Chapter 535: This Faithless Man Could Not Escape in the End

"Master..."A dim and ethereal voice drifted quietly through the depths of Xiao Mo's inner mind.

Xiao Mo gave a faint start, instinctively looking downward, but saw nothing at all, only the narrow gap that had been torn open in the seal.

The black, fathomless abyss seemed to be swallowing everything.

"A hallucination?" Xiao Mo furrowed his brow, a flicker of uncertainty passing through his mind.

By rights, at his current cultivation level, he ought to have been able to tell clearly enough whether he was hearing things but that brief sound had left him briefly disoriented, unable to say with certainty whether it was real or not.

"Elder Xiao, I believe it is time for us to move." Jin An came to stand at Xiao Mo's side, saying this with a smile.

At the same time, quite a few cultivators had already thrown themselves headlong into the air, plunging toward the hidden realm in a frenzied rush.

"Let us go." Xiao Mo gave a nod, and together with the others at his side, he dropped into the dark abyss below.

The closer they drew to it, the hotter and more scorching the spiritual energy around them became.

It felt like a wind on fire, scraping savagely across the cheeks, as though every inch of skin were about to be burned away, the very act of breathing a source of searing pain.

The moment Xiao Mo passed through the barrier, everything before him went pitch black, and he could see nothing at all.

In the next instant, he had the sensation that his entire being had dissolved, merged into an endless void, his own existence no longer perceptible but before long, Xiao Mo's vision gradually sharpened again.

By the time his mind had steadied, he found himself in a desolate and utterly lifeless world.

"What is this place?" Chen Jue stared blankly around him, his eyes unable to stop trembling, his expression one of pure disbelief.

It was a small independent world.

The sky was a deep, blood-red crimson, without a single white cloud, only an unbroken expanse of dark red pressing heavily down, suffocating to look upon.

The ground was nothing but charred black earth, not a blade of grass or a single creature visible anywhere the eye could reach, utterly bare and without life.

A breeze passed through, and everyone could faintly catch the metallic tang of blood, drifting forward as though from deep in ancient time, sending a chill into the bones.

Beyond this, the whole expanse of scorched earth was covered in a dense network of fissures.

These were not natural cracks formed by the earth settling, but had been split open by sharp blades and swords, the marks crossing and overlapping one another, a grim and unsettling sight.

Everyone turned to look at the sun hanging in the blood-red sky.

That sun was covered in fine, dense cracks like pottery about to shatter, as though it might break apart and fall at any moment.

"This looks like an ancient battlefield." Song Xiu said, his brow creased, his voice low and grave.

"What kind of battle could have left a place like this?" Jin An clasped his hands behind him and looked around at the dead and barren world, unable to entirely hide his astonishment.

It seemed as though that ancient battle had come within a hair's breadth of destroying the entire world.

"Who knows? Everyone keep their guard up." Song Xiu said in a low voice, then stepped forward, trying to find whatever fortune this hidden realm might offer.

Xiao Mo and the others naturally followed.

The five of them explored this hidden realm with great caution, their minds on full alert, not daring to relax for even a moment.

Eventually, they reached a shared conclusion, that this small hidden realm was a fragment that had broken off from the main world after being shattered in some battle long ago.

Generally, hidden realms came into being in one of two ways.

The first was an independent small world naturally formed by the forces of heaven and earth. These small worlds were scattered throughout the world, and due to the laws of heaven and earth they would periodically merge with and then break away from the main world. The moment of merging was what the world called "opening."

The second was what lay before them now.

A location that had been broken apart entirely by the violence of a great battle, forced passively into becoming a small hidden realm.

A hidden realm of this kind would, after opening several times, gradually merge back into the main world and eventually become part of it once more.

"Uncle!" Chen Jue walked at Jin An's side and transmitted his voice into his inner mind, his tone barely containing its urgency.

"Do not be hasty."

Jin An let out a quiet sigh, shaking his head inwardly. His nephew simply could not keep his composure.

"The full situation in this hidden realm is still unclear, and we have no idea what we might encounter. Xiao Mo is, after all, a Nascent Soul cultivator. If you move against him now, you are only throwing away one of our Nascent Soul fighters for nothing. And if any of us get injured in the process, that makes things even more complicated."

"Rest assured, Xiao Mo will die. He will not be leaving this hidden realm. That is not only my intention, but also the intention of that Grand Elder of Tushan. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Chen Jue drew a slow breath, acknowledging that he had indeed been too impatient just now.

