Chapter 30: Abyssal Whisper and the Ark Prison

The terrifying suction wasn't acting on the body, but directly pulling at the soul! Chen Mo felt as if his consciousness were being forcibly dragged out of his flesh and thrown into the endless abyss of darkness! He let out a muffled grunt, and his passive 【Spiritual Resistance】 went into overdrive, like building a dam around the periphery of his soul, desperately holding his mind in place.

"Hold onto consciousness!" he bellowed hoarsely, reminding his teammates.

Su Yu's face turned ashen as paper, but the pendant at her neck burst forth with an unprecedented brilliant blue light, forming a faint yet tenacious spiritual shield that barely enveloped her and Chen Mo, holding back the soul‑level devouring. Han Qing, Zhang Yang and the others weren't so fortunate—their gazes glazed, their movements grew sluggish, like puppets on strings, involuntarily sliding toward the edge of the pit!

"Wake up!" Chen Mo's eyes nearly burst as he unleashed the 【Frenzied Howl】! Sound waves infused with his indomitable will, mixed with a mental shock, exploded in everyone's minds like thunder!

Han Qing and the others shuddered all over, their eyes clearing in shock as they steadied themselves, but the suction still clung to them like invisible chains.

"Useless…… the struggles of ants……" the dark giant face uttered a mocking whisper, and more rotting roots surged from the pit. They no longer coalesced, but writhed like countless black poisonous snakes, coiling toward everyone's ankles, trying to drag them into the abyss!

"Its core is beneath the pit! Very deep! But…… it's incomplete! It's…… bound!" Su Yu endured the agony of her soul being torn, stretching her perception into the endless darkness and seized the key information!

Bound? A spark flashed in Chen Mo's mind! He recalled the "Ark" mentioned in Su Yu's mother's message, the system's violent reaction to the "Ark" signal, and combined it with the fact that this ancient malice was imprisoned here…

A bold conjecture rose in his mind!

"This thing is very likely not the Ark itself, but a prisoner suppressed here by the Ark—or rather, by the System! Those coordinates point not to a place of hope, but to the entrance of a prison!"

"Attack the edge of the pit! Especially those spots that look like…… runes or structural support points!" Chen Mo barked an order, simultaneously shifting the target of his 【Energy Shot】 from the endless roots to the faintly visible rock formations on the pit's rim that flickered with a weak strange light!

He guessed right!

The energy blast struck those structures, erupting in fierce sparks and chaotic energy surges! The whole pit trembled slightly! The dark giant face let out an angry roar, not a mocking one:

"Stop! You idiots! Break the seal and we'll all die!!"

It's afraid! It fears the seal being broken!

"Keep attacking! It's imprisoned here! Breaking the seal—even if we can't kill it, we can wound it badly, buying us time!" Chen Mo roared in fury, and the tactical axe, its energy compressed to the limit, came down hard on another critical node!

"Roar!!!"

The dark giant face went completely berserk, sucking back all its pull in an instant and transforming it into countless concentrated black shockwaves brimming with corrosion and spiritual pollution, indiscriminately blasting every person in the clearing! It would rather endure the seal's backlash than let these "idiots" who tried to free it live!

"Careful!" Han Qing slammed his shield into the ground, pushing his 【Faint Energy Deflection】 to the limit, barely blocking several shockwaves; the shield's surface sang with a screeching distortion, and he himself spat a mouthful of blood.

Zhang Yang, Li Siwen and the others each employed their own methods—dodging or hard‑blocking—as the scene teetered on the brink of disaster.

Chen Mo pushed his 【Shadow Step】 to the extreme, weaving through the dense black shockwaves; each time he materialized he precisely shattered a seal node. Su Yu gritted her teeth, expanding her spiritual shield to barely cover the whole team; though it wavered on the verge of collapse, it greatly weakened the spiritual contamination within the shockwaves.

This was a frantic gamble against time—betting that they could destroy enough seal nodes before the dark giant face blasted them to death!

"Crack!"

Finally, as Chen Mo bore the brunt of a shockwave without regard for his own safety and drove his tactical axe hard into the final critical node, a clear crack—like something breaking—rang out from the depths of the pit!

The invisible field enveloping the pit instantly destabilized! The surging dark energy, like a flood that had lost its levee, began to frenziedly rush back into the depths of the pit!

"No——!!!" the dark giant face howled in despair and venom, its massive visage convulsing and collapsing, ultimately dragged by that reverse pull back into the endless abyss of darkness!

The terrifying suction vanished, and the black shockwaves ceased. The clearing was left in ruin, with everyone gasping violently.

The pit still existed, but the suffocating malice had weakened by more than half, as if whatever lay within had been gravely wounded and could not stir up trouble for the time being.

"Is…… it over?" Wang Hu slumped to the ground, heart still pounding.

Chen Mo leaned on his axe, staring at the bottomless pit, his face unrelieved. The seal had only been partially broken, not fully undone. What lay inside had merely been knocked back to its original state for now; sooner or later it would recover.

Moreover, from his recent perception and the creature's fragmented words, he grew ever more certain that this place was certainly not the Ark but a prison! Why would Su Yu mother's coordinates point here? Was it a misdirection? Or…… something else?

Just then, as the seal loosened, a section of rock wall at the pit's edge, previously concealed by energy, silently slid open, revealing a narrow downward metal passage just wide enough for one person! The passage's inner walls were smooth, emitting a faint blue glow similar to that of a Nightwatch outpost.

Above the passage entrance was carved a symbol resembling the pattern on Su Yu's pendant, but far more intricate—this was exactly the Ark's mark!

A prison guardroom? Or…… a secret passage leading to the true Ark?

"Here…… there's Mom's lingering presence…… stronger……" Su Yu pointed at the suddenly appeared passage, her eyes filled with hope and doubt.

Chen Mo and Han Qing exchanged a glance.

They had no retreat. Outside, the System watched, and the Purification Society hunted them. This unexpectedly appeared passage might be their only chance.

"I'll take the lead, Han Qing will cover the rear. Stay alert." Chen Mo drew a deep breath, suppressed his injuries and fatigue, and stepped first into the deep, downward‑sloping metal passage.

The passage sloped steadily downward, seemingly bottomless. The blue light on its walls provided illumination; the air was dry and clean, a stark contrast to the deathly stench of the rotting forest outside.

After about ten or so minutes, the passage reached its end. A small circular chamber lay ahead. In its center floated a blue Light Sphere, much smaller than the Nightwatch's and with a far dimmer glow.

The chamber's walls were covered with dead screens and interfaces. In the corner before a control console sat a…… skeleton clad in tattered research robes, its hand bones pressed firmly into a conspicuous palm‑print recess on the console.

As Chen Mo and Su Yu stepped into the chamber, the dim blue Light Sphere flickered brighter, and a fragmented female voice—somewhat reminiscent of Su Yu's mother—rose, filled with endless weariness and a hint of release:

"At last…… I've waited…… for my…… heir……"