230: Chapter 230 Breath of the Abyss

Time in the absolute darkness of the basement had lost its measure.

Only the slow, itching pain of wounds, the cramping of stomach muscles, and the burning thirst deep in the throat acted like a sluggish pendulum, striking at the edge of consciousness.

Yet, clearer than the physical pain was a bone-deep, icy will—to survive.

To recover strength.

Ling Ye cast aside all distracting thoughts, sinking his mind into a near-dormant state.

He no longer attempted to guide the energy of the "Ancient Ring" mark to accelerate healing—the consumption was too great, and in the absence of food and water, it was not worth the cost.

He simply maintained the most basic rhythm of "Star Visualization," letting that faint, warm current act like a lubricant, flowing slowly through the main meridians to soothe the micro-tears and blockages caused by intense exertion and high-intensity combat.

At the same time, he minimized the dissipation of his own vital heat, entering a low-metabolic state similar to the hibernation of certain animals.

His breathing became extremely long and shallow, and his heartbeat slowed to a dangerous edge.

His body temperature dropped, and his skin temperature became almost the same as the damp soil around him.

If not for the extremely subtle rise and fall of his chest, he would be indistinguishable from a cold corpse.

This was an extremely rudimentary breath-suppression technique he had mastered, derived from ancient ascetics or the "Turtle Breathing" Cultivation Technique.

Combined with the meditative state of "Star Visualization," it allowed him to preserve his vitality to the maximum extent in desperate situations and reduce the risk of being detected.

The price was that the body's repair process became extremely slow, and his consciousness remained in a chaotic, half-dreaming state.

His perception of the outside world was reduced to a minimum, retaining only a sliver of the most instinctive alertness to lethal danger.

He lay like a stone, sunken at the bottom of a dark quagmire.

He did not know how much time had passed.

Perhaps a few hours, perhaps a day.

An extremely slight but continuous vibration jolted him awake from the deepest state of "Turtle Breathing."

It was not a sound, but a rhythmic, low-pitched hum transmitted through the ground and walls.

This humming seemed to come from the depths of the earth, yet it also seemed to be everywhere.

Was it the detection equipment of "The Plainclothes Organization" conducting a large-scale scan nearby?

Or had some kind of energy disturbance occurred at the "Dark Nest" in the distance?

Ling Ye tensed his nerves instantly, but he did not open his eyes or move.

He simply raised that sliver of alertness to its limit, carefully distinguishing the characteristics of the vibration.

The humming lasted for about a minute, then gradually weakened and vanished.

The surroundings returned to deathly silence, with only the sound of his own nearly stagnant heartbeat remaining.

There were no footsteps, no searchlight beams, and none of the "beep-beep" sounds characteristic of detection equipment.

It did not seem to be a direct search targeting this basement.

He slowly exhaled a breath of stale air that tasted of rust, still not moving.

He continued to maintain the breath-suppression state, but not as deeply as before.

He began to consciously guide that faint, warm current, prioritizing the wound on his left calf and his sprained left arm.

The itching sensation of the wound healing became a bit clearer, but the speed remained slow.

The sensations of hunger and thirst, like awakening vipers, began to gnaw more fiercely at his stomach and throat.

He licked his dry, peeling lips; his mouth tasted only of blood and dust.

Water, he had to find water.

He could endure the hunger for a while longer, but without water, he would not last long.

He did not know how much more time had passed before the outside light (if the extremely faint change that filtered through the gap in the entrance could be called light) seemed to grow dim once more.

Another "night" had descended.

It was time to leave.

He could not wait any longer.

His injuries had stabilized somewhat, but were far from healed.

His strength had recovered a little, but he was still weak.

Staying here any longer would only lead to him completely losing the ability to move due to dehydration and starvation.

He opened his eyes slowly, adapting to the absolute darkness.

Then, he began to move his stiff, cold limbs extremely slightly to check his injuries.

The sharp pain in his left arm had eased a little, but he still could not use it.

The wound on his calf did not seem to show signs of infection, but it was still painful.

The dull ache in his ribs remained, and it was still noticeable when he breathed.

It was enough.

At least he could move, walk, and think.

He carefully pushed aside the concrete slab blocking the entrance and listened intently.

Outside, it was deathly silent, with only the whimpering of the wind passing through the ruins.

Like a groundhog poking its head out of its burrow, he slowly extended his head out of the entrance, using all his senses to perceive the surrounding environment.

There were no abnormal energy fluctuations, no signs of human activity, and no unusual sounds.

There was only the scent of decay and death emanating from the ruins themselves.

He crawled out of the basement and stood once more on the cold ground.

The night wind was biting, blowing against his thin, tattered clothes and bringing a bone-chilling cold, but it also cleared his chaotic mind.

He identified his direction—relying on the faint but persistent, unsettling sense of energy pressure coming from the direction of the "Dark Nest," as well as the path he remembered from his escape.

Northwest.

Continue northwest.

Stay away from that disturbed area, and also keep a distance from the direct range of influence of the "Dark Nest."

He did not set off immediately, but instead crouched in the shadows of the ruins, waiting and observing quietly for nearly half an hour.

After confirming that there were truly no signs of ambushes or patrols, he began to move like a true ghost.

His speed was slow, and his steps were somewhat unsteady, but every step landed in the most secure and quietest spot.

He no longer pursued a straight-line distance, but instead utilized every broken wall, mound, and thicket that could conceal his figure.

He avoided any location that might hide sensors (such as isolated metal structures or objects suspected to be electrical boxes), preferring to take the long way around.

The night became his best cover.

This area of ruins seemed truly forgotten, or at least there were no signs of it being heavily monitored by "The Plainclothes Organization" for the time being.

