NOVPUBThe deeper we ventured into the catacombs, the more the walls seemed to close in, not just with darkness but with death itself. The skulls lining the stone walls grew more abundant, packed tighter together until there was hardly a bare patch of rock left untouched. Their hollow eyes stared blankly into the dim corridor, countless and unblinking.
Some were clean and bleached, worn smooth by time. Others were cracked, misshapen, or still stained with the faintest traces of rotting flesh clinging to their surface.
However, not all was bad. By now, our noses had adjusted to the powerful stench of decay. Small victories.
Fu Yating examined the skulls as we walked. Her eyes moved from the ones near the ceiling to those closer to the floor, analyzing them like a puzzle. I could tell she was trying to figure out whether their placement signified some kind of ranking. As far as I knew, it didn’t.
“These individuals were well-trained,” she muttered. “See how their cranial bone is denser, especially around the brow ridges. That’s from bone remodeling. Repeated stress.”
“You’re reading the brow bone?” I asked. “I didn’t know you could tell how much someone’s fought from just that. I always thought the jawline, or fine etchings along the nasal bone from healed breaks, are easier to spot.”
She rubbed her chin and looked again. “Hmm. You’re probably right. I learned this in the Azure Frost Sect. Not many female cultivators let themselves get hit in the face enough for the bone structure to change that visibly. So it’s harder to tell than with male bones.”
Huh. That made sense… in a weird, brutal way.
The Azure Frost Sect had always interested me. Their methods were specifically designed for women, with tailored techniques, specialized body cultivation paths, and unique spiritual root enhancements.
I’d always wondered what they taught the men who managed to get in. The bar was supposedly higher for male disciples, but from what I’d seen, their systems weren’t exactly optimized for them.
Sure, for some guys, the losses might be offset since they were constantly surrounded by beautiful women. But I still thought it was a waste of talent.
We reached the bottom of the catacomb’s spiral, and the air shifted. Colder. Heavier. Not just with rot now, but with dust, stone, and something faintly metallic. The walls pressed closer with every step, stacked skulls staring from silent rows.
Then, the tunnel widened into a dead-end chamber.
And there it stood.
A massive stone door loomed before us, untouched by time. We looked like insects in front of it.
Carved into its surface was the chilling visage of a skull, weathered but unmistakable, its hollow eyes seemingly staring into our souls. Emerging from its gaping mouth was a long, coiling serpent sculpted entirely from obsidian-looking material.
The snake wound downward, its surface impossibly smooth and dark, like flowing ink frozen in time. But it shimmered, catching light in strange ways. Each reflection shimmered just… wrong. As if it wasn’t reflecting just light.
It felt like it was reflecting something else.
Something watching.
The silence here was different. The kind of silence that made you instinctively hold your breath.
"Fuck, doesn't this door give you an instinctive chill?" Fu Yating asked, staying so close to me we were practically touching.
She might've grabbed my arm if she didn't know that would've been stupid. Restricting your best fighter's movement in a place like this? Peak foolishness.
"Well, this organization is rumored to deal in a lot of murder, assassinations, and conspiracies," I said. "At least that's what the last report said."
The most recent one I had was about two hundred years old. Assassination was kind of a dying business. After all, no matter how skilled you were, you weren't assassinating a Nascent Soul Cultivator.
And honestly, any group that advertised themselves as assassins? Already doing it wrong. Secrecy was the business. The fewer people who suspected you, the better.
That old report also said they were diversifying: poisons, kidnappings, monstrous beast captures, and more concerningly, rumors about dabbling in the black market slave trade.
That last one was dangerous as hell.
The four great sects survived on a mutual understanding: their disciples had joined willingly. If it ever became acceptable to kidnap and brainwash young cultivators from other sects, the whole balance of the continent would collapse. A full-scale war would be inevitable.
Slavery wasn't banned for noble reasons. But maybe that's why the rule actually worked.
If the Song Clan hadn't vouched for them, this place probably would've been wiped out just on suspicion. It was cheaper for the Blazing Sun Sect to burn them to the ground than risk a war with the other three giants.
The Song Clan vouching for them made me even more suspicious that the rumors might have been based on truth. That clan was as fucked as they came. They probably had some back-handed deals with them.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Hmmm…" I rubbed my chin, staring up at the massive gate. "So, what do you think? Push it open and see what happens?"
"Or, and hear me out, we could just turn around and pretend this whole detour never happened. I mean, we've already gotten a bunch of minor sects to join this unholy alliance," she pointed out. "Also, we left the giant egg in a forest. Which probably looks like a tasty treat to some giant worm or heavens knows what right about now."
"First of all," I said, "worm-type monstrous beasts are still worms. They eat decaying leaves and plants, dead roots, grass… manure, compost, and stuff like that. They're not even dangerous to humans, let alone an egg."
"Okay, fine. Let's say a snake comes along. Or something that eats eggs."
