Chapter 269: The True Eye Bed |
Lu Yuan's shout of "borrow a gap" seemed to physically cleave half an inch of space through the yin energy choking the underground chamber.
The moment black qi erupted from the altar mouth, the oil lamp in Song Qinghe's hand leaped violently, its flame nearly shooting to the rim of the glass cover. Her face turned pale, but she held steady, refusing to withdraw the lamp.
The half-body that crawled out from the mass of black qi revealed itself piece by piece—first a shoulder, then a neck, and finally a head covered in skin as thin as paper.
When the thing landed in the extinguishing light, everyone finally saw it clearly: it wasn't a complete "divine body."
It was a shell—raised, ripened, and stitched together through offerings.
The shell hadn't fully solidified yet. Bones, sinews, and skin layers were half-real, half-illusory. Thin black threads hung from its edges like umbilical cords or roots dragged from the earth.
The most unnerving part was its eyes. They were no longer the grayish-yellow pupils seen earlier in the mirror, but two almost entirely black orbs, deep as bottomless wells.
When it lifted its head, its first glance wasn't at Lu Yuan. Instead, it looked toward the black wooden tablet behind the altar.
Lu Yuan's heart immediately sank.
The borrowed-name path. The offering path. The root along which it had grown.
"It wants to return to its root," Lu Yuan said quietly. "Block it."
Hearing this, Wang Cheng'an's palms were slick with sweat, but he didn't hesitate for a second. He grabbed a broken piece of wood from the side and blocked the altar's front, his voice tight:
"Brother Lu, I'll hold it off for a breath!"
"Don't block it head-on—use leverage!" Lu Yuan barked. "Its body isn't stable yet. The harder you push, the more excuse it has to break free."
Xu Erxiao was frantic too. He quickly sprinkled more salt along the salt-line on the ground, his voice hoarse:
"Brother Lu, where should I press?"
"Press under its feet!" Lu Yuan said. "Don't press its body—press its root!"
Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth, crouched down, and slammed the salt into the overturned black soil at the altar's base.
The moment the salt hit, the black soil let out a sharp sizzle, sending up a plume of white smoke like hot iron plunged into water. The thing's shoulder shuddered violently.
It finally turned its face.
And when it did, everyone truly saw its features.
That wasn't a naturally formed face. It looked like several layers of skin had been forcibly stacked together.
Its forehead was too high, its eye sockets too deep, its nose bridge unnaturally thin. A gash at the corner of its mouth stretched from its ear all the way to its jaw, as if someone had used thread to pull it open.
The bottommost layer of skin was so thin it was almost translucent, faintly revealing the outlines of other faces slowly shifting beneath.
Song Qinghe's hands went cold. She whispered:
"What... what is this thing..."
"A shell raised through offerings," Lu Yuan said through clenched teeth. "It's not a natural deity. It's a monstrous fetus cultivated by devouring names, devouring eyes, devouring paths."
The moment he finished speaking, the thing suddenly raised a hand and clawed at the air.
It wasn't grabbing at a person. It was clawing at the black qi it had spewed out.
The black qi swirled back through its fingers as if the thing was swallowing a portion of it again. At the same time, its shoulder blades expanded slightly, and a dense, faint crackling sound came from its spine—like bones locking into place one joint at a time.
"Don't let it absorb the qi back!" Lu Yuan shouted.
But just then, Iron Abacus seemed to regain a sliver of consciousness. Lying on the ground, he let out a weak, almost manic laugh:
"Too late... too late... you've already let it out!"
Lu Yuan shot him a glance, killing intent flaring in his eyes.
This bastard was still running his mouth at a time like this.
"Shut up," Lu Yuan said coldly.
But Iron Abacus acted as if he hadn't heard. He struggled to lift his head, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at the monstrous fetus at the altar mouth, his voice trembling with a reckless, desperate spite:
"You really think cutting the root is enough?"
