When the sun set again, Ge Zheng angrily said, "You told me this morning that we could reach Perdition Canyon by this afternoon, so why is it almost evening and we still haven't arrived?" Khanmings shrugged, "You made a wrong turn during the journey, and I wanted to remind you, but you wouldn't let me speak..." Ge Zheng's forehead bulged veins.
A whole day was spent in fruitless searching, and the sunset in the desert presented a dried blood color. Khanmings looked for a camping site, complaining, "Ge, what are you looking for? If you can't find it tomorrow, I won't have time to waste with you here. I want to change my fee to a daily rate, fifty silver coins per day. Or you can use your blood to make a potion of great strength. Just one vial, and I can accompany you in the desert for a whole year. Consider it..."
He seemed to be trying to find out about Ge Zheng's purpose in coming here but received no response from the alchemist.
In the middle of the night, the desert fairy lay back, snoring rhythmically. Ge Zheng suddenly opened his eyes, realizing that the place he was looking for was unknown and there was a dubious desert fairy by his side. How could he sleep peacefully in such a situation?
Ge Zheng quietly got up and headed back. He didn't bring anything with him. He chose a camping site that was not far from the quicksand, intending to venture into it at night. Though it was a terrifying place, he had observed that the quicksand area was not large. If one was higher than level eight, they could easily leap over it using magic or Qi. However, this valley hardly saw adventurers of such level, making the quicksand almost a forbidden area.
Ge Zheng nervously crossed the quicksand and returned to the campsite, noticing that Khanmings was still asleep. He then headed over to the cliffside.
In the darkness, the cliff cast a sinister shadow on the ground, resembling a monstrous beast ready to devour. After circling around the cliff, he finally discovered a crack in the moonlight.
While many cracks streaked the surrounding cliffs vertically, there was one horizontal crack that caught Ge Zheng's attention. With agility, he climbed up the cliff, finding that the crack could accommodate an adult. He entered cautiously, lighting a magical lamp.
The passage grew wider as he climbed, and Ge Zheng eventually could walk upright. A rushing breeze spurred his spirits, and he hurried ahead. Not far from the entrance, he found a cave shaped like a helmet.
Silver moonlight streamed in from the opening of the cave, serene and beautiful. However, Ge Zheng was cautious, tossing a stone into the darkness and waiting for the sound. If he had looked back at the camp, he would have been surprised to find Khanmings' cot empty, with the sand below showing signs of movement, as if it had swallowed something.
As Ge Zheng carefully made his way toward a massive lion-like rock, he felt a chilling aura from a distance. He was at the very place that piqued his interest—Perdition Canyon.
Ge Zheng carefully stepped towards a giant rock that resembled a lion and could already feel the chilling atmosphere from about three meters away. Just in that area, the temperature was freezing—this was the spot: the Dry Rock Ice Chamber.
"Pah" The valley was empty, and the sound echoed. Ge Zheng was startled. The sound seemed as if someone was throwing stones from a high place. He thought to himself, "Could it be that someone else is coming?"
"Pa, pa, pa pa pa..." The crackling sounds grew more intense. After listening carefully, Ge Zheng could distinguish the source of the sound. He leaned towards the giant rock and, just behind the "lion's" tail, he saw a stump-like stone pillar. The cracking sound that Ge Zheng heard was the sound of these stone pillars splitting. Several of the pillars had cracks that were as wide as a finger, and a strange red light faintly emanated from inside the pillars.
"Pah!" One of the stone pillars burst, completely shattering, causing Ge Zheng's pupils to contract suddenly. He saw that the stone pillar actually contained a mummified corpse!
It was not just an ordinary mummified corpse. The stone pillar was no thicker than a large tree, and the mummified body inside, once the stone was removed, was as thin as a baby's arm, completely compressed into a cylindrical shape, with even the head no larger than a coconut.
A faint red light slowly flowed into the mummy's body from the soles of its feet, and with a series of cracking sounds, the mummy seemed to expand like a dried date absorbing water. Its body also stretched out, and the features, which were originally wrinkled and crumpled, slowly opened up, gradually revealing the resemblance to a human face.
