113: Chapter 113 The Key in the Old Wound

That thing was already within arm's reach.

Shen Xiao did not let Xia Lengbai act immediately.

He took a deep breath, squeezing the last bit of vitality out of the nearly dried-up Silver Pattern in his Dantian, and swung his arm violently backward!

Three streaks of silver light, so faint they were almost transparent, crisscrossed as they shot toward the entrance of the corridor they had just climbed in from.

The silver light sank into the rock wall, forming three layers of temporary barriers that were as thin as cicada wings and flickered on and off.

Subtle patterns flowed across the barriers, radiating a fragile yet sharp cutting aura.

It wouldn't hold for long.

Shen Xiao knew this clearly.

Since this thing could drive away and alarm even those Echoes monsters and turbulent energy outside, it was likely not something easy to deal with.

The "creaking" sound of grinding rock had now turned into a dull, rhythmic thumping, as if a giant beast trapped in a cage was using its massive body to slam, again and again, against the corridor barrier obstructing its path.

Every impact caused the rock beneath Shen Xiao and Xia Lengbai to tremble slightly.

What was even more hair-raising was that mixed into the thumping was a "screeching" sound that rose and fell, twisted and out of tune.

It wasn't the roar of a living creature.

It was more like... the sound squeezed out of a broken bellows after countless fragments of sound had been forcibly blended, stretched, and twisted.

Echoes.

But these Echoes were more solid and aggressive than the ones wandering outside.

"That thing has awakened, or it has been lured here."

Shen Xiao's tone was calm, perhaps even too calm, but his knuckles were slightly white where his fingers pressed against the rock wall.

The meager power of the Silver Pattern in his Dantian was maintaining the entrance barrier through the contact between his fingertips and the rock wall, while simultaneously extending his largest perception thread like an antenna toward the scorching indentation ahead.

"Light Cocoon, speak clearly. We only have one chance, so don't give me any of those vague, pretentious riddles."

The Light Cocoon hovered beside Xia Lengbai's shoulder, its ice-blue light flickering violently. The intent it transmitted was no longer complete sentences, but fragmented, urgent snippets, laced with trepidation and a certain unquestionable "conviction."

The fragments flooded into Shen Xiao and Xia Lengbai's minds.

It wasn't about the principle of the "key," but about why the "key" was Xia Lengbai, and the... price of using it by force.

The core information was cruelly condensed: the memory that Xia Lengbai had once had stolen by Shen Xiao, especially the memory concerning the Child of Destiny, Lin Yun, had been branded with a "Defective Supporting Character" mark by the "heavenly dao chessboard" the moment it was stripped away.

This mark itself was damaged and useless, much like a deactivated account.

But for certain older, more "rigid" rule-based constructs.

For instance, the ancient ruins before them, this "unauthorized blank" or "loophole in the rules" had instead become a highly unique existence.

The Tomb Guardian Seal was the "lock," a legitimate key to verify the identity of the "Gravekeeper."

And this "void" that existed in Xia Lengbai's memory, judged as "invalid" by the rules of the Heavenly Dao, was a type of... twisted "illegal access key" that existed based on "nothingness."

The Light Cocoon's intent was intermittent, emphasizing two points: First, this "key" was unstable and carried a strong "polluting" property, originating from a "loophole" in the Heavenly Dao itself. Forcibly inserting it into the rule-based keyhole of the ruins would have unpredictable results; it might activate the deepest defenses of the ruins, or it might cause the "key" itself—that is, Xia Lengbai—to be backlashed, marked, or even... assimilated by the rules of the ruins.

Second, this might be their only path.

The thing outside was almost here.

"Shen Xiao, look."

After listening, Xia Lengbai suddenly let out a low laugh.

The laughter rippled through the narrow, silent corridor, clear and somewhat jarring.

Her face was still pale, but in her eyes, a light bordering on paranoia ignited.

"The 'gift' you gave me is always useful."

The tone could not be distinguished as gratitude, mockery, or some form of resigned acceptance.

She did not look at Shen Xiao again, nor did she look at the violently trembling Light Cocoon.

She simply lowered her eyelashes, her gaze falling upon her open right hand, where red, burnt marks from earlier still remained on her palm.

The clear radiance of the Tomb Guardian Seal emerged from her palm once more.

But this time, the light did not surge toward the rock wall as before.

The ice-blue radiance, like living mercury, meandered from her palm, then climbed up along her arm, swept past her shoulder and neck, and finally... gently yet firmly, converged toward the location of her left chest, where the invisible "void" lay.

Shen Xiao's pupils constricted slightly.

He saw that the ice-blue radiance was not filling or healing the void, but rather, like the most precise bandage or some kind of special conductor, it was carefully "wrapping" that area of nothingness.

Immediately after, Xia Lengbai, with a sacrificial sense of determination, slowly pressed her left hand—which was wrapped in the clear radiance and contained the "void"—back toward the center of that scorching, dark-red glowing three-dimensional keyhole projection!

There was no earth-shattering roar.

There was only a long, desolate sound, like a sigh, or perhaps the low groan of stone as a mechanism sealed for ten thousand ages was finally triggered...

Hum...

In the low vibration that resonated directly on the level of the Soul, the keyhole projection suddenly shrank inward, and then instantly solidified!

It was no longer light and shadow, but seemed to have turned into a substantial mixed structure of metal and rock, embedding itself tightly into the depths of the indentation.

Immediately following...

Click. Click. Click. Click...

Dense, crisp sounds of mechanisms, as if countless precise gears were meshing and turning in an instant, erupted from inside the rock wall, from beneath their feet, and from all directions simultaneously!

