Endless Winter: My Camp Infinite Upgrades

Chapter 583 The Illusion Finally Revealed, Still Full of Confusion

The thirteenth year of the Great Xia Dynasty, the eighth day of the first month, in the middle of the night.
In a great hurry, Xia Hong finally arrived at Chilong Lake.

"Who goes there, daring to trespass... Lord!"

The soldiers on duty on the lake saw someone flying down from afar. Although they knew it was a powerful expert at the Xianyang level, they still drew their weapons to block him. However, when Xiang Ping, the deputy commander of the military camp, saw that the person was Xia Hong, he was so frightened that he withdrew his weapon and knelt down to pay his respects with great excitement.

All the soldiers on the lake knelt down and bowed to Xia Hong.

"No need for formalities, please rise!"

Xia Hong still had some impression of Xiang Ping. When the Great Xia first expanded into the territory of Wuyuan, among the four families north of Wuyuan Mountain, the first to side with the Great Xia was the He Feng camp led by Xiang Ping.

Unlike his son Xiang Liang, who worked in the Ministry of Prisons, Xiang Ping had always developed his career in the military, starting with the Longyuan Army. Now, several years later, he had clearly been promoted.

"What's going on here? Tell me!"

However, he was worried about the safety of his wife and children and was not in the mood to talk much. He went straight to the point and asked, "With so many soldiers on the lake and Xiang Ping, the deputy commander of the military garrison, present, something must have happened at Chilong Lake."

Xiang Ping immediately spoke up and explained the whole story.

As he spoke, Xia Hong looked down at the bottom of the lake. He had noticed the golden light as soon as he landed, and only now could he see the golden palace inside.

"...Then, Lord Cheng, along with Lords Xiahou Yong and Jiang Yiqing, dived underwater. Half an hour has passed now, and we are just about to send someone down to the bottom of the lake to take a look."

By the end, Xiang Ping's face had turned quite grim.

The cold-resistant flesh and blood can withstand the extreme cold underwater for a short time. In addition, it temporarily locks the skin and pores. The limit of diving is about 25 minutes. If it exceeds this time limit, it is easy to have problems. Cheng He and the other two have been underwater for half an hour, which is twice the limit.

Therefore, something must have happened to the three of them.

"Take everyone back out of the lake, I'll go down and take a look by myself."

"My lord, you mustn't..."

Upon hearing that Xia Hong was about to risk his life, Xiang Ping immediately looked anxious and stepped forward to stop him. However, before he could finish speaking, Xia Hong had already rushed into the water.

"Everyone, evacuate the lake and wait on the shore!"

Xiang Ping stood there nervously. After hesitating for a long time, he turned around and ordered all the soldiers to retreat, taking only a few of his stronger subordinates with him to guard the side. He waited anxiously for Xia Hong to come out.

"My lord, wasn't the lord over at Mo'ao River? Why did he suddenly return? Could it be that the person who dived into the lake earlier came from one of the four vassal states?"

"Don't make wild guesses, everyone be on high alert, something big might be about to happen!"

If his subordinates could think of it, Xiang Ping could naturally think of it too. Combining the anxious look on Xia Hong's face when he landed, it was not hard to guess that something big had happened. In the twelve years he had been with the Great Xia, he had almost never seen the lord show such an expression.

………………

“Red Dragon Lake is two hundred meters deep. Before going to Mo'ao River, I went underwater to explore it no less than ten times, and I had never seen this golden palace before. So this palace was deliberately built by the foreign princess who kidnapped Xuanling and her child…”

Xia Hong quickly descended to the bottom of the lake. Just as Xiang Ping had told him, the golden palace was clearly getting closer and closer to his naked eye, but as soon as it was within reach, it would immediately disappear.

"We searched the bottom of the lake several times before, but couldn't find the dragon's lair. If I'm not mistaken, this golden palace is most likely it. In other words, that foreign princess knows the dragon inside and out and can find its lair at will. The question is, why did she kidnap Xuanling and her two children and deliberately lure me here to expose the dragon's lair?"

Xia Hong had far too little information. He had just rushed all the way from the Bone-Eating Path. Although Hou Tong had recounted the whole story halfway there, Hou Tong himself was vague. Apart from the name Li Longyu, the title of princess, the other party's strength, and the fact that the three women's attitude towards Li Xuanling and her son was not bad, there was no other valuable information. Therefore, he really couldn't figure out the other party's purpose.

