112: Chapter 112 Crossing the Undercurrents

That faint resonance was like a speck of dust cast into a calm lake; amidst the roaring of the explosion and the chaos of the fall, it was so weak as to be almost non-existent.

The icy, murky torrent instantly engulfed Lin Chen's five senses.

The bone-chilling river water, mixed with gravel and silt, rushed frantically into his mouth and nose, causing a sharp, stabbing pain in his lungs.

The blast wave formed a terrifying force within the narrow well shaft, slamming the three of them like mere blades of grass into the underground river below; the immense water pressure made his vision go black, and he nearly fainted on the spot.

He could see nothing, hear nothing, feeling only the dull pain of his body being swept along by the torrent, tumbling, and crashing against the riverbed and rocky walls.

The wound on his right arm, stung by the icy river water, sent waves of tearing, excruciating pain.

The web between his thumb and forefinger, torn open by the Gray Shadow's black hook, was uncontrollably oozing blood.

But strangely, the blood oozing out was not bright red, but a viscous, dark black color that carried a ghostly glimmer.

These dark bloodstains were not immediately washed away by the turbulent current; instead, as if possessing a life of their own, they formed a thin halo around Lin Chen's wound.

In the ink-black river water, this halo emitted an intensely penetrating, ghostly blue glimmer, illuminating the area within three feet of him with shadowy, flickering light.

He saw the riverbed, covered in slippery moss, rushing beneath him; he saw the gravel dislodged by the explosion tumbling in the water; and he saw a figure struggling in the torrent not far away.

It was Senior Sister Mo Xuan.

Her condition was no better than Lin Chen's; her moon-white Daoist robe was already soaked and ruined by mud and river water, her hair was disheveled, and her face was as pale as paper.

She was clutching the scorching metal fragment tightly, her other hand flailing desperately in the water, trying to stabilize herself.

Just as the ghostly blue "Abyssal Light" at Lin Chen's wound flared up, Senior Sister Mo Xuan's gaze happened to sweep over it.

In that instant, she was struck as if by lightning, her pupils suddenly shrinking to dangerous pinpoints!

She forgot to struggle, forgot the fragment in her arms, and even forgot that she was in a desperate situation; in her clear eyes, only endless horror and disbelief remained.

Abyssal Light!

There were only a few brief mentions in the Tianji Academy's top-secret archive, the "Records of Profound Spirit Oddities · Void Realm Chapter"; it was a phenomenon that only appeared in the extremely rare Cultivator who had come into contact with "void crystal essence," and only when their life's Origin had been severely damaged!

void crystal essence—that was the legendary cornerstone used to construct the barriers between planes, a supreme treasure that even Soul Transformation experts dreamed of!

This Lin Chen, just who exactly is he?!

Just as Senior Sister Mo Xuan's mind was reeling, a black chain shot out from the torrent below like a poisonous snake, wrapping precisely around her ankle and yanking her downwards!

It was that Gray Shadow! To think he could still launch an attack in such a turbulent current!

A cold, highly corrosive force instantly invaded Senior Sister Mo Xuan's Meridians along the hook-chain; she felt a burning, excruciating pain in her ankle, and half her leg went numb instantly.

The shadow of death loomed over her.

"Catch this!"

At the very last moment before her body was dragged into the deeper water, Senior Sister Mo Xuan made an extremely decisive choice.

She used all her strength to hurl the scorching fragment in her arms—a treasure more important than her own life—towards that sole source of light: Lin Chen.

"This has—"

She wanted to warn Lin Chen about the key to the fragment, but before she could finish, a sinister black flame suddenly erupted from the hook-chain wrapped around her ankle!

The black fire ignored the obstruction of the water, spreading instantly like maggots on bones, swallowing her whole along with the rest of her sentence, leaving behind only a string of silent bubbles rapidly bursting in the water.

In Lin Chen's field of vision, he only saw Senior Sister Mo Xuan's figure enveloped by that black fire, rapidly disappearing into the darkness below.

And that thrown fragment, carrying a scorching heatwave, flew straight towards him.

He instinctively reached out with his injured right hand to catch it.

The moment the fragment touched his palm, a sudden change occurred!

The rough stone ring on his thumb, as if a sleeping beast had been awakened, suddenly erupted with dazzling light.

A solid beam of light shot out from the ring's surface, like the most precise instrument, instantly enveloping the metal fragment and beginning a rapid scan.

"So it really was you who stole it..."

The Gray Shadow's roar of shock and anger came from the darkness below; he had clearly seen the stone ring's abnormal activity.

However, his roar came to an abrupt halt.

A more powerful, more savage whirlpool of undercurrent formed without warning at the bottom of the riverbed; its immense suction, like the gaping maw of an abyss, instantly swept up the pursuing figure of the Gray Shadow, along with Senior Sister Mo Xuan whom he was dragging, and they vanished without a trace.

On the water's surface, that sinister black flame struggled and burned for three breaths before finally extinguishing with a "hiss," unwillingly.

Everything returned to dead silence.

Lin Chen's heart pounded wildly, shocked by this sudden turn of events; he gripped the fragment in his hand, its scorching temperature nearly branding his palm.

The icy river water and the scorching fragment, two extreme sensations intertwined, causing the muscles all over his body to spasm.

He dared not linger, and, enduring the excruciating pain in his right arm, he swam desperately downstream, guided by the "Abyssal Light" from his wound.

