Chapter 402

Chapter 403: Deep Underground

The Great Sage’s silence made the Underground Palace hall feel heavy. Yet the high-level technician closest to him noticed something besides anger in that dark look. There was doubt, and a deep, careful thinking.

He turned, almost without meaning to, and studied the last scene with the Great Sage.

It was the final sight from the Clone Body’s eyes: a woman in a black dress, red-eyed, floating in the sky, a beam of destruction forming at her fingertip.

The whole view wore a thick, dazzling color, like a wrong rendering from neurons crashing at brain death. The woman’s blurry shape was drawn by blocks of black and red. Behind her, the sky showed dark purple and red rings rippling outward, like a giant shadow cast from her back into the clouds, leaning down toward the viewer.

“Report everything here to the Holy Land, including the raw data on these fragments,” the Great Sage said at last. “You all keep working to rebuild the info from these scraps. Focus on this ‘doll’.”

The technician bent low: “Yes.”

The Great Sage grunted in reply and stood. Many cables slipped free on their own, like living tendrils.

He walked toward the back of the hall. Passing the growth tanks, he stopped and looked down into one.

A tilted, tube-shaped tank hummed softly. Its lights blinked in a steady pattern. Inside, a freshly matured Clone Body slept, its blank brain waiting for a mind to be moved in. A short while ago, the body he wore now had been in a tank like this.

The sudden death of his last shell had ruined many plans. He had to rush and transfer his mind into this new body. The effects were worse than he expected. The discomfort of the new body was minor. The memory and thinking gaps were the real pain. Right now, he could not fully recall what happened. He remembered rain, strange enemies, the traitorous Artificial Saintess, and a blast of light.

A sharp buzz of pain moved through his head. The Great Sage pressed his fingers to his temples. At the edge of his vision, he kept feeling a thin dark ring flicker, like a shadow jumping at the rim of his attention. [Is it just my imagination?]

The monitor chip in his brain gave no warning. His Spiritual Intuition felt nothing.

Maybe the rushed transfer harmed the nervous system of this Clone Body. If it does not ease soon, he would discard this shell and switch to a new one. The plan here had reached a key stage, and the sudden change made things messy. Now was not the time to consider cost. Anything risky had to go, even his own body.

With those messy thoughts, the Great Sage stepped past the tanks and left the hall. He walked deeper into the giant maze below.

He passed corridors and walkways, crossed a broken rift at the edge of the Underground Palace, and entered a stretch of natural caverns and tunnels. He moved through the dim light, carefully watching the changes around him.

From time to time, shapes shifted in dark corners on both sides. They were black-clad figures in eerie masks, Cultivators under Yun Qing Zi’s control, the Death Assassins. They guarded the choke points of the cave, watching for any stir. Their eyes rested on the Great Sage, then slid away.

He did not care about those looks. Most of his focus stayed on the environment and on guarding his mind.

He knew the ally waiting ahead was also a monster. Lately, that monster was losing control more and more often.

The deeper he went, the quieter it got. Soon even the black-clad Cultivators vanished. In the long tunnel that seemed to have no end, only his footsteps sounded. Now and then, glowing vines or odd crystals in the walls gave just enough light to see his next step.

Slowly, a new faint glow came into view. Pale light leaked down from the roof of the cave ahead. The Great Sage lifted his head. Through many cracks between rocks, he saw a sky full of stars from some far, unknown place.

They were deep underground, yet he could see stars that even the surface of Ink City could not.

He was used to such sights. He passed quickly through the starlit passage and reached the deepest part of the maze, a wide, raw cavern.

Countless soft streams of light seeped through the walls and floor and flowed in the air like rivers. Clusters of crystal pierced up from the ground and piled everywhere. In their glow, the center of the cavern rose in a low mound split by a cross-shaped crack.

Around that crack sat simple stone furniture, a table, stools, a bed, and things a Cultivator would use, like a pill furnace and a sword stand. All of it looked abandoned for years, ruined and dusty.

The Great Sage walked straight to the cross-shaped crack.

A scraping sound rose from within. Then a mass of pale crystal, veined with gray and black, pushed up from the split. It grew fast, swelling to taller than a person. Its surface moved and reshaped as if alive. In an instant the hard crystal melted and remade itself into a smooth mirror. Inside the mirror appeared the image of a stern old man.

“You ran into trouble?” the old man asked with a frown, as if chatting.

“We both ran into trouble,” said the Great Sage, face serious. “A group of unknown people showed up in Ink City. They killed one of my Clone Bodies.”

“Oh. No wonder your flesh looks so fresh. A brand-new shell indeed,” Yun Qing Zi laughed, as if the worry in the Great Sage’s voice meant nothing. “What does that have to do with me?”

“You may have drawn them here,” the Great Sage said, unhappy. “Because of your last loss of control, our risk of exposure has gone way up. More and more people are under your influence, even beyond the Sentinel Silence. Many eyes are now on this planet.”

“That was not losing control. It was a necessary way to search for the Sovereign’s Legacy,” Yun Qing Zi said lightly. “If I truly lost control, you know what that would look like.”

The Great Sage’s frown tightened. The tone was bad, but the words were true. After a moment, he swallowed his anger and spoke in a dull voice: “So? With all that noise, did you find it?”

“Of course I found it.”

“Where?”

“Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”

Silence hung for two seconds. Then the Great Sage’s voice broke it: “That is all? We already knew the trail pointed to the Grand Void Spiritual Axis from the start. With such a big stir, you…”

“The Grand Void Spiritual Axis itself is the Sovereign’s Legacy.”

The cavern went quiet again, even more than before.

Shock stayed on the Great Sage’s face for at least half a minute.

“You mean the whole planet…” He snapped out of it and said, stunned: “Wait. If that is true, then the ‘Sovereign’s Legacy’ is not some thing we can just take away. So how are you going to get it?”

“No need to worry about that. I have my own plan. The Sovereign’s Legacy is not very useful to your people anyway,” Yun Qing Zi said. “Before I obtain it, our cooperation will continue as usual.”

The Great Sage watched the old man in the crystal and exhaled softly: “I understand. We will keep helping you suppress the effects of the Evolving Youth Form. In return, if you plan another big move, at least tell us first. We have enough trouble already.”

“No problem,” Yun Qing Zi said with a smile. Then, as if he had just remembered, he added: “By the way, you mentioned a group of unknown people who killed you once. Tell me more. I have time now.”

The Great Sage: “…”

…

What is more stressful than hearing that an ancient powerhouse has gone mad?

There is something worse.

It is hearing that this ancient madman is very likely right at your own doorstep, and might even be doing things inside your house.

After hearing Xuan Che’s story about Yun Qing Zi, and how the recent major events on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and the strange signs in the Sentinel Silence may link to him, Mo Ran’s face clearly did not look good.

This elegant Ms. City Lord suddenly carried the air of someone thinking: [I am so done with this job.] It felt like getting ready to report to a higher-up, only to be told first: “A national-level wanted criminal is active in your district,” and you had no idea.

Of course, we could drop the word “like.” It was not just a feeling…