Zhi Xuan fell silent, rembering the lightning-blood armor currently residing in his storage bag. It was true that the armor was quite mysterious, to the point that even Ruo Xianxue dismissed it as useless junk. However, if that alone made him visible to the echoes earlier, it felt far too strange.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not," Zhi Xuan thought, not dwelling on it too much. "I suspect it is not because of this armor, or perhaps they recognize the Nine Heavens Bead within , which serves as the prison for the Gods and Devils of the past. No matter."
Ji Haoxuan turned back from the cliff's edge, gazing at Zhi Xuan’s back. "Senior, there is a cave tunnel over there that likely leads out of this divine palace."
Zhi Xuan gave a slight nod, letting his robe rustle against the rocky ground as he turned to follow the direction of Ji Haoxuan’s finger. The tunnel appeared like the yawning mouth of an ancient beast, dark and devoid of even a single glimr of soul crystals.
Their footsteps began to enter the silent cave tunnel, leaving the shimring lights of Fengshen City fading behind them. Here, the darkness felt thicker, as if the air inside the cave itself swallowed light before it could even glow. They chose to speed up, flying low through the darkness of the passage.
"I’m still curious," Wei Tianfeng broke the roar of their flight, his voice echoing lowly against the damp cave walls. "What would have happened if we had actually walked into that city at first, Haoxuan? What do you think?"
"I don't know, Tianfeng," replied Ji Haoxuan, who was flying low beside Ji Yuanyi. "Besides, why are you curious? Could you have even supported Jing Kuang while passing through those echoes of the past?"
Wei Tianfeng chuckled bitterly, a sound that rang discordantly amidst the whistling wind cutting through the darkness. "Just a wild thought, Haoxuan. Seeing grandeur constantly destroyed and rebuilt... it feels like witnessing a curse more horrific than death itself. At least death has an end, but they? They are an age being carried into this era."
Jing Kuang, still supported by Wei Tianfeng, could only lower his head. "Don't speak of that city anymore... I can still feel how that giant finger seed as if it wanted to erase my very existence even when it only passed through my body."
"You are too weak, coward," quipped Wu Xinghan from the back row, his tone still laden with mockery. "If the courage of a practitioner like you has already shriveled just from seeing an echo of the past, you really should have been left in that corridor with ng Zhan and Shi Jing."
"That’s enough, Brother," Wu Xingyan interrupted, flying gracefully while occasionally glancing at the cave walls. "We all felt that pressure. Even you turned pale when that divine dust swirled around us."
"I am not entirely useless either," Jing Kuang countered, his voice growing heavy. "You don't know what I saw when the practitioners from the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets were all swallowed by the darkness. In that fog of darkness, I didn't see anything horrific or anything like that. However, I saw sothing quite strange, sothing you might not have seen before you t ."
Their low-speed flight instantly slowed, creating a whistling ripple of wind among the cave walls that were growing narrower. Wu Xinghan, who had intended to hurl a sharp insult, now fell silent, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Jing Kuang’s haggard back.
"Sothing strange?" Ji Haoxuan turned slightly, giving his attention to the youth he had previously thought had lost his soul. "Tell us, what did you see behind the fog before ng Zhan’s madness peaked?"
Jing Kuang took a breath that felt heavy, as if the air inside this tunnel had turned as heavy as a mountain. "When that fog descended and separated us from Elder Xuan Ji... I didn't hear the sounds of monsters or the screams of ghosts. On the contrary, there was only a very clean silence. So clean that I didn't know where I was."
Zhi Xuan remained flying at the very front, yet his divine sense remained fixed on every vibration of sound coming from Jing Kuang’s mouth.
"And then?" hissed Wei Tianfeng, tightening his grip so Jing Kuang wouldn't slip.
"The bodies of Gods and Devils," Jing Kuang said, his voice becoming clear as he slowly cald himself. "If you see the spirits floating in the underworld sky, those might be recognized as the will of gods and devils. But I... I saw those bodies surrounding as if they were arranged within that clean white fog."
"Those giant bodies did not move," Jing Kuang continued. "They stood tall, lined up endlessly within that pure white fog. So held bottomless spears, so were in long robes with folded hands. However, what almost made lose my mind was... none of them had faces."
"No faces?" Wu Xingyan whispered, her fingers unconsciously clutching the edge of her sleeve. "Do you an they wore masks, or were their faces actually flat?"
