Chapter 281 - The Infernal Abyss (2/2)
“We’ve been organizing tournaments after tournaments annually to accumulate spiritual energy from so many conjurers. We’re still far from reaching completion, it seems… A century ago, the Chief has gone missing during his investigation of the Soul-consuming Evil Flower and the Four Sacred Guardians are but elusive folk. We’ve heard nothing from all of them yet the threat of the collapse of that place is imminent… We will be defenseless if the Devil Clan strikes now…”
“What do you propose? I think we should wait for the end of the Sword Assembly before launching a recon into the area. But it is kept by powerful enchantments; no one, not even we, can avoid being reduced to cinders if we get too close…”
“The Sword Assembly… Heavens… But with the three still missing, there’s no way we can conclude the Assembly…”
…
The whole night, Xiao Chen had not slept a wink. He got out of the cave the next morning and looked as far as he could. The mountain range stretched endlessly into the horizons and everything looked normal. But he could feel something wrong with the lands here; a strange aura had been emanating from the ground beneath him. “It must be the meridians of this lands underground,” he mused, although he knew not from where.
Huangfu Xin’er was looking better now; she was sitting on the ground, meditating and healing herself while Zhiluan, who had long got up, refused to expunge himself from the folds of the mink coat.
“It’s not safe to remain. We’d best be on our way.”
“Quit fretting, boy. I still need more sleep…” Zhiluan’s grip on the mink coat tightened as he fussed.
Quietly, Huangfu Xin’er got to her feet and sauntered out the cave. Xiao Chen muttered a spell and drew his sword. Before they could fly away, Zhiluan came scampering out. “Wait for me!”
“I thought you still need more sleep?”
“You! How dare you!”
Still unable to fly, Huangfu Xin’er clung on to Xiao Chen as they left the gorge with Zhiluan roosting on Xiao Chen’s back. For 50 kilometers they flew, and the end of the mountain range was nowhere to be seen. A thick mist swallowed the peaks below them, with the unmistakable menacing aura from something sinister residing in the gorge. Even from their altitude, the strength of the aura sent a shiver into Xiao Chen.
“MEOW! I’d hope for our sakes that what lies below us is not the barrow of something evil and powerful!”
But Xiao Chen remained silent, wearing a hard and intense look on his face. They have seen not even one beast or bird since coming here and that could only be because of the evil aura that spanned for hundreds of leagues beyond this mountain range. No single entity could have embodied such vast and rich energies that could spread such distances. Rather, the sheer volume of the aura indicated that it could only have originated from the earth itself. But the lands of the Violet Manor were sacred and tranquil, it was simply unthinkable that such an evil place even existed!
They had barely flown far when a terrifying sight unfurled before them. Zhiluan felt its fur stood as it bellowed with fright, “MEOW! WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS PLACE!?”
Xiao Chen immediately stopped in mid-air. He could feel his heart drumming anxiously as the crack of the gorge before them was blanketed by a thick, black fog. Every fen and leave near the gorge had withered and wilted. The dark fog blotted out the sun from above and everything beneath it was nothing but a black and bottomless abyss. This was the source of the unholy aura that had plagued these lands but there was no indication of where this place was!
No one would be safe from such a rich and undiluted corrosive aura; even one from the Devil’s Practice could easily succumb to its deadly effects, never mind a common conjurer vulnerable to such taint.
Xiao Chen’s senses tingled wildly, warning him about something dangerous and immensely evil lurking within the abyss!
“Please tell me you’re not thinking of going near,” Huangfu Xin’er voice came softly all of a sudden.
“MEOW! Are you mad, boy?! I’m not accompanying you into certain death with you!” Zhiluan cried and flapped its wings, readying itself to pull out to safety.
But Xiao Chen was quiet; his face was creased into a heavy frown. He could tell that something was terribly wrong with the alarming signs happening around him. Many thousands of years ago, both factions of the Immortals and Devils suffered terrible losses and all six domains nearly collapsed. And all of it was a mystery to him that awaited unraveling.
He understood that this strange abyss could be the key to the strange anomalies now taking place around the world. But before he could react, a voice rang in his mind.
“LEAVE! Leave this place at once, boy!”