Chapter 238: You don't want to either?

Fu She's remains were in a secluded corner of an underground cavern.

His identity was still easy to discern.

Only Luo De and A Pei Pu could see his remains; Xiao and the other two still couldn't see through the illusion that clouded their own consciousness.

"Before they died, they were probably just like you, confused by the overlapping space and illusion."

Luo De walked and shared his speculations about past events.

This was a conjecture based on the distribution pattern of the remains.

The remains of these Stone Guard soldiers clearly bore traces of burial, yet they were haphazardly scattered, with some piled together, making it impossible to tell who was who.

No one knows how many Stone Guard soldiers died here back then.

In short.

The remains spread out before Luo De's eyes seemed endless.

These remains were exceptionally well preserved, showing no signs of decay, and the scene was even more shocking than a mass grave, delivering a stronger impact to Luo De.

In this sea of remains.

The most conspicuous.

Without doubt, it was the four-armed skeleton seated upright in a dark corner.

Humans have two arms.

Only this yaksha, Fu She, whose build differs from humans by nature, possesses such a trait.

"Letter?"

Approaching Fu She's remains, what first caught Luo De's attention was not the bone harder than jade, but a well-preserved letter.

He picked up the letter, read only the opening line, then put it away without looking further.

【Jin Peng, when we meet again, we should be separated by yin and yang.】

This was a letter Fu She deliberately left for Xiao when he regained clarity at the last moment of his life.

So it's better to give it to Xiao to read.

Luo De then glanced into the cavern again out of habit.

As a result, that glance.

let him also discover another human corpse hidden deep in the cavern.

Unlike Fu She, who sat upright like a domineering general and retained his imposing air even at death,

this human skeleton lay askew on the rock, with a half‑broken battle sword still in his hand, and a long, deep slash mark visible on his throat bone, suggesting he died by suicide.

A human who could die alongside Fu She.

If the guess is correct,

this person should be the human Daoist alchemist Bo Yang who stayed with Fu She until the end back then, and also the ancestor Ye Lan once mentioned who never managed to return.

The journal beside the remains also confirmed his identity.

He is Bo Yang.

Bo Yang's journal wasn't as private as Fu She's family letter; flipping through a couple of pages, Luo De couldn't help but sigh.

After all, he was merely a mortal, not a sage.

In such a lonely, dark, confined setting, after Fu She's passing, the solitary Bo Yang left here had, in his final stage of life, become even more mad than the "mentally ill" Fu She.

In this journal, the earlier entries are normal war records.

From the Kan Rui Ya monsters' attack on Liyue, when the Stone Guard and Daoist alchemists jointly defended outside the Layered Rock Abyss, he wrote all the way up to the appearance of the four‑armed yaksha Fu She, who, with fierce and terrifying valor, led the surviving Stone Guard troops to break out of the monsters' encirclement; afterward, upon discovering that the underground space exposed by the war strongly suppressed the Kan Rui Ya monsters, Bo Yang personally devised the plan to sacrifice some to save Liyue.

"Underground Palace."

Seeing the journal's name for this space, Luo De looked up and glanced around.

If one had to say,

there indeed remain some traces of architecture here.

but it still differs greatly from the appearance of the underground palace recorded in the journal.

"Is it already being affected by the space even before entering?"

Luo De stroked his chin, lost in thought.

The space they now occupy can be called one of the biggest mysteries among Teyvat's secret realms and perilous lands.

Immortals who could fight the Archon cannot escape here the hallucinations, disordered time, jumbled overlapping spaces, behavior that seems to actively devour people, and the strange environment that turns the living into phantoms.

Each of these horrors alone would be enough to make a forbidden zone for humanity; let alone the fact that all these great terrors are now stacked together.

"Is this the change brought about by that Heavenly Star?"

Luo De recalled Liyue's legend about the Layered Rock Abyss.

The Heavenly Star fell to earth, turning the wasteland into a vast, profound abyss, from which beautiful jade and gold grew, inexhaustible and endless.

When he first learned of this legend,

Luo De originally thought it was merely a speculative fantasy, which, after generations embellished it, became a uplifting legend.

But after the Xu Mi scientific expedition surveyed the geological environment of the underground mining area,

their conclusion was

yet the Heavenly Star legend might actually be true!!!

This matter should start from another hypothesis put forward by the survey team.

In ancient times, the Layered Rock Abyss was likely a vast ocean.

The unearthed fossils of ancient marine life are the perfect proof.

Right.

Luo De had also picked up such ancient marine fossils mentioned in the report.

Picked it up casually.

