93: Chapter 93 The Abyss of the East Sea
The moment the black mist swallowed everything, Lu Mingyuan could no longer see anything.
It wasn't ordinary darkness. It was a darkness so thick it could be touched, like ink-soaked silk wrapping around him layer by layer—over his eyes, his nose and mouth, his limbs, and every inch of his skin.
He tried to open his eyes, but it made no difference whether they were open or closed.
He tried to breathe, but what he inhaled wasn't air; it was a viscous chill that traveled down his throat, into his chest, and toward his Dantian, where the Chaos aura resided.
The Chaos aura stirred.
As if startled awake, it gave a sudden jolt and began to swirl within his Dantian.
It spun faster and faster.
As it rotated, the black mist that had invaded his body began to retreat, receding like a tide hitting a dam.
Lu Mingyuan opened his eyes.
Before him, the black mist was still thick, but he could see now.
Not with his eyes.
But with his Divine Sense.
His Divine Sense spread out, piercing through the black mist. He "saw" where he was—a sandy beach. There were reefs, shells, and driftwood washed up by the waves. But everything was covered in a layer of gray, looking as if it were dead.
He looked back.
Behind him, the wall formed by the black mist still stood, but everything beyond it was invisible. Zhang Qingyuan, the cliffs by the sea, the eastern sky—all had vanished.
There was only black mist.
Endless black mist.
He withdrew his gaze and turned toward what lay ahead.
Before him was the sea.
But that sea was not blue.
It was black.
Black as ink, like an abyss, like a night without end.
The waves crashed against the beach with a "shua-shua" sound. But the sound was strange—it wasn't the sound of water, but the sound of something viscous crawling.
Lu Mingyuan stood there, gazing at the black sea.
He knew Bai Ze was down there.
Deep on the seabed.
In that abyss shrouded by black mist.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the sea.
As soon as his foot touched the seawater, a bone-chilling cold surged up instantly.
That was no ordinary seawater. It was liquid condensed from resentment, every drop carrying countless shattered consciousnesses—pain, despair, resentment, and hatred.
They were like countless tiny insects, desperately trying to burrow into his skin.
The Chaos aura circulated once more.
This time, it didn't just rotate; it surged out from his Dantian and flowed through his Meridians to his entire body. Wherever it passed, the invading resentment dissipated like snow meeting fire.
Lu Mingyuan continued forward.
The seawater covered his ankles, his knees, his waist, his chest, his shoulders, and finally the top of his head.
His entire body submerged into that black sea.
Opening his eyes, he could see nothing.
Closing his eyes, he used his Divine Sense to find the way.
As his Divine Sense spread, he discovered that the world beneath the sea was even more terrifying than he had imagined.
Countless broken objects floated in the water—half of a stone tablet, a corner of a roof, a rusted bronze tripod, a rotting corpse. They suspended there silently, drifting slowly with the undercurrent like a silent funeral.
He dove deeper.
The further down he went, the colder the water became, the thicker the resentment grew, and the more floating debris he saw.
He saw an intact memorial archway lying sideways in the water, the three characters carved on it already illegible. He saw the ruins of a palace, its broken pillars leaning in all directions, the Dragons coiled around them now headless. He saw a massive shipwreck, its hull broken in two, with skeletal remains faintly visible in the cabins.
What were all these things?
Sunken cities? Vanished kingdoms? Forgotten history?
He didn't know.
He only knew that all these things were here.
Settling here, rotting here, turning into resentment, into black mist, into the mass that trapped Bai Ze.
He didn't know how long he had been diving.
Perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps an hour, perhaps an entire day.
In this black abyss, time lost its meaning.
Lu Mingyuan could only rely on his intuition to go down, and down further.
Finally, he saw light.
It wasn't ordinary light. It was a very, very weak light, like the final flicker of a candle about to go out, or the last glow of a firefly before death.
That light filtered up from the extreme depths, passing through layers of black mist and reaching his eyes.
His heart tightened.
That was Bai Ze's light.
He increased his speed and dove downward.
The light grew closer.
And brighter.
Finally, he saw it—
The seabed.
It wasn't ordinary sand, but a massive expanse of ruins.
