Chapter 194: The Nine-Lock Prison

Pain was the first thing Lothe felt.

A heavy pressure bore down on his body, pressing against his consciousness as though an invisible mountain rested on his chest. His eyelids trembled before slowly opening.

His vision blurred.

Then he saw her.

“Seana!”

His expression changed immediately.

She hung motionless in the cell opposite his, her head lowered and her black hair covering her face. Heavy chains bound her wrists, suspending her a few inches above the cold stone floor.

“Love!”

Lothe pulled against his restraints.

The chains rattled, sending pain through his arms, but he ignored it.

“Can you hear me?”

There was no response.

“Seana!”

His voice echoed down the corridor. For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then Seana took a sharp breath. Her fingers twitched, and she slowly raised her head. Her eyes were unfocused at first, but they soon settled on him.

“I’m fine, Little Fox,” she said, her voice hoarse.

The tension in Lothe’s face eased slightly.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Then she seemed to realize how foolish the question sounded. Both of them seem to be in the same situation.

A faint grin appeared on Lothe’s face.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

He looked over her body, checking for visible injuries.

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Seana studied him for another moment before relaxing.

Around them, the others began to wake.

Someone groaned. Metal scraped against stone. A curse came from farther down the corridor.

Elder Rowan was the first to regain his composure. He lifted his head and examined the unfamiliar surroundings before looking at the chains around his wrists.

Nyren woke soon after, followed by Oren, Caelan, and Darian.

Their weapons were gone.

More importantly, all of them were restrained.

Lothe lowered his gaze to the chains around his wrists. They looked like ordinary iron at first, but fine inscriptions covered their surface. Beneath the metal, faint runes pulsed at irregular intervals.

He focused on them.

[INSPECT]

[Location: Nine-Lock Prison]

[Classification: Specialized Cultivator Restraint Facility]

[Active Restraint Mechanisms Detected.]

[Meridians Lock: Active.]

[Core Lock: Active.]

[Spiritual Root Lock: Active.]

[Soul Lock: Active.]

[Bloodline Lock: Active.]

[Physique Lock: Active.]

[Consciousness Lock: Active.]

[Vitality Lock: Active.]

[Foundation Lock: Active.]

[Warning: Multiple suppression mechanisms are operating simultaneously.]

[Warning: External Spiritual Qi circulation is severely restricted.]

Lothe’s eyes moved over the notification.

Nine locks.

Each one targeted a different part of a cultivator’s existence. Together, they suppressed nearly every method of resistance.

He tested the restraints with a careful breath of Spiritual Qi.

The moment the energy reached his wrists, the runes flickered. A faint suction spread through the chains, swallowing the Qi before it could circulate.

Lothe stopped immediately.

Qi-siphoning runes.

Interesting.

He studied the inscriptions without moving his hands again. The runes were connected, each one feeding energy into the next. Breaking them by force would probably activate the entire restraint system.

But the inscriptions were delicate.

And delicate things always had weaknesses.

“Has anyone managed to circulate their Spiritual Qi?” Lothe asked.

“No,” Rowan replied from the nearest cell. His voice remained steady despite the pressure. “The chains interfere the moment I attempt it. They were made specifically for cultivators.”

Oren pulled against his restraints once before stopping. “They took our weapons too.”

“Obviously,” Darian muttered. “It would be embarrassing to imprison us and leave us armed.”

Lothe ignored him.

“Did anyone bring something useful from your sect?” he asked. “A treasure, tool, or hidden weapon?”

Rowan gave him a strange look.

“My Soul Manor is sealed. I can sense it, but I cannot enter.”

Lothe turned toward him. “What?”

“My Soul Manor,” Rowan repeated. “The prison sealed that as well.”

Nyren tested her connection and frowned. “Mine is sealed too.”

“Mine as well,” Oren said.

Caelan and Darian confirmed the same thing.

Seana quietly tested her own connection before shaking her head.

“I can’t access mine.”

Silence filled the corridor.

Lothe turned his attention inward. His Soul Manor remained accessible.

The purple twilight still covered the grass. The purple grasses continued releasing faint traces of Void Qi, and his stored treasures remained where he had left them. His connection felt heavier than usual, but it hadn’t been severed.

The prison had sealed everyone else’s Soul Manor.

Not his. Lothe considered the possibilities.

Perhaps the restraints contained a flaw. Perhaps the captors had overlooked something. Or perhaps his connection to the Void made his Soul Manor function differently.

He didn’t have enough information to decide.

A conclusion reached too early was only a guess pretending to be fact.

Across the corridor, Seana watched him. She knew that expression. Lothe had noticed something, and his mind was already testing every possible explanation.

She said nothing.

Lothe looked down at his chains again.

He was an Array Master. He had also received the Supreme Armament Inheritance from the Ancient Palace. He still hadn’t properly examined it, but the fragments of knowledge he had seen were enough to leave an impression.

He might not need to break the chains.

He might only need to misdirect the siphoning runes for a moment.

And if that failed—

The corner of his mouth lifted. He had other ways to deal with delicate things.

Footsteps sounded beyond the corridor. Everyone turned toward the entrance.

A tall figure wearing a wolf mask appeared, followed by several black-robed figures.

Their movements were orderly and controlled. They didn’t move like ordinary guards.

The wolf-masked figure stopped in the center of the corridor.

