Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1446 - Corpse Wraiths
Chapter 1446 – Corpse Wraiths
Everyone outside kept talking about Liu Wuxie, arguing over whether he was still alive. As time dragged on, even Zhuge Ming and the others began to lose confidence.
After all, Nightmare City was no ordinary place, but one where danger lurked everywhere.
By this point, everyone had already stayed in the city for ten days, and the trading segment would end in a few more days before the next phase began. If Liu Wuxie still failed to appear by then, the Heavenly Dao Society would miss its chance to display its products.
……
In the underground world, Liu Wuxie and his two companions had already been walking for days, yet the path still felt endless.
At first glance, the underground realm seemed intricate, but in truth, it formed a single colossal space, like a vast container in which the trio wandered.
“How long have we been here?” Qiao Bian asked, breaking the silence.
In this underground city, there was no distinction between day and night, only a monotonous gray world. Anyone staying in such an environment for too long would find their state of mind starting to twist. Fortunately, the three had one another for company, or their will would have collapsed long ago.
“About five and a half days,” Han Feizi replied. They had already spent more than five days in this place without even realizing it.
“The people outside are probably worried sick for us by now,” Qiao Bian sighed. He and Han Feizi had little to tie them down, and few people in the outside world would truly fret over them.
However, Liu Wuxie had wives and family, who were likely sick with worry by now.
As Liu Wuxie constantly corrected their course with Ghost Eye, the three of them began to show clear signs of fatigue after days of traveling without rest. They had been on high alert the entire way, as none of them knew what could happen from one moment to the next.
“There seems to be light over there,” Han Feizi and Qiao Bian said almost at the same time as they followed behind Liu Wuxie.
Liu Wuxie had already spotted it earlier but chose not to say anything. Using Ghost Eye, he had subtly adjusted their heading several times before finally guiding them to this region.
The trio quickened their pace, each silently wondering if that glow might mark an exit. They unleashed their movement techniques and crossed tens of thousands of meters in just a few leaps.
“This…” The light came from insects—strange bugs crawling across the ground, their backs glowing faintly.
“They’re Blood Radiant Worms. This underground world must’ve been drenched in blood before that gave birth to these worms,” Liu Wuxie said, frowning at the sight before him.
Blood Radiant Worms were a rare species that fed exclusively on blood and were almost impossible to encounter in the outside world. Deprived of blood, they fell into hibernation and shrank down into tiny pebble-like lumps.
These worms had not fully awakened yet, their glow flickering across their backs. The instant the trio appeared, however, the worms showed clear signs of waking and began to wriggle.
It was the first time Qiao Bian and Han Feizi had even heard of such worms.
“People coined the idiom of a bloody calamity because death always followed in their wake whenever they appeared,” Liu Wuxie explained calmly.
Nightmare City teemed with oddities, so it was not surprising that even such rare lifeforms had appeared here.
“There are some skeletons over there!” The trio circled the Blood Radiant Worms and discovered three decayed corpses with only their skeletons left. They couldn’t help wondering if this place had consumed those people after they entered, forcing them to share the same fate.
The three of them hurried over to the corpses. Their clothing hung in tatters, and only bare skeletons remained apart from the interspatial rings still clinging to their bones.
“Who are they?” Qiao Bian asked, wanting to step closer to examine the corpses, but Liu Wuxie stopped him with a raised hand.
“Judging from the signs of their remains, they didn’t seem to die fighting against each other. If they’re low-level cultivators, they wouldn’t have made it this far. If they were Quasi-Immortals, they wouldn’t die here either, with their long lifespan. I suspect that something must’ve killed them,” Liu Wuxie said in a low voice.
Low-level cultivators would never have made it past the flower faces and vines. Even if they had somehow slipped through, the ghost face would have killed them.
As for Liu Wuxie’s group of three, they had reached this place only by relying on Han Feizi’s compass.
When Liu Wuxie peered into the three sets of remains with Ghost Eye, shock swept through him at what he saw.
“Corpse Wraiths!” he exclaimed, stumbling back a few steps. He could hardly believe that he had encountered such ancient lifeforms here, as Corpse Wraiths were rare even in ancient records.
“What are they?” Han Feizi and Qiao Bian asked. They had also noticed the worms lurking inside the three skeletons. Each worm was only about the size of an infant’s fingernail, yet such tiny creatures had made Liu Wuxie recoil.
If Liu Wuxie had merely been slightly surprised by the appearance of the Blood Radiant Worms, the sight of the Corpse Wraiths truly startled him. Corpse Wraiths were different; they specialized in devouring human bone marrow, and even an Immortal Emperor would be helpless against them. Once they entered a body, they gnawed on the bone marrow until they killed their host alive.
“True Samadhi Fire! Demonic Flame!” Liu Wuxie shouted, summoning the two flames before the Corpse Wraiths awoke from their slumber and wrapping the three corpses in fire. He had to incinerate the bodies quickly, or none of them would make it out alive once the Corpse Wraiths fully awakened.
The Corpse Wraiths appeared small, but they possessed terrifying speed. They could ignore spatial pressure and alter their forms at will to slip into the human body. They had surfaced once in the Fleeting Cloud Celestial Realm, and countless cultivators had perished at their hands.
From the grim look on Liu Wuxie’s face, Han Feizi and Qiao Bian could tell just how terrifying these Corpse Wraiths were.
The trio immediately raised a defensive barrier. Liu Wuxie went so far as to activate the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe to shield himself and readied the Universal Gourd, prepared to pull Qiao Bian and Han Feizi inside at a moment’s notice.
The blazing flames finally woke the Corpse Wraiths, and they unfurled their wings with a series of low buzzing sounds. Even True Samadhi Fire could not kill these worms, so it was no wonder horror flickered across Liu Wuxie’s face the moment he saw them.