He did not know how long had passed when he saw a blurry figure bobbing in the current ahead.

She seemed to have escaped the Gray Shadow, but was clearly severely injured, floating and sinking in the water, on the verge of being swept away by the torrent.

Lin Chen gritted his teeth, swam faster, and grabbed her arm.

His hand felt icy and slippery.

Senior Sister Mo Xuan seemed to have lost consciousness; as he pulled her close, her body leaned against him, limp.

It was at this moment that Lin Chen looked down, and his pupils constricted once more.

He saw that the ancient, originally blurry runes on the metal fragment had now, surprisingly, come to life.

They transformed into streams of light, rapidly spreading along the wound in his palm, following his blood vessels, and moving up his forearm!

Those runes formed dark red, slightly raised patterns beneath his skin, looking eerie and mysterious.

"Ngh..."

The unconscious Senior Sister Mo Xuan seemed to feel something and let out a pained moan.

Her remaining consciousness instinctively made her aware of the energy fluctuations on Lin Chen's arm.

She instinctively raised her hand, pressed her index and middle fingers together, and using an extremely professional and precise secret technique of the Tianji Academy, tapped towards the "Quchi Acupoint" on Lin Chen's elbow, attempting to cut off the spread of the runic energy.

However, just as her fingertips touched Lin Chen's skin, before she could apply any force, the runes spreading on Lin Chen's arm suddenly flared!

A powerful force of counter-shock erupted instantly!

"Ugh!"

Senior Sister Mo Xuan felt a numbing, overbearing electric current surge from her fingertips, instantly spreading through half her body, causing the arm that had just recovered a sliver of strength to become limp and weak once again.

She looked at the autonomous defensive runes on Lin Chen's arm with shock and horror, completely losing the ability to resist.

These runes... are they actually actively protecting their master?!

Just as the two of them were being swept by the current and were about to lose all their strength, a web of interlaced light vaguely appeared at the end of the dark river channel ahead.

The web of light covered the entire exit of the underground river, and hundreds of crystal-clear beads were studded upon it, emitting a soft glow in the dim water.

It was Qin Ruowei!

She had calculated the time and location perfectly, bringing the "seven-heart begonia Detoxification Net" that she and Liu Yuan had retrieved from the Cui Family treasury, and was waiting here!

The next moment, Lin Chen and Senior Sister Mo Xuan's figures slammed heavily into that tough fishing net.

The detoxification beads on the net instantly emitted a "hissing" sound the moment they made contact with their bodies.

Qin Ruowei watched the changes on the net nervously.

The moment Lin Chen and Senior Sister Mo Xuan were washed onto the net, dozens of beads near their bodies began to glow faintly, but three of them, within a mere breath, instantly turned as pitch-black as ink from their crystal-clear state, and then shattered with a "crack."

Qin Ruowei's heart, which had been in her throat, finally relaxed by half.

Those three beads had neutralized the highly toxic black fire left behind by the Gray Shadow.

An incense stick's time later, in an extremely hidden safe house within Jieyin City.

Candlelight flickered, casting the shadows of the three of them onto the wall.

Lin Chen had changed into clean clothes and was bandaging the wound on his right arm using the special medicinal ointment provided by Liu Yuan.

Senior Sister Mo Xuan had also awakened; she was draped in Qin Ruowei's cloak, her face still pale, staring fixedly and silently at the metal fragment on the table.

Qin Ruowei was examining the damaged seven-heart begonia net, her brows furrowed tightly.

"This fragment..." Senior Sister Mo Xuan finally spoke, her voice hoarse and dry, "something is wrong."

She took out a set of small, precise tools from her Storage Pouch—a spirit-probing needle as thin as an ox hair, and a palm-sized spirit-measuring disk engraved with measurements.

She carefully placed the tip of the spirit-probing needle against the surface of the fragment and then moved it slowly.

On the spirit-measuring disk, the needle representing spatial fluctuations began to sway slightly.

As the spirit-probing needle swept across the entire fragment, Senior Sister Mo Xuan's expression became increasingly ugly, finally turning into one of horror.

She suddenly raised her head, looking at Lin Chen and Qin Ruowei, her voice trembling slightly from shock:

"On this... there are a few new etchings."

She pushed the spirit-measuring disk toward them, pointing at a set of extremely complex readings that had just been recorded.

"I used the Tianji Academy's unique algorithm to analyze the fluctuation frequency of these new etchings... they are... they are coordinates!"

"Coordinates?" Qin Ruowei's heart stirred, "Pointing where?"

Senior Sister Mo Xuan took a deep breath, as if trying to calm the raging waves in her heart, and said word by word: "Pointing to the Tianji Academy's—Forbidden Ground Library!"

The entire safe house instantly fell into dead silence.

Lin Chen's bandaging action stopped; he looked down at the runes on his arm that had already faded beneath his skin, yet could still feel a trace of heat from them, and then looked again at the eerie fragment on the table.

The Gray Shadow, Senior Sister Mo Xuan, the Tianji Academy, the Forbidden Ground Library... all the clues were tangled into a mess.

His gaze became resolute.

He needed an absolutely quiet, absolutely safe environment to recreate that mysterious rune which had almost caused him to bleed from his seven orifices.

He wanted to see what kind of changes would occur to this fragment, and to those runes within his body, when he actively tried to depict it himself.