"No matter what their intentions are, we have to rescue them first..."

A moment later, Xia Hong, who had neither found the palace entrance nor discovered Cheng He and the other two, took a deep breath, made up his mind, and suddenly a divine light flashed in his left eye. Standing at the bottom of the lake, he looked toward the area where he had just seen the palace.

"Besides the camp system, the most valuable item I have is probably the Yin-Yang Mirror, since it can recognize so many monsters at a glance!"

The Yin-Yang Mirror has two sides. When the Mirror Immortal camp was destroyed, he and He Yuanhun each took one side, and he got the Yang side mirror.

After the Yang Mirror merged into his left eye, he gained a total of three skills: the attack method of shattering divine light, the super vision that can see through the meridians of the human body, and the last skill, the Eye of Illusion.

In its early stages, the Eye of Truth only allowed Xia Hong to see through disguises. However, as his strength grew, Xia Hong discovered that this function was also upgrading, enabling him to see through illusions and even spatial anomalies.

This golden palace is clearly in the water, but I can't find it no matter what I do. It must be some kind of illusion or a different dimension. It's perfect for me to use the Eye of Truth to see through it.

"really……"

Xia Hong stood at the bottom of the lake, scanning the water with his left eye. The palace reappeared, but not in front of him, but above his head.

Just now, when we looked at the palace from the ice, it was underwater. After we went into the water, the palace was at the bottom of the lake. But now that we are standing at the bottom of the lake, the palace is above us, which is in the middle of the water.

"It's not an illusion, it's another dimension!"

Xia Hong stared at the palace above his head, saw its outline, and realized that it was not connected to the water and was completely independent of the lake. He immediately drew a conclusion.

The next challenge is finding the entry point!
Xia Hong frowned as he looked at the golden palace so close at hand and began searching for a way to get inside.

…………

"Dad's here! Dad's here to save us!"

Just as Xia Hong was deep in thought by the water, inside a vast and expansive golden palace, Xia Yusheng, holding his mother Li Xuanling's hand, pointed to the giant pool in the center of the hall and cheered excitedly.

The main hall is square in shape, with a width of at least 100 meters. Inside the hall stand 36 golden pillars, each about three meters in diameter, each entwined with a golden dragon with bared fangs and claws. The hall is magnificent and visually stunning.

The main hall is entirely gold, with only slight color variations in different areas. In the center of the ground is an open area, or rather a square plaza thirty meters wide, with a rectangular pool twenty meters long and ten meters wide in the middle.

Beneath the pool, a figure stood silently.

The person underwater had incredibly clear facial features, and was frowning, clearly deep in thought.

That was none other than Xia Hong, who had just dived to the bottom of the lake. His brows were furrowed, clearly thinking about how to enter the palace.

"Mother, they don't seem like bad people!"

Unlike her younger brother, Xia Yuyao, sitting on Li Xuanling's other side, wasn't as excited. Her small hand was held by her mother, her gaze fixed on the two women in green on either side, her eyes filled with thought and confusion. After a long while, she finally spoke softly to her mother. Li Xuanling didn't reply, but simply shook his head at his daughter. He glanced at Xia Hong in the pool, his face showing worry, then turned to the two maids and said, "Gentlemen, my husband has arrived. Since you have important matters to discuss with him, why waste time here?"

Li Xuanling said this with a frown on his face.

Her daughter could tell, and she could tell even better, that the foreign princess who called herself Li Longyu, along with her two maids, truly harbored no ill will towards her and her two children.

No, not only was there no malice, but it was actually quite polite.

Throughout the entire process of being coaxed to Chilong Lake by Li Longyu and the other two last night, Li Xuanling even had the illusion that the three of them seemed to treat her and her two children with a certain respect.

What could possibly make three powerful individuals, all at least at the Third Stage of the Tribulation Realm, treat the mother and her two children with such respect?

That must be an illusion!

Unable to come up with a reason, Li Xuanling could only conclude in her heart that she was just imagining things.

Nevertheless, the polite treatment from Li Longyu and the other two made her feel much more relaxed. Her own safety was secondary; the key was that her two children were with her, and she couldn't let anything happen to them.

After arriving at Red Dragon Lake at night, Li Longyu ordered two maids to break the ice on the lake and lead them into the water. Then, using some unknown secret technique, she inexplicably summoned the golden palace.

This unbelievable scene broadened Li Xuanling's horizons, but also caused her some worry.