The deeper one goes, the more exposed paleontological fossils there are.

Although not studying paleontology.

Luo De can still easily identify the characteristic marine biological features on these fossils.

And the structure of these fossils is unusually complete; not just one or two like that, almost all excavated fossils have this characteristic.

The reason this situation can occur.

The currently most convincing explanation.

It is that in a short time, the ocean that was the predecessor of the Stratabyss underwent a shocking mass extinction.

"Heavenly Star fell, a mass extinction of life occurred, smashing the originally ocean‑covered Stratabyss into a wasteland and leaving behind this terrifying man‑eating space and inexhaustible mineral resources."

This theory coincides with the legend of the Heavenly Star and also fits the idea of a rapid mass extinction.

Moreover.

Furthermore, combining the inverted ruins where the Black Serpent Knight resides with the traces of human development in this space.

Luo De can confirm this.

Before the people of Liyue arrived, an advanced underground nation had already arisen beneath the Stratabyss.

It is unknown how this nation perished.

"Heaven‑Cold Nail?"

Luo De thought of the ancient nation of Fendenier on the snow‑capped mountains that had been destroyed.

Its demise was due to the climate change brought by the Heaven‑Cold Nail sent down by the Heavenly Principle.

According to Nadixa, the Heaven‑Cold Nail is a tool for countering the Abyss; for powers that should not exist in Teyvat, it also has the ability to purify and stabilize them.

And in the distant past.

The Heaven‑Cold Nail was more often used to repair the rifts in Teyvat.

From this Luo De drew a conclusion that made him suck in a breath of cold air.

"The nature of this space is a rift in the Teyvat world! The Heaven‑Cold Nail was sent down by the Heavenly Principle precisely to mend it."

Now the situation has become delicate.

If this space before our eyes truly is a world rift.

Then where exactly does it lead?

Gazing at the endless darkness before him, Luo De couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva.

"No wonder this place is so strange; even its rules differ from those of Teyvat."

Having figured out the nature of this space, Luo De's earlier confusions were all resolved.

Just like the spatial flaws inside a sealed space.

This underground space is actually also a huge spatial junction, very likely the intersection point between the Teyvat world and another space or another world.

Therefore Teyvat's rules cannot apply here at all; the order here has become so chaotic as to completely surpass ordinary understanding.

As for what lies beyond the rift.

Luo De neither wants nor dares to investigate it.

All he knows now is: "Staying here is truly endless torment."

"Ah—"

Luo De let out another sigh as he lingered on Boyang's notes.

【In the war, wounded soldiers: some sacrificed, some wandered off in a daze and never returned; only I and the Yaksha remain alive on the Liyue side.】

Starting from here.

Boyang's condition was not right.

Besides recording the battle, he repeatedly wrote in his notes regretting why he himself had stayed voluntarily instead of letting his younger brother Rongzhao remain.

One whole page even consisted entirely of venting‑style curses.

He cursed the Khaenri'ah monsters for invading Liyue, cursed himself for being unable to protect his homeland, cursed Fushe for being mad with no one to talk to normally, cursed why his younger brother could return alive while he had to endure such cruel torture, cursed the Rock Sovereign for being unable to protect his own people, deeming him unworthy of divinity.

After that page, he again returned to a calm state, though his handwriting became increasingly skewed and twisted, harder to read than the trails left by a Holy Scarab, clearly indicating he was nearing the end of his ink and life.

When Fushe passed away.

Only Boyang remained in the underground palace, and he went completely mad.

Originally, a mere mortal approaching Fushe, a Yaksha, would inevitably be corroded by karmic obstacles, and this place itself is especially adept at attacking the mind.

Thus.

Boyang's plague also grew worse.

After Fushe's passing.

His notes contained much less content, a considerable part of which were chaotic drawings even more disordered than a child's scribbles.

Due to the twisted handwriting, most of the text is illegible; the few readable parts are mostly resentful curses and fear of the unknown, while the rest are longings for homeland and loved ones.

At the final moment of his life.

Boyang, who had found no way out, chose to return to his friend's side, using a broken blade to free himself from endless pain.

Collecting Boyang's notes.

Luo De, with mixed feelings, bowed three times before the two corpses before him and said, "Sorry."

Having said that.

He then carried out the corpses of Fushe and Boyang one by one, together with their notes and letters, and handed everything over to Xiao and Yelan.

"There are too many corpses here."

"We can't take them all out; we can only take what we can, focusing on the important ones."

After finishing the affairs with Fu She and Bo Yang, Luo De said helplessly.

