Darkness held no terrors for me; after all, I was a nocturnal creature by nature. The tomb passage was thick with a heavy mist. To human eyes, it would have been pitch black, but to me, it appeared as clusters of strange, faint blue halos, so dense that I felt as though I had to push through them with my hands to move forward.
The gold bell on my left wrist trembled violently, and Yang Yang, the artifact spirit, emerged. She gestured anxiously, using the few words of human speech she had learned to say, "Danger. Protect." As she spoke, she demonstrated by conjuring a light barrier around herself.
Understanding her meaning, I patted my chest and stomach to reassure her. "Don't worry, I'm wearing the armor Master gave me. Yang Yang, if you're uncomfortable, you don't have to stay out."
Yang Yang gave a sweet smile and shook her head. She held out a large lantern to serve as a light source and flew ahead of me to scout the way.
I wasn't sure which high official this tomb belonged to, but the four walls were made of high-quality Deep-Sinking Stone, which could remain dry and clean for ten thousand years. I reached out to touch it; there wasn't a speck of dust, and not a single water droplet clung to it despite the thick mist. Every so often, I encountered a wall engraved with text, mostly detailing the deeds of this official. The accounts were incredibly trivial; he seemed to have been an extremely narcissistic man. I lost patience after reading a few passages. However, thanks to these dull stories, I figured that following the chronological order of his life would lead me in the right direction, so I read as I progressed.
The official was named Zhong He, a man from the era of Emperor Taizong, the second ruler of the Jing Dynasty. He had reached the rank of Grand Guardian by the time of his death. Zhong He had lost his father as a youth and was raised under the strict discipline of his mother. He was forbidden from doing anything except focusing on his studies. He proved to be quite capable, entering the Hanlin Academy in his twenties and serving as a diligent, law-abiding official until his death at the age of one hundred and twenty.
I was yawning through an account of his work on local water conservancy projects in his forties when Yang Yang landed on my shoulder. She began shouting frantically in the Spirit tongue. Since it was similar to the Demon tongue, I could roughly understand her. She was saying that there was something strange behind the wall—something was about to crawl out.
I also felt a faint vibration beneath my feet. I leaped back several paces, summoned the Meteor Crossbow my master had given me, and signaled Yang Yang to extinguish the lantern. I held my breath and waited, aiming at the wall.
A dark shadow writhed across the surface of the wall, accompanied by a powerful, foul stench. The scent was remarkably similar to Yin Corrosion Rain. When it finally emerged fully from the stone, I saw its form: it looked like a giant beetle with a massive head and a narrow abdomen, standing two zhang tall. It had antennae on its head, and its mouth was filled with soft, quivering bristles that dripped with slime. It was truly revolting.
The moment the monster opened its maw, I fired a bolt precisely into its throat.
The creature raised its forelimbs and let out a bone-chilling screech. Before it could pounce, the fireball at the tip of the bolt exploded. Its head melted into a puddle of black liquid that hissed and steamed on the ground. Its body struggled manically for a long moment before collapsing with a heavy thud, dissolving into the same black sludge.
A second and then a third monster emerged, taking turns spitting streams of black liquid at me. I dodged the first, then leaped several more times in quick succession to narrowly avoid the rest. A few drops of the venom splashed onto my clothes, instantly burning large holes through the fabric. This venom could even corrode Deep-Sinking Stone; if it touched my skin, I would be finished!
Terrified and furious, I cried out and fired two bolts in rapid succession. Not only did they blow apart those two, but the blasts also caught the swarm of insects surging from behind. The swarm grew frenzied, and the venom began to spray more densely, like a chaotic volley of arrows.
The passage was narrow, making it increasingly difficult to dodge. I had no choice but to run toward the end of the corridor, where a stone chamber seemed to loom in the distance. However, the commotion of my flight must have triggered a mechanism. A sword array suddenly appeared before the chamber door. Green light flared brilliantly as the spectral blades solidified into gleaming iron edges, whistling through the air as they lunged at me!
I rolled desperately across the floor. Several swords grazed my arms, and the pain was so sharp that tears sprang to my eyes. The forest of blades struck the monsters nearby, but they couldn't be destroyed by physical cuts; the swords simply became lodged in their bodies, stuck fast in the black slime.
I truly regretted slacking off during my physical foundation training as a child! But the path of illusions focuses on the spirit rather than the body. Cultivating illusions already demands immense energy, and even my master’s combat techniques were limited. A small fry like me could, at most, use illusions to overwhelm those of the same level. Against mindless monsters and mechanical traps, I was utterly powerless!
No wonder the heritage of illusions has dwindled over the millennia—it’s because they’re utterly useless!
I cursed my master in my heart while simultaneously weeping and firing my crossbow, chanting "Master, protect me" under my breath. I heard the faint sound of gears turning; the second wave of the sword array was about to begin, and the walls of the passage were smooth and straight, offering nowhere to hide.