"You really think destroying the tablet and cutting the rope will stop it?"
"It's already fed enough—it could have left long ago!"
In an instant, Lu Yuan realized that Iron Abacus was trying to completely sabotage the final situation. Having guarded the altar for years, he knew too much, and people like him were always the most dangerous—dragging others into the pit with them before they died.
"Cheng'an!" Lu Yuan barked. "Gag him!"
Wang Cheng'an immediately reached for a strip of red paper on the ground. But just as he stepped forward, Iron Abacus flipped over with a last flare of lucidity and clamped his hand around Wang Cheng'an's wrist.
His hand was freezing cold, his nails digging deep with a deathly aura.
Startled, Wang Cheng'an tried to pull free, but Iron Abacus stared at him with wild eyes, gasping:
"Your surname is Wang... Wang, right?"
"You're on the name ledger too... you're on it too..."
Wang Cheng'an's face changed drastically. "Nonsense!"
Iron Abacus let out a strange laugh, his pupils unfocused as if he really had seen something he shouldn't:
"Once the name lights up, there's no escape... none of you can escape..."
Lu Yuan's heart sank. He stepped forward, kicked Iron Abacus's arm away, and slapped a Soul-Suppressing Talisman over his mouth, his voice icy:
"You won't live long enough to see the end."
"Stop causing trouble here."
Iron Abacus's throat seized up. The talisman let out a faint crackling sound as it burned against his skin. He struggled violently, but the madness in his eyes only grew stronger.
Lu Yuan knew he couldn't keep him around.
At the end of the day, people like Iron Abacus weren't allies—they were living vulnerabilities. And once a living vulnerability was corrupted by evil qi, it would only drag the entire situation deeper.
He was about to follow up with another move when he heard the monstrous fetus let out a faint, barely audible inhalation.
Lu Yuan jerked his head up. The thing had tilted its head slightly, its gaze passing over Wang Cheng'an, Xu Erxiao, and Song Qinghe to land directly on him.
In that instant, Lu Yuan felt as if an icy finger had slowly traced down his spine.
It was recognizing him.
Not as a living person, but as the one who could break the situation.
When an evil entity opens its eyes, its first target isn't necessarily the nearest person, but the one who can block it, sever it, and force it back.
It had locked onto Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan didn't flinch. Instead, he stepped forward half a pace and stared coldly back into those black eyes.
"Seen enough?"
The monstrous fetus's mouth slowly stretched upward.
It didn't speak like a human, but in that moment, everyone heard a whisper rising from the depths like words from a well:
"Name... trade name..."
Zhou Heng's face suddenly turned white. He covered his ears, panting:
"It's calling names! It's calling names!"
Lu Yuan said sternly, "Don't answer!"
But it was already too late.
The moment the word "name" left the fetus, the excavated black wooden tablet on the ground trembled slightly on its own. Among the lowest row of names, one that had been half-covered with cinnabar and salt ash suddenly lit up brightly.
"It wants to use your name to open the door!"
Lin Zhaoxuan shouted, a flicker of alarm in his eyes.
Lu Yuan's brow furrowed.
This was it.
The enemy was deliberately trying to force him to acknowledge it, to make him part of the game. The moment his mind and spirit wavered—even for an instant—the monstrous fetus could follow the thread of his name.
Lu Yuan refused to take the bait.
He flipped his hand, tore the yellow talisman from his brow, smeared his fingertip heavily across it, and pressed it firmly against his own throat, shouting:
"The name is mine, the path is the path."
"You cannot borrow it."
The moment the talisman touched his skin, Lu Yuan felt a faint warmth at his throat. His voice deepened by a note, but it cleanly severed the name-thread trying to bore into his heart.
The monstrous fetus's gaze turned grim.
It seemed not to have expected that Lu Yuan would use such a near-self-sealing method to block the name resonance.
