Free Web NovelChapter 188: Chapter 186: Enter
The entrance to the Sleeping Underground Palace was a colossal stone gate at the bottom of a rift valley.
A gaping maw had been torn into the gray bedrock, like a scar left by a celestial god’s giant axe.
As Ian followed the group and drew closer, the first thing he felt was the cold.
A chill seeped up from the depths of the Rift Valley—a damp cold that smelled of ancient dust and rusted metal.
They stopped at the bottom of the Rift Valley.
Before them stood a stone gate of absurd proportions.
The gate was carved from a single block of obsidian, its surface covered in long-lost runes.
Parts of it had flaked away, revealing the dark, somber stone beneath.
The gate was shut tight, like the closed mouth of a slumbering behemoth.
The three major factions each claimed their own territory, while the ten people from smaller powers found random spots to settle in.
Hogan led the Shadow Moon group. He stood with his arms crossed, an immovable iron tower, his eyes narrowed as he sized up the other two factions.
The group from the Deep Red Royal Court was the most relaxed, standing about in twos and threes, chatting.
Their gazes drifted over, filled with undisguised scrutiny and a hint of contempt.
The brawny man stood at the front, murmuring something to a tall, thin man beside him.
He would occasionally glance over at Ian, the corners of his mouth pulled into a grin, as if he had spotted interesting prey.
The members of the Withered Council were the quietest.
Dressed in identical gray robes with hoods pulled low, their faces were obscured as they stood in a single file.
They were like dead tree stumps planted in the ground; not even the sound of their breathing could be heard.
But the deathly, gloomy chill emanating from them was even thicker than the wind in the Rift Valley.
The air was taut with tension. No one spoke first.
It was someone from the Deep Red faction who finally broke the silence.
A middle-aged warlock with a sharp, thin chin, clad in a dark red velvet long robe, took a step forward.
His voice was high and sharp, like a knife scraping against glass.
"Hogan, quite a few new faces in your Shadow Moon party this time. What, are the old geezers too scared to show up? Sending some kids to fill the ranks?"
Hogan didn’t even lift his eyelids. "Phoenix, you’d better watch your subordinate’s mouth. Once we’re inside the Underground Palace, it’s anyone’s guess who lives and who dies."
"Heh." Phoenix, the aforementioned tall, thin man, let out a cold laugh.
His gaze swept across the Shadow Moon group before finally landing on Ian, where it lingered for an unusually long moment.
"I heard a few ’rats’ died at your doorstep not long ago? Quite a clean job. I just wonder which ’kid’ was responsible?"
At these words, five of the "dead tree stumps" from the Withered Council seemed to stir slightly.
But they quickly returned to their deathly stillness, though the gloomy chill emanating from them grew heavier.
On the Shadow Moon side, the expressions of several members changed, and they cast furtive glances toward Ian.
Ian stood motionless, his face expressionless, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
From within his sleeve, Gaga’s claw scratched him gently.
Hogan snorted. "If you want to pry, go inside and see for yourself. I’m just afraid you’ll end up dying a silent death, too."
Phoenix’s expression darkened, but he said no more.
The brawny man behind him, however, grinned, baring his deathly pale teeth as he stared at Ian.
He licked his lips and made a throat-slitting gesture.
Ian met his gaze, the corner of his own mouth twitching into a barely perceptible smirk.
Then he shifted his gaze away, toward the Obsidian Gate.
Just then, the runes on the stone gate suddenly lit up.
It was a gloomy light, a faint blue glimmer that seemed to seep out from within the stone itself.
The light flowed along the paths of the runes, faster and faster, until it all merged into a single sheet.
The entire stone gate emitted a low hum that seemed to rise from deep underground.
Amidst the humming, the gate slowly swung inward, opening a narrow crack.
No light shone out from within, only a stale, putrid smell wafted out.
A wind carrying some strange energy whipped through the air, causing their robes to flap loudly.
