracotta warriors.
Yi-gang knew about terracotta warriors as well.
No. He also had the knowledge of a modern person, so he knew where terracotta warriors were, and why they existed.
‘A burial item, isn’t it?’
Burial items. Things interred together with the body during a funeral.
For ordinary people, putting a few keepsakes in was about all, but a ruler’s tomb was another matter.
Terracotta warriors were figures fired from clay, modeled after soldiers and horses.
Most were made as reduced-size figurines, but the life-sized terracotta warriors were famous.
The ones in Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum in Xi’an.
‘So they weren’t only there.’
Yi-gang had heard about terracotta warriors that moved on their own.
That clay soldiers were killing people all over the world.
It was clear terracotta warrior pits had been hidden all across the Central Plains.
‘Even so, ones this big…’
The problem was that the terracotta warriors here were things he had never seen anywhere.
First of all, every single one was far too large.
And yet their forms weren’t exaggerated, as if they had gathered actual humans of that height.
Yi-gang scattered the True Samadhi Fire in his hand in all directions.
The scattered flames lit up the vast interior.
Thousands of figures filling the chamber to the brim.
It was enough to form an army. And considering their size, they would be stronger than any army.
The True Samadhi Fire he had sent out dispersed, and darkness settled again.
But Yi-gang saw it clearly.
‘There isn’t a single identical face.’
There wasn’t a single figure that looked the same.
Just like real people, even with thousands gathered, there were no two that looked identical.
That wasn’t the only oddity.
Not all of them looked like soldiers.
‘Clearly…’
Yi-gang lit another True Samadhi Fire and moved forward.
Those at the very front wore old-style armor.
Their forearm muscles were massive, and their faces were fierce enough that they looked like generals without question.
But where Yi-gang stopped as he walked among them, there was clearly a clay figure that wasn’t a soldier.
‘An old person, and a child.’
There was an old woman with a bent back, and a child holding her hand.
The child’s face, looking up at his grandmother with a frightened expression, was lifelike.
Rather than being sculpted, it looked as if they had simply frozen a real person as they were.
Yi-gang looked around further.
There was no exit in sight, and terracotta warriors filled every direction.
There were more than he expected that didn’t look like soldiers or generals.
There was someone dressed like a hunter, and someone who looked like a clown.
There were many wounded people as well, and many who were old, or young.
After examining many of them, things finally became visible.
‘They aren’t one group.’
At first, he naturally thought these terracotta warriors were a single group.
But on closer look, traits like their clothing differed by group.
The terracotta warriors inside were a cluster of four forces, each made up of several hundred.
It was as if people from different regions, or different tribes, had gathered.
He couldn’t tell what that meant.
But somehow, things came to mind.
The three Cardinals who had called themselves kings.
Add the cult leader he still hadn’t met, and that made four.
Were they placed here to match?
Or were they truly connected to them? He couldn’t know.
Yi-gang stopped before the clay figure of a boy among them.
He didn’t look like a soldier or a general either.
It was a complicated expression. A face that showed both sorrow and firm resolve.
Yi-gang slowly raised his hand and placed it on the boy’s face.
As expected, it felt cold and hard.
Even when he slowly stroked downward with his fingers, he couldn’t feel any sign of life at all.
Even so, he felt something strange.
With his hand on the boy’s nape, Yi-gang felt a powerful urge.
Since they were giant-like to begin with, they were taller than Yi-gang.
But if he put strength into his hand, the neck would snap in an instant.
Then what would the cross-section look like?
Was the plain earthen figurine all the boy was?
Or could there perhaps be a person inside?
A throat and spine, dried and shriveled blood vessels might appear.
‘Just once…’
With a figure so much like a person before him, Yi-gang was fighting the urge to verify it.
It rang in his ear.
「Take your hand off.」
Goosebumps rose along his spine.
It was a voice he had never heard before.
It wasn’t the familiar voice of a spirit, nor the resonant voice typical of a heavenly god.
Something ancient was warning Yi-gang.
「They are corpses, just as you think.」
The cult leader.
It was clearly the cult leader’s voice, the one who had been behind the curtain until now.
Yi-gang was sure of it.
「Do not desecrate the dead. Come inside.」
It was an offer in a milder tone than expected.
He had heard the Evil Cult Leader was in the form of a lump of flesh, so how could he convey intent like this?
A wall that had clearly been empty opened.
Light poured out from beyond it.
It likely wasn’t strong light, but in the dark underground, it looked as intense as the sun.
He was telling him to come there.
In that moment, Yi-gang felt a fierce impulse.
To smash the terracotta warriors here to pieces.
If he did that, wouldn’t even the Evil Cult Leader, acting so relaxed, be flustered?
As if seeing through Yi-gang’s thoughts, the voice rang out.
「I do not recommend doing that. The corpses there were also people someone loved. Like your family trapped in Crouching Dragon Basin.」
「The pleasure gained from dismembering corpses evaporates very quickly. No matter what you do, only emptiness remains. You can believe me. I’ve experienced it.」
Yi-gang repeatedly curled and opened his hand.
In just a moment, he could tear all the corpses here apart.
But after a moment, Yi-gang abandoned the thought.
He didn’t want to take the cult leader’s words at face value, but they were clearly right.
Yi-gang headed toward the light.
When he passed through the door pouring out light, the first thing he felt was a blood stench that stabbed his nose.
Then his eyes adjusted to the light.