Boom after boom after boom.

While the cultivators who had entered the hidden realm were carefully probing in all directions, searching for their chance, a series of earth-shaking crashes suddenly rang out through the whole of the realm.

The ground shook violently, the red earth crumbling, suffocating killing intent surging out through the cracked fissures beneath.

One by one, undead soldiers crawled out from the depths of the earth.

Among them were humans and demons both.

Some wore cracked and tattered armor.

Some were dressed in faded blue scholar's robes.

Some were wrapped in ragged monks' habits.

Every undead body was riddled with wounds, bearing the marks of what had clearly been an extraordinarily brutal battle in life.

Above in the sky, the remnant spirits of ancient beasts, the Shenghao, the Lushu, the Qiongnao, the Qilin, the cloud-serpent, and others let out howling roars and dove down toward the cultivators who had entered the realm.

"What is happening?!"

"Run!"

"Don't kill me!"

"Aah!"

"No!"

Agonized screams rang out one after another, cultivators falling to the undead in succession.

The techniques those undead soldiers employed were entirely unrecognizable, bearing no resemblance to the lineage of any sect in the world as it currently existed.

Xiao Mo sprang into the air, formed a hand seal, and lightly pointed a fingertip at the remnant spirit of a true dragon.

The true dragon's remnant form shuddered violently, then collapsed apart in an instant, scattering into points of spiritual light that dissolved throughout all of heaven and earth.

Xiao Mo lowered his gaze, his eyes heavy with thought.

He looked at the dead cultivators below, watching as their blood trickled steadily downward, seeping thread by thread into the cracks of the earth.

The blood spread continuously along those interlocking fissures, tracing its way through every winding channel.

It was as though some unseen hand were drawing out a great and ancient formation across the face of the earth with this very blood as its ink.

As more and more cultivators died, the fissures in the earth were gradually filled and suffused with that deep red blood, like a parched riverbed receiving rain at last.

Xiao Mo was beginning to understand why Tushan Hongxia and the other two Ascension-realm cultivators had chosen, after discovering such an ancient hidden realm, not to seal word of it away but to announce it to the world.

Perhaps all three of them had already uncovered some part of the hidden realm's laws and had known that the lives of cultivators had to be used as a blood sacrifice in order to open certain seals buried within this small world.

"Hold on! We cannot afford to become sacrifices!" Jin An called in a voice like a great bell, sharp and carrying.

No one present was a fool.

By this point, everyone understood perfectly what was happening.

Even so, not one of them felt regret.

The greater the risk, the greater the opportunity.

Those who feared dangers like this would never have come this far, let alone reached the Nascent Soul realm.

One hour later, of the hundreds of thousands of cultivators who had rushed into the hidden realm, fewer than five thousand remained.

And the instant the fissures in the earth were entirely filled with blood, those cracks, which had seemed utterly irregular and chaotic, suddenly blazed with a blood-red light.

"Below!"

Some voice called out in alarm, and then the ground began to collapse without warning.

A tremendous suction force erupted from deep beneath the earth, drawing every surviving cultivator down into the depths below.

Once the last living person had vanished from the surface, the collapsed earth sealed itself back together, restored to its previous appearance of scorched wasteland.

The undead soldiers dissolved and disappeared as well, and the bodies of the dead cultivators crumbled silently into dust, leaving no trace of their passing.

A long while later, a young woman in a black dress walked barefoot across the earth, her pale ankles stepping lightly on the ground.

Her skin was as white as snow, forming a stark contrast against the deep black of her long dress.

Her hair was exceptionally long, reaching to exactly her heels, swaying gently with each step, like the night itself flowing behind her.

At the center of her brow, a golden floral mark glittered.

Those golden, slit-pupiled eyes resembled neither those of a demon nor a human, but were more akin to those of a deity looking down upon all living things from above.

She looked down into the depths below with a cold and indifferent expression, in the very direction where Xiao Mo had fallen.

After a long pause, the young woman spoke at last, her voice beautiful beyond words, yet her tone steeped in the desolation of what must have been countless ages of time, dissolved at last in the far end of everything, "Sister, you see, this faithless man could not escape in the end."

Drip.

Drip.

Drops of spirit liquid fell one by one from the stalactites overhead, landing on the back of Xiao Mo's head with small touches of coolness.

