Chapter 752: Dreamjolt

Inside the cell, bright-red blood was dripping down the long Demon Restraining Chains.

Each of the Demon Restraining Chains was about as thick as an arm and full of engraved restraining runes.

The monster occasionally howled and struggled, pulling the Demon Restraining Chains with the heavy sound of rattling metal.

But one end of these Demon Restraining Chains had pierced through the monster’s body, tightly pinning it close to the wall without letting go, the other end was connected deep underground through the floor below.

Gu Qing Shan looked at the monster.

A human?

That was the first thought he had.

But as he looked at it closer, he found that wasn’t the case.

Compared to normal people, this monster didn’t have any skin.

Its red muscles and meat were completely exposed, even its pale-white bones could be seen in some places.

Its mouth was full of long, sharp fangs that protruded upward as far as its ears.

No eyes.

Looking at this monster, Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.

This monster was obviously different from the Desolate Demon Eyes, it was a lot more humanoid.

“Roar——”

The monster roared in a frenzy towards Gu Qing Shan.

The Chao Yin sword flashed.

The monster’s head was chopped off.

The noise stopped.

Noticing that the monster was already killed, the Demon Restraining Chains automatically came off its body.

Gu Qing Shan entered the cell and began to dissect the monster.

Apparently this monster’s blood contained some sort of corrosive liquid, as Chao Yin sword was letting out a faint ‘wu wu’ to express discomfort.

Gu Qing Shan understood right away.

So he decided not to use his swords and directly triggered the sword qi inside his eyes, turning them into razor-sharp sword qi in the air and dismantled the monster’s body bit by bit.

One of the sword qi sliced open its stomach and cut upwards in a straight line, opening its chest cavity up.

——–the monster’s chest cavity was completely smooth and empty, only occasionally moving to move creases that quickly flatten themselves out.

No innards?

Gu Qing Shan was a bit confused.

He looked at the top of his finger.

A small cut appeared.

Gu Qing Shan took a single drop of his own blood and dropped it into the monster’s chest cavity.

Instantly, the inside of the monster’s chest began to convulse uncontrollably!

If the monster’s head hadn’t already been cut off, Gu Qing Shan would’ve thought that it was still alive.

“Seems like the entire chest area was connected to its stomach, acting as a digestive organ, completely different from humans” Gu Qing Shan muttered.

Subconsciously, Gu Qing Shan sighed.

What followed next was quite uneventful, as Gu Qing Shan easily butchered and lined the monster’s meat up in one corner.

When he walked back out of the cell, he activated the formation prepared here.

The monster’s corpse was quickly warped outside.

He finished butchering the first monster.

Gu Qing Shan continued towards the next cell.

There was still only a single monster being held here, but it wasn’t humanoid, but a total of 16 interconnected heads that formed a body.

Hm…

It might be a bit tough for cultivators to eat this thing.

With that in mind, Gu Qing Shan looked at the monster.

Crescent-shaped sword images flew out from his eyes, killed the monster and sliced its body into tiny pieces.

And he activated the warp formation in the cell.

The monster’s corpse disappeared without a trace.

Gu Qing Shan glanced at the War God UI.

His Soul Points increased quite a bit.

Apparently, according to the War God System’s judgement, the monsters on this 1st floor were at least as strong as Gu Qing Shan.

And this underground prison had a total of 18 floors.

…what kind of monsters are being held below?

Gu Qing Shan then looked at the Thaumaturgy Quest.

Under the Quest notification, a number was shown: [2/100].

This meant that he had indeed killed 2 monsters.

98 monsters were left until he could evolve his Lightning Thaumaturgy.

Gu Qing Shan headed towards the third cell.

…

About half an incense’s worth of time later.

All 35 monsters on the 1st floor had been cleanly and easily butchered by Gu Qing Shan.

He was standing at the entrance to the next floor.

A powerful and miraculous formation was arranged here that allowed no lifeforms beside humans to pass through.

He still had five days’ worth of time, but the only Soul Points he could trust were those he already obtained, and only a completed Quest was a good Quest, so Gu Qing Shan didn’t want to waste any time and continued downwards.

The same few kinds of monsters were being held on the second floor, perhaps they used to be very powerful when they were at their peak, but the only thing waiting for them now was to be killed and butchered.

A total of 21 monsters, Gu Qing Shan carefully and meticulously slaughtered them all.

The 3rd floor…

It wasn’t until the 9th floor that Gu Qing Shan had to stop.

There were only 9 monsters on this floor, but they were clearly a lot more powerful than the rest.

When Gu Qing Shan used his eye sword, the sword qi could only leave thin white marks on their bodies, and even that quickly disappeared.

If these monsters were still at the peak of their strength, any of them could chase Gu Qing Shan to the end of the earth without him being able to retaliate.

Gu Qing Shan stared at the imprisoned monster and fully triggered his [Soul Sword].

The monster’s body trembled slightly before falling limp.

[Soul Sword] had completely destroyed the monster’s consciousness.

The Chao Yin sword lightly swung.

The monster’s head was chopped off.

The butchering continued.

His Soul Points continued to increase.

The Quest was being completed bit by bit.

The 10th floor.

The 11th floor.