The gate was open.
The leaders of the three factions moved almost simultaneously.
Hogan barked, "Go!" and the members of Shadow Moon immediately followed.
The people from Deep Red and Withered also moved. The three streams of people surged toward the narrow opening at nearly the same time.
The entrance instantly became crowded, the distance between everyone shrinking to almost nothing.
No one spoke, but their exchanged glances were filled with wariness and suspicion.
Ian felt at least three malicious streams of Spiritual Power sweep over him.
One came from the brawny man from Deep Red, and another from one of the gray-robed figures of the Withered Council.
The third was very subtle, originating from a corner of his own Shadow Moon group.
He ignored them, simply contracting his Spiritual Power more tightly around himself.
It formed a layer of form-fitting armor, firmly concealing Gaga’s aura as well.
The moment he squeezed through the opening, it felt like passing through a membrane of cold water.
The sound of the wind, the breathing of the person next to him, and the damp cold of the Rift Valley were all suddenly cut off.
His vision went black.
Then came countless fractured lights and shadows, distorted colors...
A cacophony of unidentifiable sounds rushed in all at once.
The ground beneath Ian’s feet vanished, and he felt his body being pulled and spun by an irresistible force.
He immediately steadied his mind, and the Furnace Body Tempering Skill activated on its own.
A jade-like radiance flashed beneath his skin, resisting the tearing force.
He tried his best to see his surroundings, but his vision was filled with bizarre, fragmented images.
Upside-down cities, burning forests, and faces both familiar and strange flashed past, while countless whispers exploded directly in his mind.
"Ian... I’ll take you home..."
"Hand over the secret..."
"Die! Let’s all die together!"
"Power... Give me power..."
"Ian, your favorite novel has an update..."
...
Chaos. Utter chaos.
This wasn’t a visual or auditory illusion; it was an assault directly on the depths of his consciousness.
He let out a muffled groan. At the core of his Sea of Spirit, motes of pale golden light flared faintly.
A cold, solid sense of stability spread out, pushing away most of the chaotic noise.
The protection from his Spirit Devourer was also taking effect, acting like an invisible filter.
But this feeling lasted for less than three seconds before the pulling force vanished abruptly.
THUD!
Ian’s feet hit solid ground. He stumbled for a moment before steadying himself and immediately scanned his surroundings.
The area was empty.
Hogan, Phoenix, the gray-robed figures, and his companions from Shadow Moon who had just been crowding around him were all gone.
He was standing in a wide corridor.
The corridor stretched out of sight, flanked by high walls covered in strange relief carvings.
He couldn’t identify the material of the walls, which had a faint metallic sheen.
There was no ceiling overhead, only a constantly twisting and flowing, dark purple "sky."
The purple was as thick as congealed blood, occasionally streaked by silent flashes of ghastly white lightning.
A cloyingly sweet yet rotten smell permeated the air, making him slightly dizzy as he breathed it in.
"The Illusion Corridor..."
Ian recalled the information he had read and silently mouthed the name.
He composed himself and first checked his own condition.
He had used up some Spiritual Power, but it wasn’t a major issue. His body was unharmed.
Gaga poked half its head out of his sleeve, its small eyes darting around warily.
"Everyone’s separated, gaga?" Gaga’s voice was hushed.
"Yeah." Ian nodded, his gaze falling on the reliefs lining the walls.
The carvings seemed to depict some kind of ancient ritual.
The figures were twisted in agony against a backdrop of burning stars and collapsing palaces.
If he stared too long, the reliefs seemed to move, the figures’ eyes appearing to turn toward him.
He immediately averted his gaze, forcing himself not to look. The mental pollution in this place was everywhere.
He tried to probe his surroundings with his Spiritual Power.
His Spiritual Power had barely extended ten meters before it felt like it had plunged into a pool of thick glue, becoming sluggish and unresponsive.
Furthermore, the feedback he received was nothing but distorted, overlapping, and false information.