At this point, the stone pillars had mostly shattered, filling the valley with a red light, as if a splash of blood had been spilled. Ge Zheng, in the face of such an eerie scene, felt his body covered in goosebumps, unable to shake off a strange feeling.
There were two to three hundred stone pillars, and each contained a mummified stick figure. These mummies absorbed the strange red light, gradually becoming plump. With a "pop", a mummy's feet severed the red light, and as its eyes opened, the original black and white eyeball had turned into a single blood red color. Lifting its leg from the stone, it slowly walked towards Ge Zheng.
Following suit, mummies with blood-red eyes gathered around Ge Zheng. Despite his nerves of steel, Ge Zheng's scalp tingled, feeling extremely creepy.
Even in the world of cultivation, there were evil factions specializing in "corpse tools". By obtaining a female corpse born, died and buried in the year, month, day, and hour of the Yin phase and using countless years to refine it, a "Heavenly Corpse" could be formed, capable of withstanding even the most violent thunder tribulations, comparable to the nine great divine artifacts of the Central Plains, extremely formidable. However, as Ge Zheng had always cultivated in the Ge family mountain, where such evil characters were treated as pariahs, avoiding public appearances. Thoroughly afraid to provoke, as the saying goes, "a long life is worth less than taking arsenic" or "a snapping tortoise" hanging himself – prolonging life more than necessary. Therefore, Ge Zheng had never come across a genuine "corpse tool", at most only having read about some in the faction's ancient records.
The speed of these otherworldly mummies was unexpectedly fast, indicating that their level was higher than ordinary "zombies". In just a short while, they had made their way from several hundred meters away to in front of Ge Zheng.
Their nails were longer than their fingers, emanating a dark purple gleam in the moonlight, clearly possessing not just sharpness, but probably also a potent poison. After swelling up, their figures varied in height, some tall, some short, representing races like beastmen, elves, dwarves, demons, humans - all six major factions, except for the dragon race, as well as a few rare races. Judging from their attire, they all appeared to be adventurers. It was unclear how they had ended up in such a dire situation.
Leading them was a slender figure from the elf race, who probably was a handsome man in life. Even now, with his two blood-red eyes, his grimace was slightly less severe compared to the other mummies, though this did not imply that he was any less malevolent. As he extended his claws, a gust of blood-scented wind dashed towards Ge Zheng's head.
Ge Zheng's speed far surpassed his, and he struck him hard with a fist technique, harshly hitting the man's abdomen. If a level 7 warrior took such a hit head-on, their organs would have shifted, requiring at least half a month of rest. However, upon being struck, the elf mummy only produced a muffled "snap" sound, then staggered back seven or eight steps, swaying its upper body before charging back.
Incredible, from the posture, it must have already surpassed the lower-level "zombies", reaching a middle-level "undead soldier."
Ge Zheng bared his shoulders and arms, every move burst forth with thunderous force throughout the valley, forcing the undead soldiers to retreat repeatedly. Nevertheless, they felt no pain; after being hit, they would retreat a few steps and charge right back unharmed. Ge Zheng then instinctively reached for his waist, drawing out the short sword he had crafted, and swiftly darted into the crowd of undead soldiers, causing limbs and arms to fly around in an instant, throwing the mummies into disarray.
Ge Zheng's spirit surged, ready to launch a final offensive, but was surprised to find that the mummies, missing limbs and legs, picked them up, reattaching them to their bodies. A red glow flowed within their bodies, surprisingly reforming them again! Ge Zheng had inflicted significant damage on the undead soldiers, but in just a moment, they had all fully restored themselves, charging fiercely back at him. Ge Zheng felt a sudden sense of powerless as he remembered some of the information about undead soldiers from the sect. He could not help but smile wryly. It seemed clear that his tactics were ineffective.
