Desolate Devouring Art - Chapter 1621 - Mysterious Rune
Chapter 1621 – Mysterious Rune
The instant Liu Wuxie stepped into the main hall, boundless dark energy rolled toward him like a tide. Everyone seated there had terrifying cultivation, yet Hua Feiyu was nowhere to be seen.
At the head of the main hall sat an elderly man in black. He was the patriarch of the dark lineage, Makurat, a descendant of Makuvert.
Everyone’s gaze was pinned on Liu Wuxie, carrying ill intent.
“Greetings, Patriarch Makurat.” Liu Wuxie stayed courteous. With his master in their hands, he clasped his fists and lowered his stance. After all, he sought them for help.
“So, you’re Liu Wuxie!” Makurat spoke without the slightest emotion. The Dark Elves had long settled into their current way of life, yet black magic made them fear the light, even warping their temperaments.
The Light Elves carried brighter dispositions, while the dark ones sank into gloom. That difference split the two factions. Even so, gloom didn’t automatically mean brutality. Regardless of faction, the Elven Race lived peacefully on the Elven Star and rarely invaded anyone.
“That’s right!” Liu Wuxie nodded once. At the same time, he quietly activated Ghost Pupil and spread it across the entire settlement to locate his master.
He quickly locked onto a massive building that, just as Tian Can described, resembled a cage, and Hua Feiyu sat inside it cross-legged. He wore a painful expression. A wisp of black miasma clung to his forehead. That had to be the Dark Curse the light faction’s matriarch had mentioned.
Even so, Liu Wuxie still didn’t know what the Dark Curse truly did. After Ghost Pupil slipped into the cage, he avoided alarming Hua Feiyu and instead kept scanning the surroundings.
Then the right wall of the cage caught his attention. He saw a rune, resembling the one on Vandore’s arm. No one knew what it meant, but it appeared upside down compared to Vandore’s.
On Vandore’s arm, the rune took a diamond shape, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. On the cage wall, the rune narrowed at the top and widened at the bottom. If he placed them together, they would form a perfect square.
As Ghost Pupil drifted closer, Liu Wuxie studied it with utter focus. Someone wouldn’t place it there for no reason. That meant the rune was tied directly to the Dark Curse.
The light lineage’s matriarch had told him that a long-lost incantation could break the Dark Curse, yet no one knew that spell anymore.
“Liu Wuxie, you’ve got some nerves to barge into our Elven Race!” A dark lineage elder shot to his feet and slammed his palm onto the table, ripping Liu Wuxie’s divine sense away from the cage.
“I got some nerves?” Liu Wuxie asked, and cold flooded his gaze. He didn’t mind courtesy before force, but he refused to let anyone mistake him for a pushover. Even if he had to risk the inner demon flaring, he would still slaughter the entire dark lineage if he had to.
“You imprisoned my master for no reason, and you dare to question me? I want to see who has more guts today,” Liu Wuxie continued, unleashing a terrifying aura.
Tian Can moved at once, stepping forward and unleashing an even heavier aura at the Quasi-Immortal Realm that filled the main hall. If the Dark Elves wanted war, they would gladly give it to them.
The Dark Elves still clearly didn’t know that Liu Wuxie could kill quasi-immortals. Chu Zhongtian’s death had happened less than a day ago, and the news hadn’t reached the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain yet. If they knew, they wouldn’t dare to act this arrogantly.
“Liu Wuxie, you think that you can come and go as you wish just because you have a quasi-immortal by your side? Let me tell you that Hua Feiyu is a good example, and we don’t fear anyone,” the elder said.
Liu Wuxie understood exactly how his master had ended up trapped. If Hua Feiyu hadn’t rushed to save him, he would never have walked into their snare. In the end, Hua Feiyu chose imprisonment with open eyes.
“So, can I take it as a declaration of war from the Dark Elves to the Heavenly Dragon Sect and the Heavenly Dao Society?” Liu Wuxie asked, his voice turning colder with every word.
If they admitted it, Liu Wuxie would notify the Heavenly Dragon Sect and the Heavenly Dao Society and wipe them from the surface of the world. If they truly chose that path, they no longer deserved to exist.
“You—!” The elder started, then choked on his own words. The Dark Elves didn’t have the guts to wage war with the Heavenly Dragon Sect.
“Shut the fuck up if you don’t dare to wage war!” Liu Wuxie said, and he slapped the elder across the face without hesitation. They had imprisoned his master, and fury boiled in his blood.
“Liu Wuxie, your master came to borrow the second chapter of the Heart-Calming Mantra, and we gave it to him on one condition. If he can break the Dark Curse, we will give it to him unconditionally. We did not imprison him on our own accord, but he chose to take the risk himself,” the dark lineage’s patriarch said.
Everything aligned with Liu Wuxie’s suspicion. Hua Feiyu had accepted captivity for Liu Wuxie’s sake, as only the Heart-Calming Mantra could truly undo Liu Wuxie’s inner demon.