Meanwhile, Xu Erxiao had used that brief window to lay the salt-line from the altar's base all the way to the black wooden tablet.
"Brother Lu, the line is ready!" he shouted.
Without turning his head, Lu Yuan said, "Good."
Then he stepped over to the black wooden tablet, grabbed hold of the crevice Zhou Heng had pried open earlier, crouched low, and thrust his short blade into the earth. With both arms straining, he shouted:
"Zhou Heng, lift with me!"
Zhou Heng, who had been waiting, immediately pressed the broken wooden rod under the nail. Together, they pulled with all their might.
A dull, grating screech rang out as the beast-bone spirit-suppressing nail loosened by half a finger.
But that was enough. The monstrous fetus at the altar mouth let out a piercing, nearly deafening shriek.
Its arms flung wide, ripping the yellow cloth apart. Black qi, carrying strips of scorched fabric, shot up toward the hanging copper bell and the round mirrors around the room.
"The mirrors!" Lu Yuan shouted.
Lin Zhaoxuan reacted instantly. He leaped and smashed the nearest round mirror with a single palm strike.
The mirror exploded, shards flying everywhere, deflecting the incoming black qi by half an inch.
But the other two mirrors didn't escape in time. The black qi wrapped around them, and the monstrous fetus's half-image appeared inside.
The reflection was blurry, but it seemed to have hands, reaching out from within the glass.
Song Qinghe stumbled back in shock, nearly dropping the oil lamp.
Wang Cheng'an was quick. He caught her wrist and said urgently, "Steady! Brother Lu is still up front!"
Song Qinghe bit her lip and nodded, holding the lamp steady.
She knew that if this lamp went out, it would become a dark door for the monstrous fetus.
By now, Lu Yuan had pried the spirit-suppressing nail another inch higher. The veins on his hands bulged. Sweat dripped from his brow, but he didn't bother wiping it away.
"Iron Abacus!" he suddenly barked.
With the talisman plastered over his mouth, Iron Abacus could only let out muffled whines.
Lu Yuan sneered. "You guarded this altar, and in the end, you fed yourself into it."
"Since that's the case, I'll use your life to seal this game shut."
As he spoke, he ripped the Soul-Suppressing Talisman off Iron Abacus's mouth. Before the man could react, Lu Yuan grabbed his jaw and dragged him toward the black wooden tablet.
Iron Abacus's eyes went wide. Broken gasps escaped his throat:
"You—"
"You should have died in front of the altar long ago," Lu Yuan said coldly. "Dying now means you've paid your debt to this land."
Iron Abacus struggled wildly, as if a whip had cracked inside his bones.
He wasn't unafraid of death. He was terrified of it, which was why he still fought to live.
But Lu Yuan gave him no more chances.
Iron Abacus jerked his head up and found himself staring directly at the glowing name on the black wooden tablet.
The moment their eyes met, the black light in the monstrous fetus's pupils flared. It was as if it had finally found the perfect replacement—or as if a long-tethered thread had suddenly gone taut.
Iron Abacus's entire body stiffened. His gaze went vacant.
In the next instant, the thin black thread tangled in the earth veins beneath the black wooden tablet shot up from the soil like a living snake and coiled around Iron Abacus's ankle.
"Don't touch me!" Iron Abacus screamed, kicking wildly.
Expressionless, Lu Yuan slapped another Soul-Suppressing Talisman onto the back of his neck.
"Didn't you want to guard the altar?"
"Then guard it to the end."
The moment the talisman hit, Iron Abacus's screams caught in his throat, as if something was pulling them from the inside.
Lin Zhaoxuan watched with a slight frown but didn't intervene.
He knew Lu Yuan was making the cleanest possible end of it.
People like Iron Abacus were nothing but liabilities. Letting him collide head-on with the name-thread would actually buy them a fraction of a moment against the evil force.
Sure enough, the moment the black threads wrapped around Iron Abacus, the monstrous fetus seemed to smell blood. It opened its mouth and let out a deep, guttural roar.