"Flat like uncarved marble," Jing Kuang replied, his eyes staring blankly into the darkness of the passage ahead. "But strangely, even though they had no eyes, I felt thousands of pairs of gazes piercing straight toward my soul. They seed to be waiting... or perhaps, judging every step I took."
Wei Tianfeng snorted, trying to shake off the chill creeping up his neck. "Maybe it was just a hallucination from the death aura being too thick, Kuang. You know yourself, this Underworld is different from the Nine Plains."
"Not an illusion, Tianfeng," Jing Kuang cut in quickly, his head shaking weakly. "Because when I tried to touch one of them—since my divine sense couldn't pierce through them—my hand didn't pass through the fog. I touched cold skin... as cold as eternal ice, yet it felt very real. That was when ng Zhan began to scream, and the fog instantly turned into a foul darkness."
A silence heavier than before enveloped the group following Jing Kuang’s confession. Zhi Xuan, leading at the front, did not turn back, but his mind churned slowly. Faceless bodies within a pure white fog... if what Jing Kuang said was true, then the underworld was truly a graveyard of majestic figures.
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"Pure white fog," Lu Qingyan murmured, her voice sounding doubtful. "We only encountered the fog of darkness and the thick aura of death along the way. If you saw white fog and majestic faceless bodies, it sounds more like... a sacred burial ground."
"Or perhaps the wrong gate," added Ji Haoxuan with a serious tone. "Kuang, are you sure those bodies didn't attack you? You touched them, and you’re still alive to tell the story now?"
Jing Kuang nodded slowly. "They didn't move an inch. Like statues, yet not stone. Like corpses, yet not rotting. They were just... there. As if they were the pillars supporting that fog so it wouldn't collapse upon us."
"Then why did ng Zhan suddenly beco tainted by a Transforming Demon?" asked Wu Xinghan, his eyes staring sharply at Jing Kuang. "If the atmosphere was so calm and clean, what triggered his madness?"
"I don't know for sure," Jing Kuang whispered. "But exactly after I touched that faceless body, I heard ng Zhan roar incoherently and insult Senior Gu. From then on, the fog of darkness began to creep in and I could only follow the two of them until I t you."
The atmosphere inside the tunnel suddenly beca much heavier. They descended gracefully from the air, walking once more upon the damp ground. Wei Tianfeng simply continued to support and calm Jing Kuang, while Zhi Xuan kept walking ahead.
He stared toward the darkness in front of him that seed endless. "Pure white fog and faceless bodies..." he murmured lowly, almost inaudible to the practitioners behind him. "The underworld truly is the graveyard of the gods."
"And, perhaps that is what caused ng Zhan and Shi Jing to fail," Wei Tianfeng added. "ng Zhan and Shi Jing indeed harbored great hatred for Senior Gu. That is what made them end up like that, and Jing Kuang might not be a coward because he remained conscious in the midst of such a dark aura."
They walked calmly. Occasionally, Wu Xingyan would look back toward Jing Kuang in Wei Tianfeng’s arms, her face full of inexplicable emotions, but she quickly turned her face back to the front.
"Hey," Ji Yuanyi whispered suddenly, her steps stopping for a mont. "Do you feel it?"
"Feel what, Yuanyi?" asked Lu Qingyan, turning around, her fan now in a defensive position in front of her face.
"This silence... it feels strange," Yuanyi answered in a voice that was barely audible. "Ever since Jing Kuang spoke about those faceless bodies, I feel as if even the sound of our own breathing sounds too distant. And... why do the cave walls feel like they are closing in?"
Wu Xinghan narrowed his eyes, reaching out to touch the cave wall beside him. "The walls aren't moving, Yuanyi. You’re just exhausted. Keep your eyes on the path ahead."
However, even though Wu Xinghan said so, he himself felt sothing amiss. He glanced at his own shadow on the cave wall hit by a bit of their energy's glow. The shadow appeared elongated at a slightly unnatural angle, but he quickly dismissed the thought, attributing it to the uneven stone reflection.
"Senior," Wei Tianfeng called out softly. "This path... feels very long. If we were flying at that speed earlier, we should have reached the end of the valley over there by now."
Zhi Xuan stopped his steps completely. He stood frozen, staring into the thick darkness ahead that seed endless. He furrowed his brow and radiated his divine sense, until he suddenly turned to dash backward in a movent that took Wei Tianfeng by surprise.
