110: Chapter 110 The Lingering Fragments

Afterward, he took out several dozen sheets of coarse, specially made sandpaper used for polishing Magical Artifacts, and carefully, sheet by sheet, covered the entire floor of the secret room.

The sandpaper was dark brown, its surface covered in hard quartz particles. Stepping on it produced a faint, rustling friction sound, and any slight vibration would leave a mark upon it.

After finishing all this, he took a deep breath and slowly walked to the center of the secret room.

The door to the secret room was locked from the inside, not allowing even a sliver of light to penetrate.

In the absolute darkness and silence, all Lin Chen could hear was his own steady heartbeat and slightly heavy breathing.

He closed his eyes, his entire focus sinking into his Sea of Consciousness, attempting to recapture that fleeting glimpse of the rune branded by the stone ring within that Chaos.

That rune was too complex, as if woven from countless tiny points of light according to some supreme truth of heaven and earth. A single glance consumed a massive amount of Divine Sense, and memorizing it was even more difficult.

Lin Chen could only rely on the intense impact from the moment the spiritual essence entered his body to barely memorize the simplest first few strokes of the rune.

He slowly raised his right arm, hovering it about three inches above the sandpaper-covered floor.

On his arm, the skin repaired by the Geng Metal spiritual essence was as smooth as before, but Lin Chen could clearly feel that beneath his flesh, a violent and unfamiliar power was flowing through his newly formed Meridians.

He mobilized a sliver of spiritual power, carefully channeling it into the tip of his index finger.

There was no wind; the air inside the secret room was frozen.

Lin Chen's arm began to tremble slightly and uncontrollably, not out of fear, but because that power was too overbearing. Merely mobilizing a sliver caused his Meridians to feel a stinging pain like needle pricks.

At his fingertip, a faint spiritual light tinged with sharp metal Qi gradually lit up.

Holding his breath and relying on the blurry memory in his mind, the spiritual light at his fingertip flickered as he began to outline the first stroke in the Void Realm.

The stroke was slow and resistant, as if pushing an invisible mountain.

As his fingertip moved, the hard quartz particles on the sandpaper below were induced by the invisible Qi force, spontaneously arranging themselves into a shallow trace.

The first stroke was successful.

Fine beads of sweat had already seeped from Lin Chen's forehead.

He paused slightly to adjust the churning Qi and blood within his body, then immediately began to outline the second stroke.

This stroke was more complex than the previous one, involving a delicate turn.

The spiritual light at his fingertip dimmed noticeably for an instant, and the trembling of his arm became even more intense.

"Click."

A soft sound; it was the sound of his teeth clenching together.

The second stroke also barely took form.

The trace on the sandpaper was exactly the same as the outline in his memory.

However, the moment he prepared to drop the third stroke, a sudden change occurred!

"Whoosh—"

Without any warning, the two rune traces formed by the quartz sand suddenly erupted into a cluster of ghostly blue flames!

The flames had no root or source, yet the temperature was terrifyingly high. Instantly, they ignited the sheets of special sandpaper, emitting a "crackling" sound, and a pungent odor mixed with burning and sulfur rapidly spread.

"Oh no!" Lin Chen was startled and subconsciously wanted to retreat.

"Clan Chief, don't move!"

The door was kicked open with brute force from the outside with a "bang," and an urgent voice came through.

Liu Yuan's figure rushed in at the first moment. Seeing the situation, his expression changed drastically, but his movements were astonishingly fast.

He did not use water, but instead flung a jade bottle from his Storage Pouch. Tilting the bottle, he precisely splashed a handful of pale green spiritual liquid, thick as honey, onto the cluster of ghostly blue flames.

"Sizzle—"

The spiritual liquid made contact with the flames, producing a harsh sound similar to boiling oil on snow, and large clouds of white mist rose up.

Eerily, the ghostly blue flames did not extinguish; instead, it was as if they had received some kind of nourishment. The fire did not diminish but intensified, only changing color from ghostly blue to a demonic crimson red.

What made Liu Yuan's scalp tingle even more was that within the crimson flames, the two burned rune traces not only failed to dissipate but were scorched into twisted black patterns branded onto the floor.

The patterns were ancient and profound, filled with a violent and ominous aura, and they were identical to the dark patterns on the inside of the stone ring on Lin Chen's thumb!

"What on earth is this?!" Liu Yuan exclaimed.

