Chapter 1437: Eerie Space

Yun Ji knew he must have found something. Otherwise he would not be staring so intently.

Sure enough, Niu Youdao, clinging to the rock wall with one hand and holding a luminous pearl in the other, suddenly looked back through the thunder of falling water and gestured that there was something behind the stone.

Yun Ji immediately raised a palm to strike, only for Niu Youdao to wave urgently, apparently telling her not to destroy it.

Understanding, Yun Ji nodded. The boulder had been scoured smooth by the current, leaving nowhere to grip or brace herself. She pressed one palm against it, used spiritual power to adhere to the stone, and pulled outward, finally kicking off hard against the cliff wall.

Hum!

The air shuddered, and the torrent of the waterfall burst apart.

A stone spur nearly one zhang long was pulled free like a radish from the earth and dropped with the rushing water.

Boom!

The falling stone crashed into the black pool below with a deep, explosive splash.

After wrenching out the huge stone and flying clear of the waterfall, Yun Ji shot back through the curtain of water. A pitch-black cave mouth had appeared in the cliff.

Niu Youdao was already standing at the entrance, holding the luminous pearl forward to inspect the interior. Yun Ji flashed in beside him.

The two exchanged a look. Yun Ji ran a hand over the stone around the entrance. “There are signs of artificial excavation.”

Niu Youdao raised the luminous pearl and examined the walls around them as he slowly walked deeper inside. Yun Ji summoned a Moon Butterfly and sent it ahead to light the way.

A shallow layer of water flowed inward beneath their feet. The entrance had not been cut at an angle that kept the water out, so some of the waterfall ran into the passage.

The ground was slick enough that an ordinary person could easily fall. The passage sloped steadily downward, and before they had gone far, rough-hewn steps appeared.

They traveled deep enough that the sound of the waterfall behind them faded away. After walking for a while longer, however, the rumble of water rose ahead once more.

Mist blew into their faces as they emerged onto a dark cliffside.

The Moon Butterfly fluttered through the spray, illuminating a cylindrical abyss. Two waterfalls poured down on either side like white dragons plunging toward the bottom. They could not tell where the water came from or where it went. The depths below were invisible, while the two of them stood atop a broken bridge.

From the fractured edges, it was clear that this had once been a natural stone bridge, probably formed by the impact of water above and below. At some point it had broken, leaving a gap of roughly half a zhang in the middle. On the far end of the bridge was another dark cave mouth.

In such an isolated place, with this kind of terrain and clear traces of human interference, they were basically certain they had found the right location.

Yun Ji sent the Moon Butterfly into the opposite cave to investigate. Through their Dharma Eyes, both could see that the passage beyond was empty. They nodded to each other. Yun Ji crossed first and checked the entrance, then turned and beckoned. Only then did Niu Youdao, who had repeatedly glanced down into the abyss, fly across.

More than ten zhang inside, another set of steps descended in a winding course.

Like the earlier passage, this place had originally been a natural underground fissure. Someone had later done some simple work on it to make travel easier.

The marks did not resemble the repeated blows of ordinary laborers. Large sections seemed to have been swept open with raw force, suggesting cultivators had carved the way.

They kept twisting downward for an unknown length of time. The temperature steadily fell, bringing an increasingly cold and gloomy sensation.

Farther down, the chill began to bite into the bones. Water droplets clung to the walls without freezing, while their Dharma Eyes could see strands of yin qi drifting in the air.

As they descended still deeper, even the Moon Butterfly seemed unable to bear it. It beat its wings but refused to advance. Yun Ji had no choice but to recall it. “We may already be seven or eight hundred zhang underground.”

Niu Youdao gave a slight nod. After so many turns, he had long lost track of their depth, but Yun Ji specialized in moving through the earth. He trusted her estimate.

Yun Ji warned him, “The yin qi is getting heavier too.”

“The heavier it gets, the more it proves we haven’t come to the wrong place.”

Yun Ji was puzzled. “Who built a secret passage like this underground? What exactly is hidden here?”

She knew nothing about the map on the sword or what they had really come to find. She only knew that anything hidden in a place this secret could not be simple.

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Their low voices echoed through the passage as they continued downward by the light of the luminous pearl.

Perhaps because the darkness was too profound, even the pearl’s glow seemed compressed into a tiny sphere. The drifting yin qi ahead made the underground passage increasingly sinister and uncanny.

After traveling for some time, they gradually felt the air current strengthening. The floating yin qi began churning more violently.

Before long, they reached the end of the passage and entered an underground chamber resembling a crude stone room.

A doorway opened from the chamber, but a huge rounded boulder had been rolled into place to seal it. By the light of the pearl, Yun Ji spotted something and raised a hand. “Look!”

Niu Youdao lifted the pearl. Above the sealing stone, or rather on the lintel of the blocked doorway, four large characters had been carved:

Loyal Heart, Martyr’s Blood.

“The words from your sword,” Yun Ji reminded him.

Niu Youdao nodded slightly. “Looks like this place really is connected to Old Dong Guo.”

