70: Chapter 70 The Descending Staircase and the Living Legacy

Their bodies continued to fall in weightlessness, yet it was not a free fall.

The darkness was viscous and icy, enveloping them, forming a gentle, downward lifting force, as if they were falling into an invisible glacial river.

Shen Xiao gritted his teeth. The frostbite on his left shoulder and the hidden injuries throughout his body throbbed under the icy stimulation. He barely managed to activate the crack-riddled Dark Gold Core in his Dantian, squeezing it like a withered sponge to extract wisps of pure yet bone-chilling spiritual energy from the viscous darkness surrounding them.

As the spiritual energy entered his body, his Meridians felt as if they were being pierced by fine needles. The pain made sweat break out on his forehead, but it finally dispelled some of the numbness, allowing him to regain a modicum of control over his limbs.

A stifled gasp came from beside him.

Xia Lengbai's condition was worse than his. After leaving the environment of the Ice Cave above, the blue-black toxin in her right wrist seemed to be stimulated by the even denser, yin-cold aura of this place, faintly threatening to surge back.

Her left hand was clutching tightly above her right elbow, her fingertips turning white as she used her remaining spiritual energy to forcibly seal her Meridians; her face was frighteningly pale in the darkness.

The sensation of being lifted suddenly vanished.

Their feet touched the ground, meeting a hard, smooth surface.

It was not ice, but rather something like polished black stone. It was bone-chillingly cold, yet strangely, it did not freeze their soles.

Before them, it was not entirely dark; a faint, ghostly blue light permeated from all directions, barely outlining the contours of the environment.

They were standing at the top of a wide, spiraling downward staircase.

The stairs were constructed from the same black stone, with sharp edges and a width sufficient for three people to walk side by side.

It extended downward, bottomless, and the ghostly blue light emanated from the stone itself and the ice walls on both sides of the staircase.

The cold air was more than ten times denser than in the Ice Cave above. Inhaling it felt like being cut by knives, yet the air did not freeze; there wasn't even a trace of white mist. It was simply cold—purely cold, possessing a substantial weight that pressed against their skin.

"Let's go."

Xia Lengbai's voice trembled, whether from the cold or something else, it was unclear.

She stepped onto the staircase first, each step taken lightly and steadily. As her left foot landed, her toes would imperceptibly tap the stone surface a few times, as if testing for traps.

The faint "crackle" of ice crystals forming was exceptionally clear in the dead-silent spiral passage.

Shen Xiao followed two steps behind her, not letting his guard down completely.

He secretly maintained the faint suction of his Dark Gold Core, no longer actively absorbing, but instead turning it into a passive sensory organ.

Like a sponge thrown into water, it sensed the subtle changes in the flow of spiritual energy around them.

The further down they went, the more "tame" the drifting yin-cold spiritual energy became, and it even... faintly revealed a sense of directionality.

The feeling was subtle, as if this spiritual energy was not ownerless, but had been combed and guided by some will. Their flow trajectory faintly pointed toward the restless core deep within his Dantian, carrying an indescribable "call."

In his Sea of Consciousness, the System interface continued to flash glaring red warning boxes: [High-concentration unknown energy field interference... Stability continuing to drop... Passive scanning function restricted...] Many function icons had already turned gray and inoperable.

Shen Xiao attempted to invoke "Danger Perception" or "Energy Analysis," but only received large blocks of garbled code and latency in return.

This damn System was practically half-dead in this place.

After descending about several dozen zhang, the spiral staircase reached its end.

The view before them suddenly opened up.

An indescribably massive ice dome appeared before them.

Above hung dense, ghostly blue icicles, varying in length and thickness, like an inverted forest of swords, or a frozen, ghostly blue forest, emitting a quiet yet dangerous glimmer.

The scope of the ice dome was vast; the boundaries were beyond the reach of sight.

And in the very center of the ice dome, the ground was not what they had expected—no spring core or earth vein node.

A ball of light was floating there.

A slowly rotating ball of light, like liquid mercury.

It was about the size of a human head, suspended three feet above the ground, rotating silently.

The surface of the light ball was not smooth; it was composed of countless, infinitely fine, constantly appearing and disappearing runes. The structure of those runes was so intricate and complex that it made one's scalp tingle; looking at it for too long felt as if one's entire Soul would be sucked in and shredded.

Inside the light ball, light and shadow were intertwined, deep and unfathomable, faintly revealing a non-human, icy sense of "Order."

Directly beneath the light ball, on the ice surface, sat a corpse cross-legged.

It was a female, her clothing ancient and simple, damaged in many places, yet spotless.

Her hands were formed into a strange mudra, resting gently at her Dantian position.

Her face was lifelike, her skin even possessing the lustrous sheen of a living person. She bore a seven or eight-part resemblance to the white lotus ice sculpture above, but her brows carried an older, unquestionable majesty.

She sat there just like that, as if merely asleep.

Scattered around the remains were several dim, spiritless fragments of Magical Artifacts, as well as three pale-white bone slips that were neither gold nor jade, slightly curved.

