Chapter 243 - Eternal Rest (I)
Chapter 243: Eternal Rest (I)
Translator: GravityTales Editor: GravityTales
Feeling the abundant spiritual energy in constant improvement, Long Haochen jumped once again, descending at high speed.
The cavern was pitch-black, and sinister enough to make anyone feel cowardly, but with the illumination of his own body, Long Haochen looked extremely calm. This time the rest of the descent didn’t last for so long, and a mere minute later, a dusky gloss caught his attention: he was finally seeing the bottom of the pit.
There, the wide pit suddenly shrank, and as long Haochen landed firmly on the ground, he could faintly see a gray luster ahead.
Despite this grey radiance being mild, it was very eye-catching in this pitch-black cavern.
Shield in left hand and sword in right hand, putting the entire Holy Spirit Set in use, Long Haochen very carefully launched a Holy Sword technique once again making use of the Ripples of Light, aiming in the direction of the grey gloss.
“Wu… Wu…” An uninterrupted low-pitched sound could be heard, sounding just like the rehearsal of the Desolate Hissing Cavern’s hissing sounds.
About three hundred meters forward, the grey became more distinct, changing into a curve and suddenly looking richer and more powerful. It was to the extent that the sudden ash grey color that could finally be seen seemed to look gaudy for Long Haochen’s eyes. However, at the next moment, he couldn’t help but be shocked, taking a step back almost unconsciously, and raising his shield, taking a standard defensive Guardian Knight posture.
This scene was truly shocking; no matter how many guesses Long Haochen could possibly have had about this Desolate Hissing Cavern, they were all far off from reality.
Standing a hundred meters in front of him was an extremely wide space, forming an enormous conical cave. The cave’s stone wall were just as mirrors, reflecting the grey radiance which gave a sentiment of death stillness, an illusory feeling. The ceiling was at a height of over 150 meters, and standing there, Long Haochen appeared like nothing more but a tiny insect.
And this wasn’t the most shocking thing. What even Long Haochen found unconceivable was that, three thousand meters under ground, stood a tower.
That’s right, it was a tower, a seven floored tower, which had a height of over a hundred meters. Simple and unadorned, it gave off a grey luster, filling the ash grey tower’s surroundings with terrifying fluctuations of spiritual energy.
This tower was located at the middle of that conical cave, occupying the overwhelming majority of its space. Grey fog was continuously released from that tower, and those formidable fluctuations of spiritual energy were even enough to cause Long Haochen, the Scion of Light, to shiver from the depths of his heart.
A formidable and terrible existence, this was the first impression this tower gave him.
Around that tower were countless ash-grey-colored lusters, revolving around, just like fireflies that pointed to the tower’s direction, densely packed and attaching themselves at the numerous ash-grey lights outside of the tower.
At this very moment, the violent hissing sounds suddenly rang, and this ash-grey particles seemed to agitate, scattering in all directions.
The terrifying sound waves were at least three times more powerful than the last time Long Haochen heard them, and instantly caused the Holy Mantle surrounding him to collapse, giving him no choice but to immediately erect another one, putting all his strength in increasing the frequency of the Ripples of Light.
Even so, the Holy Mantle Long Haochen released still crumbled at an astonishing speed.
By chance, Holy Mantle was a spell of the third step, so Long Haochen released one Holy Mantle after another, barely managing to maintain his shield against these terrible hissing sounds.
An alarmed look instantly appeared on his face, because he discovered to his astonishment that the lumps of ash-gray radiances were unexpectedly filled with intense soul waves, and these terrible hissing sounds were actually howling coming from their ‘soul’.
_What kind of existence can they possibly be? What is this tower?_
Long Haochen was filled with questions, but at the same time, he didn’t dare ponder over it, only focusing his mental capacity on resisting these unprecedentedly powerful sound waves. Long Haochen could say with certainty that if not for his previous understanding of the Ripples of Light, he wouldn’t have lasted for more than a minute here, before being ripped apart by the terrible sound waves. In normal circumstances, resisting these terrible hissing sounds would be something only a powerhouse of the seventh step could possibly accomplish.
This time’s series of hissing sound felt particularly long to Long Haochen, and as it finally stopped, and Long Haochen discovered to his astonishment that over half of his spiritual energy had been already depleted.
As a Demon Hunt Squad Captain, Long Haochen’s first conclusion was that this mission wasn’t something their two Demon Hunt Squads could possibly complete.
Exploring the Desolate Hissing Cavern naturally included this mysterious tower. But with his cultivation level, could he possibly manage this exploration?
Setting up a tower in the depths of this underground, what kind of existence could possibly accomplish that feat? Even if it wasn’t an entity such as the Demon God Emperor, at least it would be a powerhouse of the ninth step.
