Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1445 - Underground World

Chapter 1445 – Underground World

The three froze, staring as the compass disappeared into the ghost face’s eye.

“We’re going down!” Han Feizi said, taking a deep breath before plunging straight into the ghost face’s eye. The compass was a gift from his ancestor, and he trusted that it would not mislead him.

If the ghost face’s eye had not been a path of survival, the compass never would have guided them there.

Concerned for Han Feizi’s safety, Liu Wuxie and Qiao Bian rushed after him. As they passed through the ghost face’s eye, they felt as if they had stepped into another world and began to suspect that the ghost face contained an independent space-time within.

After falling for dozens of breaths, the three finally steadied themselves in mid-air. The compass still hovered in front of Han Feizi, but it had stopped moving altogether.

“Where are we?” Qiao Bian asked, his voice low.

Darkness wrapped around the world like a shroud, yet it did not impede their vision. They could still vaguely make out their surroundings, and Liu Wuxie, whose Ghost Eye allowed him to see even farther, frowned deeply.

Han Feizi put away the compass, his expression just as perplexed.

“We should be in Nightmare City’s internal world,” Liu Wuxie said, causing both Han Feizi and Qiao Bian to turn toward him in shock.

All these years, humans had only dared to wander the outer reaches of the city and rarely ventured into the deeper regions, much less enter the inner world. Even Earth Immortals risked death here, let alone Void Realm cultivators.

The three of them had entered Nightmare City’s inner world purely by coincidence, following the guidance of Han Feizi’s compass. The vast expanse around them lay empty, and their voices echoed faintly into the distance, hinting at the enormity of this world.

“Brother Liu, which way do we go?” Han Feizi asked. For the moment, he had no plan; the compass had brought them here but gave no hint where to head next.

Liu Wuxie closed his eyes and extended his senses into the surroundings. Once again, he felt that mysterious force tugging at him from afar, and he maintained that state for a full minute before opening his eyes and pinpointing its direction.

“This way,” Liu Wuxie said. Even he couldn’t tell whether that force was luring him closer or warning him away, but at this point, he could only gamble.

The underground world stretched out boundlessly, like a sealed realm that had remained undisturbed for millions of years. The air felt heavy and ancient, and a faint, cold breeze brushed past them whenever they moved.

A brittle cracking sound rang out beneath Qiao Bian’s feet, and the trio stopped at once.

“A bone,” Qiao Bian said, squatting down beside a segment of human finger bone about half a foot long, so weathered that it seemed ready to crumble at a touch.

Liu Wuxie knelt, picked up the bone, and studied it for a moment, his brows knitting even tighter.

“This is the remains of a Quasi-Immortal,” he said. He could sense lingering traces of powerful Quasi-Immortal Realm laws within the bone, though it teetered on the verge of complete collapse. Only by relying on Ghost Eye could he perceive those fading remnants.

“How is that possible? Quasi-Immortals are virtually immortal, and their bodies won’t decay even after a million years,” Han Feizi said with a deep frown.

Quasi-Immortals stood at the pinnacle of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain so long as no true immortals appeared. Their physiques were nearly indistinguishable from that of an immortal, and their remains would not rot to the point that only a fragment of finger bone remained.

Only a true immortal could destroy a Quasi-Immortal’s body.

“I suspect that Nightmare City might be an immortal artifact that someone had sealed here,” Liu Wuxie said, voicing the thought that had circled in his mind for a long time and only now solidified.

Qiao Bian and Han Feizi’s faces changed drastically at his words. If Nightmare City really was an immortal artifact, how could the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain’s countless experts have failed to discover it?

The Grand Unity Sect and the Heavenly Dragon Sect each had immortals, and Emperor Haoyuan was one of them. If the city were an immortal artifact, it made no sense that they had not already claimed it.

“The city’s power is sealed, reducing it to an ordinary city. But it should be an immortal artifact at its peak,” Liu Wuxie explained.

The power of some immortal artifacts declined after they suffered damage, and others had their strength forcibly sealed until they appeared no different from ordinary objects.

“That makes no sense. If an immortal had sealed this city, powerhouses like Emperor Haoyuan should be able to undo the seal, shouldn’t they?” Qiao Bian asked, still frowning.

His understanding of immortal artifacts was far inferior to Liu Wuxie’s, and Han Feizi was in the same position. They had heard of immortal artifacts, but neither had ever seen one in person.

“You’re not wrong. Immortals can usually undo the seals on most immortal artifacts, but Nightmare City remains a cursed city. Anyone who tries to undo the seal will have to suffer the backlash,” Liu Wuxie said as he walked toward a nearby stone wall. Having comprehended the Great Curse Mythical Art, he clearly sensed curses saturating every inch of this space.

“You’re not saying that those skeletons floating outside are cultivators of Nightmare City, and they all died here, right?” Qiao Bian asked, a shiver running down his spine.

Ever since cultivators from the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain discovered Nightmare City, deaths within the city had been rare. That made the question even more chilling—where had the billions of skeletons come from? The only reasonable answer was that they had once been the city’s own residents.

Han Feizi had reached the same conclusion. He had seen piles of skeletons in other regions as well. A city of this size could easily house hundreds of millions of people, and an immortal artifact with an internal world could shelter even more.

