69: Chapter 69 New Weapon Acquired

Several Voormis nearby gathered around to watch and listen, occasionally pointing and raising issues in a language Xie Feng could not understand.

When the final hammer fell, Master Huo's claws suddenly spread wide and then slammed into the exact center of the staff body. All the gray-blue light patterns on the staff body lit up simultaneously, and the silver-white rune circuits floated up from deep within the staff body, wrapping around the gray-blue staff in circles.

That century-old copper ingot scrap picked from the slag pile fused seamlessly with the gray-blue staff body at the end of the staff.

Master Huo gripped the staff in his hands, his three claws wiping along the staff body from the head to the tail.

He turned the staff horizontally and handed it to Xie Feng.

Xie Feng reached out, and the moment his fingertips touched the surface of the staff body, an extreme chill surged up from his fingertips along his arm.

The entire cold crystal blind staff was exceptionally gloomy and cold, a bone-chilling cold entirely different from any bizarre chill filled the whole staff. The silver-white rune circuits deep within the staff body resonated with the magic in his Meridians the moment he touched it.

Gripping the staff body and lifting the staff from Master Huo's palm, he found its weight evenly distributed, with no part heavier from head to tail.

The tail of the staff tapped the ground; the moment it touched the gravel, a gray-blue cold light spread from the head to the tail of the staff at a speed too fast to track, instantly freezing a layer of white frost onto the surface of those few gravel stones where the tail landed.

"All done and finished." Master Huo planted his iron hammer on the ground, stood up, and patted the Ore dust off his knees.

Master Huo led Xie Feng deeper into the mine pit. The one-eyed old man and the old woman stayed on the western slope to pack up the anvil and hammers, while several others walked down along the slag pile, disappearing in the direction of the mine tunnel entrance.

The further down the mine tunnel went, the darker and colder it became. Xie Feng had originally thought that the closer to the deep underground, the hotter it would be, but this mine tunnel was different. The temperature on the rock walls changed from scorching to warm, from warm to cool, and from cool to cold. By the end, the sulfur smell in the air had also faded, replaced by an ancient, dry stone powder scent.

On the rock walls on both sides of the mine tunnel was a layer of gray-blue micro-glimmer, consisting of countless phantom scripts so fine they were almost invisible. Every single stroke was only as thick as a spider's silk, embedded in the gaps of the rock crystal grains, layer upon layer.

Suddenly, his footing felt empty. Spiritual Qi perception told him that a massive dome had abruptly appeared in the space above his head, almost identical in size to the underground dome previously sealed jointly by the three parties. There was no sulfur smell in the air, no high temperature, only the dry and cold breath of rocks.

The inner walls of the dome were also densely engraved with runes, but the structure of these runes differed from those of the upper-layer Seal runes.

Six hundred years ago, a transaction took place between the great Cultivator and the ancestors of the Voormis: the great Cultivator provided the Seal runes, and the Voormis provided the monitoring runes. The upper and lower layers corresponded one-to-one, together forming the complete structure that trapped the fragment of Cthugha.

Now, although the upper-layer Seal runes had been barely lit, more than a small half of the lower-layer monitoring runes had completely extinguished.

Master Huo stopped in front of a rock wall and pressed three claws onto a protruding piece of rock. The rock sank silently beneath his claws, and a secret door split open on the rock wall.

Behind the door was an inclined passage that descended almost vertically. Master Huo squeezed in first, with Xie Feng following closely behind.

"This is way too steep." Xie Feng muttered a complaint, slowly following Master Huo downward.

At the end of the inclined passage was an underground space filled with a translucent, grayish-white bizarre material.

As Xie Feng stepped out of the inclined passage entrance, the moment his cold crystal blind staff tapped the grayish-white ground, his spiritual Qi spread out.

Separated by a layer of translucent medium, the blue-white flame deep within the dome hovered overhead, slowly pulsing. This was truly the deepest layer sealed by the joint efforts of the three parties. The giant Seal above his head resembled an inverted transparent giant bowl, and the roof of this cave served as the foundation of the Seal.

Viewed from below, this layer of translucent ground was a huge one-way mirror. Standing here, one could look up at the full view of the Seal, but looking down from above, one probably wouldn't see anything and would simply mistake it for an ordinary subterranean fire cover base.

"A gourd? That really fits."

He squatted down, his fingertips touching the ground. It was engraved with tiny and dense phantom scripts, identical to those in cultes des goules.

Xie Feng's fingers slowly traced along the patterns on the ground. Some strokes had been trampled for six hundred years and had worn very thin, but their structure could still be recognized as matching the phantom script materials that Elder Wen Heng had found in the Scripture Pavilion. However, the writing style did not match the person who wrote the Chinese marginalia on the back cover of cultes des goules.

Were these phantom scripts carved by the Voormis? Xie Feng thought to himself, standing up to begin inspecting his surroundings.

Master Huo stood in the exact center of the grayish-white ground, his three claws hanging by his sides, his brown fur casting an extremely faint cold light under the reflection of the dome's blue-white light patterns. He lowered his head to look at the ground beneath his feet.