The 12th floor.

The more he headed down, the more silent it got.

These monsters no longer howled and screamed full of desires as soon as they saw him.

When he reached the 13th floor, the three Desolate monsters here only silently stared at Gu Qing Shan like they were judging him.

This place was completely different from the previous floors of the underground prison.

Blood from somewhere was constantly flowing along the floor, reaching up to his knee.

This place wasn’t particularly spacious either, as the floor, walls, and ceiling were all full of engraved runes.

Each of the three monsters were pierced through by at least 7 Demon Restraining Chains, tightly pinning them to the wall.

——–the entire 13th floor was a giant restraining formation.

These three monsters also appeared to be humanoid, but they each had a sharp, pointed horn, their faces were completely bare without any meat or muscles, only terrifying, exposed white bones.

Gu Qing Shan hovered in mid-air.

He swung the Chao Yin sword at full power.

7-8 sword phantoms flashed all at once and attacked the neck of the first monster.

The sword phantom disappeared.

Not even a single white mark was left on its neck.

Not giving up, Gu Qing Shan consecutively performed [Water Flow Severance], [Crescent Slash], [Seven Stars Flowing Dragon], [Drawn Shadow], [Swallow Returns], [Torrent], [Silver Stars], and [Life Seeker], attacking the monster at the same time.

8 powerful Secret Arts squarely struck the monster’s body, stirring it to let out a deep and low sound.

“Ugh…”

The monster’s body trembled slightly.

A tiny, almost unnoticeable white mark finally appeared on its body.

This white mark only showed up for a brief moment before it completely vanished.

Gu Qing Shan shook his head and put his sword away.

At my current Cryptic realm cultivation, the most I could reach was the 13th floor.

If these three monsters were at their peaks, each of them must be unrivalled Combatants in their own rights.

I can’t imagine how powerful a cultivator must be in order to capture them like this.

Xie Gu Hong might be able to.

Gu Qing Shan silently thought that before crossing his legs and entered a meditative state.

He had just obtained a ridiculous amount of Soul Points, about 1 million points in total.

Using a tiny fraction of that, Gu Qing Shan comprehended the entire Cryptic realm scripture.

And began to breakthrough.

Right in the middle of the underground prison’s 13th floor, hovering above the river of blood, in front of three terrifying Desolate monsters, he began to break through to the next stage of this realm.

Time passes.

One incense’s worth of time later, he opened his eyes.

He had reached Cryptic realm middle state.

Due to killing over 100 Desolate monsters, he had also already completed his Thaumaturgy Quest.

Lines of glowing notification hovered over the War God UI.

[You’ve completed the Thaumaturgy Quest: Lightning of Life]

[You may now awaken the 4th tier of your Lightning Thaumaturgy: Dreamjolt]

[Dreamjolt: When hit by your Elemental Lightning spirit energy, the target’s consciousness will connect with the Lightning and be forced to enter a brief dreamscape, during which they lose control of their body. Duration: 5 seconds]

[Note: This is the evolved Thaumaturgy from Stunned, Rigid and Severance, no living being is immune to it]

Reading the glowing text in front of his eyes, Gu Qing Shan deeply sighed.

He was feeling a sense of satisfaction.

Under normal circumstances, if he wanted to complete this Quest, he would have had to slowly accumulate it through fighting on the battlefield.

It would have taken a very long time, possibly too long.

I’m lucky that this slaughterhouse exists, it really helped me obtain such a powerful Thaumaturgy in such a short period of time.

However, now that he mentioned the slaughterhouse, Gu Qing Shan was full of questions.

After going through every floor from the first one, Gu Qing Shan felt that this place was being used as a sealing ground more than anything else.

These monsters were sealed because they couldn’t be killed.

In fact, Gu Qing Shan started to notice this when he reached the 12th floor.

When the 5 monsters on the 12th floor were attacked, a layer of twisting runes would automatically manifest outside their bodies.

The Chao Yin sword couldn’t pierce through those runes at all.

Gu Qing Shan had to rely on the Six Paths Great Mountain sword’s [Law Breaker] ability to kill those five monsters.

When they were killed, they all had an expression of disbelief.

——-they couldn’t believe that they were really killed.

And now, on the 13th floor, even the Six Paths Great Mountain sword couldn’t pierce through the overwhelming defenses of the monster’s skin.

This was pure power suppression——— representing power that surpasses Gu Qing Shan’s own countless times.

It was because Gu Qing Shan noticed this that he gave up on trying to kill it.

He then quickly realized something else.

This was only the 13th floor, while this place had a total of 18 floors.

——–what kind of unimaginable monster is being sealed on the 18th floor?

Gu Qing Shan shook his head and sighed, then suddenly heard a voice.

「 How interesting, this little brat killed his way down here 」

Gu Qing Shan froze.

He was focused completely on maintaining an unchanged expression on his face with drooping eyes, acting like he wasn’t able to hear this voice at all.

Another voice spoke: 「 We eat them, and they eat us, that’s only fair 」

Another voice came: 「 It’s because you can’t be eaten that you think that’s fair 」

The three monsters on the wall were talking to each other in a low voice.

They were speaking in Desolate Tongue.