Countless stone pillars stood tall, extending upward from the seabed. Some were intact, some broken, some tilted, and some fallen. Every stone pillar was covered in runes that glowed faintly in the darkness, but the light was already extremely weak, like the final breaths of a dying man.
In the center of the ruins was an open space.
In the middle of the open space stood a snow-white Divine Beast.
Bai Ze.
Its hooves were trapped in a quagmire of darkness. The darkness seemed alive, creeping upward bit by bit. It had already submerged its belly, its chest, and was about to submerge its neck.
It hung its head, eyes closed, motionless.
As if it were dead.
Lu Mingyuan's heart skipped a beat.
He rushed forward.
But after only a few steps, something suddenly blocked his path.
He stopped and looked up.
It was a mass of black mist.
This mass of black mist was thicker, denser, and darker than the surrounding fog. It suspended between him and Bai Ze, undulating slowly like a waking behemoth.
Within the black mist, countless eyes were faintly visible.
Those eyes were hollow, venomous, and hungry.
They were all watching him.
Lu Mingyuan stared at the black mist and suddenly understood.
This wasn't an ordinary collection of resentment.
This was conscious.
This was—alive.
Within the black mist, those eyes blinked.
Then, a voice rang out.
The voice was strange—it didn't come from the black mist, but echoed directly in his mind. Moreover, it wasn't one voice, but countless voices layered together—some old, some young, some raspy, some shrill, male and female, human and beast.
"He... has... come..."
"Again... he... comes..."
"Eat... eat... eat..."
"Hungry... so... hungry..."
Lu Mingyuan stood there, motionless.
He knew this wasn't a real conversation. This was just the instinctive reaction of those resentments, like the crying of an infant or the howling of a beast, devoid of any meaning.
But he heard the underlying truth in those voices.
Lack.
They all lacked something.
They had lacked too much for too long, to the point where only instinct remained—the instinct to devour.
"I've come for Bai Ze," he said.
The eyes blinked.
"Bai... Ze..."
"The... Bai... Ze... who... knows... everything..."
"Eat... it... and... we... will... know... too..."
"Hungry... so... hungry..."
Lu Mingyuan was silent for a moment.
"What it knows, you cannot eat. Even if you eat it, you won't be able to digest it."
The eyes stopped.
They stared at him.
"Who... are... you..."
Lu Mingyuan thought for a moment.
"I am the one who has come to take it away."
The eyes blinked.
Then, the black mist suddenly churned violently.
The eyes began to swirl, to merge, and to converge. Countless pairs of eyes merged into one giant eye, dozens of zhang high and over ten zhang wide, suspended in the center of the black mist like a gateway to Hell.
The giant eye stared at Lu Mingyuan.
"You... cannot... leave..."
"Since... you... came... don't... leave..."
"Eat... you..."
"Hungry... hungry... hungry..."
Lu Mingyuan looked at the giant eye, at the black mist behind it, and at the flickering, shattered consciousnesses within the mist.
He knew he couldn't defeat this thing.
It wasn't a matter of strength.
It was the essence of this thing—it was resentment, it was lack, it was the final obsession of countless dead beings. Striking it was equivalent to striking those who had died. The more he fought, the heavier the resentment would become, and the stronger it would get.
The Queen Mother of the West was right.
Confrontation was useless.
But he had to get across.
Bai Ze was right there, about to be submerged by the black mist.
He stood there, looking at the giant eye, looking at Bai Ze behind it, and looking at that increasingly weak light.
Then, he remembered the Queen Mother of the West's words—"The one who fills the void must be a person of the void."
What did he lack?
He lacked answers.
But what did those resentments lack?
What they lacked might have nothing to do with answers.
What they lacked might be very simple.
He took a deep breath and spoke.
Not to the giant eye.
But to the shattered consciousnesses behind it.
"You are hungry."
The eyes blinked.
"Hungry... hungry... hungry..."
"But what you are eating is not what you truly lack."
The eyes stopped.
They stared at him.
"What do you lack?"
Silence.
A long silence.
Then, those shattered consciousnesses began to speak.
This time, it was no longer a chaotic overlapping, but individual voices, intermittent, like sleep-talking, like sighs.
"I... lack... home..."
"I lack... mother..."
"I lack... her..."