Darian was the first to speak.

“Who are you? Where have you taken us? And what have you done with our weapons?”

The masked figure ignored him.

“Our lord says you should behave yourselves,” he said. “Be good prisoners, and you will be released in time.”

“You have the missing children, don’t you?” Nyren asked.

The figure remained silent.

His silence answered her.

“What do you want with innocent children?” Darian demanded. “Cowards.”

Oren’s expression hardened. “You abducted children under the protection of the Four Great Sects. You must think very little of them.”

The wolf-masked figure finally looked toward Oren.

“Why wouldn’t we dare?”

His answer was so direct that nobody spoke for a moment.

The Four Great Sects had dominated Country B long before the apocalypse. Their families had controlled vast resources, commanded powerful forces, and held influence over the country. After the world’s transformation, their cultivators had grown stronger still.

Abducting children from under their protection was already an act of extraordinary confidence.

Admitting it without hesitation was even more troubling.

These people either possessed enough strength to challenge the Four Great Sects—or they had something else protecting them.

Interesting. Lothe studied the wolf mask.

The figure turned toward him, as though sensing his attention.

Their gazes met.

Lothe couldn’t see the man’s expression, but he could feel the scrutiny behind the mask.

The masked guard remembered his lord’s warning. Pay particular attention to the one with spatial abilities. Do not underestimate him.

Lothe’s restraints had been reinforced beyond the others. Every lock had been checked, and the inscriptions had been strengthened.

Even so, the guard had no intention of becoming careless.

The silence stretched.

Then a strange sound came from behind him.

“Hmph.”

The wolf-masked figure glanced over his shoulder, assuming one of the others had made the noise.

It came again.

This time, it was followed by a low growl.

The atmosphere changed.

One of the black-robed figures had begun to tremble. His shoulders jerked, and his fingers curled unnaturally beneath his sleeves.

“Control yourself,” the wolf-masked figure said quietly.

The subordinate didn’t respond.

Another growl escaped him.

His hand stretched forward, and his sleeve slipped back, revealing a patch of rotten gray skin.

The wolf-masked figure moved immediately.

He seized the subordinate’s shoulder before the man could take another step. A wave of force passed through the corridor, and both figures vanished beyond the entrance.

The remaining guards hurried after them.

Their footsteps faded.

For several breaths, nobody spoke.

Rowan’s expression remained grim. “This place is more dangerous than we expected.”

But Lothe wasn’t listening.

He knew that growl.

He had heard it countless times since the apocalypse began. He had seen what those creatures could do to settlements and cultivators.

He had also seen the exposed skin.

The decay. The unnatural movement. The lack of human response.

There was no doubt.

They were zombies.

But these zombies spoke, followed orders, maintained discipline, and operated inside a prison designed to restrain cultivators.

That was what unsettled him most.

A zombie driven by instinct was dangerous.

An organized force of zombies was something else entirely.

And the wolf-masked figure had restrained the unstable subordinate without hesitation. He had not panicked or attacked blindly.

Someone was controlling them. Lothe’s eyes narrowed.

No. That explanation was too simple.

There had to be a powerful figure behind this operation—someone capable of organizing the undead and preventing them from descending into mindless slaughter.

Their lord.

Lothe’s thoughts turned to the wider situation.

Since the apocalypse, zombies had been one of humanity’s greatest threats. Their numbers had once seemed endless, and cultivators had fought for every settlement they protected.

Yet the reports of large-scale zombie attacks had become strangely rare.

There were still scattered incidents, but nothing comparable to the original outbreak.

Perhaps the Four Great Sects had suppressed them.

Perhaps the zombies had scattered. Or perhaps they had never disappeared.

“Did you discover something?” Seana asked quietly.

Lothe turned toward her. Only then did he realize the others were watching him.

“It’s only a possibility,” he said.

He paused, organizing his thoughts.

“Have any of you noticed how few major zombie attacks have been reported recently? The apocalypse began with a massive outbreak, but the large-scale attacks became less frequent.”

Caelan’s expression hardened.

“The Four Great Sects have been eliminating them. Our disciples protect the settlements and prevent the infection from spreading.”

There was a sharpness in his voice.

Lothe noticed it but didn’t press him.

“That’s possible,” he said. “But it doesn’t explain everything.”

“What do you mean?” Rowan asked.

Lothe looked toward the entrance where the masked figures had disappeared.

He considered the chains, the disciplined guards, the missing children, and the prison itself.

Piece by piece, the clues began to connect.

“If these creatures have a leader powerful enough to organize them, and if their numbers have disappeared from the surface without a matching increase in battles…” Lothe said slowly, “then perhaps they haven’t been eliminated.”

Nyren’s eyes sharpened.

“You think they’ve been gathering somewhere?”

“It’s possible.”

Lothe leaned back against the cold stone, the chains around his wrists rattling softly.

“And if they’ve gathered in large numbers, they would need somewhere to live. Somewhere hidden from the cultivators aboveground.”

The corridor fell silent.

Rowan’s expression changed as he followed the reasoning.

“An underground settlement?”

Lothe’s lips curved slightly. “More than a settlement, I suspect.”

His gaze remained fixed on the dark entrance. “If I’m right, we haven’t been taken to an ordinary prison.”

He let the silence settle. “We may be inside an underground Zombie City.”