Chapter 404: Chapter 403: The Three Marshalls
This was not the perception of a Tier 6, but a perception of a true Tier 7.
Every tree, stone, beast hidden underground. Everything entered Alix’s awareness. The world became crystal clear.
Countless pieces of information flooded his mind. Yet his expression remained calm.
He carefully examined every inch of the surrounding mountains.
Minutes passed.
Then suddenly, Alix’s eyes opened. A faint glimmer appeared within them.
"There."
His gaze turned toward the northern side of the mountain. Far below the shattered peak, hidden among jagged cliffs, a cave.
At first glance, it appeared completely ordinary. The kind of cave no one would notice.
Yet Alix had discovered something unusual.
Qi.
A very strange Qi fluctuation.
It was extremely faint.
So faint that even most Quasi-Tier 7 experts would likely overlook it.
But Alix sensed it clearly, the energy wasn’t natural. Nor did it belong to the mountain.
The fluctuation appeared for only a fraction of a second before vanishing again.
If not for Alix’s enormous perception, he would have missed it entirely.
His eyes narrowed.
Interesting.
The cave itself contained no visible formations.
No barriers.
No seals.
Yet something inside was concealing its presence.
Which only made it more suspicious.
Alix took a single step forward.
The scenery blurred.
The next moment, he appeared directly before the cave entrance.
Cold air flowed from the darkness within.
The cave was silent, and pitch black.
Deep enough that even ordinary cultivators would struggle to see the end.
Alix stepped into the cave without hesitation.
The moment he crossed the entrance, the temperature dropped dramatically.
Cold.
Not the cold of winter.
Not the cold of ice.
This was a different kind of cold.
A cold that seemed to seep directly into the soul.
The deeper he walked, the stronger the strange Qi became.
At first, it had merely felt unusual. Now he could sense it clearly. The Qi was unbelievably evil. It was thick, heavy, and filled with malice.
Every strand of it seemed to carry endless hatred, resentment, and death.
Even the air itself felt polluted.
The cave walls were covered with strange black veins that pulsed like living flesh. Occasionally, they twitched slightly, as though they were breathing.
Drops of dark red liquid slowly dripped from the ceiling.
Plop.
Plop.
Plop.
The sound echoed throughout the tunnel.
If an ordinary cultivator entered this place, they would likely go insane within minutes.
Even Tier 6 experts would feel uncomfortable. The Qi here was simply too vile.
Alix had slaughtered countless enemies. He commanded an army of monsters.
He was certainly not a good person by any standard. Yet even he found this energy disgusting.
It felt as though it had crawled out from the deepest pit of hell.
Every instinct told him that this Qi did not belong in the world.
His expression gradually became serious.
The tunnel continued downward for several kilometers.
The deeper he went, the stronger the energy became.
Soon, the cave walls were completely covered by the strange black flesh-like veins.
Some were as thick as tree trunks.
Others stretched across the ceiling like giant arteries.
A faint heartbeat could even be heard.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound was slow. As though something enormous was sleeping beneath the mountain.
Alix continued forward.
Several minutes later, the tunnel abruptly opened.
His footsteps stopped.
Before him was an enormous underground chamber.
The cavern was so large that it resembled an underground world.
Hundreds of stone pillars stretched from the floor to the distant ceiling.
Ancient runes covered every surface.
The runes glowed with a dark crimson light, illuminating the chamber in an eerie red glow.
At the very center stood something horrifying.
A fountain.
A fountain made entirely of blood.
Blood continuously surged upward before falling back into the basin below.
The amount was impossible.
Thousands.
Perhaps even hundreds of thousands of lives had been sacrificed to create it.
The blood emitted a thick death aura that corrupted everything around it.
The ground surrounding the fountain was covered with countless runes.
The formation stretched across the entire cavern.
Some runes were ancient. Others appeared completely unknown.
Even Alix couldn’t recognize many of them. Yet he could tell one thing. This formation was not meant for cultivation.
