Chapter 507: Mortar

With a leap, darkness instantly swallowed her form.

However, the expected sensation of weightlessness from falling did not appear.

Hua Changxi only felt her body suddenly sink, as if not falling, but being pulled by an invisible force into a rapidly spinning vortex.

Immediately afterward, the surrounding space abruptly contracted.

It was an extremely suffocating sensation of compression.

If the yin winds of the fourth underworld layer were blades that scraped the bones, then the power within this Abyssal Mouth was a millstone grinding all things.

"Mmph~"

Hua Changxi let out a muffled groan, feeling the bones throughout her body, as well as her soul, emit creaking cracks under unbearable strain.

This Abyssal Mouth was nothing less than an ancient stone mortar for pounding rice.

And she was the grain inside the mortar, being pounded into fragments.

The pressure surging from all directions was not static; instead, wave after wave, like invisible giant pestles carrying a heavy rhythm, fiercely "pounded" again and again against her physical body and soul.

This pain was not merely simple impact, but an all-encompassing grinding.

Space was folding and compressing, attempting to compress her physical body and soul to the extreme, then suddenly releasing them, over and over again.

Just as she thought her physical body would be crushed into a mass of minced meat and her soul shattered into pieces, that terrifying sensation of compression suddenly loosened.

"Bang!"

Hua Changxi crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of gray-white dust.

She gasped for breath in great heaves, each breath accompanied by severe pain in her chest cavity.

She struggled to push herself up, only to find her limbs and bones felt as if they had come apart, lacking even the strength to lift a finger.

At the same time, she also perceived that her soul was exceptionally weak at this moment.

If, while in the fourth underworld layer, her soul was like a candle flame flickering in a gale—unsteady yet stubbornly burning—then now, her soul was like a wisp of flame remaining after burning out: dim, thin, and as if it would extinguish at any moment.

At this moment, Hua Changxi truly witnessed the peril of the Nine Netherworlds.

Had her physical body not been tough enough and her soul not fairly sturdy, merely the process of falling into the fifth underworld layer would have left her heavily injured if not dead.

However, compared to the physical pain and the weakening of her soul, what startled her even more was the surrounding environment.

As far as the eye could see, everything was gray-white.

Not snow-white, but the gray-white of aged ash.

The sky was gray-white, the earth was gray-white, and even the distant rocks, withered trees, and dust floating in the air all displayed a sickly gray-white hue.

There was no light source here, yet all things emitted a cold gray-white glow; the entire world resembled one constructed from cold, piled-up skeletal remains.

Hua Changxi had no time to examine the surroundings in detail; propping up her body that felt like it had fallen apart, she swiftly moved away from that Abyssal Mouth.

While dashing, she rapidly absorbed the soul power from the Soul River water in the Moonlight Cup and simultaneously sifted through the memory fragments of Lady Chi Yan, searching for the direction and path to Soul Nightmare Valley.

The fifth layer of the Nine Netherworlds was extraordinarily perilous; without a heavy treasure for protection, only experts who had reached the Ghost Marshal realm could set foot here.

The Ghost Marshal realm was equivalent to the Spirit Platform realm of the human race.

Hua Changxi was considered quite talented in cultivation among humans; she lacked neither resources nor opportunities, yet even so, she had still failed to open her Spirit Platform to this day.

From this, one could deduce that cultivators capable of reaching the Spirit Platform realm within the human race were not numerous.

Extrapolating this to the Nine Netherworlds, the situation was much the same; even though the Nine Netherworlds had experienced the resurgence of spiritual energy before the human world, the number of Ghost Marshal experts would not exceed that by much.

Furthermore, given the vast territory of the Nine Netherworlds, along the journey to find Soul Nightmare Valley, Hua Changxi did not encounter a single Nine Netherworld creature.

This greatly relieved her; aside from suffering erosion from the nether qi inherent to the fifth layer itself, there were no other external threats.

Perhaps because in the first four layers she had focused solely on moving toward the Abyssal Mouth without diverting attention to explore other directions, she had missed surveying the environments of those first four layers.

Since the direction of Soul Nightmare Valley differed from the direction in which the black broken blade vibrated, this journey allowed Hua Changxi to see many things she had previously overlooked.

For instance, the Nether River.

And also, the Yellow Springs.

She truly had not expected that the Nether River and the Yellow Springs penetrated all nine layers of the Nine Netherworlds' abysses; previously, she had thought they were distributed only in the first layer of the Nine Netherworlds.

After encountering the Nether River and the Yellow Springs, whenever she approached their basins along the subsequent path, Hua Changxi could sense unfamiliar auras.

She did not rashly approach; instead, she held her breath and concealed her presence, hiding behind gray-white rock walls to observe secretly, and soon discovered that quite a few Nine Netherworld creatures were using the waterways of the Nether River and Yellow Springs to infiltrate this fifth layer, and their numbers were considerable.

Taking this opportunity, she identified all five major clans of the Nether race.

