Chapter 403

Chapter 403: Deep Underground

The Great Sage’s silence pressed down on the underground hall like a weight. The technical cultivator closest to him could feel it—a suffocating pressure that turned the air thick.

Yet beneath the Great Sage’s gloom, the technical cultivator also caught something else.

Not only anger.

Doubt. Thought. A heavy, gnawing calculation.

Almost unconsciously, the technical cultivator turned and stared at the projection with him.

A woman in a black dress. Red eyes. Floating in the sky. Destruction gathered at her fingertip.

The frame was drowned in rich, dazzling colors, like an incorrect rendering caused by neurons scrambling at the moment of brain death. The woman’s silhouette was only a broad sweep of black and blood-red. Behind her, the sky looked wrong—deep purples and dark reds rippling outward, as if some enormous shadowspawn loomed through the clouds, ready to swallow the viewer whole.

“…Report what happened here to Holy Land first,” the Great Sage said suddenly. “Include the raw data from these fragments. Keep trying to reconstruct the information on-site—especially anything involving that ‘doll.’”

The technical cultivator bowed deeply. “Yes.”

The Great Sage gave a low “mm” and rose from the chair. The cables detaching from his back moved on their own, like living tentacles loosening their grip.

He walked deeper into the underground palace. Passing the cultivation pods, he paused at one container and lowered his gaze.

Inside the tilted, pipe-like pod fixed to the ground, something hummed softly. Its surface lights blinked in steady rhythm. A newly matured clone body lay sleeping within—its blank brain waiting for a new personality transfer.

The body he wore now had been lying in a pod like this only minutes ago.

The sudden death of the previous shell had disrupted plans, forcing him to transfer his consciousness into this new body in haste. And the impact was worse than he’d expected. Discomfort in a new shell was one thing. The memory gaps were another.

He still couldn’t fully recall what had happened.

He remembered rain. Strange enemies. The artificial saintess who had betrayed them. And a flash of bright light.

A sharp ache rose behind his eyes. The Great Sage frowned and rubbed his temples. Darkness flickered at the edges of his vision, like a thin ring of shadowspawn hopping just outside his attention.

The monitoring chip in his brain gave no alert. His spiritual intuition gave no reaction.

Perhaps the rushed consciousness transfer had damaged this clone’s nervous system. If the problem didn’t ease, he would replace the shell again. The plan was at a critical stage, and unexpected variables had appeared. At a time like this, cost didn’t matter. Anything with hidden danger had to be removed—even his own body.

He pushed the thoughts aside and moved on.

The Great Sage left the hall and entered the maze beyond. He passed through tunnels and connecting corridors, then crossed a fissure where the outer wall had collapsed. Beyond it, the man-made space gave way to natural caverns.

He walked forward through the dark, alert to any change.

Now and then, figures emerged from shadowed corners—cultivators in black robes, wearing strange masks. These death thralls, controlled by Yun Qing Zi, guarded choke points throughout the caves. Their cold gazes flicked to the Great Sage, then slid away with indifferent obedience.

He ignored them. Most of his attention stayed on the environment and on protecting his mind.

Because although an ally waited ahead…

That ally was also a monster.

And the monster’s self-control had been weakening more and more.

The deeper he went, the quieter it became. Soon even the black-clad cultivators vanished. In long tunnels that seemed endless, only the Great Sage’s footsteps remained. Occasionally, glowing vines or strange crystals embedded in the walls gave just enough light to show the path.

Gradually, faint light appeared ahead.

It wasn’t torchlight. It filtered down from above.

The Great Sage looked up. Through cracks of various sizes between jagged rock, he saw distant starlight from some unknown place.

This was deep underground, yet here, he could see stars the surface of Ink City could never see.

He was long used to such sights.

He hurried through the starlit passage and finally reached the deepest part of the maze—a broad, primal cavern.

Faint streams of light pierced the cavern walls and ground, flowing through the air like rivers. Dense crystal clusters burst from the earth in jagged piles. Under the combined glow, the cavern’s center rose in a bulge of stone split by a cross-shaped crack.