The blood-red demonic dragon beneath Crimson Dragon Lake has always been a ticking time bomb for Great Xia, and she was aware of this. There are many dragon-shaped sculptures around the golden palace, and it's clear at a glance that they have a close relationship with that demonic dragon.

The key point is that Li Longyu's effortless familiarity with the place throughout the entire process clearly demonstrates that she is extremely familiar with this palace and the blood-red dragon within it.

“Three years ago, my husband and I searched underwater for so long, but we couldn’t find the demon dragon. It turns out that its true form was in this palace.”

Seeing that the two maids did not reply, Li Xuanling turned his head to look at the top of the main hall, his gaze slightly sharpening.

Above the main hall, like a human palace, there is a high platform in the center of the deepest part. However, this platform is too big, about fifty or sixty meters long, taking up more than half of the palace. Moreover, there are no seats on it, only a giant pillar supporting the sky.

That's right, it's a colossal pillar reaching to the sky. The pillar is pure gold, about thirty meters in diameter, piercing through the top of the main hall and stretching straight to the heavens, with no end in sight.

The most eye-catching thing was not the pillar, but the blood-red tail wrapped around it.

Its tail was covered with crimson scales, each one emanating an extremely terrifying aura. Li Xuanling had already clearly seen that above the blood-red tail was a blood-red demonic dragon.

The blood-red dragon that she and her husband Xia Hong had been searching for for a long time was actually inside this golden palace all along.

"Why did these three people lure my husband here?"

At first, Li Xuanling thought that Li Longyu and the other two were targeting the demonic dragon. She even considered the worst possibility that they might be trying to awaken the demonic dragon to deal with the Great Xia. At that time, she was very uneasy.

But what happened next took an unexpected turn, leaving her completely bewildered.

After Li Longyu opened the golden palace, she only glanced inside, leaving two maids to watch over the three of them before turning around and leaving.

The two maids didn't speak to her at all, but just stood guard on the side of the hall. Only when her husband Xia Hong arrived did the two maids show a slight change in expression.

She had just seen it clearly: the two maids, Qingyu and Qingyue, showed a distinct mixture of reverence and fear on their faces the moment they saw their husband.

Reverence, fear...

Although Xia Hong was famous, it was not enough to make two experts at the Tribulation Realm show fear, let alone reverence.

What exactly is going on?

goodong...

“Madam, Your Highnesses, it seems that Lord Xia has found a way to get in. I apologize for any offense I may have caused. I hope you will forgive me.”

"Your Highness, please forgive me, Qingyue will take her leave!"

Suddenly, a sound came from the pool in the middle of the hall, and ripples appeared on the surface. Xia Hong, who was at the bottom of the water, was rising rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

At the same time, the two maids also spoke up.

The two women not only apologized one after another, but also bowed gracefully to Li Xuanling and the other two. Then, before Xia Hong could surface from the bottom of the water, they jumped into the pool from the side.

Interestingly, Qingyu and Qingyue were clearly at the same time as Xia Hong below the pool, and even appeared to be only a few meters apart, but Xia Hong couldn't sense their presence at all, and they passed each other by.

"Xuanling, are you alright?"

When Xia Hong emerged from the pool, he saw Li Xuanling and her two children, but Qingyu and Qingyue had already disappeared underwater.

Seeing that the mother and her two children were safe and sound, Xia Hong was overjoyed and quickly flew over to their side.

"Father, we're alright."

Xia Yuyao was the first to rush up and hug Xia Hong, then pointed to the main hall and said, "Father, are you looking for gold? I just saw a lot of golden things behind that demonic dragon. Go and see if it's gold."

Xia Hong was slightly taken aback. Before he could explain to his daughter, he looked up and saw the golden pillar, and then noticed the blood-red demonic dragon wrapped around it. He was stunned.

"So that's where it was!"

Li Xuanling wasted no time and quickly recounted the physical characteristics of Li Longyu and the other two, as well as everything that had happened along the way.

After hearing this, Xia Hong was completely bewildered.

what is this?
The kidnapping was inexplicable, followed by the creation of this golden palace. Crucially, the demonic dragon showed no signs of reviving, and Li Longyu was absent throughout. The two maids at the Body Tempering Realm left just before his arrival, seemingly wanting to avoid him…

"This doesn't seem like a kidnapping, it's more like..."

"I've come to present my father with a treasure!"

Xia Yuyao picked up where her mother left off, looking at Xia Hong with a hint of smugness.

(End of this chapter)