Chapter 423: Convoluted and Mysterious, the Hidden Entrance

Hatred, loathing, remorse...

It was nothing like Jin, nor was it like True Monarch Buyi; in fact, it was possible that he was deliberately suppressing his own emotions, perhaps even using spellcasting to make himself appear cold and calm.

The reason was also very simple.

"Because of my naivety and laxity back then, I misjudged the Dark God's purpose, thereby unwittingly becoming his accomplice, the one who pushed for the Fluorspar Disease to be released ahead of time!"

He had a deep understanding of the Fluorspar Disease and was capable of creating an antidote in a short amount of time.

The Dark Kingdom already had a situation where the infection was controllable, used to enhance the strength of their own side.

Back then, Jin was clearly an apostle of the Dark God, with a status even higher than the King, yet he suddenly chose to defect, not even having time to notify or take his younger sister with him. The whole point was to be caught off guard; it should have succeeded, but in the end, he was still intercepted by the Dark God and nearly beaten to death...

All these various events pointed to the fact that Jin held a pivotal position in the Dark God's research and release of the Fluorspar Disease, so much so that the deity had been monitoring and surveilling him constantly, never giving him even the slightest chance!

As an outstanding alchemist!

That is why he now only calls himself a physician!

"I am merely atoning for my sins."

"There is not much time left for this connection, and I will not say anything about my personal speculations, as that might mislead you."

"Simply put, the Dark God actually discovered and made contact with the source of the Fluorspar Disease at the origin of the star's spiritual veins a long time ago. It was precisely because it passed through his hands, or my hands, and something was added to it, that it prompted its premature maturation and release, as well as its excessively rapid spread."

"The raw intelligence I know is only this much, because after being severely wounded by the Dark God, he used a Soul-Erasing Art to wipe away many related memories. What I have now is just the tiny, remaining corner that I secretly carved into my primordial spirit."

"If His Excellency hadn't arrived in time back then—no, he probably just wanted to keep me alive to develop an antidote, which is why he didn't go further to completely erase me, or rather, find a way to kill me off entirely."

Jin had just said he wouldn't voice any personal speculations, but his words were mixed with them, especially that last part, which was entirely personal speculation.

However, Du En understood instantly that while these words contained very important clues, the focus was not actually on the surface content—that is, not on his speculations—but rather on a point lurking beneath them.

The Dark God was actually a fellow with exceptionally profound attainments in Daoist arts and incredibly precise execution!

Although the Holy God also displayed some dexterity and precision, the overall situation was still one of brute force, such as just now, when to curb the spread of Yun's infection, he directly enveloped her with his own radiance; it was a literal covering and suppression, relying entirely on output.

And the Dark God... could the first Holy-Dark War actually have been a feigned defeat? Du En pondered, unable to help but look upward, his gaze seemingly piercing through layers of obstacles to see the deity sitting leisurely on the throne, incomparably relaxed, with everything under control.

The situation suddenly became exceptionally convoluted and mysterious!

"That is all I have to say, be careful..."

Jin's voice transmission ended, and the Holy God's projection also cut off.

The radiance was retracted, and the Hanging Lamp looked quite dim.

Du En looked down, only feeling that the burden on his shoulders had grown a little heavier.

Fortunately, he still had a few trump cards left unused.

He did not think any further, because Yun had already woken up.

Her state naturally had not yet recovered; regardless, she would need to cultivate her internal energy to fully restore her body and attempt to borrow strength to break through to a new realm.

However, at this moment, the first thing she thought of was to tell the one god and one person who had already found her about what she had discovered.

"Your Excellency, honored guest..."

Her voice was hoarse, as if there were stones growing in her throat, grinding violently when she spoke, carrying a jarring quality that set one's teeth on edge; it was clear that speaking at this time was also very painful.

However, Yun only tremblingly extended her hand, and a bit of cloud-blue magic power emerged, like a firefly, drifting out.

The Holy God's Hanging Lamp was still emitting a faint light, helping her refine the medicinal pill and recover her body. While Du En burned things, he watched; where the cloud-blue light spots flew, his True Flame quietly detoured and restrained its heat, so as not to destroy this fragile magic power.