"I lack... being alive..."
"I lack... knowing... why... I died..."
Listening to those voices, a wave of indescribable sorrow surged in Lu Mingyuan's heart.
The things they lacked were all very simple.
But those simple things were something they could never obtain again.
The giant eye slowly closed.
The black mist began to churn and retreat.
A voice came from deep within the black mist—not the voice of resentment, but another voice. Older, deeper, and more powerful.
"Meddling in things that don't concern you."
Lu Mingyuan felt a chill in his heart.
Who was that?
Within the black mist, a figure slowly emerged.
It wasn't a collection of resentment, but a—humanoid shape.
The figure was blurred, as if pieced together from countless fragments. Yet, he could faintly distinguish a man wearing ancient battle armor, with long disheveled hair and a cold, stern face.
He stood there, looking down at Lu Mingyuan.
"Do you know who I am?"
Lu Mingyuan shook his head.
The figure sneered.
"I am the Demon God who died at the Creation of the Heavens. My resentment has slept here for eons. Those just now were merely latecomers. I am the true master of this place."
He looked at Lu Mingyuan.
"I heard what you just said. It was well-said. But it's useless."
"Why is it useless?"
"Because those voids can never be filled," said the Remnant of the Demon God. "Dead is dead. Lacking is lacking. No matter how many kind words you say, they cannot come back to life. They can only—eat. Eat others, eat themselves, eat everything they can. The more they eat, the less hungry they feel. Although they can never be full, at least while eating, it doesn't hurt as much."
Lu Mingyuan was silent.
He watched the giant eye reopen, watched the shattered consciousnesses begin to agitate again, and watched the black mist surge toward Bai Ze once more.
Then, he did something.
He reached into his robes and took out the Original Copy of the classic of mountains and seas, turning to the page for Bai Ze.
The eyes of the Bai Ze on the page had completely disappeared.
But he didn't stop.
He held the book up, facing the giant eye, the shattered consciousnesses, and the Remnant of the Demon God.
"This book was given to me by Bai Ze."
He said.
"Within the book is Bai Ze's true spirit. If it dies, the true spirit in the book will also dissipate."
The Remnant of the Demon God looked at him.
"And?"
Lu Mingyuan looked at the giant eye and the shattered consciousnesses behind it.
"And so—"
He took a deep breath.
"If I give the book to you, will you release it?"
Silence.
A deathly silence.
The Remnant of the Demon God stared at him, something flashing in his eyes—was it surprise? Incomprehension? Or something else?
"Do you know what this book is?"
Lu Mingyuan nodded.
"I know."
"Do you know what this book has given you?"
Lu Mingyuan nodded.
"I know."
"And yet you want to use it to trade for that Divine Beast?"
Lu Mingyuan thought for a moment.
"It is not just a Divine Beast."
"What?"
Lu Mingyuan looked at Bai Ze in the distance, at that increasingly weak light.
"It is the Origin of Fate. It is the beginning. It is the thing without which the 'me' of today would not exist."
He turned his head and looked at the Remnant of the Demon God.
"This book was given to me by it. If it dies, what meaning is there in keeping this book?"
The Remnant of the Demon God was silent for a long time.
Then, he laughed.
The laughter was strange—not mockery, not relief, but—bitter.
"Interesting."
He waved his hand.
The black mist slowly parted, revealing a path.
A path leading to Bai Ze.
"Go."
Lu Mingyuan was startled.
"You—"
"Leave quickly before I change my mind," the Remnant of the Demon God turned away. "Keep the book. I couldn't eat that Divine Beast anyway. It knows too much; if I ate it, I wouldn't be able to digest it."
He paused.
"And—"
He didn't continue.
Lu Mingyuan looked at him and suddenly understood something.
"And what?"
The Remnant of the Demon God remained silent.
After a long time, he said softly:
"And, the words you just said—reminded me of someone."
"Who?"
The Remnant of the Demon God did not answer.
His figure gradually dissipated, merging into the black mist.
At the last moment, he left behind one sentence:
"Remember what you said today. In the future, it might come in handy."
The black mist cleared completely.
Lu Mingyuan stood there, gazing at the empty seabed for a long, long time.
Then, he turned and walked toward Bai Ze.