However, the Heart-Calming Mantra had split into two chapters held by two factions, and one chapter alone couldn’t erase the inner demon. Only the combined chapters could do it. The Dark Elves refused to lend their chapter without reason. Doing so would essentially mean handing it to the Light Elves. That stalemate froze the negotiations, and even if the Light Elves offered their chapter in exchange, the Dark Elves could still refuse.
The feud between the two factions ran too deep to dissolve overnight.
“If I’m not mistaken, even you lot can’t undo the Dark Curses, can you?” Liu Wuxie asked, his gaze turning chillingly grim. He had already guessed the truth that the Dark Elves had used Hua Feiyu to test the Dark Curse and see whether it could restrain a quasi-immortal.
They wouldn’t test it on their own people, and Hua Feiyu had arrived at the perfect moment.
“That’s right. Even we can’t resolve the Dark Curse,” the patriarch said, spreading his hands. Even if the Heavenly Dragon Sect wanted war, they lacked a righteous reason.
Hua Feiyu had agreed to the condition himself.
Liu Wuxie clenched his fists as murderous intent seeped through the main hall.
The Dark Curse would slowly corrode a human’s primordial spirit until it claimed their life. It was magic, but it was a vicious kind.
The situation locked into a stalemate. Even if Liu Wuxie butchered the entire dark lineage of the elves, he still wouldn’t be able to save his master.
“Master, saving Sect Master Hua comes first,” Tian Can said quietly.
As Liu Wuxie’s anger surged, the inner demon stirred within him once more. He dragged in a deep breath, forced his fury down, and slowly loosened his fists.
“Bring me to him,” Liu Wuxie said. He needed to see his master and, more importantly, to inspect the rune on the wall.
Vandore remained in the celestial realm, and Liu Wuxie couldn’t reach him right now. The rune on Vandore’s arm had faded from Liu Wuxie’s memory, while the rune on the cage remained sharp and detailed with countless fine lines. Ghost Pupil couldn’t give him a clean enough view, so he needed to examine it up close.
That request was reasonable, and it gave Liu Wuxie the perfect pretext to see Hua Feiyu.
“Take him inside,” the patriarch said.
He didn’t stop Liu Wuxie. Instead, he ordered someone to escort him, while Tian Can stayed outside in case the Dark Elves tried to harm Liu Wuxie.
Liu Wuxie followed the guide past several buildings and entered a strange structure. As soon as they stepped inside, the dark elf locked the door from the outside, cutting it off from the rest of the world.
“Master, how are you doing?” Liu Wuxie asked, hurrying forward. He could already see black miasma hovering above Hua Feiyu’s head.
“I’m fine. Why have you come?” Hua Feiyu asked, forcing his eyes open through the pain.
“Master… I’m not worth it for you to do this,” Liu Wuxie said, guilt twisting his face. Without him, Hua Feiyu would never have fallen into the Dark Elve’s trap.
“I chose this myself. You don’t have to blame yourself for it, and I will break the Dark Curse,” Hua Feiyu said, then shut his eyes again. The dark lineage would only hand over the second chapter of the Heart-Calming Mantra if he broke the Dark Curse.
Liu Wuxie knew his words couldn’t change what had already happened. He could only move forward, one step at a time. He rose and walked to the stone wall, where someone had etched the rune using a special pigment.
Even after countless years, the lines remained sharp and clean. Liu Wuxie didn’t rush. He examined every connection with slow, careful precision until he spotted the flaw. The top lines were severed, as if someone had deliberately cut them.
Could it be that the rune on Vandore’s arm is the other half? Liu Wuxie wondered.
He refused to believe it was a coincidence. The dark lineage held one half, and Vandore carried the other. Vandore and Makuvert had likely created it in the past, then split it for some reason.
Liu Wuxie pushed his divine sense deeper, searching for more clues, forcing himself to recall his meeting with Vandore. He stopped caring about what Vandore said and focused on Vandore’s arm instead. Under that laser-focused scrutiny, he remembered the rune on Vandore’s skin had fine lines as well.
“Wuxie, leave this place. The other elders in the Heavenly Dragon Sect will find a way to help you dissolve the inner demon,” Hua Feiyu said. With Liu Wuxie here, Hua Feiyu couldn’t steady his mind, and he feared the Dark Elves would harm him.
“Master, I have found a lead to the incantation. I can break it in a few days at best,” Liu Wuxie said.
He couldn’t say for certain whether combining the two runes would break the Dark Curse, but he felt sure the runes were connected to it. If he unraveled that mystery, he could break the Dark Curse.
“Is that true?” Hua Feiyu asked. His eyes looked pained, yet hope flickered through it. He trusted Liu Wuxie, and if Liu Wuxie said he had a solution, Hua Feiyu believed he had found a clue.
“It’s true,” Liu Wuxie assured.
He refused to crush his master’s hope. He wanted Hua Feiyu to stop torturing himself and let him handle it instead.
Liu Wuxie sat cross-legged beneath the stone wall. He sent his divine sense into his soul sea, where the Heavenly Dao Book rested. Then a miniature figure appeared atop the book. It was the manifestation of Liu Wuxie’s consciousness.
He began carving the rune into the stone wall with his hands, and after roughly 15 minutes, it formed on the Heavenly Dao Book in perfect detail.