“This was made by your Shangqing Sect master, Dong Guo Haoran?”

“Most likely.” Niu Youdao sighed and approached the sealing stone to inspect it. The work was crude. The edges of the boulder did not fit the doorway completely, leaving gaps of various sizes, and gust after gust of yin wind poured through them.

He turned, tossed the luminous pearl behind him, and used spiritual power to send it flying several circuits around the chamber so they could examine the whole space.

The room itself was rough-hewn, but its purpose was obvious. This was how such a large sealing stone had been quarried from a passage too narrow to bring one in from outside.

Yun Ji understood as well. “The stone was taken from the spot. They hollowed out this chamber because they needed to cut the sealing boulder itself.”

Niu Youdao caught the returning pearl between two fingers and stepped back. “Since we’re here, we have to go inside. Move the stone aside. Keep the disturbance as small as possible. If you wake what’s inside, things could become troublesome.”

There was something inside that could wake up?

Yun Ji was startled. “What?”

“I’m not certain it’s actually there. That’s what I came to confirm. Just be careful. If it exists, you’ll see it.”

Yun Ji immediately became much more cautious. She moved to the sealing stone, braced both hands against it, and began pulling with spiritual power.

Hum!

The huge stone shifted. The gaps widened slightly, and the yin wind pouring through them immediately grew stronger.

“Easy,” Niu Youdao warned again, using the luminous pearl to give her light.

Yun Ji nodded and carefully controlled both her strength and speed, slowly rolling the rounded stone backward.

The boulder moved with a muffled rumble. Its immense weight crushed uneven places in the floor with sharp cracking sounds.

As the doorway opened fully, yin wind roared from within, snapping both their clothes in the current.

The two of them could withstand it. An ordinary mortal exposed to yin wind this dense would probably become gravely ill on the spot.

The airflow now seemed unobstructed. From the darkness beyond came a low, rolling flap-flap like something large billowing in the wind.

Yun Ji rolled the stone into one corner of the chamber. Worried it might move again, she sliced a chunk from the wall and wedged it beneath the boulder.

Turning back into the roaring yin wind, she saw that Niu Youdao had already planted himself directly in the doorway. He slowly closed his hand around the luminous pearl until its glow disappeared.

“What is it?” Yun Ji came to his side and asked, then fell silent as she realized the answer.

She could see them too.

Countless tiny red points hung in the black void ahead, each no larger than the glow of a mosquito. There were too many to count.

They were not ordinary lights. Every faint red speck carried an eerie, wavering quality, something malign and unsettled that seemed to drift without ever holding still.

Normally, any light would help a Dharma Eye make out what lay around it. These red points did nothing of the sort. Instead, they seemed to make the darkness harder to penetrate, as if their ghostly glow concealed more than it revealed.

“What are those?” Yun Ji asked, her voice unconsciously lowered as she remembered Niu Youdao’s warning about waking what was inside.

Niu Youdao did not answer. Standing in the gusting yin wind, he swept the darkness with his Dharma Eye, then suddenly sniffed the air. He stepped forward twice, reached toward one side of the stone doorway, and began feeling around.

Yun Ji had no idea what he was searching for.

Pop.

A dull pulling sound came from the wall, followed by the gurgle of liquid beginning to flow.

This time Yun Ji smelled it too: the sharp, heavy odor of lamp oil.

Niu Youdao lifted his hand. Black grease coated one finger. With a slight shake, the oil ignited at once. The wind nearly blew the flame out, but he quickly used spiritual power to shield it.

With fire burning on his fingertip, he casually touched the side of the doorway.

Whoom!

A mass of flame sprang up and instantly became a fire-dragon racing away.

Yun Ji followed it with her eyes. A stream of oil had begun flowing from a hidden groove beside the doorway into a long stone channel. Wherever the oil ran, the burning line followed.

An enormous underground space gradually emerged from the spreading firelight.

The fire-dragon kept racing onward, circling the cavern before feeding into a larger firepit at its center.

A flagpole stood in the middle of that firepit. A huge banner snapped violently in the yin wind, embroidered again and again with one great character:

Shang.

The rolling flap they had heard outside came from this very banner.

The vast underground space rose and fell in uneven tiers, but weapons had been planted everywhere. Sabers, spears, swords, and halberds stood like a forest, their edges still sharp, cold light gathering along the metal. Suits of armor also stood among them, glimmering strangely in the flames.

At first sight, the spectacle was astonishing, like an enormous subterranean armory rendered stern and murderous beneath the firelight.

What held Yun Ji’s attention even more, however, was what rested on every weapon and suit of armor.

Each was shrouded by a clot of black mist that the yin wind could not disperse. A silhouette could be faintly seen within each mass.

Birds.

More precisely, crows.

The dark-feathered crows sat with their eyes tightly shut. Between their lids drifted faint wisps of red light.

Countless crows. Countless threads of red.

Those were the mosquito-sized points they had seen in the darkness.

Silent upon the weapons and armor beneath the cutting yin wind, the cold, black-feathered crows seemed to be sleeping.

[End of Chapter 1437]