David looked at him with a firm tone, “The cracks are swallowing up one life full of vitality after another, and I feel that there is something not simple behind these cracks. I must find out the truth.”
Jiang Xuelan said, “The Old Man of the Underworld will definitely send someone to monitor you secretly and will not let you get involved.”
“Stay cool.”
David nodded slightly, condensing a ray of chaotic power at his fingertips and fusing it into his divine soul. “The power of chaos can sense the laws of all things. As long as someone follows me, I can detect it immediately.”
“I won’t act so quickly. I’ll investigate secretly first and see if I can get any information from the other ghost cultivators.”
For the next two days, David behaved very well.
During the day, I meditate and practice in the cave, and occasionally I take a walk along the suspension bridge. When I saw a crack in the distance, I would automatically swerve to avoid it.
The ghost cultivator sent by the Underworld Elder to observe secretly returned and reported that Master Chen seemed to have put aside his curiosity and was no longer approaching the pass. The Underworld Elder breathed a sigh of relief.
But David didn’t give up.
He just changed his approach.
On the third day, he started “wandering” in the ghost race settlement, chatting with the ordinary ghost cultivators living in the caves at the edge of the seventh level.
Most of the ghost cultivators were taciturn, but they were relatively friendly to David, the guest who had saved Gui Qi and obtained the approval of the Underworld Elders.
He subtly asked about the crack, but no one wanted to talk about it at first. However, gradually, he heard some fragmented information.
“The crack has been there for a long time… older than all of us combined…”
“No one who goes in there ever comes out, and no one knows what’s inside”
“During the last Yin energy wave my father died during that wave”
“Don’t ask, this is none of our business”
All the information was fragmented, but David managed to piece together one unique key fragment from it.
An old man sitting on the edge of the cliff, smoking a black pipe, narrowed his misty eyes when he heard the man ask about the pass, and said something that made his heart race: “The pass you mentioned I once heard a strange story about. Many years ago, someone went in there and came out again.”
David’s body suddenly stiffened: “They came out? Who?”
The old man exhaled a puff of black smoke and shook his head: “I don’t know. I only heard about it from the older generation; it happened a long, long time ago.”
The man went crazy after leaving there, babbling incoherently, and died not long after. But the babbling it left behind before its death… some say that the creature inside the crevice could speak.
“Can he talk?”
“Right.”
The old man tapped his pipe, releasing a few grains of black ash. “The madman kept repeating the same sentence before he died—’He is awake, he is hungry, he sees me’—and then he breathed his last breath.”
David was silent, his palms pressed against the cold stone wall, feeling the subtle vibrations from his fingertips. He remained motionless for a long time, as if something deep within the stone wall was resonating with him through millions of years of sedimentation.
Then he pressed, “Where is that person buried?”
The old man’s expression grew gloomy. He pursed his chapped lips several times before finally managing to utter a sentence: “The old grave on the west side of the seventh floor has no tombstones, only a mound of earth. His descendants, fearing bad luck, didn’t even carve their names there.”
David thanked him and turned to go down the stone steps.
He found the cemetery.
On a remote, indented wall on the west side of the seventh floor, there were dozens of scattered low mounds, most of which had been eroded by yin energy to the point of almost blending into the stone walls.
He found a mound with no tombstones in the corner, squatted down, and ran his fingers over the cold earth.
There were no clues left there, but David didn’t need any clues. He just needed to be sure of one thing: there was indeed something living in the gap, and that something could talk.
That night, David made a decision.
He wants to come in.
But entering the pass is not a blind suicide mission.
He needed to be prepared—prepare enough forces, prepare contingency plans for the unknown, and, more importantly, find an opportunity to enter without the demons knowing.
David began searching for further records of the rift in the Ghost Clan’s ancient texts.
There is an ancient library cave in the Netherworld Abyss, located in a vast cave at the junction of the seventh and sixth levels. This cave contains various records left by successive masters of the Ghost Clan.
Gui Qi took him in once, saying that “guests can look around freely.”
FAQ Novel
Q: What is the significance of the dark red mineral?
A: The mineral’s glow illuminates the path, casting shifting shadows, and is associated with the ominous atmosphere.
Q: Why is David concerned about the chasm?
A: Despite promises, the chasm’s history of consuming cultivators and the Elder’s hidden pain weigh on his mind, fueling his suspicion.
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