The things in Yi-gang’s sight began to come into order one by one.
What was emitting light were luminous pearls embedded densely in the ceiling.
As their light gathered, it became brightness not inferior to midday above ground.
Under that bright light was something grotesque.
Yi-gang was momentarily at a loss for words.
He had already been told.
That the Evil Cult Leader would be in the form of a ‘lump of flesh.’
‘A lump of flesh’ was far too vague an expression.
He had only vaguely imagined a human-sized lump of flesh.
But in reality, it wasn’t like that.
It was a massive wall.
A wall made of flesh.
A flesh wall.
An entire side wall was dyed crimson.
Blood vessels thicker than a human thumb bulged out and were bleeding.
An orange liquid with a fishy, sharp stench dripped, drip, drip from unknown glands.
Things that could have been mouths or excretory organs wriggled.
「So you’ve come in.」
Yes. One of them clearly spoke to Yi-gang like that.
About seven eyes, each different in size and shape, all looked down at Yi-gang at once.
Yi-gang immediately turned his body.
His sharp senses had always helped him, but this time it seemed they were a little late.
Koong!
The door closed.
At once, he threw his sword wrapped in Sword Aura, but…
Only a scratch was left on the wall.
Retrieving Shooting Star Fang at once, Yi-gang turned back toward the flesh wall.
And Yi-gang realized where the Sealing Box was.
He also noticed what the wall of flesh, presumed to be the cult leader, was doing.
There was a place where the blood vessels clustered unusually.
In the center of the flesh wall, the outline where a rectangular box could fit was clear.
Kkirik- kkiriik-
He could even hear a sound like something forcing a locked mechanism open.
「It’s fortunate you didn’t destroy them.」
「Everything almost went off course, didn’t it?」
「How naïve. Will you accomplish a great undertaking without being that ruthless?」
Three mouths spoke almost at the same time.
So it was extremely hard to make out, yet Yi-gang understood every word for some reason.
Yi-gang had been tricked.
So what was the Evil Cult Leader’s aim?
Yi-gang’s chest began to glow.
「The keys were lacking.」
「I heard you were chosen as the adversary. And that you seized one of the keys.」
He immediately knew what the glow in his chest was.
Back in the Western Lands, he had obtained something called a key to the Sealing Box.
That key, which vanished the instant it touched his fingertips, had remained within Yi-gang’s soul.
「This is enough.」
「You saved me the trouble. It would have taken another fifteen minutes.」
Even if Yi-gang hadn’t appeared, it would have only been delayed by fifteen minutes.
There was nothing more to hear.
Yi-gang drew his sword up and down.
Against the flesh wall that offered no resistance, Yi-gang’s sword left a clear wound.
Blood poured from the long gash.
「Hehe.」
「Huhuhuhu.」
But no scream burst out.
He quickly understood why laughter had returned instead.
The wound he had cut was healing immediately.
This time, a Sword Aura nearly two feet long surged up on Shooting Star Fang.
The Sword Aura, as if blazing, carved multiple wounds into the flesh wall.
This time, the wounds were fairly large.
But even ‘large’ was only relative.
Wounds on a massive wall of flesh would be, compared to a human, no more than a slightly cut arm.
Even that healed in an instant.
It was futile, like slicing water with a blade.
Yi-gang didn’t give up.
He unleashed every means he could at once.
Electric arcs stormed in all directions.
The Supreme Ultimate Technique, Thunder Lord’s Descent, was originally a technique well-suited for facing many enemies.
Which meant it was also effective for attacking a gigantic opponent.
Lightning electrified the wall of flesh.
Exposed muscles and blood vessels shriveled and convulsed over and over.
Even then, Yi-gang didn’t stay still.
He fiercely swung his blade, flashing with lightning.
He swung about five times in the time it took to blink.
Hundreds of cuts were less swordsmanship and more like butchery.
Blood pooled thickly on the floor.
Chunks of flesh as big as forearms, fallen from the wall, rolled across the floor.
As expected, Yi-gang, covered in blood, panted harshly.
For about fifteen minutes, he repeated that destructive act.
Sweat trickled down his cheek.
Yi-gang lifted his head and looked at the wall of flesh.
Thump- thump-
That pounding wasn’t coming from Yi-gang’s heart.
The wall of flesh itself was contracting slightly, making a pulsing sound.
It was fine.
Yi-gang had repeated hundreds, thousands of cuts, but he couldn’t deal any meaningful damage.
An opponent that healed instantly no matter how much you cut it.
Yi-gang finally realized it.
With what he had, he couldn’t do anything about that flesh wall.
Kkirik- tik.
And from the spot where the Sealing Box was presumed to be, a metallic sound rang out.
「It’s done.」
「Now, it’s all done.」
Yi-gang clenched his sword tightly.
The bulging part where the Sealing Box had been swelled tore open with a rip, and a black metal box rolled out.
A box covered in viscous fluid. That had to be the Sealing Box.
And the wall of flesh that had stayed fine no matter how he cut began to shrivel from the edges.
Meanwhile, the portion in front of Yi-gang began to clump together and take shape.
It didn’t take long for a man to emerge from the wall of flesh that had filled the wall.
Unlike the vicious, disgusting appearance of the flesh wall.
A handsome young man with long hair appeared.
“…Cult Leader.”
That was the cult leader.
And the cult leader replied.
“Call me the Yellow Emperor.”
Saying he was the Yellow Emperor.