The sound wasn't loud, but it scraped through everyone's bones, setting their teeth on edge.
It wanted to use Iron Abacus's life to stabilize its own root connections.
Lu Yuan had no intention of letting that happen.
He twisted his hands and finally yanked the spirit-suppressing nail completely free.
"Up!"
The moment the nail left the soil, the entire cellar seemed to shudder. The white thread of the name-vein beneath the black wooden tablet quivered wildly.
The monstrous fetus swayed, as if it had lost half a breath.
It was furious.
The fury came fast and direct. The skin on its entire face trembled slightly, and the light in its black eyes seemed ready to explode.
"Cheng'an!" Lu Yuan shouted. "Cinnabar!"
Wang Cheng'an was ready. He immediately flung an entire pouch of cinnabar toward the monstrous fetus's feet.
The cinnabar flew through the air like a rain of crimson fire.
White smoke erupted from the fetus's shoulders, as if it had been scorched. It shrank back half a step.
Xu Erxiao seized the moment, laying down more salt to force it a step closer to the altar.
Song Qinghe reacted quickly, pushing the oil lamp forward an inch. The flame illuminated the fetus's eyes.
Caught in a triple suppression, the monstrous fetus let out a piercing shriek, its black qi rolling outward like waves.
Lu Yuan knew this was the critical moment.
If he could cut off another breath, the thing might not be able to crawl out along the name-vein.
But then, Iron Abacus suddenly went berserk. He dropped to his knees with a thud and grabbed Lu Yuan's pant leg, babbling hoarsely:
"Don't kill me... don't kill me... I'll tell you... I'll tell you one last thing... It's not a god... There's something below it..."
Lu Yuan's eyes turned cold. He raised his foot to kick him away.
But Iron Abacus forced out one last, very short sentence:
"There's a true Eye Bed... at the very bottom of the Living Vault..."
Lu Yuan froze mid-motion.
In the next instant, Iron Abacus seemed to have exhausted his final breath. His body convulsed violently, the whites of his eyes rolling up, a trickle of black blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
It wasn't that Lu Yuan had failed to finish him. The monstrous fetus had already used the black threads to drain half his life.
Iron Abacus collapsed rigidly at Lu Yuan's feet, his eyes wide open in death.
There was no trace of living light left in them.
Lu Yuan glanced down at him, his expression unchanged.
A man like that wasn't worth mourning.
But Iron Abacus's death had confirmed one thing: beneath this evil deity's main body, there was a deeper "True Eye Bed."
That meant the thing in this altar wasn't the bottom layer.
It was just the upper shell.
The real thing was hidden at the deepest part of the Living Vault.
Just as Lu Yuan was processing this, the monstrous fetus let out a bizarre, low laugh.
It didn't lunge at him while Iron Abacus died. Instead, it slowly lifted its head and looked at Lu Yuan.
There was something almost like "I'll remember you" in that gaze.
Lu Yuan's heart tightened. He immediately sensed trouble.
It wasn't retreating.
It was using the moment of Iron Abacus's death to complete a new name-registration.
It had memorized the path to the deepest part of the Living Vault—and the man who had broken its game.
"It's trying to flee," Lin Zhaoxuan said abruptly.
The words had barely left his mouth when the black qi behind the monstrous fetus surged like a tide, as if countless invisible hands were pulling it downward. Its shoulders, neck, and back sank slowly as it retreated into the altar.
"Trying to go back to the True Eye Bed?" Lu Yuan said coldly. "Not so fast."
He grabbed the iron abacus that had fallen from Iron Abacus's hand and hurled it at the altar mouth.
The abacus was old, its copper frame heavy. It struck the monstrous fetus squarely on the forehead.
Clang! The impact knocked the fetus's head to one side, and the black qi faltered for a breath.
