Chapter 191: Qingwan, She’s Here!

Hu Huxu’s sharp, excited voice still echoed through the cavern, carrying the manic delight of “the plan is settled, the prey is trapped.”

He spread his arms wide, as if to use his body as an anchor to nail this painstakingly prepared prison shut, to firmly pin the soon-to-arrive, weakened Gu Qingwan inside.

Lu Yuan’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach as he stared at the black-red motes that were still painfully coalescing, moving at an exasperatingly slow pace.

A feeling he had never known before rose in his chest.

Desperation, real desperation.

He was truly trapped, gravely wounded, his master was imprisoned, and the last trump card—Gu Qingwan’s arrival—had been seriously delayed and weakened.

The other side had already set a net as dense as the heavens and earth, waiting at leisure; their target had even been Gu Qingwan from the very start!

What could he do?

Wait?

Flee?

Run where?

Outside were the Blood-Skeleton Spirit Lord and countless evil creatures; inside lay even more terrifying traps.

Rush in to save the old man? In his present state, he probably couldn’t even get past Hu Huxu.

Hopelessness, true hopelessness.

From the depths of the cave, the dragging of chains and muffled moans that had been faintly audible suddenly stopped.

Immediately after came an extremely slight sound, like dry leaves rubbing together or some soft-bodied creature sliding over rock, a nauseatingly sticky noise.

That sound was not singular but layered, mingling as it slowly spread out from the darkness at the cave’s depths.

At the same time, an indescribable, soul-instinct-shivering chill began to spread,

like the first gust of wind blown out of a tomb sealed for ten thousand years.

This aura differed from the Blood Spirit Lord’s brutal bloodlust; it was more reserved, deeper, and more insidiously strange.

It seemed to seep straight into bone marrow, freezing thought, carrying an ancient, rotten, yet subtly vital, sickly-sweet stench.

Mixed with the earth-vein yin energy’s pure coldness, it sent Lu Yuan’s already-dulled head spinning, provoking strong dizziness and nausea, his stomach churning.

Meanwhile, the wild joy on Hu Huxu’s face faded somewhat, replaced by a complex expression of gravity, wariness, and a conspiratorial mutual understanding.

He straightened his slightly hunched back, turned toward the cave’s depths, bowing his head a little. His voice steadied and cooled:

“Master Liu, two Divine Reverends, the timing is perfect.”

Footsteps grew nearer.

The first figure to fully emerge from the dark was a tall, unnaturally thin man.

He wore an extremely peculiar black robe that did not look like ordinary cloth, more like something woven from deep-water plants.

Its surface gleamed damply, the texture like layered, dense willow leaves, yet with twisted cord-like veins.

The robe was unusually wide, shrouding his whole form, the hem dragging on the ground.

As he moved, he slid over the damp rock soundlessly, leaving faint wet marks behind.

His face was deathly pale, almost bloodless, the skin taut as if long denied sunlight.

His features were surprisingly delicate, even handsome, but combined they gave an inhuman stiffness.

Most striking were his eyes: the whites dominated while the pupils were as thin as needles, showing a grayish, dead-white hue.

Right now they quietly, emotionlessly “looked” at the cave entrance where Lu Yuan and Hu Huxu stood.

His gaze was hollow, like two bottomless ancient pools, also like the eyes of some cold-blooded reptile,

pure observation and calculation, devoid of any human emotional fluctuation.

Most noticeable were his hands, revealed from the sleeve openings—fingers unnaturally long and jointed.

They matched his pallor, but his nails were an eerie dark-blue, long and sharp, as if polished bone spikes.

His hands hung naturally by his sides, faint dark-blue mist wreathed his fingers, subtly resonating with the nearby earth-vein yin energy.

He did not speak, nor did he emit any deliberately terrifying aura; he simply stood there.

Like a weird willow that had grown for unknowable ages in the utmost yin.

Fused perfectly with the “Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land” cold and the evil deity’s aura from the cave’s depths,

he was Liu Xuanyin, the current head of the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family, a man who had tempered himself into something like an evil thing.

But Liu Xuanyin’s arrival was only the beginning.

After he stood still, the dense, seemingly living darkness behind him suddenly writhed and churned.

The darkness ceased to be mere absence of light; it became viscous, constantly shifting, an “organism” that exuded a nauseating sweet-meaty and mentally corrupting stench.

Then, slowly “floating” out of that writhing dark came two…

larger, stranger, only partially visible phantoms that exuded a terror so cold it seemed to freeze Lu Yuan’s soul just by their presence.

The left phantom vaguely took on an extremely twisted, irregular silhouette,

as if knit from countless thin, soft, slimy tentacles tangled into a formless mass of flesh.

It had no fixed shape, constantly flexing, extending, contracting, transforming.

Each movement released an even fouler, dizzying sickly-sweet scent and a potent mental-invasion wave that seemed to burrow into the brain.

At the phantom’s center shimmered a dim, intermittently pulsing ghostly green light,

like an evil single eye—cold, greedy, toyingly piercing the dark—to “watch” Lu Yuan at the cave’s entrance.

