Chapter 383: Damage Assessment |
Deep within the Demon-Suppressing Tower, in the vertical-shaft-like “core containment zone,” Immortal Yuan Ling and Immortal Qian Ji were examining the facilities with grave faces when Yu Sheng’s group pushed the door open and entered, seeing the two busy old men at work.
“I came to take a look and to bring Sect Master Yuan Hao,” Yu Sheng said to Yuan Ling. “How are things here?”
“As you see, a mess everywhere,” Immortal Yuan Ling sighed, raising a hand to point into the shaft. “This may be the greatest accident since the tower was built—but fortunately we contained it in time.”
Yu Sheng looked where Immortal Yuan Ling pointed.
They stood midway up the shaft, on a semicircular platform extending from the inner wall. Beyond the platform, many of the long mechanical bridges set into the shaft wall had been destroyed. Disciples from the Refining Sect hovered in midair, inspecting the status of the connecting bridges. Numerous containment cells embedded in the wall had collapsed or were smoking, and tower staff, assisted by large automata, were clearing the rubble.
More shocking than the caved-in cells was a fissure that ran almost the entire height of the shaft from top to bottom. The wall, built from some unknown, incredibly tough material, looked as if it had been ripped open by brute force. The jagged split curved and stretched upward into a muddled, boundless height and downward into the unseen depths of the shaft. At its widest the crack spanned dozens of meters. Even now, sparks and flashes from rupturing spiritual materials occasionally snapped from within.
“Holy crap…” Irene, sitting on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, was stunned. “No wonder so many demons and monsters ran out. Your containment zone got cleaved in half.”
At her side, Immortal Qian Ji let out a long sigh: “Alas, the situation is indeed perilous to the extreme. This old fellow was startled when he arrived.”
“Ahem. Even for me, handling this situation is rather tricky,” Immortal Yuan Ling sighed as well. “The damage inside far exceeds what you see. After the tower’s core array stopped, many ferocious monsters suppressed at the very bottom moved all at once. Quite a few of them are intelligent. Sensing weakened restraints, they began destroying from bottom to top, from inside out. Roughly half of what you saw outside were ‘conveniently’ released by them to create chaos.
“Fortunately, the tower’s interior space is vast, with many unused floors that remain intact. We can temporarily transfer the recaptured demons there…”
Listening to the elder’s rundown, Irene couldn’t hold back any longer and said: “I’ve been wanting to ask: you have so many demons locked up in here—quite a few of which would definitely cause worldwide disaster if they got out—why not just kill them? At least kill the most dangerous, hopeless ones. Why keep them as ticking time bombs?”
“Easier said than done.” Before Yuan Ling could answer, Immortal Yuan Hao shook his head helplessly. “Those demons that can be killed outright are executed after identity and crimes are verified. The ones kept in the Demon-Suppressing Tower are confined for reasons.
“One case is when the crime is not worthy of death and there is a chance to return to the right path, like the Serpent Princess. Confining her here gives her room to reform.
“Another case is certain anomalous things that are extremely hard to ‘kill.’ Forcing their destruction can unleash contamination and backlash far beyond the risks of containment. Balancing the outcomes, we can only imprison them here.
“More special still are certain ancient beasts and even cultivators who have grasped fragments of the Dao. These ‘prisoners’ have tied themselves into the cycles of heaven and earth; with each breath, life and death ripple outward beyond themselves. If you eradicate them, you may, for a time, wound the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and even the entire Featherwing star region’s environment, stirring natural disasters that harm the common folk. So we can only lock these troublesome beings in the tower and slowly refine them. After hundreds or thousands of years, we may safely ‘dissolve’ them without harm.”
Yu Sheng gaped: “You can even do that?!”
“Yes,” Immortal Yuan Ling said with a bitter smile and a helpless tone. “This time, when a primordial beast tied to the earth veins tried to break free, Qian Ji and I forcibly slew it—it was originally to be refined for eight hundred years at the very bottom. With death it departed cleanly enough. Yet the Eight Gates Star just sent word that its magnetic pole has shifted by at least two degrees… no telling how many harvests that will affect.”
Yu Sheng was truly stunned now: “Are you cultivators at least a little ridiculous?”
Even Irene on his shoulder was bewildered. Then the little doll suddenly reacted, turned to Foxy, and asked: “Hey, silly fox, do the Immortals back home have this problem too?”
Foxy thought for a moment and shook her head: “Never heard of it. Probably because the world rules are different. Also, in our place most planetary parameters are machine-controlled. If the magnetic poles shift, they auto-adjust back.”