“Those cultivators are refined alive. The ritual drenched this city in their blood, fed the city with their flesh, and offered their souls to the Mandala Flowers.

“I’m guessing that someone had discovered this city when it was on the verge of being forged and sealed it here,” Liu Wuxie said after deducing the possibilities with the Heavenly Dao Book.

This was a city of sin, and anyone who refined an entire city’s population was utterly monstrous. Someone had to have discovered this crime and sealed the city, using the Seven-Fiend Netherworld Chains to prevent it from drifting away.

If Nightmare City were allowed to float freely and draw in more cultivators, the Mandala Flowers would slaughter them, and the city would continue to grow, eventually becoming a true city of death.

Liu Wuxie had once witnessed an immortal slaughter tens of thousands of people to refine an immortal artifact, nourishing it with their blood. It was commonplace in the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm, where ordinary cultivators were no different from ants in the eyes of immortals.

Some immortals even captured humans and raised them inside their immortal artifacts, using their faith and blood to nourish those weapons.

“Then who sealed this city?” Han Feizi and Qiao Bian both asked, even more confused after hearing Liu Wuxie’s explanation.

Anyone capable of forging such a city had to be at least an immortal, and if someone had slain that immortal and sealed the city, wouldn’t that person stand even higher than the forger?

“You’re asking me? Who am I going to ask that question to? The Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain is vast, and we only know that the major sects all have immortals around. But don’t forget the possibility of reclusive experts in many lesser realms,” Liu Wuxie replied, rolling his eyes.

A person’s vision limited their understanding. The broader the world they could see, the more they would know. Many experts preferred their existence to remain unknown, living in seclusion as they sought a higher realm.

Immortals stood at the top of the pyramid in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, but in the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm, ordinary Heavenly Immortals were little more than ants.

Liu Wuxie naturally couldn’t explain all of that to the other two. In the Celestial Realm, he had spent several hundred years climbing from Heavenly Immortal to Immortal Emperor. Looking back now, he suspected that even the Immortal Emperor Realm was probably not the true end of cultivation, as countless mysteries still lay beyond his understanding.

The trio now had a rough grasp of Nightmare City’s origins. An immortal had attempted to forge it into an immortal artifact, only to be discovered just before success.

They slew that immortal and sealed the city in place with the Seven-Fiend Netherworld Chains.

That was all Liu Wuxie could infer for now. As for who that person had been, or when exactly it happened, only the heavens knew.

“What should we do then?” Qiao Bian asked with a helpless shrug. No matter what Nightmare City truly was, they were still trapped here, while those outside were likely worrying themselves sick. Two whole days had passed, and they still hadn’t found a way out.

“Find this city’s core. There should be clues there,” Liu Wuxie said as he continued to use the Ghost Eye to search for the city’s heart.

“The spherical structure above the plaza. Could that be the core?” Qiao Bian asked, suddenly coming to a halt as the memory surfaced. A spherical structure had floated above the trading plaza from the start, and he had felt it was anything but ordinary.

“Most likely,” Han Feizi replied with a nod. If they could unravel the secret of that core, they could return.

Liu Wuxie did not answer. He had a nagging feeling that things would not be that simple. Even if they managed to locate the core, breaching it would be anything but easy.

Still, he didn’t extinguish their hope; having a goal was better than wandering in despair, after all. The trio continued deeper into the underground world, forced to rely on instinct alone when choosing their path.

……

Meanwhile, five days had already slipped by as Zhuge Ming spent every day venturing into Nightmare City’s depths in search of Liu Wuxie’s group of three. He was determined to find them, or at the very least, recover their corpses if they had fallen.

He had even reached the bone sea, where countless flower faces besieged him; if Elder Jian hadn’t arrived in time, he wouldn’t have escaped with his life.

As the days passed, hope for Liu Wuxie’s survival grew dimmer. The Divine Alchemy Sect had already begun celebrating, convinced that Liu Wuxie had perished since there had been no news of him at all.

Though other sects had suffered casualties as well, their status was nowhere near as high as Liu Wuxie’s. After all, not just anyone could create a peerless pill like the Soul Sea.

On the seventh day, Huang Li returned with several companions, intending to sign a contract with Liu Wuxie. When he learned that Liu Wuxie had vanished, his face filled with regret. Even so, he refused to leave and chose to remain in Nightmare City, clinging to the hope of a miracle.

The appearance of the Soul Pill had already stirred up a storm across the Spirit Martial Astral Domain. Upon his return, Huang Li took out a hundred pills and distributed them among the various sects, where they were pursued fervently by countless cultivators.

On the contrary, the Grand Unity Sect had remained eerily quiet over the past few days. They, too, had lost two disciples and had sent experts into the city’s depths, most likely to search for Liu Wuxie’s corpse.

Whoever found Liu Wuxie first would have the chance to seize his secrets.

By dusk each day, they would return empty-handed to the plaza.

Xu Lingxue and the others had not been idle either; they wandered through the outer regions of the city under the Heavenly Dragon Sect’s protection, clinging to the slimmest hope of a miracle.

However, they all understood that this was little more than self-comfort. Even pinnacle Earth Immortals struggled to survive in those depths, let alone Liu Wuxie.