The right phantom was more “solid” and repulsive.

It resembled a gigantic spider, but more desecrating and deeply disturbing.

Its core was a bloated sac that continually exuded viscous, foul-smelling dark-yellow pus.

The sac’s surface was not smooth but covered in densely packed, constantly opening and closing pores.

Within each pore ghostly, contorted semi-transparent faces appeared and vanished, mouths silently gaping as if enduring eternal torment.

From underneath that filthy sac extended several extremely thick, jointed limbs bristling with barbs and suction cups.

Those limbs seemed assembled haphazardly from congealed foul blood, broken bone, and rotting tendons.

Above the sac there was no clear head, only a mass of violently roiling, unseemly white vapor.

Within that mist one could vaguely discern overlapping, twisted, disproportionate gigantic human faces.

They crowded together, silently screaming, crying, grinning.

These two phantoms had not fully “stepped out” of the darkness; much of their bodies remained fused with the writhing living shadow.

They appeared as unspeakable horrors grown from the deepest forbidden part of the Liu Family’s domain, born at the core of the Nine Nether God-Refining Array.

Their pressure, though somewhat suppressed by the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land, was no less chilling than the outside Blood Spirit Lord’s brute force—only more eerie and insidious.

They struck at the most primal disgust and fear in souls and living beings, an undefinable desecration, corruption, and pure malice.

In that instant, Lu Yuan’s dormant Demon-Slaying System awakened and, upon sensing those two phantom auras,

erupted like cold water thrown into boiling oil, unleashing a blinding, blood-red warning!

A cold, detailed stream of data pierced his consciousness like the sharpest ice spike.

[Type: Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend]

[Cultivation: Unknown]

[Description: A spirit-type super malevolent deity cultivated by the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family. It was created by using dream-captivating techniques, fused with earth-vein nightmare essences, cores of demonic beasts, and the remnants of ancient dream gods, nurtured for three cycles of sixty years in the Abyss of Eternal Sleep.]

[Danger Level: ★★★★★★★★★★]

[Notes: No fixed form, can change endlessly. Skilled at weaving, manipulating, and devouring the dreams and minds of living beings, creating boundless illusions and inducing inner demons, silently eroding the soul and twisting cognition.

Its power acts directly on the consciousness layer; conventional physical and energy defenses are nearly ineffective.

Has initially formed a pseudo-divine status—“Dream Fiend.”

With the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land and the Nine Nether God-Refining Array enhancing it, its mental corrosion range and intensity are greatly increased.]

[Type: Ten-Thousand-Filth Mother]

[Cultivation: Unknown]

[Description: A derivative super malevolent deity produced by the Commanding Ghosts Liu Family. They collected bones of myriad spirits from ancient battlefields, extreme yin filthy blood, earth-fault miasma, and the utmost resentments of dead women, gestating it in the Nine Nether Blood Pool for two cycles of sixty years.]

[Danger Level: ★★★★★★★★★★]

[Notes: Formless, often manifesting as a giant spider or a conglomerate of filthy blood. Can infinitely spawn filth-blood flesh and bone derivatives, spit soul-corroding miasma and corrupting pus, and release mass-spirits’ lamentation shockwaves.

Where it passes, living beings are polluted and deformed, the earth corrodes and collapses, all life withers to ruin.

Holds a pseudo-divine status “Filth.”

In the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land and the Nine Nether God-Refining Array environment, its filth-propagation and corrosive abilities are greatly enhanced.]

To be honest, this was the most extensive danger-rating Lu Yuan had seen since transmigrating.

Rows and rows of information, too much to take in at once.

Of course, there was no need to analyze it in depth; it was useless to him in the present moment.

Thousand-Faced Dream!

Ten-Thousand-Filth Mother!

Two twenty-star super malevolent deities!

And the unfathomable Liu Xuanyin practically fused with the evil array, and the ravenous Hu Huxu...

And this damned Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land prepared specifically for Gu Qingwan, and the Nine Nether God-Refining Array beneath it...

Lu Yuan looked at the blinding twenty-star ratings in his mind,

felt the two deities’ crushing aura, even if weakened by the Forbidden Land, pressing down like mountains,

and glanced at the black-red motes whose slow coalescence seemed poised to dissipate under the gods’ pressure at any second...

An unprecedented chill and a suffocating grip tightened around Lu Yuan’s throat.

Liu Xuanyin stood quietly at the living darkness’s edge.

Those dead-gray pupils watched Lu Yuan at the entrance the entire time without shifting.

There was no predator’s hunger in his light, no smugness of control—only a pure, cold inquiry,

as if Lu Yuan were not a person but a malfunctioning object displaying unexpected properties.

Silence fell briefly in the cavern: the Thousand-Faced Dream and Ten-Thousand-Filth Mother moved slowly, dripping slime;

the feeble sounds of spiritual pollution and filth persisted, and the black-red motes still struggled to merge, the faint sizzle nearly imperceptible.

The silence pressed so tightly it felt suffocating, like the last frozen breath before a storm.

Finally, Liu Xuanyin spoke.

