bookrebus Chapter 1833 Tragic Traces
Chapter 1833 Tragic Traces
The investigation continued, and the traces became clearer and more horrific.
More fragments of magical artifacts, shattered armor, and even... two stiff corpses dressed in Black Viper mercenary uniforms were discovered.
The deeper one ventures into the wilderness, the stronger the chaotic energy field becomes.
Occasionally, one can see huge cracks in the ground, bottomless, exuding a chilling aura.
Some oddly shaped, black rocks, as if they had been melted by high temperatures, were scattered everywhere.
After traveling about a hundred miles, signs of fighting began to appear.
Broken rocks, scorched earth, traces of frost, and... dark red, long-dried bloodstains.
"They're our people!" Ye Yan found a broken half of a sword hilt behind a rock. It was engraved with the emblem of the Wanchuan Sect Battle Hall and was a fragment of a standard longsword.
There were drag marks on the nearby gravel.
Everyone's heart sank.
Their deaths were gruesome, as if they had been torn apart by immense force, with faint traces of dark golden energy remaining at their wounds, which were highly corrosive.
“It’s that kind of power…” Blue-faced Fox examined the wound, “It’s from the same source as the puppet’s core, but it’s even more violent. It seems that the people the Black Viper Mercenary Group sent to track or provide backup also met their demise.”
“The other side is ruthless and far stronger than these mercenaries,” Master Lingxu said in a deep voice.
Finally, they found the main battlefield in a relatively hidden group of giant wind-eroded rock pillars.
The place looks like it's been swept by a storm.
More than a dozen massive rock pillars broke and collapsed, leaving the ground riddled with crisscrossing ravines and pits, scorch marks, frost, knife marks, fist marks...
The various signs of battle were mixed together, a shocking sight.
Scattered among them were fragments of magical artifacts and clothing belonging to the Wan Chuan Sect disciples, as well as... several incomplete corpses.
Mingchuan's gaze instantly froze on one of the corpses.
That was a young disciple of the Wanchuan Sect's Battle Hall. He remembered this face; he had entered the sect around the same time as Zhao Hu.
At this moment, the disciple's chest was completely pierced, the edges of the wound showing an unnatural dark gold petrified state, and his face still showed shock, anger and resentment.
Zhao Hu was not present.
There were no bodies of Han Tieshan or the other three major sect masters at the scene.
“Without Zhao Hu and the others’ bodies… perhaps they are still alive, just captured.” Ye Yan said in a dry voice, trying to comfort Ming Chuan, and also himself.
Mingchuan crouched down, his fingers brushing over the dark golden energy residue at the edge of the disciple's wound.
A cold, chaotic, yet strangely orderly corrosive force attempted to spread along his fingers, but was easily dispelled by the silver light at his fingertips.
“It is indeed Vajra Subduing Demons.” He stood up, his eyes as cold as ice.
He looked around, his gaze finally settling on a dark, downward-sloping cave entrance deep within the rock pillars, half-hidden by boulders.
At the cave entrance, the residual dark golden energy and the smell of blood were most intense, and one could also faintly hear a mixture of chanting and roaring coming from the depths, seemingly from a great distance.
“They were taken underground.” Mingchuan pointed to the cave entrance. “That should be one of the entrances to the underground cave.”
When Master Lingxu probed the cave entrance with his divine sense, he immediately felt a powerful interference and repulsion.
"There are remnants of restrictions at the entrance of the cave, and the deeper you go, the stronger the chaotic mixture of star power and evil energy becomes, making it almost impossible for divine sense to penetrate deep."
"Forget about any restrictions, just blast them open!" The Crimson Flame Fox, hot-tempered, was about to make a move.
"No!" Green-faced Fox hurriedly stopped him. "A direct attack will alert the people below. If Zhao Hu and the others are still alive and are taken hostage, we'll be at a disadvantage."
Mingchuan didn't speak. He walked to the cave entrance, closed his eyes, and slowly extended his remaining spatial perception.
Unlike ordinary divine sense, spatial power is more primordial and has a slightly stronger penetrating power over energy fields.
In his eyes, the passage below the cave entrance was not straight, but winding and twisting, extending deep underground, and filled with various hidden energy traps and warning runes.
At the end of the passage lies an extremely vast underground space with chaotic and intense energy reactions.
“The passage is long and full of traps; going straight down is too risky.” Mingchuan opened his eyes. “But… there are other ways.”
He looked up at the dim yellow sky over the wasteland, and then at the towering, unique rock formations around him, formed by the impact of fragments of stars.
"The terrain of the Fallen Star Wasteland was formed by the impact of an ancient meteorite. The meteorite pierced through the earth's crust, creating a hole deep within the earth's veins. However, the impact also made the geological structure of this area abnormal, with many natural fissures and... weak points penetrated by the energy of meteorite fragments."
He walked to a seemingly ordinary rock wall, gently placed his palm on it, and a faint silver light flashed.
“Deep within the rock strata here, there is an extremely fine crystalline vein formed by the melting and cooling of stellar energy. It meanders downwards, avoiding the main geological structures, and eventually... it should also connect to some edge area of the Earth Cave.”
A glint of silver light flashed in Mingchuan's eyes: "Let's dig a hole down from here."
"Excavating through rock strata? Even if you can find a weak point, at this depth, the noise and disturbance will be considerable," Ye Yan wondered.
“It’s not about excavation.” Mingchuan shook his head, his hands forming a hand seal again, this time with more delicate and subtle movements. “It’s about dislocating space to temporarily bypass this part of the rock layer.”
As the silver runes flowed from his hand, the rock wall in front of him rippled like the surface of water.
Under the influence of spatial forces, the internal structure of hard rock undergoes extremely subtle folding and stretching.
A narrow passage, barely wide enough for one person to pass through, with its edges shimmering like silver water, appeared on the rock wall like a phantom, extending inwards into an unfathomable depth.
"This is..." Master Lingxu's eyes gleamed with a strange light, "Using spatial folding to create a temporary gap? Brilliant! In this way, we can reach the depths without disturbing the rock strata themselves, silently and without a sound!"
"The passage can only be maintained for a limited time, and the further down we go, the more my power will be consumed, and the weaker my suppression of the chaotic energy inside will become. Everyone, stick close to me, let's finish this quickly!"
Mingchuan stepped into the silvery passage first.
The passage is not a solid entity, but a distorted spatial state. Walking through it is like passing through the cracks of rocks, surrounded by blurry, flowing shadows of rock layers, creating a very strange feeling.
Lingxu Zhenren, Ye Yan, Qingmian Hu, and Chiyan Hu followed closely behind.
As the passage continued downwards, Mingchuan's face grew paler and paler.
Not only must the passage be maintained, but the increasingly strong chaotic energy field below must also be resisted from impacting the spatial structure.
After descending about two or three hundred feet, the view ahead suddenly opened up!
At the end of the silver light passage, it connects to the edge of a huge natural cave.
The cave is incredibly vast, reaching a height of hundreds of feet, with countless strange minerals resembling stalactites hanging from its dome, shimmering with a faint light.
The cave walls are not ordinary rock, but a dark, metallic material covered with natural star-like patterns.
But the most eye-catching part is the center of the cave!
There, the ground caved in, forming a giant pit with a diameter of over a thousand feet, which was the entrance to the Earth Cave!