It was not meant for defense. It was not meant for gathering Qi. It was meant for sacrifice, a massive sacrificial formation.
Then Alix’s gaze shifted.
And finally landed on the thing standing beside the blood fountain.
For the first time since entering the cave...
His eyes narrowed.
The creature was humanoid. At least, it had once been.
Now it looked like something born from a nightmare.
Its body stood nearly six meters tall.
Calling it human would be an insult to humanity.
Its flesh appeared to have been stitched together from countless corpses. Bulging veins pulsed beneath gray-black skin. Bone spikes protruded from its shoulders, back, and arms. Several portions of its body were split open, revealing writhing masses of dark flesh underneath.
The most horrifying part was its heads, three human heads.
All attached to the same grotesque body. And Alix recognized every single one. The three Marshals.
The faces matched the intelligence reports perfectly.
Their eyes were open, mouths occasionally twitched.
One seemed to be crying.
One seemed to be laughing.
One looked trapped in endless terror. It was as though they were still alive.
Or perhaps something worse than alive.
The sight would have horrified any ordinary person. Yet Alix simply stood there and observed.
His expression remained calm. His eyes slowly swept across the creature.
The blood fountain behind it continued to flow.
The crimson liquid rose several meters into the air before falling back into the basin below.
Every drop released enormous amounts of death energy.
The entire cavern felt like a gateway to the underworld.
The darkness here wasn’t natural. Neither was the death aura.
The deeper Alix observed, the more abnormalities he discovered. The runes covering the ground weren’t merely absorbing blood.
They were feeding something, nourishing something. And all of that power was flowing into the creature.
Countless strands of dark energy connected the blood fountain to its body.
Like veins supplying blood to a beating heart.
Then Alix looked beyond the creature’s appearance.
He looked at its essence.
And what he saw caused his eyes to narrow slightly.
Laws.
The creature was surrounded by laws.
Dark gray streams of power continuously revolved around its grotesque body. The surrounding space twisted wherever those streams passed. Stone decayed into dust. Blood evaporated into black mist. Even the ancient runes carved into the cavern floor seemed unable to endure their presence.
Decay.
That was the law Alix saw.
A true Law of Decay.
Everything it touched would eventually rot, and die.
The very concept was terrifying. Because ordinary attacks could be blocked. Ordinary spells could be resisted.
But laws were different. Laws represented the rules of the world itself.
And this creature had already touched one of those rules.
The three heads slowly turned toward Alix.
Six eyes locked onto him.
For a brief moment, silence descended upon the cavern.
Then the crying head suddenly smiled. The laughing head stopped laughing. The terrified head widened its eyes.
All three mouths slowly opened. Their voices merged together.
"Another... Food..."
The sound echoed throughout the underground chamber.
The moment those words fell...
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The blood fountain exploded.
A massive pillar of crimson blood surged toward the ceiling.
The runes covering the cavern illuminated simultaneously.
The entire underground world shook violently.
Cracks spread across the stone pillars. Chunks of rock began falling from above.
The Law of Decay erupted.
Dark gray energy flooded the cavern like a tidal wave.
Everywhere it passed, the world began dying.
Stone walls aged thousands of years in seconds.
The giant pillars supporting the cavern started crumbling.
Even the blood fountain began rotting and regenerating repeatedly under the influence of its own power.
The attack wasn’t aimed at Alix. It was aimed at everything. The creature simply released its law. And the world around it began collapsing.
The three heads laughed simultaneously.
FOOD.
FOOD.
FOOD.
The grotesque body suddenly moved.
BOOM!
The cavern exploded beneath its feet.
The six-meter monster shot forward like a black comet.
Its speed was astonishing.
Despite its enormous size, it crossed hundreds of meters almost instantly.
Wherever it passed, the air turned gray. The stone floor beneath it decayed into dust. Even space seemed to wither.
The creature raised one gigantic claw. Decay Laws condensed around it.
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