His voice was not loud; it was low and hoarse, his pace calm.

With an unhuman, monotone rhythm, each word entered Lu Yuan’s ear with crystal clarity yet utterly devoid of human warmth.

“Lu Yuan.”

He spoke Lu Yuan’s name as if confirming a label.

“What did you do to her?”

“Or rather, what is on you that affected her, catalyzed her, made her become this… existence beyond reason?”

Liu Xuanyin’s needle-like gray pupils shifted slightly, focusing on Lu Yuan’s face, trying to capture any micro-expression.

“Tell me.”

The command brooked no denial, yet remained ice-cold and emotionless.

Lu Yuan sat in silence, lip muscles tight, pale-faced, ignoring Liu Xuanyin’s questioning.

He didn’t even spare the man a glance; his gaze stayed fixed on the black-red motes.

Despair?

Yes.

Despair to the bone.

The gap in power, the intricacy of the trap, the precision of the target—all pointed to an almost certain defeat.

He felt like a chess piece thrown onto the board, believing himself important.

Only now did he realize he was merely bait used to lure the true “king” into the trap.

Lu Yuan hoped Gu Qingwan would not come.

Wouldn’t step into the execution prepared for her.

But... was that possible?

The jade pendant was shattered, contact was established, the coordinates were fixed.

Once Qingwan responded to the summons, she would not give up halfway.

She might be delayed, weakened, but she would come.

That knowledge—that she would step into a trap knowingly because of him—filled Lu Yuan with guilt and helplessness atop his despair.

He had led her here with his own hands.

So what could he say now?

Explain to Liu Xuanyin?

Plead for mercy?

Or angrily lash out?

Nothing mattered.

Before absolute force and meticulous calculation, words were powerless.

Lu Yuan chose silence, using his last strength to hold onto outward calm though his inner world had long been drowned by an icy lake of despair.

Liu Xuanyin waited a few breaths. Seeing no reaction from Lu Yuan, his inhumanly stiff expression unchanged, he seemed unsurprised.

He slowly lowered his hands; his gray-white pupils returned to pure cold observation.

Since Lu Yuan refused to supply information, they would wait for the “subject” to arrive and then “collect” and “analyze.”

Time ticked by in the suffocating silence and standoff.

The black-red motes coalesced with increasing effort and growing smoothness.

The initial sluggishness, as if viewed behind heavy frosted glass, was fading slowly but steadily.

The motes’ fusion no longer faltered; small areas began to aggregate quickly.

Specks of light connected into patches, forming small whorls of deepening black-red mist.

Within the cavern, the Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend’s sickly mental invasion and the Filth Mother’s putrid stench seemed to be held in check by some unseen force; they no longer expanded as recklessly as before.

The two gigantic twisted phantoms’ motions in the dark also slowed somewhat.

Within their evil gazes was a sliver of instinctive… wariness?

Hu Huxu’s face darkened; he instinctively took a half step back, seeking distance from the forming black-red fog.

Liu Xuanyin remained still, but his gray-white pupils contracted minutely for an instant.

Lu Yuan’s heart beat faster as the black-red fog accelerated its coalescence.

Not with hope, but with a near-tragic resolve to accept the end.

She’s coming.

At last, after what felt like an age of painfully slow merging, something changed.

“Chaa—!!!”

A sound so low it seemed to strike the very souls of all living things with endless authority and indifference exploded through the heavily sealed cave!

Not merely a noise, but a rupture in the rules!

A groan of space itself!

The dispersed black-red wisps, like an ironclad army hearing its king’s command, suddenly drew inward, then burst forth with thunderous force!

There was no cataclysmic explosion, no blinding light.

Only a thick, impenetrable black-red color, as if a dam of blood-dark river had broken,

instantly filling the space at the cave’s entrance!

This black-red was no simple mist.

It was dense, viscous, slowly flowing, within it seeming to be the birth and death of countless stars, mountains sinking into blood seas, primordial extinction, and an icy, timeless majesty silently roaring.

The instant it appeared, the cavern’s previous gray Spirit-Locking fog, the pure earth-vein yin energy, the sickly mental invasion, and the putrid stench...

all seemed repelled, subdued, and swallowed by this pure black-red!

The cave walls, engraved with ancient runes and built from incredibly sturdy rock, under the black-red fog’s cover emitted groaning cracks from being overwhelmed.

Their surfaces quickly took on dark red, rust-like stains that spread inward, corroding and creeping deeper.

The invisible restricting force of the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land writhed like a venomous snake burned by a red-hot iron.

It frantically contracted and counterattacked, clashing violently with the black-red fog, producing a silent, teeth-grinding friction and the sound of rules being annihilated.

The entire cave space began to violently and unstably ripple and twist, as if it could shatter at any moment.

Amid this terrifying upheaval of the world turning color and the rule-layer in chaos,

the core of that dense black-red fog slowly drew inward, condensing.

Finally, it outlined a tall, slender, graceful figure exuding unearthly authority and a cold, deathlike stillness…

A red silhouette descended!

Qingwan, she’s here!