I was quickly running out of bolts. I pressed my body as close to the wall as possible to minimize my exposure to the array.
The monsters had closed to within ten paces. They did not fear physical blades and could only be killed with magic. I searched my person for every artifact I had that contained offensive spells—Thunderclap Beads, Fire-Thunder Beads, Wind-Cleaving Beads—intending to blow these monsters up one by one. If they didn't die, I certainly would!
I had only thrown two beads when a piercing beam of light ignited at the left end of the passage. It was like a thin, sharp blade, cutting perfectly between me and the tide of insects. Once my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a slender figure holding a long, golden-glowing blade. She had already slain the three lead monsters with incredible speed.
The black liquid clinging to the blade acted like maggots being burned by fire, leaping and shrieking. The person flicked the blade to clear the sludge, then suddenly lunged forward to pierce the head of another monster. With a fluid motion, she drew the blade back in a sweeping cut. A chorus of hisses erupted—the terrified roars of the swarm—as the crescent-like golden arc sliced five or six of the creatures in half!
It seemed as though even the splashing slime had been accounted for in her movements; not a single drop touched her.
Within a few breaths, half the swarm in the passage had been wiped out. The remaining monsters twitched their antennae in fear and began to retreat, vanishing back into the walls.
At that moment, the green light of the sword array intensified as a new forest of blades emerged. The figure flew toward me, grabbing my waist and spinning me behind her. She flicked her sleeve and cast a light incantation; a warm, brilliant golden glow rose from her palm, instantly spreading into a shimmering screen of light.
This screen was as thin as a cicada's wing and as bright as day. Within its flowing radiance resided a majestic, righteous power, as if all the world's evils would turn to ash before this light!
With a gentle push of her strength, the screen slammed into the forest of swords with the force of a thousand jun. After the crushing impact, the broken swords fell to the floor. The dark passage was filled with a golden brilliance so intense I couldn't keep my eyes open.
The light screen did not stop there; it struck the sword array directly. This person didn't care about finding the "eye" of the formation; she simply used absolute power to seal it once more.
When my vision cleared, I stared with wide eyes and cried out, "You!"
Wei Qingming released my waist and used one hand to pinch my chin. She stared at me intently, a light smile playing on her lips. "Mm, eyes need to be this large to have such spirit when they glare."
I buried my face in her chest. "Waaah, I thought I was going to die all alone..."
She clearly hadn't expected such a reaction. Her body stiffened instinctively, and she moved to push me away, but then she softened. She let me hold her, and though she didn't raise her arms to embrace me, she didn't let go of the hand she was already holding.
I grabbed her lapel to wipe my tears, but I felt something sticky and warm. I cried out in shock, "Are you hurt?"
"It's someone else's."
I felt her all over to make sure she was truly unharmed before I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Since I had just smeared some blood on myself from her clothes, Wei Qingming took out a handkerchief and gently wiped my face, then cleaned the stains from my body. "I've been with those rough men for too long; it's hard to avoid being unrefined. I've startled you." She took my hand again, using a healing spell to mend several scrapes, then produced a cloak and draped it over me to hide my damaged dress.
I pulled a spare outer robe from my cosmos bag and changed. Seeing that she was still looking at my face, I said bashfully, "Don't you dare laugh at me for crying!"
Though Wei Qingming's expression remained indifferent, she seemed to be in a good mood. She said softly, "Miss Su is indeed even more beautiful than I imagined."
"Ah!" I touched my face, suddenly realizing. "This... why isn't the illusion working anymore..."
"It's the mechanics of the tomb," Wei Qingming's voice returned to its usual calm. "Follow me. My senior brothers are elsewhere. We'll likely have to kill a few more lackeys in a moment. Don't be afraid."
"I'm not afraid!" I pouted and glared at her.
Wei Qingming chuckled. She reached out to take the bright long blade that had been hovering in the air on guard and sheathed it. The surroundings plunged into darkness. She held her hand out to me and asked, "Can you see?"
"Of course."
As she led me along, she explained, "Those were Yin Corrosion Beasts. They are attracted to light; your lantern drew them to you. These creatures are formed from Yin Corrosion Rain seeping into the ground. Normally, great tombs are protected by arrays that prevent Yin energy from intruding, but someone opened a hole in this tomb, allowing it in."
"Grave robbing? That's a capital offense!"
Wei Qingming casually kicked a small stone up, caught it, and handed it to me. "This is Yin Corrosion Ink, over fifty years old. The ones you killed just now had them too. The market price is two hundred spirit stones a piece."
I hurried to tuck the dull black stone into my bosom, saying happily, "When you guys fight monsters later, I'll just stay in the back and pick these up!" I crouched down to pick up another one and laughed. "No wonder people dig up ancestral graves. If my master knew about this, she'd probably come here too..."
***
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