The Ge family had methods for dealing with undead soldiers, but these spells were considered minor details by the alchemists. Exorcising and capturing ghosts were not tasks for the alchemists, so these teachings were not strictly enforced. Slackers like Ge Zheng, who even cheated during the annual tests, hardly paid attention to these minor details.
As the undead soldiers closed in, Ge Zheng grappled with them, pondering intensively. He was uncertain whether low-tier spells would be effective against the middle-tier undead soldiers, but recalling these spells was better than nothing. Ge Zheng wracked his brain and, amidst the danger, unexpectedly tapped into an astounding potential, recalling a particular spell: the Dew Demon Spell.
The Dew Demon Spell was capable of dissolving resentful puppets, such as zombies and ghouls.
While tussling, he remembered the Dew Demon Spell from the Ge family. However, the Ge family's Dew Demon Spell had to be drawn on yellow paper with cinnabar, Where could he find cinnabar and yellow paper in this world? Ge Zheng tore a piece of straw paper, and biting his fingertip, poured his spiritual power, he quickly drew the Dew Demon Spell. Then, turning around, he slapped it onto the forehead of one of the undead soldiers.
"Whew..." He let out a sigh of relief.
Surprisingly, the spell had no effect on the undead soldier, which aggressively lunged at Ge Zheng. He quickly dodged and barely escaped being hit, narrowly avoiding falling into the trap.
To his great surprise, despite feeling hopeless, Ge Zheng remarked, "Alright then, if these are truly undead soldiers in this world, then I'll use that world's methods to deal with them completely." The Dew Demon Spell was still the Dew Demon Spell, and the straw paper was still the straw paper, but this time, Ge Zheng used magical power.
Swiftly, as he drew the last line of the spell, a bright "clang" resonated, and a faint blue magical light flickered on the straw paper. Ge Zheng was overjoyed to discover that through a fluke, he had succeeded! He swiftly approached an undead soldier and affixed the enchanted Dew Demon Spell to it. A blue light burst forth, and the spell ruptured the intense red light emanating from the undead soldier, triumphing over it like a dam breach, causing a thunderous explosion that pulverized the undead soldier.
Drawing magical Dew Demon Spells one by one for nearly three hundred undead soldiers would have exhausted Ge Zheng. But, even in this dangerous situation, he used his short sword to carve a huge magical Dew Demon Spell into the ground. With the large number of undead soldiers and their savage nature, Ge Zheng fought painstakingly. By the time the magic Dew Demon Spell array was completed, he was panting wearily, nearly done in, and at last, thrust his short sword into the array and infused it with his final surge of magical power.
The expansive Dew Demon Spell Array emitted a dazzling blue light, and hundreds of red lights surged within it, intertwined in a confrontation. Surprisingly, the large number of undead soldiers managed to resist the blue light; the two sides were at a stalemate. Gritting his teeth, Ge Zheng sliced his finger and used the blood to merge magical power with his short sword, quickly drawing a Dew Demon Spell, then hurled the short sword at the red light. The Blood Demon Dew Demon Spell took effect, creating an opening in the red light through which the blue light surged like a bursting river, a deafening explosion, reducing several hundred undead soldiers to fragments. Ge Zheng was close to the array, and for a moment, was drenched in their flesh sprays, a strong stench permeating the air.
The remaining handful of undead soldiers no longer posed a threat to Ge Zheng. Swiftly drawing a few magical Dew Demon Spells, he threw them, sticking one onto each undead soldier's forehead, and a series of explosions resolved all their troubles.
Retrieving his short sword, Ge Zheng paused for a moment, then made his way cautiously towards the back of the lion-shaped giant rock. The valley was fraught with danger, leaving him no room for carelessness. He quietly retrieved his flying sword, concealed the palm-sized dagger on his leg, and proceeded with vigilance.
Approaching a shattered stone pillar, as he bent to examine it more closely, he suddenly stepped on something that snapped, causing him to fall into a pit. Dust and debris fell, and Ge Zheng quickly crouched, barely avoiding sitting on the ground. The pit was below the stone pillars, and in the feeble light, a dark shadow loomed ahead, making it hard to discern its nature. Ge Zheng retrieved a magic lamp inserted with a magic crystal, illuminating the area.
