Chapter 604 Trapped
"What's going on?" Fu's furrowed brows reflected his confusion.
"These bastards, they're not just doing this here, it's all over the Sea of Demons!" I exclaimed, frustration edging my voice.
"How did you find that out?" Old Fu inquired; he couldn't have understood without me telling him.
"These papers, if you pile them atop each other, reveal a secret message. The full content isn't here, but from what I gathered, this is just one base… What are they planning?" I said as I handed Old Fu the documents.
He scrutinized the pages to verify my words and nodded, "Indeed, seems like there is something big happening here. But we already have what we came for. Our task was to find out what was going on here. Let's leave for now," he suggested.
"Let's go, everyone, let's go," I said. There was an urgency to my voice as I felt that something annoying was bound to happen.
The soldiers outside were about to leave until one of them pulled out a small piece of jade that was shaped into a circle. A dark circle. That's the symbol of the Darkest Sun.
My heart sank as realization dawned on me. A traitor was in the mix.
"For the Holy Dark!" he shouted and broke the jade.
Suddenly, the entire cave began shaking.
Old Fu instantly appeared behind the cultivator and grabbed him.
"What did you JUST SAY!"
I could understand old Fu's frustration and rage; after all, the mere mention of the Darkest Sun would bring him unending agony and rage.
The soldier smiled as he snapped a pill that was between his teeth, "His darkest light shall shine forever!"
Black liquid sprayed all over the soldier's mouth and some of it landed on Old Fu's skin.
Reacting quickly, I pulled the old man away, "THROW HIM AWAY!" I shouted.
Without hesitation, Old Fu hurled the soldier away into the nearest wall.
The man's face began darkening as black veins surged up all over his body. His entire body began shaking and shuddering as it tore and twisted in front of us.
Drawing my sword, I cut at the tip of my finger.
The liquid that was released from that pill was the same one that was inside the walkers. And it was highly contagious.
I didn't know how it would affect Old Fu, but I wasn't about to risk it.
"Old Fu, your hand! Hurry!" I said.
The old man instantly understood what I wanted to do and the urgency of it, as he immediately realized that the black liquid was coursing through his blood vessels.
He instantly handed me his palm with a cut across it that he sliced using his fingernail.
I placed my bloodied finger on top of his scar and had my poison blood seep into his body.
I hurriedly channeled my poison to hunt down the dark liquid, cleansing the old man in seconds.
As for the soldier that was turning to a corpse, all we heard was the wails of agony as clear regret was apparent on his face.
"No matter how loyal one can be, the pain from being forced out of humanity to this… thing is probably not worth that zealousness," Old Fu said.
"The entire mountain is caving in!" one of the panicked soldiers said.
"That's the least of our worries," I replied. "The damned underground waterways are rupturing; once that shit touches you, your cultivation will be completely sealed. Not to mention the walkers that are trapped inside the walls of this mountain. We've been trapped…"
The man that finished transforming stood up; he looked at us with eyes that were no longer eyes. They looked like pure jade as they glanced upon us, and soon, the corpse began wailing, screaming as loud as a wronged banshee.
He then unceremoniously clawed his eyes out, black blood gushed out of his eyes as he threw the two eyeballs to the ground, finally having gained respite.
It seems that the reason why none of the walker has eyes is that they remove them themselves the moment they turn…
I don't fully understand the reason behind that; more research needs to be done.
But that's the least of our problems.
Old Fu was done healing up; my poison had finished cleansing him from the black matter, and all of the filth from the black blood seeped out of the same cut on his palm. He then gripped the air, causing the very fabric of space to pin the corpse in front of us, then crush it without it spraying a single drop of black blood on any of us.
"We need to leave. Now!" I insisted.
The soldier's anxiety was rising fast. None of them would have ever thought that an expedition to find out the source of the walkers would turn out like this.
One of the soldiers panicked and ran away from the room; he didn't want to be buried here, and I understand that.
"Let's head out. The tunnel is collapsing," I added.
Just as our group was going out, more rumbling happened and a piece of gigantic rock fell on the soldier that ran out first, crushing him instantly.
The fallen debris, although it blocked our path out to the exit, opened a massive hole in the ceiling.
"We can leave through there!" one of the soldiers said as he rushed forward.
"Get back in here!" Old Fu shouted.
But it was too late as several walkers fell down through the hole and piled up on the soldier.
All you could hear was his agonized screams as he was torn apart in an instant.
"NO!" one of the soldiers screamed as he pulled a sword and was about to swing an energy wave at the walkers.
Old Fu grabbed and crushed the man's sword with one grasp of his palm. "Fools, you'll weaken the cave further if you use your Qi here; the problem isn't the walkers; it's the damn waterways. If you damage any of them, they'll bleed into us, and we'll truly be dead then!"
He was right. "Automaton!" I requested, but no reply came. I cursed inwardly.
The waterways are too potent if they're able to affect even the Lord of Lords pagoda.
The walkers were coming toward us, and we had no way out. Behind us was a dead end, and the only place we can use as a bastion is the study. But with the entire mountain shaking, it won't last for long.
"Y, come out!" I said.
The poison god's book was thankfully not affected by the interference of the waterways as it too was powered by Poison Qi and not natural heavenly Qi.
Y came out and almost instantly powered down.
"Lord…" Y said, "My generator… is malfunctioning…"
"Use your mask as a bulwark to block the passage."
"As the lord commands." Y said and instantly used his massive mask as a shield that blocked the tunnel.
The walkers had to grind through tempered meteorite steel to even get to us, and they would never be able to.
But that means that I'm using Y as nothing but a blockade a temporary one because soon, the entire mountain will collapse on top of him.
This should buy us some time.
I looked around, there was nothing visible around me that I can use to get us out. And the dead end next to the study felt like a massive wall trapping us in this prison.
I pressed my hand on it, and cursed.
"There is a waterway going right behind this wall; the other side is empty, but if this thing breaks we'll all turn to mortals in a second," I said.
Although it wouldn't affect me, it'll make everyone behind us into useless baggage.
"Tear it down," Old Fu said. "If it's our only way out, tear it down," he said.
"I don't know how long the seal on our cultivation will last once we come in contact with the Sea of Demons' water.
Old Fu pointed his thumb behind him, "Regardless, those walkers are no fools, they gave up on clawing through your puppet and are now boring through the walls. They'll eventually hit one of the waterways anyway."
I cursed inwardly, "Everyone buckle up!" I said. I needed a powerful blow that was precise and not in any way, shape, or form explosive; I needed to lessen the impact as much as I could on the cave's structure lest it completely crumble on us.
"Fist of Roaring Ki!" I channeled through my arm.
Usually, the Fist of Roaring Ki uses reverberation of Ki to penetrate through matter to cause deadly impact and damage. I needed it to do the opposite. To send in a single wave of concentrated Ki that will push and not reverberate.
It needs to be instant, it needs to be powerful, but most of all, it needs to be direct and penetrative instead of vibrating and destructive.
There was only one way to do it.
"ALMIGHTY PUSH!"
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l