Chapter 507: Mortar

With a jump, the darkness instantly swallowed her figure.

However, the expected weightlessness of falling downwards did not appear.

Hua Changxi only felt her body sink suddenly, as if she were not falling, but being pulled into a high-speed rotating whirlpool by an invisible suction force.

Immediately after, the surrounding space contracted suddenly.

This was an extremely suffocating feeling of compression.

If the cold wind of the fourth layer of the abyss was a bone-scraping sharp blade, then the power inside this Chongyuan Mouth was the stone mill that grinds all things.

"Ugh~"

Hua Changxi groaned, only feeling that the bones of her whole body, as well as her soul body, made unbearable "clack-clack" explosions.

This Chongyuan Mouth was literally an ancient rice-pounding stone mortar.

And she was the grain being pounded in the mortar.

The pressure coming from all directions was not static, but wave after wave, like an invisible giant pestle, carrying a heavy rhythm, "pounding" on her physical body and soul body one after another.

This pain was not a simple impact, but a kind of all-around grinding.

Space was folding, compressing, trying to compress her physical body and soul body to the extreme, and then suddenly bouncing them open, repeating over and over again.

Just when she thought her physical body was about to be pressed into a lump of meat and her soul body was about to be crushed to pieces, the terrifying feeling of compression suddenly loosened.

"Peng!"

Hua Changxi fell heavily to the ground, stirring up a piece of grey-white dust.

She gasped for air, every breath accompanied by severe pain in her chest.

She struggled to prop up her body, but found that her limbs and bones seemed to have fallen apart, and she didn't even have the strength to lift a finger.

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

If she was like a candle flame flickering in a violent wind when she was in the fourth layer of the abyss, although swaying, she was always burning with stubborn light; then at this moment, her soul body was like a wisp of flame left after burning out, dim, thin, as if it could be extinguished at any time.

At this moment, Hua Changxi really saw the danger of the Nine Nether.

If her physical body wasn't strong enough and her soul body wasn't solid enough, just the process of falling into the fifth layer of the Nine Nether abyss would have left her heavily injured even if she didn't die.

However, compared to the pain of the body and the weakening of the soul body, what made her even more shocked was the environment around her.

As far as the eye could see, it was a piece of grey-white.

Not snow-white, but the kind of grey-white like years of bone ash.

The sky was grey-white, the earth was grey-white, the distant mountains and withered trees, and even the dust floating in the air, all presented a kind of morbid grey-white.

There was no light source here, but all things were emitting cold grey-white light, and the whole world was like a cold world piled up with dead bones.

Hua Changxi didn't care to examine the surrounding environment carefully, propped up her body that felt like it had fallen apart, and flew away from the Chongyuan Mouth.

While speeding, she quickly absorbed the soul power of the Soul River water in the Night-Glowing Cup, while searching for the direction and path to Soul Nightmare Valley in Lady Chi Yan's memory fragments.

The fifth layer of the Nine Nether territory is extremely dangerous. Without heavy treasures to protect the body, only powerhouses who have stepped into the Ghost Commander realm can set foot in this place.

The Ghost Commander realm is equivalent to the Spirit Platform realm of the human race.

Hua Changxi could be considered a person with cultivation talent among the human race, neither lacking resources nor lacking opportunities, but even so, she had not been able to open her Spirit Platform until now.

From this, it can be inferred that the number of practitioners in the human race who can set foot in the Spirit Platform realm will not be too many.

Extending this to the Nine Nether, the situation is about the same. Even if the Nine Nether opened spiritual energy recovery one step ahead of the human world, the number of Ghost Commander realm powerhouses would not exceed too much.

Coupled with the vast territory of the Nine Nether, Hua Changxi didn't encounter a single Nine Nether living being on the way to find Soul Nightmare Valley.

This made her breathe a sigh of relief. Except for suffering from the erosion of the Netherworld energy of the fifth layer of the territory itself, there were no other external threats.

Perhaps because in the first four layers of the territory, she only aimed at the direction of the Chongyuan Mouth and never distracted herself to explore other directions, she missed exploring the environment of the first four layers of the territory.

And the direction of Soul Nightmare Valley was not the same as the direction of the black broken blade's vibration. This journey allowed Hua Changxi to see many things she hadn't noticed before.

For example, the Nether River.

And for example, the Huang Quan.

She really didn't expect that the Nether River and Huang Quan actually ran through the nine layers of the Nine Nether abyss. Before, she only thought that only the first layer of the Nine Nether territory had the distribution of the Nether River and Huang Quan.

After encountering the Nether River and Huang Quan, on the subsequent road, every time she approached the basins of the Nether River and Huang Quan, Hua Changxi could perceive strange auras.

She didn't approach rashly, just restrained her breath and held her breath, hiding behind the grey-white rock wall to observe secretly, and then found that quite a few Nine Nether living beings had sneaked into this fifth layer of the territory through the waterways of the Nether River and Huang Quan, and the number was quite large.

Taking this opportunity, she recognized the five major main tribes of the Nether Race.