But he dared not be careless in the slightest, keeping his "Energy Perception" maintained at the lowest but continuous state, vigilant for any abnormal electromagnetic fluctuations or life signals.

He stopped and started, forced to pause several times along the way to catch his breath and calm the dizziness caused by hunger and weakness.

Once, because his vision went black, he nearly collapsed headfirst into a small dirt pit filled with sewage.

He bit his tongue, using the sharp pain to stimulate himself to stay awake.

He did not know how far he had walked or for how long.

Until the sky in the east once again took on that familiar, despair-inducing lead-gray color.

He had to find a new, sufficiently hidden hiding spot before the sky became completely bright.

Before him, the terrain began to change.

The ruins gradually decreased, replaced by semi-abandoned farmland, dried-up ditches, and some scattered, even lower and more dilapidated farmhouses.

This was already close to the edge of the city's built-up area; it could even be called a wild area on the urban-rural fringe.

He selected a small hill right next to a riverbed that was almost completely dry, leaving only black sludge and trash.

The hill was not high, but the slope was gentle and covered with waist-high dead grass and thorny shrubs.

On the side of the hill facing away from the city, he discovered a shallow, downward-sloping hole formed by rainwater erosion and animal digging, its entrance almost completely obscured by dense dead grass and thickets of thorns.

The entrance was not large, but it seemed to have some depth inside and was dry.

He carefully pushed aside the thorns and crawled in.

The cave was about two meters deep, less than a meter at its widest point, and the height barely allowed him to sit curled up.

The ground was dry sandy soil, with no traces of animal feces or nests, only some dead grass and fallen leaves.

This was the place.

He camouflaged the entrance again with the dead branches and thorns he had found, leaving only a few inconspicuous gaps for observation and ventilation.

Then, he collapsed onto the dry sandy ground as if all his strength had been drained away, leaving only the violent heaving of his chest and an aching pain in his bones, as if his whole body had fallen apart.

Temporarily... safe.

At least, far from the immediate pursuit and the dense monitoring network.

But the crisis of survival had not been resolved; instead, it was even more urgent.

Water.

He had to find water immediately.

He struggled to sit up and listened intently.

Outside, there was the extremely faint rustling of wind blowing through dead grass, and in the distance, there seemed to be the chirping of birds, but... no sound of water.

He recalled the path he had taken; that dried-up riverbed... in the low-lying areas at the bottom, were there perhaps some small pits with darker colors that might still have a little muddy water remaining?

Or was it possible that there were long-abandoned irrigation ditches or pump wells nearby?

He needed to go out to find water, but it was daytime now, and the risk was increased.

Moreover, in his current state, whether he could return safely after finding water was an unknown.

After hesitating for a moment, his instinct for survival overcame the risk.

He could not die of thirst here.

He checked the camouflage at the entrance again, and after confirming it was correct, he quietly pushed aside the grass from another direction and crawled out.

He did not go far but carefully searched along the edge of the dried-up riverbed.

His gaze swept over every low-lying area and every patch of darker-colored soil.

After walking about one hundred meters, just as he was about to give up and consider whether to risk searching near the more distant farmhouses, he discovered a small patch of dark black mud on the shaded side of a bend in the riverbed, with a thin layer of saline-alkali crusting the surface.

In the center of the mud, there was a shallow pit about the size of a bowl, murky and unbearable, but it seemed to contain a very small amount of liquid.

It was standing water!

Although it was unimaginably dirty, mixed with sludge, rotting matter, and saline-alkali, it... it was liquid!

A glimmer of light flashed in Ling Ye's eyes.

He observed his surroundings, and after confirming it was safe, he quickly slid down into the riverbed and came to the side of the shallow pit.

He probed it with his finger; the liquid was only about a finger deep, cold and viscous.

He took out the empty, tattered plastic bottle he had, carefully pushed aside the debris floating on the surface, and then, pressing the bottle mouth against the bottom of the pit, he extremely slowly collected the bit of murky liquid.

The liquid was grayish-black, emitting a strong, earthy, and putrid odor.

After collecting more than half a bottle, the shallow pit was almost empty.

He was not greedy; he immediately closed the bottle cap (though it did not seal tightly), quickly retreated to the top of the riverbed, found a hidden spot, and used the relatively clean dead grass and cloth scraps he had found to make an extremely crude filtration device, filtering that bit of muddy water repeatedly several times.

After filtering, the color of the water turned into a murky light yellow.

The odor was still unpleasant, but at least large particulate Impurities were no longer visible to the naked eye.

He did not drink it immediately.

Carrying this more than half-full bottle of "water," he quickly returned to the earthen cave and re-camouflaged the entrance.

In the absolute darkness, he stared at the bottle of life-saving, and potentially life-threatening, liquid in his hand.

He knew that drinking this kind of water directly carried a very high risk of parasitic infection, bacteria, or poisoning.

But he had no other choice.

He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began to perform "Star Visualization."

It was not for healing, but to try to mobilize that faint, yet seemingly high-ranking, thread of rhythm contained within the "Ancient Ring" mark, which possessed a certain nature of "Purification" or "Guardian."

He could not "turn poison into medicine" like the legendary Cultivators, but perhaps he could rely on this thread of rhythm to maximize the potential of his own immune System to combat the possible harmful substances in the water.

This was a risky attempt, but he had to give his body a signal to "prepare" and "mobilize."

A moment later, he opened his eyes, pulled off the bottle cap, pinched his nose, tilted his head back, and drank the filtered, still murky, yellow liquid that carried a strong, earthy, and bitter taste in one gulp.