Zhi Xuan shot like black lightning past the stunned practitioners. His robe created a sharp whistle that cut through the damp cave air. He moved his hand, and his fingers gripped the darkness of the cave. He swung his hand back as if pulling sothing.
"You won't show yourself?" hissed Zhi Xuan, appearing to pull a very long silk thread. "Life-Death Slaughter."
Instantly, from the tips of Zhi Xuan’s fingers pulling the air, a transparent thread radiating a sickening coldness began to take form. The thread seed made of the thickness of silence and unspoken grief. As the Life-Death Slaughter intent crept along the thread, the darkness behind the practitioners suddenly churned, dissolving in a deadly grey glow.
Ji Haoxuan and the others gasped, nearly jumping back when they saw what Zhi Xuan was pulling. Behind them—or more precisely, in front of Zhi Xuan whose back was to the young practitioners—the wine-pouring woman appeared with her neck gripped by Zhi Xuan. anwhile, behind the woman, the darkness of the passage was filled with the won who had previously been dancing on the pavilions.
The wine-pouring woman did not struggle. Her marble-smooth face remained calm with the sa stiff smile as when she was in Fengshen City, but her hollow eyes now began to radiate a faint, dim grey glow. Behind her, dozens of pavilion dancers hovered in a suffocating silence, their bodies as beautiful as silk appearing translucent, rippling like reflections on water.
"Senior! How is this possible?!" Lu Qingyan cried, her voice high-pitched, nearly breaking from horror. "They... they should have been re echoes! They are destroyed and reborn in that city! Why can they leave the cycle and be here?!"
Ji Haoxuan hissed softly. "This aura... it is no longer the majestic aura of a god. Why do these beautiful fras radiate such a suffocating sense of grief?"
"Don't co closer!" Wei Tianfeng roared. "Look at their feet! They aren't touching the ground; they carry no shadows!"
Wu Xinghan moved his fingers, readying himself. "No wonder... no wonder I’ve felt sothing following us for a while. They make no sound, they don't breathe. They are a part of the silence itself!"
Zhi Xuan did not release his grip on the woman’s neck. Though his hand gripped tightly, he felt as if he were holding a collection of cold smoke solidified by an ancient will. The woman remained smiling stiffly; the jade cup she had originally held had now vanished, replaced by slender hands that were slowly rising, intending to touch Zhi Xuan’s face.
"Why?" whispered Zhi Xuan, his sapphire blue eyes staring sharply into the emptiness of the woman’s eyes. "You crossed the boundaries of your cycle. You discarded the false eternity in Fengshen just to follow my steps?"
The woman remained silent. Her stiff red lips didn't move an inch to utter a sound, yet from beneath her unmoving eyelids, a drop of clear liquid shimring like a pearl fell, wetting Zhi Xuan’s cold fingers. The liquid was no ordinary tear; as it touched Zhi Xuan’s skin, he felt a vibration of grief so ancient.
Zhi Xuan’s consciousness seed carried back to a vision of a man in the sky and a sorrowful woman on a path. Zhi Xuan stared at the vision again, which was supposed to only appear when he was at the Emperor Monunt belonging to the Ancient Shen Clan.
Behind him, the atmosphere beca extrely haunting. Ji Haoxuan and the others stood frozen, not daring to release an attack but unable to turn their faces away.
"Why is Senior just standing still?" whispered Ji Yuanyi, her voice trembling violently. "That woman’s face... look! Her stiff smile is disappearing. She... she looks as if she is crying silently."
"Don't move, Yuanyi!" hissed Ji Haoxuan, his hand blocking his sister. "The aura around Senior is churning. Look at the air; it’s as if the space around them is being torn between the past and the present."
In the middle of the frozen passage, the young practitioners only saw Zhi Xuan standing still with his hand gripping the woman’s neck. But for Zhi Xuan, the world around him had collapsed. He saw the sa man, standing atop an expanse of stars, and the woman staring at him with a sadness capable of toppling the sky.
"You never distanced yourself... you were willing to descend... for ?" The voice felt distant, yet its resonance carried echoes of the voices of the won he knew. "A flower can only gaze from afar at a figure far too high, rebelling in finitude, but you... you are truly that figure... the figure the flower wished to see."
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