Xia Lengbai's breathing instantly became rapid, her gaze locked tightly onto the floating mercury light ball and the bone slips on the ground—that was the core of the White Lotus Legacy!

She subconsciously started to step forward.

But her wrist was firmly grabbed.

The force was not great, even somewhat weak, but it carried an unquestionable sense of restraint.

Xia Lengbai was startled and turned to look at Shen Xiao.

Shen Xiao's face was paler than before, fine cold sweat seeping from his temples, his pupils contracted as he stared fixedly at the lifelike remains. His voice was pressed extremely low, carrying an imperceptible tremor:

"Don't move. She is still 'alive'."

Xia Lengbai's heart jolted, and she focused her gaze to look closely.

At first, she didn't see anything unusual, but soon, her scalp suddenly tingled; beneath the skin of the remains' exposed hands and neck, there was an extremely faint, mercury-like luster slowly flowing!

The frequency of that flowing luster was faintly synchronized with the rotation rhythm of the floating light ball above.

It was as if that light ball was a "heart" extended outside of her, and her body was merely the vessel holding this "heart."

Even more heart-stopping were the eyes of the remains.

The eye sockets were hollow, but deep within, there seemed to be two imperceptible ice-blue starlights, like the core of eternal, unmelting glacial ice, "observing" these two uninvited guests.

That was not the gaze of a living person, but a pre-set, icy state of "observation."

Just at this moment, the mercury light ball floating above suddenly accelerated its rotation speed by a fraction.

Without sound, without changes in light and shadow, a wave of intent composed purely of information, like a scanning beam, silently swept across Shen Xiao and Xia Lengbai's bodies.

Xia Lengbai only felt a chill all over her body, as if drenched by invisible ice water; beyond that, she felt nothing.

Shen Xiao, however, was struck as if by lightning!

"Ugh!"

He let out a muffled groan and staggered back half a step, clutching his forehead tightly with his left hand, as if invisible steel needles had pierced into his mind.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the halo representing the System vibrated violently. When it was forcibly "swept" by that external intent, it was like a pried-open safe, passively "leaking" several fragments of encrypted logs!

The fragments were bizarre and kaleidoscopic, containing a large amount of runes and data streams he couldn't understand, but several blurred energy spectrum charts and a few lines of flashing annotated text made his blood almost freeze...

[...Spectrum feature match rate 87.3%, confirmed as 'Gravekeeper Protocol · Terminal Sub-unit' active signal...]

[...Underlying protocol comparison in progress... Similarity 71.5%, presence of extensive redundant modifications and permission lock traces...]

[...Judgment: Current host-bound System is a derivative branch version of 'Gravekeeper Protocol', or an early test/downgraded/faulty variant...]

Almost at the same instant, an icy, smooth, and emotionless synthesized voice rang out directly in the deepest part of his consciousness, drowning out the System's own alarm noise:

"Detected 'Gravekeeper Terminal Sub-unit' active response..."

"Energy spectrum matches... Attempting basic data docking..."

"Permission verification... Failed."

"Warning: Detected fundamental conflict between host basic protocol and 'Terminal' underlying core protocol."

"Conflict level: High."

"Forced data reading or deep interaction will result in irreversible damage to host consciousness structure. Probability: 97.8%."

"Recommendation: Terminate contact."

Shen Xiao jerked his head up, thin threads of blood seeping from his seven orifices again. He looked at the floating ball of light, and then at the remains sitting cross-legged below.

Terminal sub-unit... Protocol... Permission conflict...

So that's how it was!

His System was not some unique Golden Finger at all!

It was very likely just a degraded version, a defective product of this "Gravekeeper Terminal" before him, or simply a "tool" tossed out after being crudely modified by some higher existence!

What White Lotus was guarding was not some Legacy, but this "interface" directly related to the "Trace of the Heavenly Dao"!

And the reason his System could plunder Heavenly destiny, and the reason it would trigger those "missions," was likely precisely because it was a fragment peeled off from this "Terminal"!

They shared the same origin, yet were not of the same mind!

Did the System guide him here to "go home"?

Or was it to... devour this "mother body"?

"Shen Xiao?"

Xia Lengbai noticed his state was off and gave a low shout. Her left hand was already pressed on the hilt of a spare short blade at her waist, vigilantly scanning the light ball and the remains, then looking at Shen Xiao.

Shen Xiao ignored her. All of his attention was focused on his Sea of Consciousness, focused on that icy synthesized voice and the System's chaotic alarms.

He felt that the "Terminal's" intent scan did not continue; it was just like completing a routine check, and after confirming his "abnormality" and "low permission," it withdrew the vast majority of its "attention."

However, at the very instant that vast, icy intent was about to recede completely.

On the ice surface below, deep within the hollow eye sockets of that lifelike female remains, those two imperceptible ice-blue starlights, without any warning, suddenly flared for an instant.

Like a slumbering star, it blinked.

An icy, ancient, and pure sense of "observation" descended once more.

This time, it landed precisely on Shen Xiao.

Shen Xiao's muscles instantly tensed, his fingertips icy cold.

The remains' hands, formed in the mudra, imperceptibly twitched a finger.