Those with Nether Marks like water waves on their foreheads were the Nether River tribe; those with circular spring eyes on their foreheads, with patterns expanding outwards in circles, were the Huang Quan tribe; those with extremely fine soul threads intertwined on their foreheads, like wisps of blue smoke and mist swirling on their foreheads, were the Soul tribe; those with a rotating blood-colored whirlpool as the core on their foreheads, with patterns like surging blood waves, were the Blood Sea tribe.

Plus the Demon tribe she had seen before with ferocious serrated broken cracks on

"The Hua Minghe, the Yellow Springs, the Soul Clan, the Blood Sea, the Demon Clan, and the previously mentioned Asura Gate, as well as human cultivators, have all come out... Is something major about to happen in the Nine Netherworlds?"

Hua Changxi suppressed the doubts in her heart and did not linger. Sheltered by the gray-white mist, she left silently, then sped off at full velocity, continuing to dash toward the direction of Soul Nightmare Valley.

"Screech~"

A harsh, shrill cry suddenly tore through the deathly silent sky, shaking the surrounding gray-white mist until it surged.

After passing through the basins of the Hua Minghe and the Yellow Springs, Hua Changxi clearly felt that powerful, unfamiliar auras were beginning to appear one after another in the surroundings.

Just as the gloomy outline of Soul Nightmare Valley vaguely appeared on the horizon, a massive shadow suddenly descended from the firmament, obscuring the already dismal daylight.

Hearing the cry, Hua Changxi felt a chill in her heart and quickly looked up to follow the sound.

She saw a behemoth circling and looking down from the high sky in the distance. The fierce bird had nine heads and wings that covered the sky, emitting a terrifying, baleful aura that made one's heart palpitate.

"Ghost Chariot?!"

Hua Changxi's pupils shrank suddenly. Almost subconsciously, she reached out to take the Ghost Chariot Soul Flute hanging from her waist, then, with lightning speed, tucked it into the Shennong Cauldron, fearing that even the slightest leak of its aura would attract the attention of that fierce bird.

After doing all this, she dared not delay any longer, pushing her speed to the limit and turning into a streak of light, frantically rushing toward Soul Nightmare Valley.

The reason Lady Chi Yan could firmly occupy Soul Nightmare Valley without being coveted or snatched away by other Nine Netherworlds powerhouses lay in the fact that this territory had a unique compatibility with her nightmare arts.

In Soul Nightmare Valley, soul power was dense, as if it were naturally a hotbed for nightmare arts; not only did it allow her to cast spells as easily as a fish in water, but it also significantly boosted their power.

Once one stepped into the range of Soul Nightmare Valley, even a powerful King-realm expert of the Nine Netherworlds, if slightly careless, would fall into the dreamscape woven by Lady Chi Yan and eventually become a prisoner in her palm.

Unless an Emperor-realm expert took action, no one else could truly snatch Soul Nightmare Valley from Lady Chi Yan's hands.

And as for Emperor-realm experts, not a single one had appeared in the Nine Netherworlds to this day.

Therefore, as long as she entered Soul Nightmare Valley, Hua Changxi would be safe.

"Whew~"

After an all-out dash, Hua Changxi finally arrived at the entrance of Soul Nightmare Valley. Just as she was about to vanish into the valley mouth, the sky above her suddenly darkened.

Boom!

A black palanquin, wreathed in monstrous ghost energy, descended with a crash like a meteorite.

King-realm!

A Ghost King had arrived!

Sensing the formidable aura emanating from the black palanquin, Hua Changxi immediately flashed and hid in the shadows within the valley.

At the same time, the black palanquin did not land but hovered in mid-air, its curtains moving without wind, exuding an aura that made one tremble.

A moment later, a group of Ghost Clan powerhouses hurried toward the black palanquin, kneeling in a dense mass.

"Greetings, Lord Mingyue!"

"Presumptuous!" the Ghost General-realm attendant carrying the palanquin barked sternly. "Lord Mingyue has broken through to become a Ghost King; you all should come and pay respects to—His Highness, King Ming!"

Amidst the fearful and trembling obeisances, the curtains of the black palanquin were slowly lifted.

A cold, stunningly beautiful woman in black robes appeared in everyone's sight.

"This seat just heard a rumor..."

Su Mingyue lifted her eyes slightly, looking down at the crowd below. Wherever her gaze fell, even the air seemed to freeze: "I heard that a member of the Ghost Clan appeared holding the Netherworld Blade?"

"Reporting to King Ming, it is indeed true!"

A Ghost Commander prostrated and reported: "That person went on a killing spree at the fourth Zhongyuan Pass. To this day, a dense aura of the Netherworld origin still lingers in the air, and the black broken blade they held is exactly the same as the legendary Netherworld Blade."

Hearing this, Su Mingyue's eyes immediately shot out a dazzling, covetous dark light. Just as she was about to continue questioning, a shrill cry came from the depths of the sky again.

She lifted her eyes slightly to see a Commander-realm Ghost Chariot flying over.

"Even a Ghost Chariot has come out..."

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