"I set an array around it," I reminded her. "Carrying it down here would've been a pain in the ass, especially in these tunnels. We'll be going back the same way."
Besides, getting the support of a few minor sects and convincing a Core Formation–backed underground power? Not the same thing.
And honestly… it was too late to back out now.
They'd probably already sensed my presence. For now, maybe they thought I was just a returning disciple. But if I ran?
That would look like an intruder trying to escape.
And then the smart move would be to kill me.
I walked toward the gate and placed my hand on the obsidian serpent.
Instantly, a sharp chill surged into my palm. I hissed and yanked my hand back. My fingers were encased in a thin, glistening layer of frost, the skin beneath turning pale and numb.
Running Qi through them, I coaxed sensation back into the tissue. The cold hadn't just attacked the surface; it had carried volatile foreign Qi into my flesh. I had to work carefully, smoothing out the invading energy and slowly guiding it out without letting it lash around inside me.
Usually, your own Qi would instinctively force out foreign energy. But this stuff was so unstable that it would've mangled my fingers if I'd done it the usual way.
"These are some nasty guys," I muttered, flexing my slowly-thawing hand.
Honestly, if I didn't know about certain connections this group had, and if I wasn't fairly sure they wouldn't kill me on sight, I wouldn't have gotten within ten miles of this place.
"What is it?" Fu Yating asked, glancing at my hand. The tips were pink and raw, still shimmering faintly from the cold. "Are we still opening the door, or what?"
"Of course."
I summoned my Dancing Jade Armor and manifested two thick, gleaming pillars. They slammed into each side of the gate and began to push.
At first, nothing happened. It wasn't just the weight of the door; there was extra resistance. I could feel it. People on the other side were actively trying to keep it shut.
It felt like siblings fighting over a bedroom door, someone pushing to get in, someone bracing it shut with their feet.
But no matter how clever or stubborn they were, they couldn't beat the raw mechanical force behind my technique. Inch by inch, the door began to groan open. The grinding of stone on stone made my ears ring, an awful, screeching sound like someone dragging their nails across a chalkboard.
Fu Yating clutched her ears and grimaced.
Wu Yan, practical as ever, temporarily erased her own ears.
Speedy… looked like he was debating whether it was worth dragging his head into his shell. In the end, he decided it wasn't worth the effort.
As the doors parted fully, two guards came into view.
They looked young, early twenties at most, and strong. Maybe six or eight stars into Qi Gathering, if I had to guess.
They were chuckling with each other, eyes teasing and casual. But as soon as they saw us, the laughter vanished. Their expressions hardened.
They wore dark, loose-fitting clothes, black bandages wrapped from their elbows to their wrists, and tight leather gloves on their hands. Their outfits were silent. Minimalistic. Not like guards.
More like assassins.
“Who are you?” asked the guard on the left. He had one dark eye and one pale blue one. Either he was born like that… or he was using a technique. I leaned toward the latter since there were faint Qi fluctuations in the cornea.
And if he had been born with some natural Qi-sensitive eye? He wouldn’t be working guard duty.
“We’re newcomers,” I said, pulling out the golden identity token engraved with writhing black lines. “I’d like to speak with one of your elders.”
The guard studied the token for a moment before nodding. “I’ll notify someone.”
Without another word, he turned and sprinted off down the stone path, leaving us with the second guard.
This one seemed younger-looking. Innocent, round face. Probably new.
I figured I might as well get a conversation going. My intel on this place was a couple hundred years old, so there was plenty of time for everything to have changed.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked.
“Xiao Yuan,” he replied cautiously and seemed to measure his words.
I nodded, then turned my gaze toward the open gate. I’d sensed the city earlier, but seeing it was something else entirely.
The passage opened into a vast, subterranean world. An underground city carved beneath stone and shadow, hidden away like a secret second world beneath the ruins.
The cavern stretched out like a buried sky, massive, domed, and glowing faintly with artificial light from unknown arrays. Thousands of window-like cutouts lined the cavern walls, each casting a warm flickering glow. Behind them, shadows moved. It was the people going about their lives.
Down below, a river wound through the center like a black vein, streaked with strange light. Bridges arched over it, connecting wide stone paths and open plazas. Cultivators in dark robes moved with quiet purpose. Some trained, others traded. Many simply stood, meditating or powering the arrays beneath their feet.
In the heart of it all, an obsidian spire rose like a black tooth, covered in glowing crimson runes. Around it, towers and halls were built like petals circling the heart of a flower. People moved in and out of those structures like they were following a rhythm only they could hear.
This wasn’t just a base.
This was a full-fledged sect.
Bigger than the reports had claimed. Stronger, more organized. More dangerous.
I’d known many people were in here from the Qi signatures, but seeing it? Feeling the hum of activity beneath the stone?
This wasn’t the Serpent Bone Hall I’d read about. Not anymore.
Just then, I sensed movement.
The other guard was returning, with someone far stronger walking beside him.
An elder at the peak of Foundation Establishment.
