Chapter 603 Secret Letters
"Keep moving," I called as I speared the group.
The walkers were all packed underneath the sand far down below. Their numbers were incredible. At least a few million of them packed tightly like a can of sardines.
What were they doing here?
A question I can't answer right now. Something we'll only be able to find out once we find the source and reason of this amalgamation of walkers.
"That's the pass," I said as I continued moving across the sand.
In front of us was a giant rift between two mountains that seemed to lead in between them. The pass was incredibly vast, but still felt very tiny compared to the size of the mountains that were creating it.
Our group went into the pass with our eyes peeled for anything that might come at us.
"The ground here is hard rocks, there are no walkers underneath us, but don't drop your guard regardless," I said.
"Shen Mo, the mountains, they're not… natural," said old Fu.
"What do you mean," I said as I spread my divine sense to investigate.
Shivers ran down my spine as I noticed what old Fu ment.
These mountains were nothing but a giant husk. Like a massive hive of walkers that dwelled within them packed atop each other like stockpiled grains of rice.
"Cave entrance!" one of the guards said.
Looking at where the guard was pointing our group headed toward it.
"My divine sense is getting more and more disrupted," said old Fu.
"Indeed, even my divine sense is suffering right now, and I think I understand why. Inside the mountain there is some sort of waterway. It must be some of the remains of the Sea of Demons, or maybe the concentrated essence of the cloud above us. It's condensed and made into waterways that affect Divine Sense."
"That is not natural," said old Fu.
"I would guess so, it must be manmade. And it must be what we're here for, let's go inside, everyone keep close," I said and headed inside the cave.
We soon entered the cave and were immediately met with an impasse.
Inside the cave was basically nothing. I could still 'see' through my divine sense that there was more to this mountain and behind the cave. But we can't go in any further because there is no passage leading in.
"Should I destroy it?" asked old Fu.
As I was about to agree to his proposition, I felt my blood reacting.
"No need," I said as I pointed, "Everyone stand there," I said.
The soldiers didn't understand but a single grunt from old Fu was enough to have them all run and stand against a wall.
I moved my hands and created several formations and seals then planted them around the group and on the ground then moved myself next to the soldiers.
"What are we doing here?" asked old Fu.
"This is an invisibility formation, as long as no one here makes a loud sound, no one will notice us," I said.
"And why are we hiding here?" asked Old Fu.
"Because the guy that thought he ran away from our clutch is coming this way, he probably is on his way to warn whoever is here about our presence in the desert."
"We should have soul searched him anyway," said Old Fu.
"If we did and missed this pivotal information we wouldn't have had any other choice but to break our way inside, and believe me, this whole mountain might just come crumbling down on us if we do so."
"We're not afraid of mere rocks," one of the soldiers said.
"It's not the rocks that I'm worried about, it's the millions of walkers that are making this mountain, so I would rather not have to deal with millions of emperor and king class walkers."
That made the soldier shut up far too quickly.
Although I exaggerated the number of Emperor level cultivators, the King Class were truly innumerable and abundant, and even an elephant can die if there are enough ants fighting it.
Soon the bandit that we intercepted entered the cave. His body looked ragged and his skin was drying up. He had several wrinkles all over his body and several liver patches over his skin.
He was dying due to having his vital energy forcefully pushed to the limit using my poisons.
But he was loyal and that was good for us, after all he's back.
The bandit looked around carefully then got to the deepest part of the cave.
I thought he would pull up a key or some sort of formation to open up the pathway, but he just stood on an inconspicuous batch of sand and suddenly was sucked inside it.
My divine sense couldn't track him after that.
"Are we going to follow him?" said one of the soldiers.
"Not right now," I replied and pulled out Z.
The small spider was apparently happy that he got out as he skittered around my hand and all the way to my shoulder, nuzzling itself against my neck.
"I'll play with you later," I said, "Can you go there and keep track of the guy that went ahead."