Even a Quasi-Immortal would struggle to withstand True Samadhi Fire, and Liu Wuxie himself had only managed to resist it inside the Universal Gourd by relying on the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe.
Liu Wuxie’s expression grew even grimmer as he signaled for Han Feizi and Qiao Bian to enter the Universal Gourd. Even he wasn’t sure he could kill the Corpse Wraiths.
Qiao Bian and Han Feizi exchanged a glance, and both nodded. They understood that if they stayed, they would only drag Liu Wuxie down. Even inside the gourd, they could still see everything happening outside.
In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen Corpse Wraiths awakened. They released no overwhelming aura as they roused, yet the instant their eyes opened, a chill ran down Liu Wuxie’s spine. When the worms gave a gentle flap of their wings, the surrounding space began to collapse.
Even Earth Immortals struggled to collapse space without resorting to mythical arts, so it was unbelievable that the Corpse Wraiths could accomplish it with a mere flap of their wings.
These ancient creatures possessed unfathomable abilities, their bodies filled with primordial laws. They could ignore the laws of heaven and earth, meaning this world could no longer restrain them. Naturally, space could not bind them either, and they appeared before Liu Wuxie by shuttling straight through it.
The Divine Heavenly Feather Robe activated at once, forming a barrier that wrapped tightly around Liu Wuxie. He had already prepared to retreat into the Universal Gourd if the robe couldn’t block them.
Judging from what he had just seen, however, it seemed even the Universal Gourd would probably not be able to stop them, as they could traverse space at will.
The Universal Gourd served as a spatial treasure, and if the Corpse Wraiths breached it, they would slaughter Han Feizi and Qiao Bian inside. That left Liu Wuxie with no path of retreat—he had to kill them here.
The Blood Radiant Worms also began to converge from afar, merging into a wriggling tide that produced sizzling sounds as it moved.
The True Samadhi Fire burned even more fiercely, to the point that it began to ignite the surrounding space, causing shards of fractured space to rain down toward the ground.
The Blood Radiant Worms didn’t dare draw near, as they were not ancient species and could not ignore space the way the Corpse Wraiths did.
The moment several Corpse Wraiths shuttled through space to appear before Liu Wuxie, the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe sensed the impending attack and automatically activated its spiritual arrays.
The shimmering patterns enveloped the Corpse Wraiths, halting them from drawing any nearer.
Against Shen Tian and Mu Ye, the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe had only negated a portion of their attacks. That was why he had never expected the robe to conceal so many hidden functions.
His master had personally forged the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe, and Liu Wuxie still had yet to refine it fully. Until now, it would only activate when something struck it.
“This is bad! Brother Liu is in danger!” Qiao Bian said, panic creeping across his face. He even wanted to rush out of the Universal Gourd and fight beside Liu Wuxie.
“What can we do if we go out now? Those Corpse Wraiths are too bizarre,” Han Feizi replied. He felt just as anxious, but there was nothing he could do. This was their first encounter with Corpse Wraiths, and they still struggled to believe such creatures existed that could disregard the world’s laws.
The problem did not lie in the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe being weak, but in the Corpse Wraiths being too abnormal. They could slip through spiritual arrays and burrow straight into the body.
“Damn it!” Liu Wuxie hadn’t anticipated this situation at all. The Divine Heavenly Feather Robe’s spiritual arrays worked only against cultivators and offered no resistance to Corpse Wraiths.
Even Hua Feiyu had never imagined such creatures when he forged it. If he had known, he would have tried to patch this loophole while forging the Divine Heavenly Feather Robe.
Seeing that the Corpse Wraiths were about to burrow into his body, Liu Wuxie gritted his teeth and made a desperate decision.
“Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, swallow them!” The Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron could devour everything, regardless of space, time, or anything else in this world.
The next instant, the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron sucked more than a dozen Corpse Wraiths inside.
From past discoveries, he knew that the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron had formed from a strand of primal chaos energy and was even older than the Corpse Wraiths themselves.
If the cauldron still couldn’t refine them, the three of them could only sit and wait for death.
Once the Corpse Wraiths entered the Sky Devouring Divine Cauldron, they immediately thrashed about, trying to break free. The cauldron responded with a crushing might as boundless primordial force descended on them, and the Corpse Wraiths let out piercing, shrilling screams.
Despite their tiny size, their shrilling screams echoed sharply within the cauldron.
Still unsure whether the cauldron alone could handle the Corpse Wraiths, Liu Wuxie even summoned the Divine Purgatory Palace to crush them, throwing everything he had at them.
Suddenly, Gong Gong’s eyes snapped open; he had been deep in thought, sorting through his newly awakened memories. Startled awake by the commotion of the Corpse Wraiths, he casually reached out, grabbed one, tossed it into his mouth, and then he began chewing.
“Holy fuck…” Liu Wuxie cursed under his breath. He could hardly believe that Gong Gong was eating the Corpse Wraiths that had almost killed him.
“Divine Avatar Gong Gong, Corpse Wraiths can be eaten?” Liu Wuxie asked after taking a deep breath to steady his emotions.
“You can’t eat them,” Gong Gong replied calmly.
Liu Wuxie felt a powerful urge to smash his head into a wall when he heard that he couldn’t eat them. If he wasn’t supposed to eat them, then why had Gong Gong just swallowed one?
He felt his sanity teetering on the brink, yet the reality unfolded right before his eyes. He watched as Gong Gong reached out for three more Corpse Wraiths; they couldn’t enter his body at all and were utterly helpless as he grabbed them.
“If we aren’t supposed to eat them, why are you eating them then?” Liu Wuxie asked. He knew the question sounded ridiculous, but he still voiced it anyway.
