147: Chapter 147 Dark under the lamp

The pale white Fire of Rules rolled up and retracted in the Void Realm.

There was no light, no sound. Gu Shen's consciousness experienced a momentary stagnation the instant it crossed the barrier between the two worlds. When he regained clarity, an irresistible pressure crashed down upon him from all directions.

Cultivation World, the original site of the Myriad Insect Tomb.

Thirty-five days had passed since Wei Lingfeng's resolute self-detonation.

The once vast underground basin no longer existed; it was now filled with shattered stalactite pillars and collapsed strata. The groundwater had backflowed, turning this place into a high-pressure, solid tomb mixed with mud, rubble, and toxic water.

Before Gu Shen's five senses had fully recovered, his eardrums were filled with a dull, extreme sound of metal twisting.

"Creak—Bang!"

The titanium-carbon alloy blast-proof pod beneath him shook violently. The formation patterns inside the pod erupted with blinding yellow light for an instant before cracking extensively.

The weight of millions of tons of rock layers, combined with the immense water pressure from the backflowing underground river, slammed into the exterior of the blast-proof pod without any buffer.

The twelve Cyber Iron Corpses mounted in the external grooves of the pod bore the most direct physical crushing at this moment. Even their skeletons, replaced with tempered refined iron, emitted brittle sounds of being unable to bear the load. Their chest armor collapsed in large areas, and the arms of several Iron Corpses were snapped off by the rocks.

But they felt no pain. The fusion batteries in their chests output kinetic energy steadily, and the mutated wood marrow squirmed frantically at the broken bones, like a layer of tough biological glue, tightly maintaining the integrity of their bodies. Not a single one was completely crushed.

"A thirty-five-day time difference. Wei Lingfeng's self-detonation energy has long since dissipated, but the geological structure of the Myriad Insect Tomb has been completely destroyed."

In the dark, narrow pod, Gu Shen lay flat in the energy-absorbing gel. He did not use a shred of magic power, simply feeling the pressure transmitted from the pod walls, his eyes as calm as stagnant water.

After the pressure reached a peak, it stabilized. The shell of the blast-proof pod had dented inward by three inches, but the physical yield limit of the titanium-carbon alloy withstood the mighty force of the earth.

Gu Shen took out the dormant black terminal from his Storage Ring and physically connected it to the sensors inside the pod.

"Crab, wake up. Assess external environmental parameters."

The screen lit up with a faint blue light. The mechanical spider detached from the terminal, its eight probe claws plugging into the data interface.

"Lord, I have awakened." Crab's electronic voice echoed in the enclosed space, devoid of its usual playfulness, displaying pure precision. "The external water pressure has reached forty megapascals, equivalent to the water pressure at a depth of four thousand meters in the deep sea. The temperature is extremely low, mixed with large amounts of heavy metals and decaying biological toxins."

"The bad news is that we are buried under a mixed layer of rock and mud three hundred zhang thick. The good news is that there is a gradient difference in the dynamic pressure of the water flow."

A geological model constructed from sonar echoes was projected onto the light screen.

"At the nine o'clock direction, the rock density is lower, and the water flow velocity shows a weak upward trend. That should be a pressure-relief channel for the underground water vein formed during the collapse. As long as we break through upwards along this channel, we can return to the surface."

"How far?" Gu Shen asked.

"A straight-line distance of one hundred and twenty zhang. But there are many large rocks blocking the way along the path."

"That is enough."

Gu Shen put away the terminal and the mechanical spider, a flash of determination in his eyes.

He did not use the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade; in such high-pressure water, once the thunder light was triggered, the Thunder-Magnetic Force would conduct indiscriminately through the water.

He pressed both hands against the inside of the pod door, his dark golden iron bones emitting a low, muffled sound beneath his skin. The immense strength bestowed by the Bone Refining Art erupted without reservation.

The pod door mechanism was forcibly twisted off.

The ice-cold, toxic water instantly flooded in. Gu Shen held his breath and entered the fetal breathing state.

The twelve Iron Corpses outside the pod, upon receiving the command, began to operate, dragging their broken bodies. Like tireless engineers, they used their deformed iron fists and fractured bones to slowly chisel through the silt and rubble ahead.

Gu Shen mingled among the Iron Corpses, utilizing the path they cleared and following the pressure difference of the water flow, slowly and tenaciously ascending toward the surface.

This process was dull and long.

After a full four hours.

"Splash."

In a foul-smelling swamp overgrown with black reeds, the muddy water churned as a head covered in silt silently emerged from the surface.

Gu Shen did not gasp for air, but suppressed his breathing frequency to the extreme.

The night curtain hung low, the cold moon without light.

Just as Gu Shen was preparing to crawl out of the swamp, the AI Crystal at the center of his brow suddenly began to pulse at an extremely high frequency.

"Multi-threaded warning."

Gu Shen's movements suddenly froze in the mud.

He did not look up, but his Divine Sense intuition told him that hovering in the sky above him at this moment was a massive will that made his Soul tremble.

That was not ordinary Foundation Establishment Stage Spiritual Pressure, but a Golden Core Stage Divine Sense as vast as the clouds of the Nine Heavens, yet as fine-toothed as a comb!

Three thousand zhang above Baiyin Mountain.

A flying boat, its entire body covered in star formation patterns, floated silently.

On the flying boat, Elder Chen Changgeng of the Tianji Pavilion held a bronze ancient mirror, his gaze cold and stern as he overlooked the swamp within a hundred-mile radius below.

