54: Chapter 54 The Shelter's Last Words, The Mutated Monster

Spiritless Ruins, First Underground Level.

Inside the cold black iron corridor, it was so silent that only Gu Shen's own extremely light heartbeat could be heard.

There was no wind here, and the air was filled with a thick, strange smell of anti-rust oil mixed with aged decay. On both sides were rows of dense, tiny stone rooms, most of their iron doors half-ajar or damaged.

Gu Shen did not relax his vigilance; the Wood Armor Technique remained hidden but ready on his body's surface. With his left hand gripping the black turtle shield and his right hand tightening around the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade, he pushed open those broken iron doors one by one.

For a full half-hour, he scavenged through more than twenty rooms.

Most rooms contained nothing but weathered white bones and rusted iron bunk beds. However, in several locked metal cabinets, he used the sharpness of his gold-severing saber to once again harvest a batch of mundane supplies.

"This first floor of the underground palace must have squeezed in at least several thousand people back then. Although most materials have been consumed or taken away, the remaining scraps are enough for me to Cultivate here for several months."

Gu Shen put the supplies into his Storage Ring and pushed open an iron door at the end of the corridor that was significantly more spacious than the others.

In this room, there was not only a bed but also a relatively well-preserved iron table.

Before the table lay a set of extremely deformed white bones.

The skeleton's spine was highly arched, its arms were long enough to almost touch the ground, and its finger bones were as sharp as knives. Clearly, before death, he had experienced some kind of extremely painful and terrifying physical mutation.

Gu Shen used the tip of his blade to flip the white bones over.

Beneath the skeleton's chest cavity was a booklet wrapped in some kind of unknown black beast skin (artificial leather).

The Great Furnace did not react, indicating that this was just an ordinary mundane journal.

Gu Shen used the tip of his blade to lift the booklet and blew away the dust. Opening the pages, he found them densely packed with square characters.

Gu Shen had spent years organizing ancient texts at Baicao Pavilion and had some knowledge of ancient writing. Although these characters were missing strokes and had strange structures, he could understand about seventy to eighty percent by guessing from context.

He focused his gaze on it.

The wording in the booklet was extremely eerie, completely lacking the terminology regarding Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, and Spiritual Qi Cultivation Techniques common in the Great Yu Cultivation World.

"July 12th. The world outside is completely finished. After the blinding flash, everything on the surface was evaporated by the high temperature of the Nuclear Explosion. We are forever sealed inside this Abyss Shelter."

Gu Shen's brow furrowed. "Nuclear Explosion? Flash? This Ancient Sect indeed encountered some kind of world-extinguishing poisonous light from the sky, even melting the ground. Shelter... so the name of this underground palace is a Shelter."

He continued flipping through; the handwriting became increasingly scribbled and messy, revealing the extreme fear and despair of the writer.

"September 5th. Supplies are still dwindling. The most terrifying thing isn't hunger, but the alarms from the lower levels. The Reactor on the Thirteenth Floor was damaged in the earthquake, and the Radiation Shielding Lead Plates have cracked. That invisible radioactive dust is spreading upward through the ventilation ducts."

Gu Shen's eyes sharpened. "Reactor? Radiation Shielding Lead Plates? This must be the Earth Fire Lightning Pool sealed on the Thirteenth Underground Level mentioned in the records! The lightning pool cracked, the poisonous light flooded in, and even the special iron plates meant to resist the poisonous light couldn't stop it!"

He flipped to the last page. There were only a few extremely distorted lines of blood-written words:

"November 2nd. The isolation door was smashed open by monsters rushing up from the lower levels! Those people contaminated by radiation have turned into bloodthirsty Aberrations! They don't feel pain, and their strength is terrifying! My skin is starting to ulcerate, and my hair is falling out in clumps... I've been infected... I must not let the Key Card fall into their hands..."

Snap.

Gu Shen closed the booklet and vibrated it into powder.

The final words in the booklet completely confirmed his previous deductions. The Lightning-Magnetic Hub on the Thirteenth Floor had leaked, and the invisible poisonous light had turned the entire underground palace into a massive farm of flesh-and-blood Aberrations!

"No wonder this skeleton is so deformed."

Gu Shen's gaze swept over the skeleton on the ground. Suddenly, his blade flashed, splitting open the skeleton's tightly closed, deformed finger bones.

