Seeking Truth with a Sword

Chapter 84: Collapse (4K)_2



"How could you..."

Before Jiao Cheng could finish his question, he saw his subordinate's chest unnaturally bulge. Along with a retching "UGH!" sound, the tattooed man's jaw split open, a grotesquely large mouth revealing a fist-sized egg.

A demon wasp, half the height of a man and colored black and yellow, slowly retracted its abdominal stinger that had pierced through the human's chest. In its compound eyes, made of thousands of tiny dark red facets, reflected Jiao Cheng's and Di Wu's pallid complexions.

Rustling sounds interspersed throughout the surrounding sea of flowers. Indeed, with such a vast sea of flowers, there were naturally creatures to pollinate them. The Banished Immortal had returned from the Endless Sea and sealed not only treasures within the Tomb of Clothing, but also demons from the islands of the Endless Sea domains.

These demons were Red-eyed Purple Lady Bees. Individually, they were not strong, but they numbered in the thousands.

In the absence of large living creatures, they collected nectar like ordinary bees, but upon encountering large creatures, they actively hunted and laid eggs within them.

With no distinction between males and females, all Red-eyed Purple Lady Bees could lay eggs, each capable of causing an ecological disaster in the wild.

"Run!"

Di Wu lifted Jiao Cheng, raised a torch, and rushed toward the palace.

Two Sword Cultivators, no longer suppressed by the Gang Wind, controlled their Flying Swords to cut through the obstructive sea of flowers, swiftly killing the oncoming Red-eyed Purple Lady Bees.

In the vast sea of flowers, the Sword Cultivators' Flying Swords, the powerful crossbows fired by Jiao Cheng's men, the thrown torches, and the torn talismans managed to kill the foremost Red-eyed Purple Lady Bees, but their numbers seemed endless.

And over time, the parasitic bees crawling through the man-high sea of flowers began to tremble their wings and take flight.

Was this... a reawakening of their instinct to fly?

Li Ang sprinted headlong, following closely behind Jiao Cheng, and began climbing the hundreds of steps.

Below, thousands of parasitic bees were rising into the air, darkening the skies.

Sword Cultivator Zhu Yuyin, in a moment of carelessness, had a parasitic bee rush to within five feet of him. Though he managed to defend himself with his Flying Sword in time, severing the incoming abdominal stinger, the stinger, still influenced by muscular action, contracted sharply mid-air and struck his shoulder.

The toxin of the Red-eyed Purple Lady Bee had a potent muscle-paralyzing effect. Zhu Yuyin's face immediately showed a stunned, delayed reaction, and the Flying Sword before him suddenly lost power, clattering to the ground.

Zhu Yuyin and a few of the tattooed men standing nearby were instantly overwhelmed by the descending swarm. Even though they tore their talismans at the last moment, they only managed to create bursting flares, taking the lives of merely a dozen or so bees.

The situation took a dire turn. Di Wu, supporting Jiao Cheng, staggered into the Netherworld Hall and hastily shut the main doors. Such a thin wooden door naturally couldn't stop the overwhelming swarm of parasitic bees outside, but oddly enough, all the parasitic bees halted at the Netherworld Hall's entrance, not attempting to charge in.

This wasn't likely because the parasitic bees possessed human intelligence and thus dared not invade the dwelling of the underground palace's master. Rather, something inside the palace must have deterred them from entering.

The palace was hollow, with no sarcophagi and no thrones, only a central stone platform, and beams and flooring incised with cryptic, deep Sword Marks.

Those Sword Marks vaguely seemed to form arcane phrases.

Li Ang was no Sword Master, so he couldn't discern if there were any secrets within the Sword Marks.

He watched the sky-darkening swarm of parasitic bees outside the palace, gaining a renewed, clear understanding of the power of demons. Those Red-eyed Purple Lady Bees dared not charge into the Netherworld Hall, yet they were unwilling to defy their instincts and abandon the flesh before them.

They crowded around the Netherworld Hall, their abdominal stingers scraping against the exterior beams, as if attempting to topple the hall directly.

"If this continues, we'll be trapped here alive..."

Li Ang turned around but saw Jiao Cheng already being helped by Di Wu, walking towards the central stone platform.

"Immortal touches my crown, to long-lasting life be bound. Immortal touches my crown, to long-lasting life be bound..."

Jiao Cheng murmured repeatedly, his face reddening, as his trembling hands opened the stone box placed on the platform.

"What?!"

Not just Jiao Cheng, but also Sword Cultivator Fan Guangyu, who had rushed over, screamed in shock upon seeing the contents of the stone box.

Inside the box, instead of a Sword, books, or Secret Treasures, there was a cluster of pitch-black, soft, silken threads.

It looked just like... hair.

"How could this be, how could this be?!"

After expending massive amounts of manpower, resources, and even future hopes, all they had found was a lock of hair.

Longevity, the path to immortality—all had vanished like smoke.

Jiao Cheng felt a wave of intense dizziness. He barely managed to close the stone box when the entire palace began to shake violently. The box he had taken seemed to trigger some chain reaction.

The palace, along with the connected external space, began to crumble as rocks fell.

This place was collapsing.

Countless rocks, their surfaces covered in glowing fungal plaques, rained down, crushing hundreds, even thousands, of parasitic bees, along with the pale yellow flowers on the ground, into dust.

"Eldest Son, this way!"

Di Wu shouted loudly. Where he stood, on one side of the Netherworld Hall, the shaking and collapse had revealed a black crack three meters in diameter.

Everyone immediately rushed into the crack, arriving in a long, narrow, straight corridor.

Damp water droplets lingered on the corridor walls and floor, and faint sounds of flowing water could be heard from far away.

The end of the corridor led to the riverbed of an underground Dark River.


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