As his awareness gradually returned, Xiao Mo noticed that whatever lay beneath him was soft, not at all like the hard and cold ground he would have expected.

Xiao Mo opened his eyes.

Looking up at him was a pair of fox eyes, simultaneously bewitching and cool, that blinked slowly as they studied him with careful attention.

"Miss Gui?" Xiao Mo wondered for a moment whether he was seeing things, his voice full of surprise.

"Mm." Gui Junmeng gave a small nod, her expression entirely composed, and said mildly, "Could Young Master Xiao perhaps get up? You are a little heavy."

"Oh, my apologies." Xiao Mo came back to himself quickly and stood.

Gui Junmeng also pushed herself upright and sat in a properly composed posture before him.

"Miss Gui, where are we? And why are we together?" Xiao Mo looked around, asking with genuine puzzlement.

"I do not know either." Gui Junmeng shook her head, her tone still flat. "I only woke up a short while before you. When I opened my eyes, I found you on top of me."

"I apologize. I will never speak of this to anyone." Xiao Mo let out a helpless sigh. He truly had not intended to compromise anyone's honor.

"It does not matter. We will be getting married eventually anyway." Gui Junmeng rose to her feet and unhurriedly dusted herself off, her tone entirely matter-of-fact.

Xiao Mo did not follow that thread.

He drew out a jade vial and began carefully collecting the spirit liquid dripping from the stalactites above.

This spirit liquid had likely been accumulating for tens of thousands of years and was of substantial benefit for restoring spiritual energy, each drop genuinely precious.

Unfortunately the dripping was very slow, and every additional moment spent in this unknown hidden realm added to the danger.

Xiao Mo therefore collected only two vials before stopping, and passed one of them to Gui Junmeng.

"Would the young lady be willing to come with me?" Xiao Mo asked.

"Yes." Gui Junmeng gave a small nod without refusing.

"Please." Xiao Mo stepped to the side with a welcoming gesture and then walked ahead of Gui Junmeng, leading them deeper into the ruin.

The further they walked, the more clearly Xiao Mo felt that this resembled an ancient tomb.

In every corner of the tomb were burial offerings of various kinds, and there was even a small marketplace.

The marketplace was lined with the signs of various stalls and vendors, tavern facades, courtyard entrances.

Stone figures stood quietly throughout, giving off an indefinable eeriness.

Within the marketplace, Xiao Mo and Gui Junmeng found a number of weapons, formation flags, and old texts.

These burial offerings were relatively ordinary for both of them, however, and they did little more than copy down the contents of a few of the ancient books, taking nothing much else.

Threading through the marketplace, they continued forward along the tomb's passages.

"Young Master Xiao, look." Gui Junmeng's eyes lit up suddenly, and she raised a hand to point ahead.

Xiao Mo looked in the direction she indicated and saw, on the dark stone wall ahead, a series of mural paintings.

The brushwork was fairly simple, and after what must have been countless ages of weathering, most of the images had grown blurred and indistinct but Xiao Mo could still faintly make out that in the murals, thousands upon thousands of human sword cultivators were standing on their flying swords, charging without hesitation toward a great golden projection standing in the sky.

Azure dragons, true phoenixes, Black Tortoises, Vermilion Birds, cloud-serpents and other ancient divine beasts were locked in fierce battle against a great figure with the sun and moon above its head.

Scholars in blue robes stood holding open books, arranged in formation, surrounding a warrior clad in golden armor.

Monks wielding staffs and prayer beads chanted sutras as they joined forces to subdue a giant as tall as a mountain range, a giant that held a true dragon in each hand and bit through their spines with a single snap.

Daoists in their robes set down elaborate formations to trap a woman whose body burned with raging flames.

Xiao Mo and Gui Junmeng walked on.

On the murals ahead, Xiao Mo saw a man holding a longsword, its tip leveled at a woman's throat.

He could not make out the man or the woman's features clearly, but the woman's long neck was tilted slightly back, her posture one of resolve, as though she were earnestly welcoming the sword thrust to come.

And behind that woman, two others lay on their sides, appearing to be her sisters, watching the sword-holding man with eyes filled with hatred.

The final portion of the murals appeared to depict the end of the war.

Who had won and who had lost in this earth-shaking battle was no longer possible to know but the man with the sword was shown leaning on it, standing there still, his eyes closed, as though he had already died.

Before him, five women of the feathered clan had spread their wings and knelt on one knee.

As though sending off their master.