Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1023 - Mystery Resolved
Chapter 1023 – Mystery Resolved
At this point, Liu Wuxie had no room left to retreat. If he wanted to take Xu Lingxue and Murong Yi away openly, he would have to find the Frost Bead.
The surrounding ice laws continued to flow to the underside of the mountain at a steady pace. Liu Wuxie moved cautiously. He had a strong feeling that something dangerous lurked beneath the bone-chilling waters.
Liu Wuxie still couldn’t determine exactly what danger lurked below. Upon entering the underground world, he had heard a violent impact beneath the glacier, as if a colossal creature were moving.
Moreover, the mountain was only a few hundred meters beneath the Half-Moon Nunnery.
Suddenly, Liu Wuxie stopped in his tracks as he saw a dark shadow begin to take form before him. A fully intact corpse lay frozen in silence, entombed in ice for countless years. The corpse wore simple grey robes, unmistakably similar to those worn by the nuns of Half-Moon Nunnery.
“Could she be a disciple of the Half-Moon Nunnery?” Liu Wuxie crept closer carefully. The sight of a corpse encased so deep in ice unsettled him.
When he drew near, he finally got a clear look. The woman wore a nun’s robe and had delicate features, appearing to be in her thirties. Strangely, a faint flush still colored her cheeks. Yet, no trace of life remained. The extreme cold had taken her life and frozen her body solid.
Or perhaps the surrounding ice laws had trapped her before she died. If a living person were to fuse with ice, their internal organs would fail to react in time, and they would lose all sensation. Liu Wuxie could only imagine the despair she must’ve felt.
Upon closer inspection, Liu Wuxie noticed her cultivation wasn’t weak. She had reached at least the upper stages of the Earth Profound Realm. It was a remarkable achievement for someone her age. Now he understood why the two women had mentioned that the Half-Moon Nunnery had once stood as a powerful sect before declining for unknown reasons.
He carefully dug out the corpse and scanned it with his divine sense. Only after confirming she was truly dead did he finally exhale in relief.
Even Liu Wuxie would be caught off guard if the corpse suddenly woke up.
He laid the corpse gently on the tunnel floor and noticed something strange: the woman’s skin had begun to soften. The change unsettled him deeply, making him wonder if she wasn’t dead but in some form of hibernation.
Though her body softened, he still sensed no life from her. He detected no heartbeat or breath.
Her supple, radiant skin gave her the appearance of a living person, not a corpse. Yet, if she were alive, why didn’t she have a heartbeat or breath?
“Since she wears the Half-Moon Nunnery’s attire, she must be one of their disciples. I’ll do a good deed and take her out of this icy purgatory.” Liu Wuxie decided before placing her into the beast pouch, which could store living beings.
Fiery lay inside the pouch, fast asleep. The corpse’s sudden appearance jolted it awake.
Liu Wuxie couldn’t bear to leave her behind in this icy purgatory for all eternity, so he decided to bring her along.
As he continued digging forward, Liu Wuxie crept closer to the mountain’s underside. He soon spotted several more shadowy figures—each one a corpse. When he dug them out, he immediately noticed how different they were from the first.
“This is weird… These corpses show signs of decay. Their skin has cracked, and more importantly, their heads are facing the underside of the mountain, unlike the first one, whose head was pointing outward. It’s like that first corpse tried to leave while the others were heading in,” Liu Wuxie muttered, frowning in confusion.
Tattered clothes clung to their mangled corpses, now damaged beyond recognition, forming a grotesque scene.
He wrapped the corpses in beast pelts and stored them in his beast pouch, intending to return them to the Half-Moon Nunnery.
Could they have ventured deep underground like me to search for the Frost Bead? Liu Wuxie froze in place, struck by a sudden thought.
The appearance of the three corpses couldn’t be a coincidence. It was highly likely that the Frost Bead held great significance to the Half-Moon Nunnery. The nunnery had likely sent these people, and the extreme cold had claimed their lives deep underground.
Liu Wuxie hesitated. Master Yi could have laid this as a massive trap, using the Frost Bead as a pretext to eliminate him, so the two ladies would stay behind in the Half-Moon Nunnery willingly.
But Liu Wuxie soon shook his head. He had dealt with enough people to read their character well, and Master Yi didn’t strike him as the manipulative or scheming type.
If she were truly plotting something, she wouldn’t have given Xu Lingxue and Murong Yi a whole year to decide, let alone provide them with resources to improve their cultivation.
If Master Yi genuinely wanted him dead, it would only bring sorrow to Xu Lingxue and Murong Yi, and that sorrow could indirectly destroy them.
Ruling out that possibility, Liu Wuxie came to one conclusion: the Frost Bead was critical for the Half-Moon Nunnery.
Brushing all the distracting thoughts aside, he knew he could unravel all the mysteries if he could find the Frost Bead.
As he dug deeper underground, it didn’t take long before he encountered a stone-like material. The Half-Moon Nunnery stood atop this mountain, and the entire formation consisted of a unique type of rock unlike anything he had seen before in the Central Plains.
