The black sea formed by heavy black mist churn like boiling water. Roaring sea waves crashing against the chasm cliff walls and then recoil back, colliding heavily with new mist waves furiously, emitting high mist tides like giant black sword stabbing ascend, throwing high sprays into the high sky, gradually but quickly covered the sunlight with thicker and thicker mist sprays rising high in the sky like numerous giant, towering black swords.
The mist seemed to be formed by unknown but extremely heavy fine dusts. A few moment later, the towering swords of black mist formed by the black mist shuddered faintly, then began collapsing inch by inch toward the abyss's depths. One by one, the collapsing pieces of giant sword slammed the below mist sea surface, send the mist sea roiling and spitting in a frenzied dance. From far beneath, low, guttural roars echoed—distant, primal, thrashing in desperate fury, as if some unknown fierce beasts were struggling hysterically.
Lordi Payne barely had time to tilt his ear before Oen Shinae's cold grip clamped his arm like a vice. "Move!" she commanded, yanking him into the abyss. Fang Jit and Sharky Ink leaped after, four shadows plunging into the dark. Like tiny pebbles tossed into a stormy sea, their fall carved a fleeting whirlpool in the surging black mist. Shredded Dao Fulu papers spiraled briefly within, their dim glow snuffed out as the mist sea devoured them whole, leaving no trace.
Meanwhile. Within the inner sect, at the heart of the Wraithbone Bloodline's domain, Miu Tyanh opened his eyes. A ripple of intuition tugged at him mid-cultivation. He rose from his meditative stance in the sealed chamber, waving the chamber door open.
Outside, on a malachite and gilt bronze table, a piece of blank Dao Fulu floated in the mid air, smoldering. As errie green flames licked its edges, tiny words bled onto the surface in stark red on its previously blank surface. "Kinson Wexford aims to seize the Ice Pith Fire for Lordi Payne. Oen Shinae leads. Just entered Gworm Abyss."
"Ice Pith Fire?" Miu Tyanh's brow creased, voice a murmur. "That Dao Flame the Middle Five Bloodline Lords claimed as theirs prize?"
The Ice Pith Fire was well-known within the inner sect. It was a spiritual flame born of the earth's cold energy condensing to a certain degree, a rare gift of heaven and earth. To most, its value lay more in function of marrow-purify than in Elixir Alchemy.
After all, the alchemy skill required talent, but who among cultivators would refuse the chance to refine and purify their marrow basement and forge a stronger fundamental?
When this bosom of Ice Pith Fire birthed, the inner sect had been ignited fierce competition spark, both overt and covert. Ultimately, a Bloodline Lord from the Middle Five Bloodlines emerged victorious, reserving it for a close kin relative.
Kinson Wexford had bowed out the Dao Flame competition from the start. After all, there's no alchemist in Deathveil Bloodline, and Kinson Wexford himself had no kin who's talent in alchemy to favor.
Yet now, Kinson Wexford was willing to offend the Middle Five Bloodlines for Lordi Payne?
Miu Tyanh, vengeance simmering in his veins, couldn't hide his bafflement.
After a moment of contemplation, he summoned a subordinate. "What's been happening with the Upper Three Bloodlines lately? Have they shown any interest in the birth of Ice Pith Fire?"
The subordinate shook his head. "Reply to your honor. The senior brothers and sisters of the Upper Three Bloodlines have been acting as usual recently."
Miu Tyanh pressed, unconvinced. "Did Kinson Wexford go to them for help recently?"
Seeing his subordinate shake his head again, Miu Tyanh fell into a brief silence.
Fairy Lith, her highness, was in seclusion, and there were no signs of the Upper Three Bloodlines intervening. Did that mean Kinson Wexford was acting on his own, risking the wrath of the Middle Five Bloodlines to seize the Ice Pith Fire?
Of course, it could be a trap.
But that seemed unlikely—Kinson Wexford didn't know Miu Tyanh had eyes in his bloodline.
While Miu Tyanh wavered in indecision.
"Bloodline Lord!" A disciple arrived with a report. "Kinson Wexford is at the gate. He demands a duel."
"Hmm?" Miu Tyanh froze mid-stride. A cold sneer twisted his lips. "Tell that sorry hound, I'm at a critical point in my cultivation. I'll spare his life today and let him crawl off! Once I emerge from my seclusion, I'll raze his Withered Orchid Villa to the ground!"
With that, he instructed his subordinate, eyes glinting like exposed daggers. "I'm heading to the Gworm Abyss to see if I can take Lordi Payne's head as an offering for Toanh. You wait here. If I don't return after half a day, explain the whole story to the Chou Clan and ask them to inform Successor Chou. Ensure Her Highness hears every detail."
As Miu Tyanh set off toward the Gworm Abyss, Lordi Payne was struggling on the brink of death.
That was Lordi Payne's only sensation after entering the black fog. The black mist swallowed him whole, a bone-deep freeze sinking into his spine. His stomach lurched upward, as if all guts have become untethered, floating somewhere behind his ribs. The wind screamed past his ears, a deafening rush that drowns out all thought. His limbs flail instinctively, grasping at nothing, but the air offered no purchase—only the cruel, unrelenting pull of gravity.
As his accelerate, the wind became a wall, pressing against his body like an invisible hand trying to crush it. Breathing was impossible—his lungs refuse to expand, the mouth gasping uselessly. His skin burns from the friction, yet the cold bite of high-altitude wind peeling away warmth.
