Chapter 402

Chapter 402: In the Shadows

“These are the cases from the past few months in Ink City involving cultivators suffering demonic corruption and people going missing.”

Mo Ran pointed at several scrolls laid neatly on the table, each painted with pale golden cloud patterns. Then she retrieved a jade slip from a nearby shelf and placed it in front of Xuan Che.

“This one is the most recent case,” she said. “It happened a few days ago.”

Xuan Che nodded, took the slip, and opened it.

A hazy glow rose from the jade, projecting images and written records compiled by investigators. The details were meticulous, almost exhausting in their thoroughness.

As Xuan Che read, his brows drew together. After a moment, he looked up through the holographic projection. “A refining tower administrator,” he repeated slowly. “He got off work, went home, and suddenly his temperament changed, his cultivation skyrocketed, and he started destroying things?”

“Yes.” Mo Ran’s expression was heavy. “During the pursuit, he broke through three separate patrol blockades—reckless, as if he didn’t care whether he lived or died.” She paused, and the tension in her voice deepened. “The last witnesses saw him jump into an earth-veins fissure at the base of Refining Tower No. 10. After that, he vanished. We organized an exploration team, but we didn’t find a body.”

Xuan Che said nothing and continued reading.

Across the table, Mo Ran continued in a measured voice. “Based on what we’ve gathered, the people involved in these incidents come from all walks of life. Their backgrounds and sect inheritances vary. There’s no common thread in identity.”

“And it isn’t limited to humans,” she added. “There are demon immortals, spirit immortals, and even registered spirit-creatures and ghosts. Whoever is behind this doesn’t pick and choose. It seems random.”

Mo Ran paused, then leaned slightly forward. “That said, we didn’t find nothing. There are shared traits. The biggest is that the victims were all at Spirit Embodiment Stage or above. They already had the ability to project divine sense and perform soul roaming…”

Xuan Che’s eyes sharpened. “So they were likely affected while releasing divine sense—while observing the world with their minds?”

“That’s our most likely guess,” Mo Ran said. “But we still can’t confirm how this demonic corruption occurs. The first step for cultivators learning to send out divine sense is mastering techniques to protect their own minds. Of course, some people are less skilled or careless and get tempted during the process, but so many people collectively going demonic in such a short time is truly abnormal.”

She hesitated, then added more quietly, “Also… while we suspect most victims were infected while releasing divine sense, at least twenty percent lost control without doing any cultivation or meditation at all. Some were simply sleeping. Those cases are rare, but they’re the most unsettling.”

“No divine sense leaving the body, and still contaminated?” Xuan Che’s brows knitted tight. He thought for a moment, then spoke slowly. “In theory, with proper mind protection—especially when divine sense never leaves the body—they shouldn’t be infected at all.”

He lifted his gaze. “But if what they’re facing is a deranged ancient power, that’s a different story.”

Mo Ran’s expression finally shifted. “A deranged ancient power?”

“Do not mention this to outsiders,” Xuan Che said at once. His voice was calm, but the warning carried weight. “First, it could cause panic. Second, the one behind this may have extremely high cultivation—already at mind-linked divinity. If word spreads, ordinary people with lower cultivation might fixate on that name in fear, and that repeated focus could draw the person’s attention.”

Mo Ran’s shock was clear, but she forced herself to steady. “Understood. Immortal Envoy… please speak.”

Xuan Che drew a slow breath, as if bracing himself. “This series of incidents is very likely connected to an ancient power named Yun Qing Zi.” His voice lowered. “And this old senior… has most likely already gone mad.”

…

Deep caves connected to tunnels. Man-dug corridors linked into crisscrossing ravines. Far from Ink City, in the wasteland’s depths, a hidden underground refuge sprawled like a vast maze woven from raw geological veins and human intrusion, burying every secret beneath layers of stone and earth.

On this mining planet at the border—a world that had declined for many years—there were countless forgotten corners.