Clang.

An extremely familiar silver metal plate fell to the ground.

It was identical to the one he had obtained from the charred corpse on the second floor, except this metal plate was engraved with the number "One."

[Discovered Damaged Mechanical Token. No spiritual energy fluctuations. Contains weak magnetism. Cannot be refined.]

"Another key."

Gu Shen unceremoniously put it into his Storage Ring. Adding the one from the second floor, he now had two tokens leading to the lower-level Lightning-Magnetic Hub. Although he didn't dare go there now, the more keys to such core Opportunities, the better.

The moment he finished stowing the token.

Hiss—!

From deep within the corridor outside the door, a sudden, hair-raising sound of flesh rubbing against the floor echoed.

It was extremely heavy and moving fast!

Gu Shen turned abruptly, his Qi Refining Level 7 Divine Sense instantly penetrating the iron door and sweeping outward.

At the end of the dark passage, a massive monster nine feet tall, covered in pustules and grey keratinous layers, was charging toward the room on all fours like a maddened bull!

A few tattered blue cloth strips still hung from its body, but its face was completely torn apart, its jawbone split in two and filled with extremely sharp fangs.

"An Aberration eroded by the poisonous light?"

Gu Shen snorted coldly. Such mindless dead things had wandered this spiritless land for untold years, their Physical Bodies long since tempered by the poisonous light until they were as hard as iron.

But he was a Qi Refining Level 7 cultivator!

"Perfect timing. I'll use you, aberrant monster, to test my Late Stage saber techniques!"

Gu Shen advanced instead of retreating. His left leg kicked off the ground violently, leaving a shallow pit in the extremely hard black iron floor.

He shot out of the iron door like an arrow from a bow, charging head-on toward the rushing Aberration!

Roar!

The Aberration let out an ear-splitting roar, swinging its deformed claw—thicker than an ordinary person's thigh—and swiping viciously at Gu Shen's head with a gust of foul wind.

The pure physical power of this strike was definitely comparable to the full-strength blow of a Qi Refining Level 8 Body Cultivator!

But Gu Shen's eyes were as cold as ten-thousand-year-old black ice.

He did not dodge. The vast green magic power within his body surged frantically into his right arm.

Clang—!!!

The ring of the blade tore through the dead silence.

The thunder pattern gold-slaying blade swept upward from below, drawing an extremely dazzling crescent of ghostly blue lightning!

There were no fancy Spells, only absolute speed, power, and the crushing advantage of a Magical Artifact!

Squelch!

The moment the blade edge collided with the deformed claw, there was no hesitation. The sharpness of the Top-grade Fierce Gold combined with the violent Thunder-Magnetic Force instantly severed that thick arm at the root!

Lightning surged into the Aberration's body through the stump, instantly vaporizing the foul, stinking blood.

The monster's massive body tumbled forward due to its momentum.

Gu Shen's figure flashed like a ghost, appearing at its side. He gripped his saber with both hands and raised it high.

"Sever!"

The blade struck down with the force of thunder.

Crack!

The hideous head filled with fangs rolled off as expected. The headless corpse crashed onto the iron floor of the passage, twitched twice, and died completely.

One strike to sever the arm, one strike to decapitate. No wasted movements.

Gu Shen exhaled a long breath and sheathed his saber. Having stepped into Late-Stage Qi Refining, his close-combat explosive power had reached an extremely terrifying level.

He walked to the side of the corpse and pressed his hand down.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the phantom fire of the Heaven and Earth Furnace swept out, completely engulfing the massive Aberration.

"Although it's large, it's ultimately just a mundane creature contaminated by poisonous light. Without the nourishment of Spiritual Qi, it can only refine inferior White Dew."

Gu Shen shook his head and put it into his Storage Ring.

He looked up toward the heavy isolation door deep in the corridor that led to the second underground level.

The first floor was just an ordinary Shelter residence with low danger. But he knew that behind this door lay the stairs truly leading to both Hell and a treasure vault.

"I won't go deeper for now. I'll enter secluded cultivation on this floor to completely refine and nourish the Talisman Treasure I brought from Qingmu Cliff."

Gu Shen turned, chose the most hidden room with the thickest iron door, and walked inside.