Before him, glittering silver chains were suspended in the air, tapering thicker to slender, interlocked and intertwined downwards, locked together at the bottom, submerged in a large cauldron filled with dark red liquid.
The cauldron was like a small swimming pool, emanating a heavy scent of blood, with waves rippling on the surface, as if some creature lay hidden beneath it.
Dangling from the ceiling of the pit, it was clear that this was the spot where those mummies had stood on the ground. Ge Zheng guessed that this must be the source of the red light injected into those mummy bodies.
He leaped up to grab a silver chain, triggering a rain of falling debris. At the end of the silver chain was a scorpion tail-like hook, hollow inside, with the red liquid slowly dripping from it. Ge Zheng sensed and confirmed that it was genuine blood, but couldn't distinguish whether it was human or animal blood.
Suddenly, the silver chains shook, followed by three hundred more chains swaying in the air, creating a cacophony. In the large cauldron, a surge of blood slapped against the edge, shattering it with a "pah", splattering the blood and drenching him completely! Unconcerned, having been already reeking of blood from the undead soldier's explosion, he brushed off the blood, looked up, and was startled. Inside the cauldron, a silver scorpion the size of a calf bobbed in the blood, then lunged and created another wave. Following the wave, the scorpion rushed up to the edge of the cauldron, lifted its head, and snarled at Ge Zheng, showing its teeth.
Without hesitation, Ge Zheng's flying sword shot out as a red light, swirling around the scorpion's waist, then like a snap, the menacing scorpion split into two parts and stumbled, its posterior segment, the tail, connected to the three hundred silver chains - that was its scorpion tail.
At that moment, Ge Zheng felt and understood that it was not a real demon scorpion, rather it was just a piece of alchemical work. Technically, it wasn't even considered a demonic being, but merely a prop. Though Ge Zheng was well-versed in alchemical art, he had only briefly glanced at such techniques.
Heading into the tunnel, he found it inscribed with bizarre ancient patterns. However, Ge Zheng was certain that these were not alchemical equations but scenes of ancient sacrifices.
At the end of the tunnel was a funnel-shaped exit, becoming increasingly spacious the further he ventured out. Just as he was about to leave the tunnel, a loud roar erupted, "You are guilty of death!" Ge Zheng agilely rolled backward, defending himself with the short sword in front, while his left hand was poised with the flying sword.
Another voice, eerie and foreboding, said, "Guilty of death? I safeguard the treasure of the entire tribe and have sacrificed my life’s work. What is my fault?" Ge Zheng silently approached the entrance of the cave, where he saw dozens of desert fairies surrounding a lean, old one on a hexagonal star-shaped altar. The lines of the altar were drawn in a dark red hue, suggesting the use of blood. Among the desert fairies, Ge Zheng spotted Comings, usually chatty, wielding a half-length scimitar, silently glaring at the aged fairy on the altar.
Among the fairies below the altar stepped out a middle-aged fairy with a silver sword at his waist. He sighed and said to the elder fairy on the altar, "Mansutu, the Gan'yan Ice Room has its own master predestined by fate. Forcing it like this is useless. You can never obtain the Gan'yan Ice Room without answering the questions on the snake wall."
"Fate?" Mansutu, the old fairy, fiercely banged the dry wood staff in his hand, "Our tribe of desert fairies has guarded the Gan'yan Ice Room for hundreds of years. Do you mean it's just to let others take it away? I don't believe in such 'fate.' As long as I am here, the Gan'yan Ice Room must belong to our tribe of desert fairies. You folks normally obedient and submissive; now, having lost my undead soldiers, you're attempting rebellion?!”
It was evident that Mansutu, known for his accumulated authority, lacking his undead soldiers, still held an imposing presence. In the face of his fierce questioning, several desert fairies hesitated and involuntarily took two steps backward.