"Six hundred years ago, our ancestors carved the monitoring runes on this ground. There were a total of ten thousand and eight hundred of them. Now, more than three thousand have gone out. The rest are still operating, but the rate of extinction started accelerating three months ago. Once all the runes on this floor go out, no matter how well Elder Qin and Elder Han repair the upper-layer Seal, it won't hold."

He laid his iron hammer on the ground. "The staff is finished. We are now activating the forbidden technique from standby mode to ready mode. Once activated, anything other than the Voormis will directly detonate it upon contact. You'd better stay away from the center of the array."

Xie Feng hurriedly retreated; he certainly didn't want to turn into fireworks.

Master Huo squatted down, pressing his three thick claws into the exact center of the grayish-white ground. The moment his claws touched the ground, the dense phantom scripts lit up in circles from the center outward like a lit fuse.

He began to chant in the Voormis language—deep, slow, carrying a rhythm much more ancient than human language. The phantom scripts on the grayish-white ground lit up section by section as he chanted, spreading from the center to the edges, and had already reached Xie Feng's feet.

Xie Feng only felt that after hearing it, his whole body seemed filled with heavy dust, making him feel somewhat stuffy and weighed down. He stepped back a few more steps, stopping only when his heels hit the rock wall at the inclined passage entrance.

Xie Feng was wondering how to delay it.

In Ranhuo City, there were not only the Tianque Sect and the court's Directorate of Military Weapons, but also densely packed blacksmith shops, inn staff whose bedding smelled of charcoal, and guards at the city gates weighing the city entry fee in their palms.

These people did not know that before long, the entire city might explode into a sea of fire.

Xie Feng knew he could not stop the activation of the forbidden technique; Master Huo wouldn't listen to him, and the Voormis couldn't abandon their final safeguard for a human's request before leaving. Moreover, it wasn't safe either—if that thing below broke out, the consequences could be even greater.

But at least he could record all the trigger conditions, rune structures, and mana fluctuation frequencies of the forbidden technique, and tell Elder Qin everything verbatim after going out. Whether they chose to evacuate the entire city in advance or find a way to re-hypnotize the fragment before the forbidden technique triggered, that was their business.

In the center of the mirror, at the spot where Master Huo was squatting, a complex three-dimensional rune emerged, slowly rotating in the air three feet off the ground.

With Master Huo's final chant, the three-dimensional rune made its last circle in the air, then silently sank deep into the grayish-white ground and disappeared. The dense phantom scripts on the ground also dimmed accordingly, returning to an extremely faint gray-blue fluorescence.

Master Huo stood up, flicked his three claws by his sides, and turned around.

"Alright. Say whatever you want to say."

"After you withdraw, will the exit of the underground mine tunnel be sealed off?"

"Yes. After the forbidden technique is activated, the mine tunnel will automatically collapse. Once it collapses, no one will be able to come in, and no one will be able to get out."

Xie Feng paused for a moment. "Then if—I mean if—before the forbidden technique triggers, someone manages to re-hypnotize the fragment and make it fall completely asleep, will the trigger conditions of the forbidden technique automatically be lifted?"

Master Huo looked at him for a long time, then let out a low rumble from deep in his throat, unsure whether he was laughing or sighing.

"I knew you liked meddling in other people's business. Go ahead and try if you want, but don't expect the Voormis' forbidden technique to shut itself down just because of one person's 'hope'. We won't give up ensuring its certain death for a mere possible hope. If you succeed, the whole city lives. If you fail, the forbidden technique covers for you. You don't lose out, and it makes no difference to me."

Having been exposed, Xie Feng wasn't embarrassed at all; Master Huo had probably guessed his thoughts when he agreed to help him.

"When will the mine tunnel collapse?"

"Half an hour after we withdraw. I can't tell you when we will withdraw, but I can tell you that the forbidden technique will detonate no later than a week from now."

"Enough." Xie Feng pulled the statue of Tsathoggua from his bosom and handed it into Master Huo's hands.

He turned and squeezed back into the inclined passage. When he climbed out, his knees were stained with several streaks of grayish-white stone powder, and his mind began to ponder what he needed to do next.

First, tell Elder Qin everything about the forbidden technique verbatim. Second, thoroughly figure out the rune circuits on the cold crystal blind staff. Third, figure out one thing clearly before the forbidden technique triggers: the fragment of Cthugha is observing him.

It was treating him as one of its own and trying to acknowledge kin. If it truly regarded him as one of its own, could he turn this around and use it to make it continue sleeping? He had already shifted from passively being watched to actively calling out, and now perhaps he needed to shift once more, turning observation into misjudgment.

"Sigh, I always love meddling in these idle matters. What a busybody's fate!"

When Xie Feng walked out of the western slope of the mine pit, the sun was almost directly overhead. Tu Ziguan stood at the top of the slope, pinching a jade token in his hand, a copper shell swaying at his waist. Seeing him pop out from the mine tunnel entrance, Tu Ziguan visibly breathed a sigh of relief. "You're finally out. Elder Qin is waiting for you at the City Defense Mansion, Elder Han is there too, and the Third Princess is as well. What on earth did you do down there?"

"Made a stick." Xie Feng raised the cold crystal blind staff and gave it a shake.