Life's flashing before Lordi Payne's eyes. A memory surfaced—Joanie's laugh aboard the Bone Tomb Vessel, Willow's fingers brushing his lips as black mist just coiled between them. He recalled the first time he met Joanie and Willow. Back then, aboard the Bone Tomb Vessel, black mist had also risen, coiling into chilly pillars. Could the origin of Fairy Lith's Dao Vessel be tied to this abyss?
However, the black mist on the Bone Tomb Vessel had lasted only a fleeting moment, yet it had left both Lordi Payne and Hugo Payne in a sorry state.
Now, this chasm abyss seemed bottomless. Lordi Payne had no idea how long he'd been falling, only that his entire body felt nearly frozen stiff into an ice block. If Oen Shinae hadn't noticed something was wrong with this junior brother and sent a thread of spiritual energy through her grip to protect Lordi Payne's heart and dantian meridian in time, he would've lost consciousness entirely.
After what felt like an eternity, as he teetered on the edge of death, he saw faint flare glowing from the waists of Oen Shinae, Fang Jit, and Sharky Ink. Then an invisible suction force yanked them sideways, dragging all four into a crevice in the abyss wall.
Lordi Payne hit stone, vomiting bile as the world spun. He climbed dizzily to his feet from the ground, only to catch Fang Jit casting him an unmasked look of disdain.
"Senior Sister." Fang Jit sneered, tone cold, "Who's going to drag this deadweight along later? Otherwise, in the Lurewoven Grove up ahead, he's definitely not making it out alive."
Oen Shinae frowned. Her silence weighed more than the abyss. The original plan had been to let Fang Jit, who was skilled in both medicine and poison, take charge of Lordi Payne for safety.
But with Fang Jit's current attitude...
Though she was the strongest among them and the senior sister, capable of forcing Fang Jit to obey, and Fang wouldn't dare defy her outright. However she'd already reprimanded him once inside the Transport Phantom's belly. Pressing him further might lead to subtle defiance. After some thought, Oen Shinae decided, "Junior Brother Payne, you'll stick with Sharky Ink later."
Lordi Payne bowed his head. "Aye!"
Lordi Payne's breath crystallized in the air as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The cave wasn't just cold—it was alive with malice.
The walls pulsed like rotten flesh, jagged stone teeth glistening with frozen mucus. The stalactites weren't mere formations—they were dripping, their needle-pointed tips oozing black fluid that sizzled where it struck the uneven floor. Every surface bore a hideous rime of frost.
And then there were the things moving in the dark.
They skittered with impossible speed, their many-legged shadows flitting across the weeping stone. Not insects. Not rats. Twitching, malformed creatures with too many joints, their shells clicking like broken fingernails on bone.
Watching this, Lordi Payne sighed inwardly. Had he known this journey would be so perilous, he never would've listened to Kinson Wexford's urging to "cultivate-hard"!
But things had come to this, so he could only grit his teeth and clasp his fists toward Sharky Ink. "Senior Brother Sharky, please look after me later."
Sharky Ink's plain, sturdy face barely shifted. He merely nodded slightly in response.
Thus, Oen Shinae took the lead, Sharky Ink brought up the rear, and Fang Jit and Lordi Payne stayed in the middle as the four ventured deeper into the cave.
With three Foundation Stage cultivators as escorts—Oen Shinae even being at mid-Phased Foundation Stage—the trek was smooth. Any minor hiccups were dealt with by those ahead or behind before Lordi Payne could even notice.
But after walking for a while, Oen Shinae suddenly stopped, her voice low and cautious. "Up ahead is the Lurewoven Grove. Everyone, be careful!"
"Junior Brother Payne, the Lurewoven Grove can trap cultivators in dreamscape, causing them to lose themselves," Sharky Ink, who'd been silent until now, spoke in a quiet rumble. "You must bear in mind. Once in, no matter what you see, ignore it. Never leave the squad!"
With that, he pulled out a wooden stick from somewhere and and motioned Lordi Payne to grab it, "Grab this. Hold tight till we're through."
Lordi Payne didn't need to be told twice. He gripped one end of the wooden stick firmly and said solemnly, "Senior Brother, don't worry. I won't let go."
The deeper they ventured, the more the cavern revealed its grotesque majesty. As they pressed forward, Lordi Payne's breath caught in his throat. From the vaulted ceiling of the cave loomed an incomprehensible spectacle: countless blood-red vines, thick and sinuous, writhed like a legion of gore-drenched anacondas. Their coiled forms twisted and stretched, each tendril glistening with a spectral, halo-like luminescence that pulsed faintly, as though alive with malevolent intent. They cascaded downward in a torrent—a magnificent, horrifying waterfall of crimson that dominated the cavern with its grotesque splendor.
Yet, as Lordi Payne's eyes lingered, he realized the vines weren't wholly corporeal. They shimmered like mirages, their forms wavering between reality and illusion, radiating a hypnotic, otherworldly haze that clawed at the edges of his sanity.
A single glance was enough. A wave of dizzle crashed over him, his mind teetering on the brink of collapse. He tore his gaze away, heart pounding, and fixed his eyes on the ground—only to freeze, a scream clawing up his throat. The rough wooden stick clutched in his trembling hand was gone.
In its place, without sound or warning, was a girl's hand—soft, smooth, slender, impossibly delicate. Her pale skin gleamed with a milkwhite sheen, the fingers long and graceful.
Lordi Payne's breath hitched as he traced the hand upward. His eyes climbed to a wrist so fine it seemed carved from moonlight, then along an arm draped in flowing white, luminous woven from the night sky. Her features were sculpted from the purest jade, flawless and radiant, with eyes that shimmered like twin moons. Her lips, a soft curve of rose, parted slightly, exuding a grace so ethereal it bordered on the divine.
Lordi Payne recognized her—Fairy Lith.