It was simply unthinkable to let his teammates come there. Among the twelve others, no one other than Cai’er could possibly resist the terrible sound waves coming along with the hissing sounds.
_Should I retreat at this point?_ Long Haochen was truly unwilling: after putting so much efforts before arriving there, would he simply withdraw like that? _No, anyhow, I might as well take a look at that tower_
Taking a deep breath, Long Haochen transferred his energy into the Saint Spiritual Stove to recover spiritual energy as he focused on sensing the blood link between Haoyue and himself.
The link between them was just as close as before, without a doubt. _That’s right, even in that other world Haoyue came from, I could still join him through our blood link. But now, it’s a mere physical distance that is separating us._
At the time Long Haochen raised his head once again, he discovered that the soul energy was completely disseminated in the entire empty space, slowly heading to the direction of the tower.
From the look of it, they were planning to join up at this tower’s level, just like before. Then, the hissing sounds would appear one again, and this cycle would continue endlessly.
Taking his chance, Long Haochen took a few steps forward, completely unable to be certain of whether these ash grey souls would try to act against him, which is why he had to be careful.
But as he feared it, that was the case.
At the time Long Haochen took a first step to this conical cave’s direction, a dozen of neighbouring lights of soul energy discovered his presence, and frantically threw themselves at him with no hesitation.
At a close distance, Long Haochen could clearly see that those ash-grey colored light of soul energy all had malevolent appearances. Although it was nothing more but condensed soul energy, it still appeared very fierce-looking.
The first of them fiercely charged at the Holy Mantle that Long Haochen had already prepared as an answer to the attack. The lights of soul energy were an entity formed of energy, specters filled with deathly aura, and thus light attribute had to some extent a restricting effect against them, which is why he confronted them without worries.
However, in the instant the specters hit the Holy Mantle, Long Haochen was greatly shocked.
_Bang–_
The Holy Mantle was instantly broken, and Long Haochen felt as if his brain had been struck by a hammer, as a terrifying energy permeated with death and coldness unexpectedly directly hit his soul, just as if trying to forcibly take possession of his body. This evil and ice-cold soul energy was exceptionally formidable, to the extent that the moment it pounded against Long Haochen, his mind became blank for a short time. Even the Light Elemental Fairy Yating in Long Haochen’s body was firmly suppressed. When confronting these formidable Specters, she could only tremble in response.
His mind completely blank, Long Haochen didn’t have the ability to communicate with Haoyue: these specters’ power was truly too terrifying. He had only been confronted to a very little portion of the hundreds of specters, but even such an unremarkable number of very small ones had caused Long Haochen to even lose all opportunity to escape.
In this very critical situation, a purple glow shone in Long Haochen’s eye as nine purple colored lights appeared on his forehead.
In a flash, purple ripples came out from Long Haochen’s body, and all the specters, regardless of whether it was the ones already sticked on Long Haochen or the ones on their ways to join them, let out a mournful cry under the pressure of the purple light, immediately fleeing at high speed.
The purple glow shot in front of Long Haochen, and Haoyue’s enormous figure appeared floating in the air, guarding Long Haochen’s back. A dense purple color spread in front of him and all around without stopping, and Little Light, Little Flame as well as Little Green’s six eyes turned into a purple color.
Previously, the incomparably strong Specters which even caused Long Haochen to be unable to block, were unexpectedly in a state of total fear when confronting Haoyue. Under this melody of hissing sounds, they escaped in succession, and even the more distant group of specters didn’t dare approach.
This wasn’t the first time Long Haochen got to see this purple glow surrounding Haoyue, but now was clearly the first time it was so dazzling.
It was soul strength, or more precisely the strength coming out from Haoyue’s soul. Seeing that these specters didn’t dare advance, Long Haochen couldn’t help but loosen his breath. Just then, he really felt as if the control his own body was being forcibly taken away.
Haoyue and Long Haochen’s minds were connected, and having gotten his instructions, Long Haochen’s body disappeared in a flash, jumping on Haoyue’s back. With him by his side, Long Haochen immediately felt at great ease.
“Haoyue, let’s head back.” Long Haochen gave that enormous ash-grey tower an unwilling look as he said so.
Haoyue turned his three heads at Long Haochen’s direction, and the latter discovered surprisingly that the purple color in their eyes was actually glinting with excitement.
Shaking his three heads simultaneously, Haoyue transmitted his thoughts, telling Long Haochen that this place would temporarily be safe, and although danger would still exist inside of the tower, it won’t directly fall upon them and would be something they would be able to temporarily deal with. Then, he suggested Long Haochen to enter in the tower to take a look at its first floor.