The middle-aged desert fairy was not afraid, he took a step forward and pulled out a silver knife from his waist, held it above his head with both hands, and Mancetto's face changed.
"Mancetto, it's not because your corpse soldiers are destroyed, but because I have found the ancestral Crescent Moon Silver Knife, which can break your three-hundred-year undead witch's body. For the sake of your own selfish desires, you disturbed the souls of the ancestors of all ages and brought back the souls of the deceased from the underworld, injecting them into mummified soldiers. Everyone dared to be angry but dared not to speak. Today is the time for you to pay the price!" The middle-aged fairy sneered and ignored him, reversed the sword, and the silver moon flew out from under his elbow.
Gezheng looked into the distance, as the silver moon fell from the sky, Mancetto hoisted his staff and roared, spewing out a blood sword from his mouth, but it was unable to resist the moonlight. The blood sword evaporated, and the silver moon fell from his head to the ground, a black line appeared on Mancetto's body, and the ghostly fireflies danced on the altar. In the sparks, Mancetto's body turned into flying ashes.
At this point, Gezheng appeared somewhat caught in a dilemma. He inadvertently witnessed an internal struggle within the desert fairy clan, making it awkward to leave at this time. But staying here was also not an option. The desert fairies inside the cave remained silent for a while, no one spoke, orderly retreating from another opening. The middle-aged fairy holding the Crescent Moon Silver Knife glanced intentionally or unintentionally at Gezheng's hiding place, before leaving, he pointed to a certain cave with his finger.
Gezheng waited for a moment before coming out of his hiding place. He chose to believe the desert fairy and entered the cave he pointed out. As he passed by the six-pointed star altar, he took a glance: every line on the altar was a fine groove, with blood flowing inside, and with Mancetto's death, the blood was slowly drying up.
At the end of the long passage, there was a towering wall. Along the way, Gezheng clearly felt the increasing cold, gradually approaching the core of the dry rock ice room. A tall frame on the left side of the wall held a neat arrangement of circular stone wheels.
"We call it Destiny Chess," footsteps sounded behind, the talkative Combs could not help but speak: "Our ancestors discovered a cold as ice rock in the hot Hānluò wasteland over a thousand years ago. They believed this to be a relic of the gods and settled down as guardians, waiting for the appointed master. 700 years later, they gradually understood what they were guarding, but still believed they were protecting a relic of the gods, waiting for the arrival of their destined owner. Until...three hundred years ago, Mancetto appeared."
Speaking of which, even the cheerful Combs revealed a sorrowful expression: "Mancetto believed that the desert fairy clan had paid a great price for the dry rock ice room, and it should belong to our tribe. He is a dark alchemist, powerful to the point that we cannot resist, controlling the entire tribe by extracting the souls of the ancestors from the Valley of Rest in the underworld, mixing them with the bodies of adventurers, creating invincible mummified soldiers, and dominating the entire tribe."
"Since he took control of the tribe, all the people had to work as guides at the Watertown, with the goal of preventing adventurers from discovering this place. Despite no one speaking of it, we all understand that after we die, we will have the same fate as the ancestors: becoming Mancetto's corpse soldiers." Combs' words carried a chilling vibe, emanating from deep within his heart.
But soon the talkative desert fairy rallied, pointing to the pyramid-shaped chessboard on the ground, saying: "We call it Destiny Chess." He pointed to the stone wheels on the cabinet on the left: "Those are the pieces. Forty-seven pieces, only six positions. They must be placed in the correct positions for the snake wall to open. Mancetto is a genius, but he has never succeeded. According to him, this chessboard forms an equilateral triangle, which should meet certain requirements on each side, or this triangle symbolizes fire, one of the four elements of alchemy, and may have some kind of implication. I am not an alchemist, so I don't understand." Combs shrugged. With a head the size of a barrel, narrow shoulders, and a long thin neck, his shrug was quite comical.
Gezheng looked at the chess pieces on the shelf, which featured various symbols: bald pheasants, budding flower buds, a snake biting its tail, and a swordsman standing on an hourglass, and so on.