Just then, Qin Ruowei, who had rushed in right after him, let out a short, startled cry: "Lin Chen, your hand!"

Hearing this, Lin Chen looked down and saw that the stone ring on his right thumb was trembling violently, the ring surface emitting astonishing heat.

The stone ring seemed to have transformed into a bottomless vortex, forcibly pulling the burning runes on the floor along with the crimson flames across the air, turning them into a thin, long line of fire and sucking them all into the ring body!

"Hiss..." Lin Chen gasped, a sharp pain like burning his Divine Soul coming from the base of his finger. He wanted to shake off the ring, but found that the stone ring seemed to have grown into his flesh, unmoving.

After absorbing the flame runes, the ring surface did not cool down; instead, its temperature soared, becoming like a red-hot branding iron.

A layer of fine, visible heat waves rose from the ring surface, scorching the surrounding air until it twisted and deformed.

The skin on Lin Chen's knuckles was scorched black and curled at a speed visible to the naked eye, emitting "sizzling" sounds, and the smell of roasted meat spread through the secret room.

"Ice Silkworm Silk!" Qin Ruowei reacted extremely quickly. She made a decisive choice, pulling out several feet of crystal-clear, chilling Ice Silkworm Silk from the silk pouch at her waist. Regardless of the terrifying high temperature, she flashed forward and quickly wrapped the silk thread around the scalding ring surface.

The Ice Silkworm Silk was an item of extreme cold, and upon touching the scalding ring surface, it immediately raised large clouds of cold white mist.

One turn, two turns, three turns... Qin Ruowei's movements were as fast as a butterfly flitting through flowers, attempting to suppress the stone ring's abnormal activity with the cold nature of the Ice Silkworm Silk.

However, just as she wrapped the fifth turn, only a soft "pop" was heard. The extremely tough, water-and-fire-resistant Ice Silkworm Silk was instantly burned through by the terrifying high temperature!

At the end of the broken silk thread, a remarkably clear brand mark remained.

The brand mark was not a messy scorch mark, but two ancient seal characters—Gui Hai—that were extremely small yet had distinct strokes.

"Gui Hai?" Qin Ruowei's pupils shrank, and she subconsciously read it out.

She was too sensitive to these two characters.

Hearing these two characters, Liu Yuan's face instantly turned pale. He looked sharply at Qin Ruowei and asked in a dry voice: "Which Gui Hai?"

"The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, Gui Water and Hai Pig." Qin Ruowei stared fixedly at the broken piece of silk, her breathing becoming rapid. "The classified archives of the Heavenly Secret Academy use this as the numbering rule!"

Just as both of them were greatly shocked, on the other side, the scout Liu Yuan had sent out also hurriedly returned to the inn.

Half an hour later, in the pavilion in the backyard of the inn, Liu Yuan, who had changed his outfit and disguised himself as a down-and-out antique dealer, was reporting in a low voice to Lin Chen and Qin Ruowei.

His face still had undried sweat stains, clearly having just rushed back from outside.

"I used half a piece of a forged ancient Formation Plate fragment to exchange for some news from an outer Disciple of the Heavenly Secret Academy." Liu Yuan lowered his voice, scanning the surroundings vigilantly. "That kid is greedy for money and let it slip. That Formation Genius of the Heavenly Secret Academy, Senior Sister Mo Xuan, went alone with a black jade box to the Sect Forbidden Ground—the Earth Fire Chamber—at midnight last night."

Speaking of this, Liu Yuan took out a palm-sized Magical Artifact shaped like a compass from his sleeve.

At this moment, the compass needle was trembling slightly, pointing toward the southeast.

"This is a Spirit-Measuring Compass I dug out from the Cui Family's warehouse; it is particularly sensitive to Earth Fire power." He pointed at the compass, his voice becoming increasingly grave. "The direction it indicates completely overlaps with the direction the flames shifted when the sandpaper spontaneously ignited just now!"

Mo Xuan, the Earth Fire Chamber, the black jade box... clues strung together, pointing to an unsettling truth.

Lin Chen's expression was as gloomy as water. He did not speak, only closed his eyes again, forcibly mobilizing his Divine Sense, attempting to recall the deeper structure of that rune.

He had a faint premonition that the rune was the key to unraveling all the mysteries.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the incomplete light and shadow of the rune appeared again.

Enduring the excruciating pain of his Divine Soul being torn apart, he probed his perception bit by bit into the depths of his memory.