At the same time, Yun's voice was intermittent: "In the past, I noticed that there was more than one level underground. Later, I discovered that some people, whether nobles or servants, were not thrown into the prison, but would sometimes inexplicably become strange. It was, how should I put it? It was as if it wasn't them, but something forged?"

From the curled-up, head-clutching posture, she lifted her head—the pain still lingering, the ferocity not yet dissipated, the fluorspar exterior constantly peeling away as she gradually recovered her former face. Yun's mind was actually a mess, and the primordial spirit in her divine palace appeared even more faint, withered, and dim.

So she paused here. As the medicinal power took effect, her physical origin began to devour the residual Fluorspar Disease, turning it into its own nourishment. Her primordial spirit, as the collective manifestation of her cultivation, also began to brighten and strengthen, and her thoughts finally became clear.

"Yes, it was forged. Those were phantoms, likely phantoms created by the Dark God. Although they were incomparably realistic, there was one thing that was difficult to forge: the sincere and true will, or rather, the core of one's Dao heart!"

The nobles were wanton and indulgent, the servants were humble and trembling; because they also cultivated, and even quite orthodoxly, the concept of the Dao heart could be applied to them.

Therefore, Yun was able to perceive that difference! Because she was in a half-bystander perspective, "untainted by the mud," she felt something was wrong as soon as she saw those phantoms, even though all their expressions were as usual, exactly as they should be, with no changes at all.

"He quietly replaced those people, not knowing what he was doing. At the time, because I was concerned, I hesitated for a period of time. After breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage, I tried to investigate, and that was when I discovered that the underground prison I always frequented really had more than one level."

"Back then, I wanted to investigate further, but I always had an inexplicable feeling of palpitation, as if if I continued to pursue it to the end, something would happen to me too. My brother seemed to have noticed the anomaly in me, and so as not to make him worry, I didn't actually pursue it."

"However, on the few occasions I had the chance to leave the Dark Kingdom's palace and go to the border between the two countries, under the cover of the lingering radiance of His Excellency, I secretly figured out a spell called Water Moon Dream Spirit."

"Using it, one can plant a bit of spiritual shadow in others' dreams. It has no lethality; it just serves as a faint positioning marker. Then, by planting it on several people who might become targets, it is done without anyone knowing. It should be like that."

"In short, it was never triggered later. It seems I was mistaken, or perhaps the Dark God noticed my little tricks. Until the previous Rain Valley, I discovered that among the Dark Kingdom's vanguard in Rain Valley, there were actually two people carrying the Water Moon Dream Spirit markers!" "I originally thought it was an illusion, after all, those were people from the Blood Lotus Sect, but they could also have been subsequent additions. So, I risked coming back, and then I saw that those people I had marked had actually all disappeared, leaving only a living shell, disguised even more cleverly than before."

"Hehe, but the spell's marker was still flickering, right in the underground prison. After I was caught, following the guidance, from the second level to the third, finally, I found the entrance to the fourth level..."

The long string of words was quite coherent, and by the end, she even had the energy to smile slyly. It was clear that Yun's state was rapidly improving with the Holy God's help.

And while Du En listened to these words, he also followed the magic power light spot, locking onto a position that had been affected by the True Flame's fluctuations but was still incomparably ordinary and unremarkable.

Yun had secretly left instructions here, a riddle lock embedded under the floor. It was not fully formed, but appeared more special, like clouds and dreams, likely bridging from the three aspects of water, cloud, and illusion, and then further jumping to the realm of dreams.

Her own fundamental method should have been a water-element method like Water Cloud, and what was further expanded from it was the illusion of the Water Moon—the moon in the water—and then it jumped to dreams, that mysterious realm that differs from reality.

Du En's current discernment and vision were no longer what they used to be, and he had preliminary contact and insight into the Dao, even refining it into his spirit, so after a little pondering, he grasped the gist of Yun's cultivation and had a rough understanding.

In fact, Yun had prepared herself for sacrifice.

And if it weren't for her contribution, Du En probably wouldn't have followed the clues to the underground prison, and even if he had scraped the entire dungeon several times over, he might not have found the location of this entrance.

Flashing to appear here, Du En thought for a moment, extended his finger, and inserted it into the floor, immediately triggering an anomaly. He pulled back abruptly, and crimson, translucent crystal clusters broke through from the gap.

