Chapter 834: The Secret Path

It was said that the Ocean Abyss was an area of the ocean that was simply bottomless.

All of the 100-million-year-old demonic sea creatures resided here; not only were they supremely powerful but thanks to their home-field advantage, they could simply run away if they can’t beat someone in battle. They were, overall, extremely tough opponents to face.

Gu Qing Shan was holding a glowing triangular piece of metal in his hand as he slowly descended down below.

Ever since he entered the Ocean Abyss, this triangular piece of metal seemed to have formed a connection with an unknown place.

It was like a beacon and a sensor at the same time, capable of sending certain coordinates directly into Gu Qing Shan’s inner sight.

Following the direction of the triangular piece of metal, Gu Qing Shan kept diving down towards a completely silent area deep under the ocean.

After Gu Qing Shan reached a certain point, the triangular piece of metal didn’t react anymore.

Gu Qing Shan tried releasing his inner sight to check his surroundings, but found nothing.

However, his spirit sense recognized that something was amiss.

Gu Qing Shan reached his hand out trying to grab something.

There was nothing but seawater in front of him, but he felt a clear sensation of touching something hard.

This was a piece of rock.

Gu Qing Shan held onto the rock and tried touching everywhere he could around him.

He soon found the shape of a door.

This was a closed stone door.

Gu Qing Shan tried pushing it.

It stood still without moving.

His swords couldn’t leave any mark on the stone door.

And the ice didn’t give him any better results either.

Having no other choice, Gu Qing Shan continued to search.

After a while more, he finally found a hole on the stone door.

——apparently a place to put a key inside.

Without hesitation, Gu Qing Shan pushed the triangular Key of the Seal inside.

A heavy sound of shifting stones resounded.

And the door finally opened.

The triangular key was spat back out by the door, which landed in Gu Qing Shan’s hands.

Gu Qing Shan went inside.

Bam!

As soon as he entered the stone door slammed shut behind him.

Gu Qing Shan turned around for a brief moment, before putting the Key of the Seal away and continued to swim forward.

Several dozen seconds of swimming later, he saw a flight of stairs ahead.

These stairs began underwater and continued to head upward.

Gu Qing Shan swam along the stairs and finally emerged out of the water after a while.

Once he was there, he found that the stairs continued heading far upward without end.

There were ancient motley walls on both sides of the stairs, on which torches automatically lit up when Gu Qing Shan came out of the water.

Even though the path ahead was being illuminated, the area down below was still in total darkness.

Gu Qing Shan slowly headed up the stairs with the Frostlie Staff in his left hand and the Chao Yin sword in his right.

A few minutes later.

The path forward began to turn flat.

Gu Qing Shan noticed that he was walking down a long tunnel without an end.

While he was calling it a tunnel, it wasn’t exactly a tunnel either.

Because there was a red carpet laid down right at his feet.

As Gu Qing Shan carefully observed it, he found this carpet to be a Magic-type relic that automatically cleansed any dirt or dust that fell onto it.

After so many years, the hallway had become incredibly worn and ancient, but the carpet was still completely neat and orderly.

This created a strange sense of dissonance that made him feel like time was blending into itself here.

As he reached this place, his inner sight became unusable.

Some sort of mysterious but powerful force was suppressing his inner sight so that its range only reached at most several meters around himself, unable to be extended any further.

Gu Qing Shan had no choice but to rely on his eyesight to observe his surroundings.

He quickly walked along, heading for the end of the hallway.

About five minutes later.

There was still no end to this hallway.

Fortunately, a few things appeared on both sides of the path to make Gu Qing Shan keep his guard up.

At first, it was a few strangely-shaped bones.

Followed by some damaged tables, broken pieces of metal, some broken boots.

All of them were unbelievably ancient.

But thanks to the sturdy materials that they were made up of, these items could still maintain their basic form after so many years.

Obviously, humans were active around this area at one point.

——-was this hallway created by humans?

To keep the monsters of the Eternal Abyss out, humanity created the Great Tie Wei fortress wall.

But why did they create a secret path that connects to the Eternal Abyss?

Gu Qing Shan looked around a bit before continuing heading forward.

A long while later.

There was still no end to this hallway.

If Gu Qing Shan had rushed forward at full speed, he would’ve already been able to traverse a much longer distance.

But he was constantly reminding himself not to do it.

———this is a path leading to the Eternal Abyss, and I can’t even release my inner sight to scout forward right now.

As soon as he had such a thought, Gu Qing Shan subconsciously slowed down.

He patiently walked forward, occasionally stopping on the way to see the items that were left behind from over 100 million years ago.

Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, apparently, no one had tried to touch or study them up to this point.

This meant that the Lord of Total Distortion completely ignored these items.

He brought the black finger with him in order to look for that monster.

If the Lord of Total Distortion achieved his goal and returned to the Primordial Wraith Realm, he would have to travel along this secret path.

Which meant the two of them would surely face one another.