The fallen Thousand Rock Army soldiers here number not just in the ten thousands; saying this place is littered with corpses is no exaggeration, and relying solely on the three of them, it's absolutely impossible to bring all these bones back.

Moreover, this underground space is too dangerous; Liyue could not possibly send people here again to risk their lives just to collect these bones.

Therefore, even though Luo De wanted to help send these bones back to Liyue, allowing those poor people who were forced to leave their homes to defend their homeland to return to their hometowns.

But he was truly willing yet powerless.

Xiao and Ye Lan showed understanding, and immediately went to gather the bones of their own brothers and ancestors.

Taking advantage of this time.

Luo De originally intended to continue searching a bit more, to see if he could find similar notes or letters to bring back.

However, he had only taken two steps.

Seeing A Pe Pu with a displeased face beside him, he didn't know what came over him, and impulsively stepped forward and said: "Can you help gather these bones here?"

"Sure."

"Let those two people follow me, and I can help you with this."

A Pe Pu's answer made Luo De's mouth twitch involuntarily.

Looks like you old-timer still haven't forgotten this, eh?

But having said that,

Luo De also realized that his impulsive question was indeed not wrong; A Pe Pu really does have a way to take all these bones away.

Having Xiao and Dada Li Ya go to Sumeru with her is absolutely impossible.

Now we really need to think about how to make her willingly do this hard labor.

"Is there anything else that could move her?"

Preoccupied with that question, Luo De had no mind to collect the letters here; he simply sat down beside Dada Li Ya, frowning in thought.

"Are you thinking about how to bring those predecessors' bones out?"

Dada Li Ya's spirits were somewhat listless; his speech lacked the vigor it had at the start, and he was even more lethargic than when he had just gone to help Luo De fight.

This sealed space differs from the outside world.

Due to the chaotic time rules, staying here only consumes and cannot recover; moreover, even without eating, one does not feel hungry, nor does one feel fatigue even without sleep; as long as the body is not subjected to severe strain, each extra moment spent here increases the mental drain dramatically, until the mind is almost completely worn away, at which point this space will devour it into its phantom.

When Bo Yang initially stayed here alone.

It was precisely because of the trait of being able to survive without food, drink, or rest that he managed to last so long; in the end, he was tormented by mental exhaustion to the point of madness, losing his sanity, and even the Rock King Lord, whom the Liyue people regarded as a spiritual reliance, could be shouted at.

In such an environment.

Due to the backlash from overusing the Archon's armament, Dada Li Ya naturally had not recovered any strength at all; combined with the mental pressure here, he still appears ashen-faced and his legs trembling.

"Hmm."

The words Luo De and A Pe Pu just spoke were also heard by Dada Li Ya; no further explanation needed, a slight nod and he understood what Luo De was worrying about.

He sneakily glanced at A Pe Pu in the distance, moved his body closer, and whispered to Luo De: "I think that Grass Dragon Lord actually still appreciates you quite a bit; you should go and be soft with her, she should still be easy to talk to."

"Uh"

Luo De raised his eyebrows: "Do you have any other methods?"

"I'm serious."

Seeing Luo De not believing him, Dada Li Ya continued: "The Grass Dragon Lord's temperament is quite like my master's; I used to argue with my master just like you do with yours, and the result was nothing but beatings, gaining no benefit; later I realized my master is one who accepts softness but not hardness—as long as I complete the tasks she assigns, under normal circumstances, if it's not an unreasonable request, a few words of flattery will make her agree."

His words had just fallen.

A Pe Pu's voice drifted from afar: "What you said makes sense, human kid; how do you plan to win my favor? If you can make me feel better, I might actually agree to your little request."

"."

Luo De glanced at the embarrassed Dada Li Ya.

He just knew.

With A Pe Pu's strength, Dada Li Ya could never hide his lowered voice from her ears, no matter how deliberately he tried.

Compared to Dada Li Ya, who was so embarrassed he wanted to dig a hole in the ground.

A Pe Pu's words instead made Luo De's mood lighten.

Luo De wasn't afraid that A Pe Pu would hear someone scheming against her behind her back; he feared that A Pe Pu would be impervious to persuasion, which would truly leave him with no recourse.

Then how should one, as Dada Li Ya said, win A Pe Pu's favor?

Luo De pondered briefly, licked his lips, then put on a resolute front and approached A Pe Pu, grabbing Zhongli's Gnosis and grinning: "Grass Dragon Lord, you wouldn't want the news of your full-health revival to be known to the Heavenly Principle, would you?"

(End of chapter)