The spider jumped and rushed toward the quicksand and dove inside it.
Several breaths of time later, the spider popped back out and came up to me then began writing on the ground.
"Clear passage ahead."
"Good, you'll be our guide, go ahead of us and scout the pathway forward."
The spider then jumped back into the sand and disappeared.
"Let's go," I said and headed toward the sand pit.
Once I stepped on it, I was suddenly sucked inside it. It felt like I went into a waterslide as I kept going down and down in spirals even until I was ejected out.
I landed on my ass inside a new tunnelway within this cave, it was lit with luminescent orbs that were everywhere making a path forward.
Old Fu and the rest of the soldiers came afterward, dropping behind us one after another, on their feet obviously. Because why not…
I coughed as I moved forward, Z's footsteps might have been inconspicuous to anyone who doesn't know of its existence. But for me, it was a trail I can use to navigate this area.
As we were walking I noticed several cage like construction alongside the walls. Most of them were brittle and broken down, rusted over and shattered.
The beams that made the prison gates were in no shape to be used or to hold anything inside it. And looking within the cages revealed nothing of importance. There was nothing inside these prison cells.
I continued moving forward, making sure to keep my eyes out for anything that might jump us. After all Divine Sense was completely restricted here.
Old Fu was also on high alert, "Can you see up ahead?" he said, vocally because not even a divine sense message can be sent here.
"Not really, it's also tough for me too, the water runs deep underneath this cave system, and it's blocking even my divine sense."
Soon Z came back, and began writing on the ground using its tiny legs, "Dying man on extreme right pathway. Path is clear."
I nodded to Old Zu and we all headed toward the location that Z marked.
At the farthest end of the rightmost path was a well-lit room. This one had the light of candles or torches was emitting from inside it. And once we arrived to the room, I saw the same bandit from before, looking like a mummified corpse now, gasping for breath.
The room was not that big. But it was big enough to hold a study. A desk with some shelves around it, and several scrolls and documents were placed on the table. I couldn't make head or tail for most of the documents, and a great pile of ash was comfortably sitting next to a burning kiln at one corner of the room.
Burnt documents I guess…
I looked at the bandit who was on death's door and said to old Fu
"Now you can soul search him."
Old Fu didn't hesitate as he grasped the man's head with one hand and began using soul search.
The bandit had no will or energy to even scream or resist as the poison inside him had done a great job at completely exhausting every bit of energy or power the bandit had. Now he was easier to control and to corroborate.
The soul search yielded good results at the cost of the bandit's life.
"This is the study of the person who was ordering these people apparently. This man truly didn't know much of what's going on here, but he knew enough. There is a mastermind behind this who is pulling the strings. And from the little information this person knows, this isn't the only base they have. This is but one out of many, many other mountains all over the Sea of Demons."
"Someone is preparing something big… the study seems in good condition, can you keep a lookout outside, I'll check and see what's going on with these documents."
As I was reading through the documents I couldn't make head or tail from what any of this meant. This was probably coded as the sentences and words being spoken here were basically greetings between two friends. It barely made any sense.
I frowned why would cultivators even use this instead of a jade slip to transport information. But jade slips are easy to intercept, and people's minds can be probed for information, sending coded messages is the best way for cultivators to transfer information without it being deciphered.
As I was about to give up and just collect the papers and leave something caught my eyes. the documents themselves were strangely not similar in size. Each bundle had a different size to it. Some were slightly bigger and some were slightly smaller.
And they were slightly transparent too. I placed two pieces of paper that were similar in size together, and was able to read new words between the two pages.
'Oh so I guess that's how you're supposed to read them…" looking at the ash remaining in front of the kiln, a massive portion of the information must have already been destroyed. So figuring out what's going on with these leftovers is not going to be easy.
As I continued reading between the lines I didn't take me more than a few seconds before my eyes began widening.
"Motherfucker…"
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