Those with Nether markings like water waves carved between their eyebrows belonged to the Nether River clan; those with circular spring-eye markings between their eyebrows, with patterns radiating outward in concentric circles, were the Yellow Springs clan; those whose foreheads were wrapped in countless extremely fine soul threads, resembling wisps of green smoke or mist swirling above the brow, were the Soul clan; those whose foreheads featured a rotating blood-red vortex as the core, with patterns like churning blood waves, were the Blood Sea clan.

Adding the Demon clan, whose foreheads bore jagged, sawtooth-like fractured cracks that she had seen earlier, she had now encountered all five major clans of the Nether race.

"Nether River, Yellow Springs, Soul clan, Blood Sea, Demon clan, plus the Asura Gate from before, and human cultivators—they have all emerged... Is some major event about to occur in the Nine Netherworlds?"

Suppressing the doubts in her heart, Hua Changxi did not linger; using the cover of the gray-white mist, she departed silently, then accelerated to full speed, continuing to dart toward Soul Nightmare Valley.

"Screech~"

A piercing, shrill cry suddenly tore through the dead silence of the vast sky, causing the surrounding gray-white mist to churn.

After passing through the basins of the Nether River and Yellow Springs, Hua Changxi clearly sensed that powerful, unfamiliar auras began appearing around her one after another.

Just as the dim outline of Soul Nightmare Valley vaguely emerged on the horizon, a massive shadow suddenly descended from the firmament, blotting out the already bleak skylight.

Hearing the cry, Hua Changxi's heart tightened; she quickly looked up, following the sound.

High in the distant sky, a colossal creature was circling and looking down; this fierce bird possessed nine heads, its wings blocked out the sky, and it exuded a terrifying, murderous aura that made one's heart palpitate.

"Gui Che?!"

Hua Changxi's pupils contracted sharply; almost instinctively, she reached for the Gui Che Soul Flute hanging at her waist, then with lightning speed stored it inside the Shennong Cauldron, fearing that even the slightest leak of its aura would attract the attention of that fierce bird.

Having done this, she dared not delay for even a moment; pushing her speed to the limit, she turned into a streak of light and frantically rushed toward Soul Nightmare Valley.

The reason Lady Chi Yan could firmly occupy Soul Nightmare Valley without other Nine Netherworld experts coveting and seizing it lay in the unique compatibility between this region and her Nightmare Technique.

Within Soul Nightmare Valley, soul power was dense; it seemed naturally to be a hotbed for the Nightmare Technique, not only allowing her to execute her spells with ease but also greatly amplifying their power.

Once one stepped within the bounds of Soul Nightmare Valley, even a King-realm expert with formidable strength in the Nine Netherworlds, if slightly careless, would fall into the dream woven by Lady Chi Yan and ultimately become her prey.

Unless an Emperor-realm expert makes a move, no one else could possibly snatch the Soul Nightmare Valley from Lady Chi Yan.

Yet, to this day, not a single Emperor-realm expert has appeared in the Nine Netherworlds.

Therefore, once Hua Changxi entered the Soul Nightmare Valley, she would be safe.

"Hoo~"

After a desperate, all-out sprint, Hua Changxi finally reached the entrance of the Soul Nightmare Valley; just as she was about to vanish into the valley mouth, the sky above suddenly darkened.

Boom!

A black sedan chair, shrouded in overwhelming ghostly qi, crashed down like a falling star.

King-realm!

A Ghost King had arrived!

Sensing the formidable aura emanating from the black sedan chair, Hua Changxi immediately flashed aside, hiding within the shadows of the valley.

Meanwhile, the black sedan chair did not touch the ground but hovered mid-air; its curtains moved without wind, radiating an aura that made one tremble.

Moments later, a group of powerful ghost beings rushed toward the black sedan chair and fell to their knees in a dense black mass.

"Greetings, Lord Ming Yue!"

"Presumptuous!" The Ghost General-ranked attendant carrying the sedan chair shouted sternly, "Lord Ming Yue has already broken through to become a Ghost King; you should all come forward to pay respects to—His Highness King Ming!"

Amidst sounds of worship filled with terror and reverence, the curtains of the black sedan chair slowly lifted.

A cold, stunningly beautiful woman clad in black robes appeared before everyone's eyes.

"This seat has just heard a rumor..."

Su Mingyue slightly raised her eyes, looking down at the crowd below; wherever her gaze fell, even the air seemed to freeze: "I heard that a ghost being has appeared wielding the Netherworld Blade?"

"Replying to King Ming, this is indeed the case!"

A Ghost Marshal prostrated on the ground and reported: "That person wreaked havoc at the fourth Zhongyuankou; to this day, a rich aura of Netherworld Origin remains lingering in the air, and the broken black blade they hold is exactly like the legendary Netherworld Blade."

Upon hearing this, Su Mingyue's eyes immediately flashed with a dazzling, determined light; just as she was about to continue questioning, a piercing cry echoed again from the depths of the sky.

She slightly raised her gaze, only to see a Ghost General-realm Gui Che flying over.

"Even a Gui Che has emerged..."

Su Mingyue narrowed her eyes slightly: "It seems the Nine Netherworlds are truly about to become lively."