Chapter 85: The Underground Palace
Chapter 85: The Underground Palace
Cheng Lingyu exclaimed, “Are you saying the man Orchid Saintess seeks might have ties to Yunyang City?”
Lan Xiaozhu nodded. “Most likely.”
Song Xuejiao gasped, “If the rumors about Lanling Holy Palace’s treasures appearing here are true, doesn’t that link everything to Yunyang City? Are the major Forces gathering for Hua Yuehong… or something else?”
Lan Xiaozhu remained silent.
Cheng Lingyu frowned. The Lanling Holy Palace alone had caused enough trouble. What chaos would follow if Yunyang City faced new dangers?
Outside, a full moon bathed Yunyang City in silver light, draping it like an ethereal scroll.
Lan Xiaozhu suddenly stood, drawn to the unnatural brightness. Her eyes widened.
Song Xuejiao nudged Cheng Lingyu from his thoughts, and they joined her.
Cheng Lingyu blurted, “Is it the Mid-Autumn Festival already?”
Lan Xiaozhu shook her head, her expression strained.
Song Xuejiao counted silently. “Eleven days remain till Mid-Autumn. This moon… it’s wrong.”
Cheng Lingyu stared. A full moon before the fifteenth? Unheard of.
Lan Xiaozhu whispered, “It’s the Demon Moon.”
“What’s that?” Cheng Lingyu turned sharply.
Song Xuejiao paled. “The Demon Moon… an omen of disaster from ancient legends. Forged from darkest energies, it appears once in millennia. Yet here it hangs over Yunyang City.”
The moonlight rippled like disturbed water.
At first a faint tremor, then the entire city shook—as if something buried deep beneath the streets strained to break free. Panic spread through the crowds.
Lan Xiaozhu gripped Cheng Lingyu’s arm. “Secrets lie below. Find the entrance. Great fortune awaits.”
Cheng Lingyu’s Magic Eyes already scanned the area. A flicker of energy two miles from Yaxin Bamboo Cottage caught his attention. He bolted toward a crumbling stone wall.
The women followed, sensing the same invisible vortex—a gaping maw to elsewhere.
Cheng Lingyu slowed, eyeing the shimmering void. He marked the spot with a dao seal and leaped through.
Song Xuejiao and Lan Xiaozhu clasped hands and jumped after him.
Across Yunyang City, experts soared skyward as buildings quaked. One hundred and eight vortices materialized, invisible to all but Soul Martial Realm cultivators or those wielding special techniques.
Cheng Lingyu tumbled through darkness, landing in a damp tunnel. Distant clashing steel echoed.
“Underground?” He steadied himself, listening. The fight grew louder.
After walking dozens of zhang, Cheng Lingyu discovered a branching path and continued forward.
Soon after, he found several more forks, as if trapped in a maze of crisscrossing tunnels.
Opening the Spirit Cloak Ring, Cheng Lingyu retrieved the Source Pearl. It flickered wildly without needing activation, signaling treasures nearby.
Observing carefully, he noted three areas with intense energy pulses. One emitted such violent waves that he nearly lost grip of the pearl.
“That place must hold great fortune, but charging in alone might invite calamity.”
Cheng Lingyu resisted greed. With his low cultivation level, claiming such fortune would only paint a target on his back.
Abandoning the strongest energy source, he weighed the remaining two options.
The first was a distant natural cave radiating potent light.
The second, closer and dimmer, was a quiet stone room whose glow rivaled the cave’s.
Choosing the stone room, Cheng Lingyu followed the pearl’s guidance through dozens of tunnels for half an hour, covering miles.
He passed dozens of Soul Martial Realm cultivators—experts stumbling like headless flies in the labyrinth.
The underground maze sprawled endlessly, its thousands of tunnels confounding all sense of direction.
Ordinary entrants wandered blindly, but Cheng Lingyu stealthily avoided others, reaching the stone room with lingering unease.
Upon entering, light erupted in the darkness. A Spiritual Array materialized on the stone wall, sealing the entrance and trapping him.
The array’s glow illuminated the room: bones littered the floor alongside rusted weapons, a few gleaming as spirit artifacts.
Cheng Lingyu scanned the eerie chamber. The array didn’t attack but acted as an inescapable prison, intricate and profound.
Focusing, his vortex-like eyes dissected the formation. Having mastered the technique of origins and the Heavenly Spirit Diagram’s Sixth Realm, he deciphered most of the array’s secrets.
“Too complex. Knowing how to break it isn’t enough—it demands higher cultivation.”
His current strength might fail to dismantle the array.
Surveying the room, he muttered, “Why did so many die here?”
The space could hold hundreds, yet dozens of skeletal remains lay half-crumbled to dust.
Methodically, Cheng Lingyu cataloged every visible item—a two-hour task.
Most corpses had disintegrated. Intact skeletons were rare. Thick dust hinted at centuries-old deaths. Rotted clothes left behind storage rings, battle armor, weapons, and magical artifacts.
Starting with weapons, he scrutinized each for hidden value.
……
Under the full moon, Yunyang City’s subterranean palace drew thousands.
Top sects—Tianlei Sacred Church, Shanhua Alliance, Divine Martial Sect, Heavenly Palace—sent experts. Local forces like the Two Sects, Three Great Families, and Five Major Gangs joined the rush.
Caiyun detected the disturbance. Tracing Cheng Lingyu’s entrance mark, she slipped inside.
Hua Yuehong (Saintess of the Baifo), Bai Ruomei (Mingyue Gate), Yun Xi (city lord’s daughter), and other notables entered too, lured by the Demon Moon-linked palace’s enigmatic chances.
Treasure hunts were gambles: win rewards, lose lives.
In the maze-like palace, clashes erupted over trifles. Blood sprayed as cultivators dueled in tangled tunnels.
Most above the eighth layer wandered aimlessly, finding neither exits nor treasures.
Caiyun lost Cheng Lingyu’s trail, sensing no trace of him. She spotted familiar figures—Ouyang Lie (Yunyang’s top talent), Shi Busi (Shanhua Alliance), Hua Yuehong, City Lord Yun Ao—all flashing past.
Chasing Hua Yuehong proved futile.
“She reached the Blood Martial Realm already?”
Caiyun’s jade fingers flicked, summoning a blazing fire lotus. Its petals bore spiritual patterns, weaving a composite Spiritual Array with “all-seeing, all-hearing” powers.
Amid chaotic auras, the lotus guided her while she studied the palace and tracked key figures.
Dawn banished the Demon Moon, sealing the palace’s 108 entrances until nightfall. The structure resembled an ancient city—vast, interconnected, enigmatic.
Deep within, countless tunnels led to a palace barred by eight sealed doors, hidden by wall formations.
Elsewhere, a natural cavern housed a Dead Tree strangled by ancient vines. From a withered branch hung a golden gourd, its ghostly face leering.