“Isn’t that even more ridiculous!” Irene said.
Yuan Hao and Qian Ji both froze for a few seconds, then their eyes lit up in unison: “What’s the principle behind that?”
“Let’s leave principles aside for now,” Yu Sheng cut in quickly, seeing the two engineer-types about to consult a cybernetic fox with only an elementary-school education on planetary control. “[Mainly because if he didn’t interrupt now, the explanation would devolve into sentences too long to make sense.] The main thing is to figure out how this ‘accident’ was triggered and whether it’s going to blow up again.”
At that, Immortal Yuan Ling’s expression changed: “You mean…”
“The rift Zheng Zhi observed still exists,” Yu Sheng said gravely. “It has only entered a temporarily stable state.”
“It’s over there,” Zheng Zhi said at once, pointing not far away. “It basically overlaps the Entity rift in the inner wall and extends downward. I can’t see how far… it’s too dark below.”
Immortal Yuan Ling furrowed his brows, tugged at his beard while he thought swiftly for a few seconds, then decided: “I’ll take you to the bottom of the Demon-Suppressing Tower so Fellow Daoist Zheng can use his spirit eyes to see what lies beneath. Senior brother, you and Elder Qian Ji stay here and continue verifying the damage in this area.”
“Of course,” Immortal Yuan Hao said casually, then remembered something and drew an object from his sleeve—a red brick. “The earth veins below are in disorder, and I fear some foul thing may be stirring. Take my Ten-Directions Heaven-Quelling Ruler for protection.”
Immortal Yuan Ling glanced at the “weapon” his eldest senior brother had produced; a visible twitch ran across his face as he tried to keep a straight expression: “Senior brother, you know I’m no good with weapons. Your Heaven-Quelling Ruler, well, I can’t use it.”
“All right then… how about my Hunyuan Demon-Subduing Dipper? The Haotian Demon-Subduing Hammer? The Four Directions Spirit Seal? The Heaven-Turning Insignia?”
As he spoke, Immortal Yuan Hao pulled out a whole pile of divine weapons he had forged himself. The platform instantly blazed with radiance and surged with spiritual light, artifact-spirits humming in continuous celestial song. Peering through the glow, Yu Sheng saw all kinds of bricks—ridged, edged, with handles, with chains, with reverse-tooth hooks, even two bricks joined by an iron rod like a dumbbell, yet named the “Qiankun Immeasurable Demon-Smiting Pestle.”
To put it plainly, if these things weren’t bursting with golden light and spiritual aura, mix them with concrete and you’d have a wall.
Immortal Yuan Ling’s face was turning green. Seeing his senior brother about to produce even more, he hurriedly tugged Yu Sheng toward the edge of the platform. With a flick of his dust-whisk, he summoned a softly glowing, floating round dais from who-knew-where. He took everyone aboard and sent it racing toward the tower’s bottom.
Immortal Yuan Hao’s head popped over the platform edge above, a brick in his hand blazing with Chilling Light: “Do you want the Limitless Talisman Seal—”
“Put that away!” Immortal Yuan Ling shouted from the round dais as it flew downward. “Don’t drop it and smash the earth veins!”
Only after shouting did he realize everyone around him was staring. The old man’s face turned awkward.
After holding back for a while, Yu Sheng couldn’t help it: “So this Grand Senior Uncle of Xuan Che’s… is really your sect’s grandmaster of forging?”
“…Yes.”
Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched: “That aesthetic is certainly unique.”
“You do not know. My senior brother’s forging skills are truly top-tier. He just doesn’t bother with ornamentation,” Immortal Yuan Ling said after a moment, doing his best to speak up for his senior brother—and, perhaps, for the sect’s reputation. “He forges in the most efficient, utilitarian styles, but the power is not to be underestimated.”
Yu Sheng recalled the Great Desolation Meteoric Crystal that Immortal Yuan Hao had smashed to bits with a single brick and found these words entirely convincing. That brick had every stat, every aesthetic, every special effect maxed out.
As they spoke, the floating round dais quickly passed the tower’s mid-shaft region. After traversing a passage carved all over with talismanic inscriptions, Yu Sheng noticed the architecture below had changed.
The “shaft wall” riddled with cells and caverns had reached its end. Further down yawned a deep, vertical cavern. Faint spiritual light pulsed in its depths, waxing and waning like breath and a heartbeat.
“That below is the earth veins,” Immortal Yuan Ling explained beside him. “The power of the Grand Void Spiritual Axis’s star core is contained within.”
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