Seizing that half-breath, Lu Yuan ordered Wang Cheng'an, "Cheng'an, use your red paper to seal the altar mouth!"
Then to Xu Erxiao: "Erxiao, pour all the salt in!"
And to Zhou Heng: "Push the broken mirror shards to the altar's edge—let it see itself!"
All three moved at once.
Wang Cheng'an folded sheets of red paper one by one, rapidly pasting them over the cracks at the altar mouth. His fingers were red from the paper's edge, but he didn't stop.
Xu Erxiao grabbed the salt bowl and dumped the remaining salt straight into the altar mouth. As the salt fell, a series of fine white bubbles burst inside.
Zhou Heng dragged the mirror fragments, pushing the largest pieces to the altar's edge. The reflected light bounced between them, casting a twisted image of the monstrous fetus's half-body.
Suddenly caught off guard, the fetus's momentum to sink downward was thrown into chaos.
Seizing the opportunity, Lu Yuan pressed down again with his short blade. The tip of the blade aimed directly at the thin black thread at the base of the black wooden tablet. With a low shout:
"Sever!"
The blade fell.
The black thread snapped.
In that instant, the entire black wooden tablet shook violently. Most of the names on it, which had been flickering on and off, went dark.
The monstrous fetus let out a roar of near-maddened rage. The skin on its entire face convulsed as if burned. Black qi spewed from its nose, mouth, eyes, and ears.
But in the end, it couldn't retreat entirely through the name-vein.
Because the vein was severed. The door at the altar mouth was only half-open now.
Lu Yuan looked at it, his eyes devoid of hesitation.
"Since you've already come halfway out."
"Don't even think about going all the way back."
He reached into his robes and pulled out the last blood talisman.
This one was different from the others. The paper was darker, with faint old water stains at the edges. It was Lu Yuan's trump card—a Door-Sealing Talisman he wouldn't have used unless the situation was truly dire.
He flicked his fingertip, pressing the blood talisman against his palm. Then he slammed it directly onto the altar mouth.
"With my blood as the door nail."
"With my body as the boundary marker."
"Seal!"
The moment the talisman landed, the monstrous fetus, which had half-retreated into the altar, stiffened as if it had slammed into an invisible wall.
Lu Yuan was also jolted by the backlash, his shoulder shaking. A coppery taste rose in his throat, but he swallowed it down.
Wang Cheng'an saw his pallor and shouted urgently, "Brother Lu!"
"Stay back!" Lu Yuan snapped. "Hold your position!"
Xu Erxiao's eyes were red as he gritted out, "Brother Lu, this thing is still moving!"
"Good," Lu Yuan said quietly. "The more it moves, the more it proves it can't go back to the true bottom."
He then shot a glance at Lin Zhaoxuan.
Lin Zhaoxuan understood instantly. He moved, driving his short blade into the final gap beneath the black wooden tablet, prying one corner upward.
As the black tablet lifted, an extremely dark patch of earth was revealed. Embedded in the soil was a ring of faint red lines—like an eye pattern that had settled over years.
"That's... the edge of the True Eye Bed," Lin Zhaoxuan said grimly.
Lu Yuan's pupils contracted.
Just as he had suspected. The real bottom wasn't in the altar—it was beneath it.
The altar, the tablet, the ropes, the mirrors—they were just layers of skin covering it.
And now, those layers had been mostly peeled away.
The monstrous fetus seemed to sense that something below had been exposed. Its face twisted violently.
It stopped trying to retreat. Instead, it lunged upward through the air, as if trying to shatter all the remaining mirrors and escape through their reflected light.
"It's trying to flee through the mirrors!" Zhou Heng shouted in alarm.
Lu Yuan's face hardened. He barked orders:
"Cheng'an, smash the left mirror!"
"Erxiao, salt the mirror's base!"
"Qinghe, turn the lamp toward the east wall!"
"Lin Zhaoxuan, give me your blade!"