Around the crack were simple stone tables, stools, and beds, along with a pill furnace, a sword rack, and other items cultivators commonly used. Everything looked abandoned, collapsed and broken under dust.

The Great Sage walked straight to the crack.

An unsettling grinding sounded from within.

In the next instant, a cluster of pale crystals streaked with gray-black abruptly grew out of the fissure. The mass spread rapidly, piling into a formation taller than a person in a blink. Then its surface writhed, reshaping as if alive. Hard crystal softened, melted, and reforged into a smooth mirror.

Within the mirror appeared the image of a stern old man.

“You’ve run into trouble?” the old man asked casually, frowning.

“It’s trouble for both of us,” the Great Sage said, voice controlled. “A group of unknown people suddenly appeared in Ink City. My previous clone body died at their hands.”

“Oh.” Yun Qing Zi laughed, seemingly amused rather than alarmed. “No wonder your flesh looks so fresh. So you really did swap bodies.”

His eyes narrowed with lazy curiosity. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“They might have been drawn here by you,” the Great Sage snapped. His expression darkened. “You should know that because of your last… incident, the risk of exposure has increased by far more than a little. More and more people are being affected by you, even beyond Shu Ji. Plenty of eyes are already on this planet.”

“That wasn’t losing control,” Yun Qing Zi said blandly. “It was a necessary method for finding the Emperor Lord’s Legacy. If I truly lost control… you should know what that would look like.”

The Great Sage’s jaw tightened. Yun Qing Zi’s attitude was infuriating, but the words were true. After a moment, he forced down the irritation.

“So?” he asked, heavy. “With that huge commotion, did you find it?”

“Of course.”

“Where?”

“Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”

The Great Sage fell silent for two seconds. Then his voice cut through the cavern’s stillness. “That’s it? We already know the clues point there. You made such a mess—”

“The Grand Void Spiritual Axis itself is the Emperor Lord’s Legacy,” Yun Qing Zi said, as casually as if he were discussing weather.

The cavern went silent again.

This time, the silence lasted far longer.

The Great Sage’s shock froze on his face for half a minute before he finally spoke, disbelief bleeding through. “You mean… the entire planet?”

He took a breath, then frowned harder. “Wait. If that’s the case, doesn’t that mean the Emperor Lord’s Legacy isn’t something you can simply take as an object at all? Then how do you plan to obtain it?”

“That’s none of your concern.” Yun Qing Zi’s smile returned, thin and effortless. “This old man has his own arrangements. Besides, that legacy is of little use to you.”

He tilted his head. “Before I obtain it, our cooperation will continue as usual.”

The Great Sage stared at the projection for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Understood. We’ll continue helping you suppress the influence of the Yanxing Entity. But in return—if you plan any more ‘big moves’ in the future, notify us at least once in advance. We already have more than enough trouble.”

“No problem.” Yun Qing Zi laughed, as if this were an easy favor. Then he seemed to remember something and leaned closer, eyes bright with interest. “Ah, right. You said there was a group of unknown people? And they even killed you once?”

His smile widened. “Go on. Tell me. I have time to listen now.”

The Great Sage stared at him.

“….”

…

What could be more anxiety-inducing than learning a deranged ancient power had appeared?

Of course there was.

It was learning that this deranged ancient power was very likely right at your doorstep—and might already be stirring up trouble inside your own home.

After Xuan Che finished describing Yun Qing Zi, and after Mo Ran heard that the major events at the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and the strange occurrences in Shu Ji might all be connected to him, her expression clearly didn’t look good.

This poised, noble City Lord suddenly radiated the energy of someone completely done with a thankless job. It was the look of a person about to welcome an inspection from superiors—only to be told, before she could even open her report, that a nationally notorious criminal had just spawned in her jurisdiction… and she’d known nothing.

And honestly, there was no need to say it felt like that.

It was that.