Though the path ahead was straight, his Spiritual Power "sensed" a fork to the left and a collapse to the right.
His sense of direction was completely useless here.
He could only rely on his eyes and his intuition.
Ian chose the left path, sticking close to the wall and moving forward with light steps.
The corridor was eerily silent, with only the sound of his own footsteps and breathing.
And from the dark purple sky above, there was the occasional flowing sound, like an ancient sigh.
But soon, other sounds began to appear.
First came the faint sound of weeping, seeming to emanate from the right wall, sometimes near, sometimes far.
Then came footsteps—more than one person’s—which seemed to be just a few paces behind him.
But when he turned around, there was nothing there.
Then came snippets of muffled conversation in a language he had never heard, yet he could bizarrely understand a few words.
"Destruction"... "Eternity"... "Price"...
He knew these were all auditory hallucinations, caused by the chaotic Rule Force Field of the corridor, which was stirring up stray thoughts from the depths of his consciousness.
He guarded his Sea of Spirit tightly. The protection from his status panel and Spirit Devourer, along with that trace of the Crystallization Attribute, allowed him to remain mostly lucid.
But the sounds still buzzed in his ears like flies, interfering with his judgment.
After walking for about ten minutes, he saw the first person.
It wasn’t a living person.
It was a Wizard from the Deep Red Royal Court, sitting with his back against the wall.
His eyes were wide open, staring blankly ahead, his pupils already dilated and unfocused.
His face was twisted into an expression of extreme terror mixed with ecstatic joy.
His hands were wrapped around his own throat, his nails dug so deep into the flesh that the dark blood had already congealed.
He had been dead for a while.
It seemed he had been trapped in a terrifying illusion from which he couldn’t escape, and had strangled himself to death.
’A Level One Wizard actually managed to strangle himself to death. This place is truly sinister.’
Ian didn’t pause his steps. Without giving the corpse a second glance, he walked straight past it.
As he passed the body, a needle-thin probe slid silently from his sleeve.
It jabbed the Dimension Bag at the corpse’s waist with lightning speed before retracting.
The movement was so fast it left only an afterimage.
The tip of the probe was now coated with a bit of dark red powder.
This was a little gadget used internally by the Deep Red Royal Court for tracking.
Anyone who got close would be tagged with an aura that would emit a special scent for the next few days.
Ian rubbed his fingers together, and the powder dissipated into a wisp of green smoke. He hadn’t touched the Dimension Bag.
’Who knows if it has a curse from this place or some kind of alarm on it?’
’It’s not worth taking extra risks for a dead stranger’s belongings.’
The farther he went, the more traces of activity he saw.
There were scorch marks and frost left from battles, as well as bloodstains on the walls that had already turned black.
There were also scattered fragments that looked like pieces of robes or equipment.
Occasionally, he could hear short screams, roars, or maniacal laughter from a distance.
But they would quickly fall silent again, and he couldn’t tell which direction they came from.
The corridor seemed endless, with forks constantly appearing, each one looking identical to the last.
Ian tried to memorize certain features, like the shape of a damaged relief or a particular scratch on the wall.
But when he walked a certain distance and looked back, those features would often have changed or disappeared entirely.
The space was folded and chaotic.
He stopped, closed his eyes, and stopped relying on his vision and his unreliable sense of direction.
He calmed his mind and focused on his senses.
His Spiritual Power was severely disrupted, but his status panel seemed to have a faint resonance with a specific type of energy fluctuation.
Suddenly, in a direction to his front-left, he "sensed" something different.
It was an extremely subtle, yet fundamentally high-level, Rule Fluctuation.
It was somewhat similar to the Abyssal Rune Stones in his Dimension Ring, but more obscure, and also more... "stable."
Like a point of stability amidst the chaos, a nail in a turbulent current.
’A Void Anchor Stone?’ Ian’s heart skipped a beat.
