Chương 389: A Vow (II)

"We're almost there." That was Long Tao announcing himself, as usual, from the shadows. Since I've kind of gotten used to his voice just appearing in my ear out of thin air, I wasn't even that startled. Glancing to the side, I saw a rare expression on his face: one of reservation.

"Did you find the art?"

"... no," I said.

"Hm," he seemed to mostly just shrug it off.

"Unfortunate. Well, it's still early to establish a Sect, regardless."

"Setting the issue of the core to the side," I said.

"Can the kids, or Shuren at least, even defeat what's at the bottom?"

"Unlikely," he shrugged.

"It's a proper eleventh-tier Demonic Beast. No... it's not a beast any longer. At this point, it's likely humanoid, or humanoid-like." Wait, what the fuck?! Eleventh-tier... isn't, isn't that roughly Shedding Mortality Realm?!!

"So, it can be reasoned with?"

"As much as a mad cow can, I suppose."

"... then why the hell are we going down there?"

"It has to die."

"Why?"

"Because if a demonic beast somehow manages to reach the twelfth tier, it becomes an actual Demon. According to my Father, the birth of a Demon is akin to an apocalyptic event--they can control all demonic beasts, and they get stronger through consuming cultivators and mortals. Now, the chances of that thing down there becoming a twelfth-tier beast are slim, at best, but they exist."

"Right. Quite noble. Stupid, but noble."

"Well, if things go awry, I'm sure Master has a plan." He grinned rather widely, and I could only sigh. Did I have a plan? Well, I had a few. I didn't want for it to come down to any of them, but for the worst-case scenarios, I had a few things to spare. There was always the Tortoise Mirror; even with the advent of my knowledge, its window still held '???' for the realm of an attack it could endure, further reinforcing the idea of just how much of a waste it was to use it against that troglodyte of the town's lord.

There was also the Eternal Sacrifice--though that was truly, undoubtedly, the last-ditch effort, and it would only work to block an attack, not much else. I can also deploy the Paradox-Cycle Reversal Array at the end of the day. So, luckily, I wasn't entirely void of options, but I wasn't particularly happy either about going to face something that was at the Shedding Mortality Realm, and Long Tao's plans involved phoenix feathers and pixie dust of what I can stitch together... apparently.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. I don't buy it, though; a reincarnated monster wouldn't put faith into somebody else to keep him alive. I don't think, at least. Regardless, if it has to be done, I'll step forward myself. Maybe show these kids I'm not so useless anymore. That they can treat me like an adult, at least.

Corridors, as we descended further and further, grew narrower once more, but, at the same time, the frequency of Yin Spirits was almost nonexistent. Perhaps one or two per hour, at most. This went on for almost five hours, though, about halfway through, we stopped descending--or at least as much. We were still going down, for sure, but also more in a curve, treading sideways.

"Stop!" Shuren suddenly called out, and everyone came to a halt. Though it was dark, and there was about forty feet between us, I could see in her expression the terror of finding something she didn't think would be there.

"We need to go back immediately! There's, there's something far too terrifying at the end of this path, and it's telling us to go back while we can." She finally turned and faced me, her expression flinching when she saw mine.

"F-Fellow Daoist, surely..."

"Guard the rear," I said, using Shadow Steps to appear right beside her.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure we all get out alive."

"..." she bit her lip, her eyes full of uncertainty. Ultimately, though, she melded into the burst of light and appeared where I just was. Tsk. Showoff.... khm. I took a deep breath and led the way, with the kids suddenly closing the distance they opened up when Shuren was at the front. I silently rolled my eyes and continued, eyes as focused as they'd ever been on the melding jagged rocks that fanned out to the side and the occasional flicker of cyan light trying to break through them to no avail.

It became deathly quiet at some point, I realized; not even our footsteps could be heard, as though swallowed by the darkness beneath us. I'd glance back every so often to confirm we hadn't been trapped by an illusion, but they were always there, primed to step in front of me at a moment's notice. I spotted it first when there was about sixty yards or so between us.

The curvy path suddenly flattened into a straight descent at a decent angle, and at its end was a flicker of light that grew larger and larger as we approached it, turning into an arched entryway.

"Be careful, Master!" Wan Lan warned, though I stopped any of them from stepping forward. I was inordinately calm, though that was due to a combination of ignorance, tools, and the few arts working to keep me that way. The light temporarily blinded me as I crossed the threshold, though the edges of the chamber came into focus rather quickly. It was the most spacious one, by far, the size of an actual football stadium, and it was the most brilliant one.

Its walls were gemmed to hell and back with high-quality Spirit Stones--tens of thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of them, at least. It was like walking into a fucking bank vault, I swear. Or Smaug's lair. However, all that paled in comparison to the throne of literal bones nestled at the very center of the entire thing; it stood up at around forty feet at least, bones of all colors jutting from its shape and at around ten feet wide.

The arms wove out into gentle, symmetrical curves, bending into the pair of gaping maws, while the splat went up flat for almost its entire length, curving backwards only at the very tip, forming a crozier back. And seated on top of it was a person... I'm fairly certain.

I mean, they were about ten feet tall, with bones jutting out of their shoulders and strange mass hewed across their face in the shape of curved vines, and there was a red crystal pulsating precisely at the center of their chest, and they had three eyes--two damningly red ones just above their sallow cheeks, and the third splattered across their right hand's palm, and all three were currently staring at me.

"Welcome, guests," and, thus, it spoke in a voice deep and coarse, as though having smoked cigs for about seventeen centuries.

"To our Kingdom; the Kingdom of the Dead... where the living do not belong."