Gu Qing Shan shook his head, temporarily put his thoughts away, and continued to head forward.

There was nothing particularly special on this path, only relics, and items that suggested that people used to live or work here.

From a logical standpoint, it was still unknown what kind of entity or creature created this path.

If humanity created this hallway that connected to the Eternal Abyss, then the existence of the Grand Tie Wei fortress wall didn’t make sense.

——–you aren’t going to put all your resources towards fighting against an enemy while secretly making a path for them to sneak in at the same time.

Unless there was some sort of indescribable hidden truth.

There was another possible situation: If this path wasn’t created by humanity, then who was the one who made all of this?

Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help muttering to himself: “I really can’t understand, why would someone make a hallway towards the entrance to the Eternal Abyss?”

He glanced down at the triangular key in his hand.

The key was still not giving off any reactions.

Without any clues, he could only continue to head forward.

Gu Qing Shan resumed his long trek towards the unknown.

For several hours, he did nothing but walk forward.

Occasionally, he would stop to check some of the left-over damaged items, attempting to look for any clues that might remain.

At a certain point.

Gu Qing Shan stopped.

The hallway in front of him was completely dark.

Before this point, the path still had torches lined on either sides, but here, not even a single torch could be seen.

Gu Qing Shan turned around and took off a torch from the wall, wanting to use it to light his way forward.

But as soon as he set foot into the dark part of the hallway, the torch went out.

Gu Qing Shan carefully observed the tip of the torch.

——–he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Unconvinced, Gu Qing Shan returned and took another brightly burning torch to light his way into the dark hallway.

This time, he managed to walk for about one minute.

Then the torch went out again.

Gu Qing Shan stood still silently.

This wasn’t a coincidence.

He crouched down, slowly put the torch on the ground, and stood back up without moving.

The Chao Yin sword appeared in his hand.

A short pause.

Nothing happened.

How strange…

While Gu Qing Shan was contemplating, he suddenly felt a gust of wind sweeping by his face.

The light gust of wind quickly turned into intense storm-level wind!

Gu Qing Shan stood still, then abruptly grabbed something that came with the wind.

As he checked what he caught, he saw that it was a bone.

“This bone isn’t right…”

He muttered.

With his many years of experience and instincts as a cook, he could tell that this bone was still relatively new, it wasn’t as old as the others.

Why would a piece of bone fly out from the hallway?

A few moments later.

The wind stopped and the dark hallway returned to silence.

Gu Qing Shan thought for a few moments, retreated, took another burning torch and re-entered the dark hallway.

He silently waited.

A few moments later.

A light gust of wind swept by——-

And the torch went out instantly.

Gu Qing Shan fell into thought.

This wind seems to have some sort of ability that could cause the torch to immediately go out.

While he was thinking, the wind became stronger and stronger, once again turning into a storm-level wind.

A few more pieces of bones came flying with it.

Gu Qing Shan randomly caught one of them.

——-this was half a skull, it looked quite ferocious, most likely not human.

He suddenly realized something.

After the wind calmed down again, he quickly dashed forward.

Sure enough, a few thousand meters later, he found five skeletons lying on the ground.

The owners of these skeletons seemed to have experienced some sort of intense pain and torture while they were alive, as all of them were fixed in twisted, writhing poses with wide-opened jaws.

Gu Qing Shan walked around the skeletons a little bit and felt the malicious, sinister power that still hadn’t faded from them.

He fully understood what happened.

——–these were the skeletons of evil creatures.

Not too long ago, a sacrificial ritual was performed here.

Sacrificial rituals were a type of power unique to the realm of the Mystic, completely different in essence to summoning techniques.

During a summoning ritual, the summoner and the summoned form a deal with one another through a mutual contract.

But sacrificial rituals weren’t the same.

They were essentially a kind of begging.

A lower life form pays a huge price to ask a higher life form from another dimension for their help.

Gu Qing Shan felt a bit doubtful.

This was only a dark hallway, why would the Lord of Total Distortion have to sacrifice the life and soul of 5 evil creatures?

Another gust of wind came.

The wind was gradually becoming stronger.

The wind blowing here was considerably more violent and ferocious than the wind he felt a few thousand meters back.

Gu Qing Shan raised his eyebrows.

He was sensing a severe feeling of danger.

Instinctively, he tilted his face to one side.

At the very next second, he noticed that there was a wound on his face.

Blood began flowing from it.

How is that possible!

I’m currently using the Divine King’s body, I have power equivalent to a Paragon realm peak stage cultivator, and I’m still wearing the [Black Smog Armor] with the visor covering my face.

Yet the wind still managed to blow through and wounded my face!

Gu Qing Shan immediately took action.

He turned around and moved back a considerable distance along the hallway until he was no longer close to the skeletons.

The wind was much weaker here.

But some bones could be seen flying past him again.

“So that’s why… even the Divine King couldn’t endure this power, let alone the Lord of Total Distortion”

“No wonder he had to sacrifice them”

Gu Qing Shan muttered.