A thousand years ago, pioneers built outposts, collection stations, and terraforming facilities in the harsh alien environment. With time, many frontier sites became history. Some fulfilled their purpose. Others were ruined by environmental change. Whatever the reason, those facilities—abandoned for a millennium—became forgotten “tombs,” drowned in Shu Ji’s eternal rainy season, slowly rotting in damp and cold.

And now, deep within one of those forgotten tombs…

Something darker and far more dangerous than mold was growing.

In what had once been an outpost’s underground core, late-added facilities and devices had replaced ancient arrays and spirit-tools that had long since failed. A dozen “outsiders” with distinctly foreign features moved between precision equipment with practiced efficiency.

At the hall’s center sat a heavy black chair.

Countless pipes and cables ran into it. The tangled lines spread like roots, linking equipment across the underground palace. Some vanished into the ceiling and into the ground, as if they led somewhere even deeper.

And in that chair sat a middle-aged man in white robes, stern and imposing.

His eyes were shut tight. His brows were furrowed. Cables ran from beneath his robes into ports on the chair. Behind his skull, nerve-like biological structures had grown—fused into an interface above the backrest—twitching faintly now and then.

After who knew how long, when a Hermitage Order technical cultivator glanced uneasily at the chair for the third time, the man finally opened his eyes.

The nerve structures detached and slowly retracted into his body. Behind the chair, several cultivation containers—like sleeping pods—hummed softly. One of them gradually lit up.

“Great Sage,” the technical cultivator said, stepping forward and lowering his head. “You’ve recovered?”

“Mmm.” The middle-aged man—called Great Sage—nodded. His presence was imposing, but fatigue dulled his eyes. “I still need time to return to peak condition and… organize my memories.”

He looked over the cultists working across the hall. “Progress? Have you analyzed anything useful from the return signals?”

“Only scattered memory fragments,” the technical cultivator admitted, helpless. He operated his device as he spoke. “Your previous clone body died too suddenly—too completely. There wasn’t even time to copy and transmit full memories. From the limited signals, the black box chip in the brain vaporized in an instant. The protective casing barely did anything.”

He swallowed, then continued. “Also, the death site had powerful spatial interference—unlike any interference technology we’ve seen. That seriously affected memory transmission. Your current memory impairment and cognitive gaps were caused by that.”

He shifted aside and activated a holographic projector in front of the Great Sage. “These are the few barely meaningful images we extracted from the limited death signals…”

A chaotic blur of light flickered in the air.

You could vaguely make out endless rain, lightning, and brutal combat—but everything was inverted and scrambled, blurred into a runaway nightmare. The images were riddled with delusions and misperceptions that violated reason itself.

Missiles streaked through the sky, yet in the warped recording they became flaming tails. Figures rode those tails through the air, swinging strange, vicious clubs. Spider silk filled the world, weaving into a giant net, and at its center crouched a terrifying massive silhouette…

Grotesque. Chaotic. Irrational.

Like a collapsing dream sketched at the edge of waking—clearly the clone body’s brain, spiraling into confusion at the instant of sudden death, had warped memory and imagination into the same broken picture.

And at the end came the final frame returned by the black box chip.

It was blurrier than all the others, but the recorder’s terror had peaked, flooding the frame with dazzling, complex colors. Within that distortion, a figure raised a hand.

A woman in an ornate black gown. Blood-red eyes. A bright light gathering at her fingertip, swelling rapidly.

“This is the final death image,” the technical cultivator said carefully. “Based on the timestamp, this should be the enemy who caused your clone body’s death. But… the memory data extracted from this frame indicates the enemy was very small. Physically, only a few dozen centimeters—like a doll.”

The Great Sage’s face turned as still and dark as deep water. He stared at the projection for several long seconds before speaking.

“You’re telling me I was killed by a doll?”

“That may be a false impression caused by death and transmission interference,” the technical cultivator said hurriedly, bowing his head. “As you saw, many of the images were scrambled and absurd. The clone body’s brain, in chaos at the end, distorted much of what it recorded.”

The Great Sage didn’t respond. He only stared at the color-warped figure in the hologram, silent for a long time.