Chapter 352

Chapter 352: The “Missing” Blood

Yu Sheng laid out everything he’d learned, then added his own guesses, stitched together from those scattered, half-coherent fragments.

“He said something like, ‘the Emperor Lord’s dream is more than one place.’ I think he meant the entrances to this otherworld aren’t limited to one. That’s how they got in, even after Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain sealed the mine entrance.

“And those words—’the Emperor Lord’s dream’—they bother me. Does it mean this otherworld is a dream? Or that its entrances are tied to dreaming? Or that its opening conditions and control method have something to do with sleep?

“Based on what we know, every time this otherworld opens, what explorers see inside is different. In theory it should be random. But these black-robed people ended up in the same desert as us, and they could even lie in ambush around these giant divine armament peak in advance. That suggests they found a way to enter a chosen ‘scene’ consistently, and maybe even predict where people coming from other entrances will land.

“Sure, it could be coincidence, but the odds are too low.

“The Emperor Lord’s remnant. The Emperor Lord’s dream. Everything points to an ‘Emperor Lord’… and we don’t even know who that is.”

He paused, then looked to Xuan Che. “Your Grand Void Spiritual Axis has no legends about this? No ancient powerhouse whose inheritance became a secret realm after death?”

Xuan Che listened carefully, frowning the entire time. When Yu Sheng finished, he still shook his head.

“If such a figure existed, I would know,” he said quietly. “And not only have I never heard of an inheritance forming a secret realm after death, I’ve never heard of anyone on Grand Void Star holding the title ‘Emperor Lord.'”

Yu Sheng blinked. “The title never existed at all?”

“No,” Xuan Che said, genuinely confused. “Where did you get that impression?”

Yu Sheng stared at him, then looked away.

He wasn’t about to admit it came from novels—especially when he’d written it that way in his own.

With so little to go on, the discussion quickly hit a wall. Irene kicked sand and pointed at the other black-robed corpses nearby. “Then question the rest too. While they’re still warm.”

Yu Sheng’s eye twitched. “How does every normal topic turn into something that sounds like a laxative after passing through your mouth?”

“That’s even nastier than what I say,” Irene snapped, hands on hips, righteous as ever. “And how is your ability to pin down someone’s soul and interrogate them after they die ‘normal,’ exactly? Tell me!”

Yu Sheng looked up at the sky and had to admit: Little Doll had a point.

So he interrogated every corpse on the scene.

To him, it felt like a long time. To Irene and the others, only a moment passed. They watched Yu Sheng stop by each body for a second or two, then stride on.

Foxy was the first to notice the faint disappointment in his expression. “Benefactor… nothing?”

He sighed. “Each one was worse than the last. The ones Luna killed had their souls burned out completely. The ones you and Irene beat only had a few muddled mutterings left. Only the one Xuan Che slapped to death could still say anything useful.”

Irene blinked, then turned to Xuan Che with deep feeling. “So it really comes down to a healer’s mercy.”

Yu Sheng stared at her. “In what universe does ‘slapping someone to death’ count as a healer’s mercy?”

“In ours,” Irene said, chin up. “At least when he killed him, he still looked pretty lively.”

Xuan Che’s expression grew increasingly complicated. The conversation had veered into a realm he didn’t know how to navigate. He gave an awkward laugh and forced the topic back onto something sane.

“No matter what, we should send these remains back,” he said. “Spirit Infusion Peak has experts at examining corpses. They don’t have Mr. Yu’s… ability, but they may still find clues from the bodies. And with the living captive we caught, it’s not impossible to figure out what that so-called ‘Emperor Lord’ is.”

“All right,” Yu Sheng agreed. He opened a door to the Parted Clouds Palace. “Go get a few people to help carry them.”

Not long after, the black-robed corpses were sent back to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.

When that was done, Yu Sheng wandered toward the fallen siege giant divine armament peak half-buried in the sand.

He rested a hand on the ancient armor plating and let his gaze travel over the vast, imposing body. The mechanical doll stood silent between heaven and earth. Beneath each steel-covered face, it felt as if secrets spanning millions of years were locked away. Even the air carried a bleak, quiet desolation.

The armor was cold and rough. Time and space behaved strangely in the otherworld; no one could say how long these massive “soldiers” had been buried here. Yet their forms were intact, majestic. For a moment, Yu Sheng almost believed they could rise at any time and march back into battle.

He wasn’t the only one.

“These big guys feel like they could move again any second,” Foxy said, approaching in demon fox form. She nudged the armor with her snout. “They don’t even look damaged.”

“I checked the insides of a few automaton,” Xuan Che added. “They aren’t hollow illusions. They have internal mechanisms—real ones. But the core is complex and strange. I can’t grasp the principle, and I don’t know if they can still be activated.”

Yu Sheng thought, and an idea surfaced.

He turned to the artificial saintess standing on standby nearby. “Luna. Stab me.”

Luna blinked. Slowly, she lifted her head, hesitant. “…Do you want me to stab you to death?”

Yu Sheng almost choked. “What? No! I mean draw some blood. Since you’re here, I don’t feel like stabbing myself!”

Understanding dawned—slightly late, but sincere. Luna adapted fast. Once she confirmed the order, she raised her sword without blinking and drew a clean, long cut across Yu Sheng’s palm.

It was so quick he barely felt it.

Yu Sheng pressed his bleeding hand to the siege giant divine armament peak.

Blood flowed… and was absorbed into the cold armor as easily as water into a sponge.

Irene muttered, “Told you. A healthy and moderate blood-related disaster.”

Xuan Che said nothing. He only watched, eyes wide, as if witnessing something forbidden. No matter how you framed it, it looked like the work of an evil cultivator.

Except Yu Sheng was absurdly strong and on their side, which meant—by the strange logic of the world—he was simply an innovative upright cultivator with initiative.

A moment later, Yu Sheng pulled his hand back, frowning.

Irene perked up. “Ah? What happened?”

“It feels… different,” Yu Sheng said, brow furrowed. “The blood definitely got absorbed by something, but I didn’t feel any connection. Usually I can sense something back. With these, it’s like there’s a hollow void behind them, like the blood fell into nothing.”

He knocked the armor again.

Solid. Real. Present.

So where did the blood go?

Yu Sheng tried the other siege giant divine armament peak.

Same result. The blood vanished. No connection formed. And in the instant it disappeared, a vast, vague emptiness flickered back at him—only for a heartbeat.

His frown deepened, and bolder possibilities stirred.

Foxy watched him carefully. “Benefactor… what are you thinking?”

“Either that blood truly dissipated into nothing,” Yu Sheng said slowly, lifting his gaze as if he could see through the buried giants, “or it flowed into something much larger. Vast enough that this little blood isn’t enough to send back anything useful. Vast enough that you can’t see the whole thing at a glance.”

Foxy immediately pressed closer, lowering her body and rubbing her cheek against him, tail curling in.

Yu Sheng glanced at the massive fox trying very hard to become a small fox. “…Are you scared?”

“What you said is scary,” Foxy admitted, voice muffled, as if she wanted to hide behind him—despite the fact her snout alone was taller than a person.

Yu Sheng fell silent.

Then he exhaled and absently rubbed the thick fur along her cheek. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve stayed in this otherworld long enough.”

“Oh,” Foxy said, and in the blink of an eye she returned to human form.

Yu Sheng gave her a helpless look, then casually opened a door leading outside.

Beyond it lay the scenery near the slanted mine entrance at the mine park.