The sound went from near to far, from slow to fast, eventually merging into a seamless, hair-raising mechanical roar!

The entire dark cyan rock wall did not collapse or crack apart as Shen Xiao had expected.

It began to "move."

It was like a giant, living puzzle, or an ancient instrument that had initiated its final program.

The rocks forming the wall, following the trajectories of the chisel marks that had been lit up by the Tomb Guardian Seal earlier, began to retract, fold, rotate, and shift inward!

There was no dust flying, only the sound of dry rocks grinding against each other, and a... teeth-aching "creak" caused by the structural reconfiguration.

Within a few breaths, the dead end that had been seamless just moments ago "opened" layer upon layer before their eyes.

The rock wall retracted and retreated, revealing a wide downward entrance large enough for two people to walk side by side.

Behind the entrance were stairs.

Complete rock stairs, shimmering with a cold, hard, dark cyan luster, extended downward, disappearing into a deep darkness that seemed capable of absorbing light.

On the walls on both sides of the stairs, every few steps, an ancient-looking lamp was embedded. The wicks had long since been extinguished, leaving only lamp bases covered in ten thousand years of dust.

A breeze, mixed with extreme dryness, sealed-away time, and a trace of an extremely faint... metallic rust scent, blew up from below, carrying the unique chill of the underground.

The Light Cocoon's trembling stopped.

The dim ice-blue patterns on its body circulated once, seemingly recovering a tiny bit of vitality, and then it took the lead, like a cautious vanguard, floating and slowly sinking into the downward dark stair entrance, its faint radiance illuminating the outlines of the steps below.

Shen Xiao did not move immediately.

He unleashed his Silver Pattern to its full extent, turning it into countless perception threads finer than hair, like the most cautious mine detector, sweeping over the edges of the entrance, the surfaces of the stairs, the walls on both sides, and especially those lamps.

The feedback he received, aside from "ancient," "cold," and "structurally stable," did not detect any obvious energy traps or aura of curses.

But "no obvious" did not mean there weren't any.

Only then did he turn his head and take a look at Xia Lengbai.

The girl's face was several shades paler than before, fine cold sweat oozed from her forehead, and her lips were tightly pursed.

Her left hand was still pressed against the indentation, which had now returned to a normal rock wall and was no longer scorching, but her right hand was gently covering her chest.

Just a moment ago, the instant her left foot stepped onto the first stair...

Her body couldn't help but sway slightly.

It was not exhaustion, nor was it dizziness.

It was that the "void" in her chest, wrapped in the clear radiance of the Tomb Guardian Seal, had, without warning, sent a sharp, piercing pain!

It felt as if countless cold, slender, and strangely probing metal needles had violently stabbed into that nothingness, twitched once, and then instantly withdrawn.

The pain came quickly and left quickly, but it left behind a lingering, indelible chill of having been "scanned" and "marked."

At the same time, several fragmented images, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, forcibly squeezed into her mind:

They were not her memories.

They were from some cold, absolutely rational, inorganic perspective.

The images flickered rapidly: her hand pressed against the indentation, the energy outline of the "void" in her chest, the spectral characteristics of the Qi flowing within her body and the Tomb Guardian Seal, and even a trace of the "Heavenly Dao residual mark" deep within her Soul...

Like the most efficient scanner, it recorded instantly and analyzed instantly.

There was no judgment, no warning, only the recording itself.

The ruins' defense mechanism, or rather, its admission audit mechanism, had already branded her with the first incredibly clear... mark.

She had stepped into the door, and she had also been seen by the door.

Xia Lengbai lowered the hand covering her chest, her fingertips ice-cold.

She raised her head, looked into the depths of the dark stairs where the Light Cocoon had sunk, and then turned back to take a look at Shen Xiao.

Her eyes were complex, holding lingering fear and a trace of imperceptible bewilderment, but more than that, there was a kind of calmness that came after taking the first step, knowing there was no turning back.

Shen Xiao understood that look.

He didn't speak, only raised his hand and patted her shoulder with a light touch, then took the lead, stepping onto the cold stairs that seemed to lead to another era.

The perception threads of the Silver Pattern spread out silently like a spiderweb, shrouding the two of them.

The stairs were very quiet, with only the sound of their footsteps and the rustling of their clothes echoing.

The clear radiance of the Light Cocoon led the way ahead, dyeing a small area pale blue.

Downward.

Further downward.

As if there was no end.

The extinguished ancient lamps on the walls on both sides, under the sweep of the pale blue halo, revealed mottled patterns, like silent tombstones of some lost civilization.

The air grew colder and colder, and the scent of sealed-away time grew thicker.

They walked about a hundred steps.

The Light Cocoon stopped.

It hovered above the last few steps and stopped descending, its ice-blue light slightly diffusing to illuminate a much broader space ahead.

The stairs had come to an end.

Below the last step was not a corridor or passageway, but a circular space... unimaginably huge.

As far as the light could reach, one could only see a small patch of ground paved with dark cyan rock nearby, and the curved walls on both sides that extended upward and quickly disappeared into the darkness higher up.

The dome was outrageously high; looking up, there was only a thick, impenetrable darkness, as if it led straight to the earth's core, or perhaps connected to some forgotten starry sky.

The light of the Light Cocoon, relative to this space, was as faint as a firefly.

It hovered quietly at the junction of the stairs and the huge circular space, its clear radiance spilling downward, illuminating a blurry outline along the edge of the ground.

There, it seemed there was something.

Shen Xiao narrowed his eyes, and his Silver Pattern perception threads quietly extended over.

The tactile feedback returned...

Cold, hard, and bearing extremely complex... carved patterns?