These ancient rocks bore deep erosion marks left by seawater.
A giant boulder stood in his way, forcing him to stop and examine his surroundings. Without Ghost Eye, he would’ve lost his way the moment he ventured underground.
Ahead, he discovered several more corpses, each meeting the same fate as the ones he had encountered earlier. He relied on Ghost Eye to scan everything within several kilometers around him.
The deeper he went, the tougher the ice became, limiting the range of his technique. His divine sense failed to pierce through the glacier layers, as the ice here contained dense laws of ice.
“This is strange… these stones are covered in densely packed spiritual runes,” Liu Wuxie muttered, eyes widening at the discovery.
Though the spiritual runes flickered faintly, Liu Wuxie’s sharp eye noticed them.
Could there be a powerful spiritual array underground, one that someone had designed to protect this mountain? A bold thought sparked in Liu Wuxie’s mind.
To verify his suspicion, he continued digging around until he had nearly hollowed out half the mountain’s base.
Cracking sounds echoed from above the mountain as the entire mountain shifted downward by several inches.
The sudden movement startled everyone at the Half-Moon Nunnery. They rushed out of their buildings in panic, unsure of what had happened.
Liu Wuxie also fell into deep thought, staring at the hollow space he had dug out.
A spiritual array protected the entire mountain, just as he had speculated.
However, for some reason, the spiritual array had stopped functioning, rendering the entire mountain a perpetually frozen, uninhabitable place.
The Half-Moon Nunnery’s decline seems to be closely related to this spiritual array. After malfunctioning, the spiritual array must have plunged the mountain into terrifying cold and driven many disciples away.
Liu Wuxie saw through the spiritual array at one glance and pieced everything together.
“I understand now. The Frost Bead is the key, and it began disrupting the spiritual array as soon as it formed. That’s what changed the mountain’s environment,” Liu Wuxie muttered, his eyes lighting up in realization.
Thousands of years ago, before the Frost Bead had fully formed, it posed little threat to the spiritual array. However, it began eroding the spiritual array’s structure once it matured, making the Half-Moon Nunnery’s environment harsher for human habitation.
Though Liu Wuxie didn’t wholly understand the spiritual array’s purpose, he could analyze its function from the rough outline.
It was a defensive spiritual array, conjuring a massive barrier that spanned thousands of miles, isolating the mountain and transforming it into a paradise in the extreme north.
This spiritual array reminded Liu Wuxie of the Four Seasons Mirage Array. Although this spiritual array didn’t match the mystique, it still simulated the four seasons, bathing the entire mountain in perpetual spring.
“I finally understand why Master Yi sent me down here. She wants me to retrieve the Frost Bead and restore the Half-Moon Nunnery’s environment,” Liu Wuxie muttered as he sat on a boulder, realizing her true intent.
The Half-Moon Nunnery had likely tasked the nuns, whose corpses he had recovered, with the same mission, but none of them had made it back alive.
Liu Wuxie felt a wave of sorrow for the Half-Moon Nunnery. A single treasure had brought down a powerful sect. It gave him a clearer comprehension of how nature could be devastating despite its beauty.
He only had one goal now: to locate the Frost Bead. It was a heaven-defying treasure, and he would’ve risked everything to find it, even without Master Yi’s request.
Aside from helping him strengthen the Frost Dao Art, the bead could help him absorb its laws and break through to the third-level Spirit Profound Realm. Nothing excited him more than advancing his cultivation.
With countless enemies in the Central Plains, Liu Wuxie knew he had to grow stronger to survive and protect his family.
Liu Wuxie extended his divine sense to search for the Frost Bead. Though he had cleared much of the underground space, ice still blanketed most areas.
“What a terrifying cold!” Liu Wuxie exclaimed, and his divine sense recoiled.
The unbearable cold pushed his divine sense back, and he estimated the cold to be thousands of degrees below freezing. Any ordinary human would freeze instantly into a block of ice.
“Found it!” Liu Wuxie exclaimed as his eyes locked onto a spot ten meters down. It was a peculiar slope where bone-chilling water flowed and returned to the sea.
The Frost Bead rested at the top of the slope. It hadn’t fallen into the sea, nor could it rise on its own.
Over countless years, the bone-chilling water had flowed steadily and gradually formed the Frost Bead.
Liu Wuxie didn’t act immediately. Instead, he waited patiently. The water surged over the bead at regular intervals, and he had to seize the right moment to retrieve it before the next tide struck.
If he touched the bone-chilling water, it would trap him in eternal ice, just like the corpses he’d found.
It wasn’t the water’s temperature that made it deadly, but the terrifying laws within it that were capable of freezing even space and time.
Humans, being flesh and blood, couldn’t survive even brief contact. One drop would instantly turn them into ice sculptures.
Two hours passed in the blink of an eye, and Liu Wuxie had begun to see a pattern in the tide, just like ocean waves.
