Chapter 403: Deep Underground |
The Great Sage’s silence pressed a pall over the hall, yet the high-ranking technician closest to him glimpsed something alongside anger in that gloomy expression, a more complicated look of doubt and grave calculation.
That made the technician reflexively glance back at the hologram, watching with the Great Sage the scene it showed.
It was the last thing the clone had seen before death: a woman in a black dress and red eyes floating in the sky, destruction burgeoning at her fingertips.
The entire image was overspread with intense, dazzling color, an “error rendering” born of neural chaos at brain death. The indistinct figure was limned in broad swathes of black and blood-red, and in the sky behind her ripples of deep violet and dark crimson unfurled, as if a gigantic shadow were cast through the clouds from behind her, stooping to look toward the point of view.
“Report everything that happened here to the Holy Land first, including the raw data of these memory fragments,” the Great Sage said abruptly: “Continue trying to reconstruct what is in them, especially the part about this ‘doll’.”
The technician bowed deeply: “Yes.”
The Great Sage grunted assent, then rose from the chair. A mass of connecting cables slipped free from his back as if each were a living tendril.
He turned toward the far end of the subterranean hall and, passing the incubation pods, halted to look down at one container.
From the tubular unit fixed at an incline to the floor came a low, steady hum. Its lights blinked in rhythm, showing a freshly matured clone sleeping within, its empty brain awaiting a transfer. Bare minutes ago his current body had been lying in such a pod.
A stab of pain and a hum lanced his skull. The Great Sage frowned and rubbed his temples. [Is it my imagination, or is the edge of my vision dim, like a thin shadow flickering at the periphery of attention?]
The monitoring chip in his brain did not sound an alarm. His spiritual intuition felt nothing.
[The rushed transfer may have damaged this clone’s nervous system. If it does not ease, I will discard this shell and change to a new one. The plan has reached a critical stage, and an unforeseen variable has appeared. This is no time to count costs. Anything with hidden risk must be eliminated, including my current body.]
With those ragged thoughts passing through his mind, the Great Sage stepped beyond the pods, strode out of the hall, and headed deeper into the labyrinth.
He moved through the surrounding corridors and connecting passages, then passed a fissure at the edge of the underground palace. It looked like a collapse in the outer wall, beyond which lay what seemed to be natural caverns and tunnels. He advanced through the gloom, cautiously alert to the environment.
Figures appeared now and then in shadowed corners to either side, black-clad “practitioners” wearing eerie masks. Controlled by Yun Qing Zi, these death assassins guarded the passes of the underground caves, watching every stirring of air and stone. Their gazes fell on the Great Sage and then slid away, cold and indifferent.
The Great Sage paid them no mind. Most of his attention was locked on changes in the surroundings and on shielding his mind.
He knew that though an ally awaited ahead, that ally was also a monster, and the monster’s self-control had been growing weaker.
As he went deeper, the silence thickened. Soon even the black-clad practitioners were gone. The only sound in the long, depthless tunnel was his own footsteps. Here and there faintly luminous vines or odd crystals jutted from the walls, shedding just enough light to show the next foothold.
Gradually, a new gleam entered his field of view. A weak light seeped down from the ceiling of the cave ahead. The Great Sage lifted his head and, through cracks of various sizes between the rocks, saw a distant sky full of stars.
They were deep underground, yet here he could see stars invisible even from the surface of Mo City.
The sight did not surprise him. He hurried on through the star-lit corridor and finally reached the deepest part of the labyrinth, a vast primordial cavern.
Countless faint streams of light seeped through the cave’s walls and floor and flowed in the air like rivers. Dense crystal clusters thrust up through the ground and piled everywhere. In the glow cast by the flowing light and crystals, one could see that the floor at the center arched upward and had split into a cross-shaped crack.
Around that fissure stood plain stone furniture and the tools commonly used by cultivators, such as a pill furnace and a sword dais, all long abandoned. They were broken and collapsed, dust-coated and gray.
The Great Sage walked straight to the cross-shaped fissure.
An unsettling scraping came from within, and then a mass of weird crystals, pale shot through with gray-black, abruptly grew out of the crack. The cluster spread through the air, swelling to greater than a man’s height in the blink of an eye. Its surface writhed and reshaped itself as if alive. The seemingly hard crystal melted and recast into a smooth mirror, and in that mirror appeared the image of a stern elder.
“You ran into trouble?” the elder in the crystal said with a faint frown.
“It is trouble for both of us,” the Great Sage answered, face solemn: “A group of unknowns suddenly showed up in Mo City. My last clone died at their hands.”
“Oh? No wonder that flesh looks so fresh. You did just change,” Yun Qing Zi laughed, as if entirely unconcerned by the other’s grave tone: “And what has that to do with me?”
“They were likely drawn by you.” The Great Sage’s expression darkened, displeased by the other’s attitude: “You know that your last episode of sudden loss of control greatly increased our risk of exposure. More and more people are falling under your influence, including those beyond Sentinel Silence. Many eyes are now fixed on this planet.”
“That was not loss of control. It was a necessary means to seek the Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy,” Yun Qing Zi said mildly: “If I truly lost control, you know what the world would look like.”
The Great Sage frowned hard. However disagreeable the tone, the words were true. After a moment he swallowed his irritation and said in a muffled voice: “So? With all that commotion, did you find it?”
“Of course.”
“Where?”
“Grand Void Spiritual Axis.”
At that answer, the Great Sage was silent for two seconds. Then his voice broke the cave’s quiet: “That? We have always known it was on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. From the very beginning every clue pointed to that planet. You made such a spectacle for this?”
“Grand Void Spiritual Axis is the Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy.”
Silence fell again, deeper than before.
The look of shock on the Great Sage’s face lasted for at least half a minute.
“You mean the entire planet…” After a long time, he seemed to startle back to himself and said in disbelief: “Wait. If so, then the ‘Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy’ is not a ‘thing’ that can be ‘taken’ at all. How do you intend to obtain it?”
“That need not concern you. This old fellow has his own arrangements,” Yun Qing Zi said lightly: “In any case, the Celestial Sovereign’s Legacy is of little use to you. Until I acquire it, our cooperation proceeds as usual.”
The Great Sage regarded the elder’s image in the crystal a long moment, then exhaled, nodded, and said: “Understood. We will continue to help suppress the influence of the Derivative Star-Body. In return, if you plan any more ‘big moves’, at least notify us in advance. We already have trouble enough.”
“No problem,” Yun Qing Zi laughed. Then, as if only just remembering, he added: “Ah, right, you mentioned a group of unknowns, and that they killed you once. Tell me in detail. I have time now.”
The Great Sage: “…”
…
What could make one more anxious than hearing that an ancient great cultivator has fallen into madness? There is, of course.
It is hearing that this ancient great cultivator is very likely right on your doorstep, perhaps already up to something inside your own house.
After hearing what Xuan Che said about Yun Qing Zi, and that the recent upheavals on the Grand Void Spiritual Axis and the abnormalities in Sentinel Silence might all be connected to him, Mo Ran’s expression plainly soured.
The poised and dignified Ms. City Lord instantly radiated an aura of I have had enough of this job, the kind you get when you are about to receive a superior’s inspection, have not yet had time to file your report, and the superior informs you: a nationally notorious most-wanted has shown up in your jurisdiction, and you had no idea.
Of course, one might remove the word apparently.
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