"Elder, the people from the Blood Fiend Sect and the Danding Sect have already plowed the perimeter three times. Apart from the severed limbs and arms affected by the self-detonation, no survivors have been found," a deacon reported, bowing.

Chen Changgeng ignored him, his fingertips constantly calculating on the bronze ancient mirror, lines of mysterious Karma appearing and disappearing on the mirror's surface.

"With that level of destructive power, there is absolutely no possibility of survival for anyone below the Foundation Establishment Stage."

Chen Changgeng's voice was old and rational. "But this person acts as cunning as a fox. The Sect Masters of the two sects spent a heavy price to invite my Tianji Pavilion to take action, precisely to calculate away his last shred of life. I want to see a person if alive, and a corpse if dead."

"Bronze Heaven-Inspecting Mirror, search for Souls and track pulses."

Chen Changgeng poured his magic power into the ancient mirror.

"Hum—"

A transparent ripple, imperceptible to the naked eye, swept downward in a ring from ten thousand zhang in the sky, instantly covering the entire site of the Baiyin Mountain ruins.

This ripple did not check the terrain or look at physical cover; it only captured the unique magic power fluctuations, residual Divine Soul, and fate Karma of Cultivators.

In the swamp.

Gu Shen, the moment before the ripple descended, felt that sense of being watched that felt as if it were going to peel his skin and dismantle his bones.

"A Karma search using a Magic Treasure by a Golden Core Stage Cultivator."

In Gu Shen's brain, the computing power of the AI Crystal was instantly pushed to the limit.

"Parallel multi-threading."

First thread: Cut off all magic power circulation of the Longevity Art in the Dantian, locking the dark cyan magic power deep within the marrow of his extreme iron bones, not letting a shred of aura leak out.

Second thread: Take over cardiac pacing. The heartbeat frequency was forcibly extended from the rhythm of a normal person to only a very weak beat every half stick of incense.

Third thread: Close pores, rapidly drop Physical Body temperature to be completely synchronized with the cold and foul-smelling swamp water temperature.

Fourth thread: Simulate the surrounding ecology.

Gu Shen's eyes became hollow; at this moment, his Physical Body abandoned its characteristics as a "human." He simulated the blind rats he had seen in the Wasteland that scavenged in radioactive mud. His breath carried the fishy smell of mud, and the relaxation of his muscles was exactly the same as that of a cold-blooded animal.

There was no Spiritual Qi, no violent fluctuations of the Divine Soul, only pure carbon-based biological basal metabolism.

The Karma ripple of the bronze ancient mirror swept across Gu Shen.

It was like a comb scraping over a piece of rotten wood covered in moss, or a low-level poisonous insect rummaging for corpse parts in the mud.

The ripple did not stop, continuing to spread into the distance.

On the flying boat, Chen Changgeng looked at the bronze ancient mirror, which showed no anomalies, and his tightly locked brows slowly relaxed.

"The Karma lines are completely severed. There is no residual life force of a Cultivator, nor any abnormal spiritual waves of the blood marrow lotus."

Chen Changgeng put away the ancient mirror and reached a final conclusion: "Wei Lingfeng is dead, his Divine Soul completely destroyed. Below there are only some scavenging poisonous insects and wild beasts. Inform the two sects; this case is closed."

"Yes!"

The flying boat turned, transforming into a streak of light, disappearing into the horizon.

In the swamp.

Gu Shen lay in the mud for a full two hours, until the warning from the AI Crystal was completely lifted, before he crawled in the mud using both hands and feet like a loach.

He dared not stand up, nor did he dare to use any escape techniques.

In this territory that had just undergone a great purge, any magic power fluctuation could attract hidden sentries.

Ten miles of swamp.

Gu Shen relied purely on the strength of his Physical Body, crawling bit by bit in the foul-smelling mud. The mud got into his fingernails, the stench overwhelming, yet he was like a machine without emotion.

Until the sky was slightly bright, he finally crawled out of the swamp area and entered a dense, desolate forest.

Gu Shen slowly stood up, leaning against a dead tree, and shook the black mud off his hands.

"The Magic Treasures of the Cultivation World are indeed hard to guard against."

Gu Shen looked back at the direction of Baiyin Mountain, his eyes deep and cold. "Heavenly Secret calculations, tracing the roots. But their underlying logic is always Spiritual Qi and Karma. As long as one jumps out of this framework and becomes a purely physical inanimate object, even the strongest Golden Core Cultivator can only be blind."

This is the ultimate game of being hidden in plain sight.

He casually cast a most basic cleaning spell to strip away the mud on his body and changed into an ordinary gray Loose Cultivator outfit.

With a slight movement of his mind, he checked the twelve heavily damaged Cyber Iron Corpses in his Storage Ring. Although their appearance was miserable, the micro-batteries and mutated wood marrow inside were still intact and could be repaired at any time.

"Wei Lingfeng is dead, and the attention of the Blood Fiend Sect and the Danding Sect has been temporarily diverted. But the area around Yunze Immortal City is still a place of trouble."

Gu Shen touched his face; Thousand Faces squirmed, transforming him into a lone traveler with a scar at the corner of his eye and a cold, hard face.

"Next, I must jump out of the sphere of influence of the two sects."

Gu Shen identified the direction and strode into the desolate forest, his figure soon disappearing into the morning mist.