The sixth group... the seventh group...

Just as he was about to see the construction of the seventh group of strokes clearly, an irresistible sense of dizziness rushed to his head, as if the whole world were spinning!

"Plop."

A drop of warm liquid dripped onto the back of his hand.

Lin Chen opened his eyes abruptly, his nasal cavity filled with a heavy smell of blood.

He raised his hand to wipe, his fingertips covered in bright red.

He looked down and saw that the few drops of nosebleed that had just fallen did not spread like ordinary liquid on the smooth stone tabletop. Instead, as if controlled by an invisible hand, they quickly gathered and extended, and within a mere three breaths, they automatically outlined a miniature, incredibly complex Teleportation Formation pattern!

The pattern existed for only a short three breaths before its light faded, completely collapsing and turning back into a pool of ordinary blood.

But the scene in that instant made the three people present feel as if they had fallen into an ice cellar.

This was the consequence of the stone ring overdrawing his Divine Sense to forcibly deduce the Law of Space!

Qin Ruowei's heart tightened abruptly. Just as she was about to speak to dissuade him, her gaze inadvertently swept to the other side of the table corner, where several rubbings of Image Jade Talismans brought back from the auction were spread out.

Her gaze suddenly locked onto the corner of one of the rubbings.

That rubbing recorded the scene of guests entering before the auction began.

The scene was very chaotic, and the light was very dim.

But under the shadow of an inconspicuous pillar, Qin Ruowei discovered a trace of eerie inconsistency.

"The shadow here..." She extended her slender finger, pointing at that corner. "Something is wrong."

Liu Yuan leaned over to look. At first, he didn't notice anything unusual, but after being reminded by Qin Ruowei, he channeled his spiritual power into the rubbing, enlarging the scene in that corner several times.

In the enlarged image, the outline of that shadow became clear.

It had a half-inch unnatural protrusion more than the shadow cast by the pillar itself.

And right within that half-inch protrusion, there was hidden half a silhouette of a weapon shaped like a curved hook, shimmering with a cold metallic light!

"It's One-armed Zhang Heng's iron hook!" Liu Yuan recognized it at a glance, his voice trembling slightly. "No... the style of this iron hook has slight differences from One-armed Zhang Heng's one, it looks more like... more like the source of those carvings on the rock walls of Black Wind Valley!"

That mysterious force that had been secretly spying on the Lin Family had actually been lurking beside them during the auction!

The night, like splashed ink, shrouded the entire Jieyin City.

The oil lamp in Lin Chen's room had long since extinguished. He sat cross-legged on the bed, his breathing long and steady, appearing as if he had entered meditation.

The stone ring wrapped in Ice Silkworm Silk was no longer scalding, but it still emitted a faint, almost imperceptible warmth.

Suddenly, the silent stone ring lit up without warning.

An incomplete 3D map composed of countless points of light projected silently from the ring surface, hovering in the air before Lin Chen.

The structure of the map was extremely complex, layered and stacked, like an underground cross-section of a certain area.

Among them, a winding underground river was prominently marked.

The flow of this underground river eventually merged into a huge underground cavity marked as "Zangtian Abyss."

And at a certain node of the underground river, a faint point of light was flickering continuously.

The position of the light point was exactly located directly below the Heavenly Secret Academy's Earth Fire Chamber, at a vertical distance of about three hundred zhang.

There, it was clearly a secret entrance to the underground river!

Lin Chen slowly opened his eyes, his gaze clear, with no appearance of being in meditation at all.

He watched the projected map before him quietly, his eyes cold and sharp.

He raised his hand and tapped lightly in the Void Realm with his fingertip.

In the pavilion, Liu Yuan, who was resting with his eyes closed, opened his eyes abruptly. In front of him, a communication jade talisman was glowing slightly.

He pressed the jade talisman to his forehead. A moment later, he took a deep breath, his figure flickered, and he disappeared into the night like a ghost.

A moment later, in the direction of the main gate of the Heavenly Secret Academy, a dull explosion shattered the tranquility of the night.

"Boom!"

A dense cloud of yellow smoke mixed with a pungent sulfur smell shot into the sky, shrouding the entire mountain gate.

"Enemy attack!"

"Quick! Go to the main gate!"

The piercing sound of alarm bells instantly resounded through the sky. Countless streams of light shot up from all over the Heavenly Secret Academy, carrying sharp piercing sounds, and rushed frantically toward the source of the Chaos.