53: Chapter 53 The Thirteenth Level of the Underground Palace

Bang!

Within the Spiritless Ruins, Gu Shen's figure slammed heavily onto the refined iron floor of the second floor.

He looked as if he had just been fished out of water, drenched from head to toe. Cold water from the underground river dripped from the hem of his clothes onto the dust-covered floor, creating several patches of black mud.

Dead silence.

An absolute silence instantly enveloped him. The deafening roar of the underground river was gone, as was the suffocating and terrifying Divine Sense of that Qi Refining 9th Layer Blood Fiend Sect commander.

Gu Shen lay on the cold floor, panting heavily. The thousand-tough black silk armor on his back still retained the terrifying sharpness from that blood-colored flying fork, stinging his skin.

"It was a difference of a thousandth of a breath."

Gu Shen's eyes were dark as he forced down his frantically beating heart.

Facing an enraged strike from a half-step Foundation Establishment cultivator, he, at Qi Refining Level 7, had no room to resist. If he hadn't acted decisively and communicated with the [Heaven and Earth Furnace] to cross realms the moment he jumped into the underground river, he would have already been pinned dead within the poisonous miasma at the bottom of the cliff.

Qingmu Cliff had now become a massive meat grinder.

"I cannot return there for the time being."

Gu Shen sat cross-legged, the mana in his Dantian nearly bottomed out after the continuous high-intensity bursts.

With a slight movement of his Divine Sense, he took out a drop of essence white dew (inferior) from his storage ring and swallowed it.

Pure Spiritual Qi dissolved within his dried-up Meridians. Although the inferior essence white dew did not contain much Spiritual Qi, it was enough to allow him to recover some ability to protect himself in this Spiritless Ruins.

Gu Shen stood up and wrung out his sodden, tattered gray robe.

The great purge outside would not end in a day or two. He had to lie low within the ruins of this Ancient Sect for an extremely long time.

Gu Shen carried the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade and, using the pale, slanted light coming from the window, walked once more to the glass wall on the second floor, which was embedded with a planar array map.

During his last exploration, he had only roughly looked at the structure above ground and the first two levels underground.

"Since this Ancient Sect was built to avoid the world-extinguishing poisonous light, the scale of the underground architecture could not possibly be just two levels."

Gu Shen tightened his grip on the hilt, and using the blade without channeling any mana, he extremely carefully scraped away the thick, hardened, and blackened layer of mold and rust at the very bottom of the array map.

Scrape, scrape.

As the rust peeled away, the true array map hidden beneath the dust of time was finally fully revealed before Gu Shen's eyes.

Gu Shen's pupils constricted sharply.

The dashed lines sketched in red pigment, representing the stairs, extended straight downwards like a chain leading directly to the netherworld.

The third underground level, the fourth underground level... it extended all the way to an incredibly exaggerated Thirteenth Underground Level!

This was not some ordinary underground secret chamber at all, but a refuge palace built with countless amounts of mysterious iron and array patterns!

On this extremely vast cross-sectional map of the palace, every level was marked with extremely complex ancient characters.

And Gu Shen's gaze was fixed firmly on the Thirteenth Underground Level at the very bottom.

There, the totem of a three-petaled death flower, representing extreme danger and the ability to cause flesh to mutate, was vividly depicted in the center. Surrounding that totem were countless extremely violent lightning runes!

"The Thirteenth Underground Level... the location of the thunder magnetic hub!"

Gu Shen felt his breathing grow heavy.

He finally understood the crazy actions taken by this Ancient Sect back when they were in a desperate situation.

"When the world-extinguishing poisonous light descended from the sky, the great experts of this Sect, in order to continue their Dao lineage, dug thirteen levels into the ground, creating this incomparably vast refuge palace."

Gu Shen deduced rapidly in his mind, completing this cruel picture of the apocalypse.

"On the Thirteenth Underground Level, they used a grand array to lock in a violent underground fire-lightning pool, attempting to use the thunder magnetic power to maintain the operation of the entire Sect. But in the end, the lightning pool went out of control, the poisonous light backflowed, and the entire Sect met with complete extinction deep underground!"

A death trap. But also a supreme treasure vault sealed away for who knows how many years!

Gu Shen touched his storage ring, remembering the silver thunder-patterned token he had obtained from the dried corpse inside.

The lightning pool on the thirteenth level, and that massive amount of top-grade thunder magnetic fine sand, would be enough to let him walk sideways in this Cultivation World. But he was extremely clear-headed; the further down he went, and the closer he got to the center of the tragedy, the more terrifying the strength of the mutated evil spirits would be.

"One must eat a meal one bite at a time. First, I will explore the five levels above ground and the upper levels of the palace, and thoroughly solidify my combat strength."

Gu Shen restrained the greed in his heart and turned to leave the array map wall.

The supplies on the second floor had already been looted clean. He had to find an absolutely safe place suitable for long-term seclusion, and incidentally search for more mortal rations.

He returned along the original path, passed through the dead-silent corridor, and arrived before the massive refined iron stairs that led to the deep underground.

The stairs were extremely wide, but at the moment they were covered in thick dust and dried, unidentified black slime.

At the entrance of the stairs stood two massive mysterious iron doors (explosion-proof refuge doors) that were a full zhang thick and weighed ten thousand jin.

However, these massive doors, which should have been tightly sealing the palace, were now eerily open, leaving a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.

On the edges of the massive doors, there were terrifying traces of melting and claw marks.

"An extremely tragic infighting or struggle must have occurred here back then. Someone wanted to escape, or... something wanted to rush in."

Gu Shen tightened his grip on his long saber.

He did not activate the Wood Armor Technique; relying only on the defense of the thousand-tough black silk armor, he turned his body sideways and, like a shadowy phantom, squeezed silently through the gap.

The moment he stepped into the first level of the palace.

A surge of cold, eerie energy, ten times more intense than above ground, rushed toward him.

There was not a shred of natural light here. Gu Shen gathered True Qi in his eyes, and relying on his night vision ability as a Qi Refining Level 7 cultivator, the scene before him gradually became clear.

It was an extremely long corridor, with countless dense, small stone rooms resembling a honeycomb arranged on both sides.

This was clearly the refuge living area for the Disciples of the Ancient Sect back then.

Gu Shen did not rashly venture deeper. He cautiously pushed open the dilapidated iron door of the stone room closest to the entrance.

The room was extremely small, containing only an iron bed and a cabinet.

On the bed lay a skeleton that had long since weathered into dust. There was no Storage Pouch, no Magical Artifact.

Gu Shen used the tip of his blade to pry open the iron cabinet.

Clang. Several very familiar cylindrical tin cans rolled out.

Gu Shen's eyes lit up.

[Discovered mortal food: iron-sealed meat paste.]

He quickly swept them into his storage ring. There were four cans in total.

"The Disciple living quarters on this first level of the palace must have been issued a massive amount of food back then. As long as I loot this level clean, let alone hiding for a few months, I won't have to worry about rations even if I hide for several years!"

A curve appeared at the corner of Gu Shen's mouth.

The Great Yu Cultivation World outside was killing each other for the sake of Opportunity.

And he, in this dead-silent underground Wasteland, would carry the Dao of Survival to the end, becoming that devourer who grew silently within the ruins.