This entrance was not easy to enter; rashly using violent means would only trigger some kind of restriction placed here!

It wasn't that there was no way to forcibly break it, but it would certainly cost more, so as soon as Yun woke up, she instinctively rushed to give instructions.

—She had relied on the uniqueness of her own method to avoid triggering the restriction.

In other words, one could follow this direction to open this entrance with more time and effort saved!

"How is it?"

The Holy God's somewhat weary voice came through.

The dawn-like light had dimmed, silently absorbing the light of the still-burning True Flame, causing the originally pure Hanging Lamp to faintly sprout a crimson flame flower.

There are problems, but they are not significant.

Du En's pupils had already turned a mixture of crimson and gold, glowing alarmingly; this was the secret technique of the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, and under its probing activation, he quickly saw through the truth beneath the facade.

Crimson, translucent crystal clusters spread all the way here from an unknown location underground, becoming deeper and more profound the further inward they went, a deep red and dark red that exuded an ominous, unsettling feeling, appearing similar to yet different from normal Fluorspar Disease crystals.

Linking this to the symptoms of the controllable diseased subjects in the Dark Nation, such as red eyes, it was clear that below was where the Dark God researched and controlled Fluorspar Disease, while the second and third levels of the underground prison served as the control group and raw material storage.

However, at the moment, there was no guard force, which seemed somewhat strange.

Originally, one could explain this as the Dark God being pushed to the end of their rope with no strength left, forced to rely on previously set restrictions for defense, but clearly, Du En could not make such a careless and naive assumption now.

So, the opponent intentionally let them track them all the way here? Below is a trap, yet one must step into it to investigate... an open conspiracy indeed.

Du En's expression did not change as he calmly began to summon the True Flame.

The Phoenix Crimson True Flame, which was about to burn the third underground level to ashes, immediately condensed and flew out as a flock of sparrow-sized fire phoenixes, lifelike, graceful in posture, with long necks and wings joined.

They circled slightly before, under Du En's control, following the semi-mystery lock on Yun's side as an entry point to begin infiltrating downward.

He was more than familiar with the combined power of dream and fire.

The transformation of his natal Dharma treasure was precisely based on light as the skeleton, with dream and fire as the flesh and blood! Yun had realized he would certainly be able to find the mark she left behind, which was why she had acted on her own initiative, running off to investigate alone without telling anyone.

Because she felt that when facing her, the Dark God might be careless and reveal some flaws, and her suspicions previously lacked actual evidence; if it were just her own wild imagination and she told others with such seriousness, it would only slow down the pace of things here, and in the end, it might all be for nothing, giving the Dark God some opportunity to exploit.

So, after careful consideration, she ran over alone to explore.

It was also because of this that Du En realized the situation with the Dark God was significantly different from what he had previously imagined.

Even though he had long since assumed the worst regarding the enemy's level of difficulty, there were now various signs indicating that he had still underestimated them.

Crack! The sparrow-sized fire phoenixes that flew in and infiltrated through the gaps in the dream soon triggered a change in those crimson crystal clusters.

On the surface, these crystal clusters closer to the outer layer were very pale in color, completely translucent, and lacked any ominous or dangerous feeling, appearing as if they were merely marginal precipitates, a situation not worth mentioning or paying special attention to.

But in reality, it was the exact opposite!

Because they were not ominous or dangerous enough, they were not restless and were sufficiently stable; in other words, they could be used as a medium for precise spellcasting! Therefore, even though Du En was cautious enough and his movements were extremely refined, the result still had an extremely subtle ripple that crossed the boundary of the dream and touched a small, alert sprout extended from this restriction.

The tiny sprout tip swayed, and immediately, like an avalanche or a collapsing mountain, it directly connected and pulled at the whole.

Ominous deep red surged violently from deeper underground, and the transparent red crystals at the entrance stretched and moved like interlocking teeth, as if a giant mouth filled with countless teeth were strangling everything that attempted to enter.

And in the earth in all directions, with the sudden emergence and surging of dark light, it was instantly filled with red crystals of controllable Fluorspar Disease, as if it had always been this way and the entire underground had been cast with this.

Such a shocking change in the palace foundation directly transformed it into a terrifying cage!

(End of this chapter)