The oil lamps cast a dull yellow light over several weary, tense faces. They were elite Mausoleum Guards assigned to guard the Dragon Source Stone Cavern of the imperial mausoleum. During the day, they had personally watched General Meng Tian escort Lord Chang'an Cheng Xi—the legendary figure who had slain evil creatures but suffered grievous wounds and hovered near death—into the forbidden ground.
"Wang Wu, do you think... that lord can really survive?" A young Mausoleum Guard lowered his voice, rubbing the cold hilt of his sword. His eyes held reverence and a trace of barely perceptible fear. Lord Chang'an Cheng Xi's name had long been colored by both legend and terror among the common soldiers, along with rumors of the Lishan demon calamity and the quelling of the palace coup.
"Quiet!" the veteran called Wang Wu barked, casting a wary glance at the pitch-black passage beyond the barracks. "How could people like us discuss whether a noble lives or dies? General Meng is personally guarding him, and there is also the Great King's written order... We only need to guard the entrance and keep idle people from approaching!" Yet as he spoke, his callused hand unconsciously pressed against the bronze short halberd at his waist.
Suddenly!
Woooo—!
An exceptionally deep hum, as if it came from the Bottom of the Nine Netherworlds, suddenly pierced through the thick mountain rock and echoed through the barracks and the entire garrison area! It was not piercing, yet it carried a heart-palpitating penetrative force that struck straight at the depths of the soul! The oil lamp flames swayed wildly, while dust rustled down from the walls!
"What was that sound?!" All the Mausoleum Guards sprang up at once, weapons drawn. With their backs against the walls, they looked around in alarm and uncertainty!
The humming continued, carrying a strange rhythm, as though... some sleeping behemoth was breathing, or perhaps... countless pieces of metal were resonating together!
"Is... is it coming from the burial pit?!" A Mausoleum Guard with a pale complexion pointed outside the barracks, toward the funerary army formations deeper within.
Wang Wu's expression changed drastically! Deep within the imperial mausoleum stood thousands of life-sized Qin Army Terracotta Soldiers, molded from clay and armed in full armor! They were the tiger and wolf army the First Emperor had prepared to take into the netherworld! This strange humming... could it be?!
"Move! Let's take a look!" Wang Wu forcibly suppressed the shock in his heart, gripped his short halberd, and led several bolder Mausoleum Guards cautiously into the depths of the dark passage, following the hum.
The closer they came to the burial pit, the clearer and denser the hum became. The air was filled with a strong earthy stench and... a faint scent of rusting metal!
At last, they arrived at the edge of the enormous burial pit.
The sight before them made these battle-hardened Mausoleum Guards' scalps go numb, leaving them frozen where they stood!
At the bottom of the pit, the thousands of terracotta soldiers standing in solemn ranks were... silently trembling! Not swaying as a whole, but each individual soldier was quivering on its own at an extremely high frequency and with an incredibly slight amplitude! The painted lacquer on their surfaces flaked away amid the vibrations, revealing the grayish-brown clay beneath. Countless specks of dust were shaken loose, filling the pit and forming an eerie Gray Mist beneath the dim eternal lamps.
Even more horrifyingly, the bronze halberds, spears, swords, and polearms clenched in the terracotta soldiers' hands—those cold metal weapons—were also giving off a deep resonance amid the hum! As though... something was awakening them!
"The... the figurines are moving?!" A young Mausoleum Guard's teeth chattered, his voice on the verge of tears.
Wang Wu stared fixedly at the trembling sea of terracotta soldiers below. The veins on the hand gripping his short halberd bulged, and cold sweat soaked his back. He saw something even more terrifying—within the shadowed corners of the formation, beneath several soldiers close to the pit wall, several drag marks had appeared across the dust-covered ground! At the ends of those marks were several inconspicuous narrow fissures leading deeper underground! The soil along the fissures' edges bore an ominous dark gold sheen!
"It isn't the figurines moving..." Wang Wu's voice was dry and hoarse, filled with endless chill. "It's... something... down there... dragging them underground!"
Stone Cavern · Dragon String Resonance
Pale golden dragon energy continued to pour in. Cheng Xi's trembling had weakened from violent convulsions, but that was not an improvement—it signaled that his life force was rapidly draining amid the violent conflict. The dark red Turbid Fiendish Meridians beneath his skin deepened in color, like dried riverbeds greedily sucking away the last of his Life Essence.
Meng Tian's expression was as grave as iron, and the hand holding the token trembled faintly. The clash between dragon energy and evil power was like two raging torrents crashing through Cheng Xi's fragile meridians. Every collision made the token in his hand feel a bit heavier. He could sense Cheng Xi's life force slipping away as swiftly as sand through his fingers.
"Hold on..." Meng Tian growled, not knowing whether he was ordering Cheng Xi or encouraging himself.
Just as he stood on the brink of life and death!
Deep within Cheng Xi's brow, that gray glimmer from the Chaos Origin Point's Frantic Deduction finally completed its final analysis and model!
Repulsive force field analysis complete!
Energy conflict threshold locked!
Turbid fiendish contamination core nodes... located!
Optimal diversion route for dragon energy flow... calculated!
Chaos Earth Fiend residual factors... dynamic balance parameters... injected!
The gray glimmer suddenly erupted with an unprecedentedly sharp radiance! No longer passively scanning, it turned into an invisible stream of commands and instantly took over all remaining controllable power within Cheng Xi's body—including the faint remnants of Chaos Earth Fiend power, traces of life force scattered by the impact of dragon energy, and even... a strand of Inert Energy forcibly analyzed and temporarily stripped away by the gray glimmer from the Turbid Fiendish Power that was frantically devouring his life force!
"Use my body as the instrument... my meridians as strings... Dragon Vein Earth Energy... synchronize and resonate for me!!!"
The gray glimmer let out a soundless roar!
Woooo—!
A strange vibration carrying a certain rhythm erupted violently from deep within Cheng Xi's dantian! This vibration was not an energy impact, but a wave of energy-frequency oscillation precise to the finest degree!
The oscillation wave instantly spread through Cheng Xi's whole body! The dragon energy, Turbid Fiendish Power, and residual chaos power that had been violently clashing and repelling one another were, under the guidance of this specific-frequency wave, forcibly adjusted in an instant—as though combed smooth by an invisible comb!
The repulsive force suddenly decreased!
Even more shocking was that this oscillation wave originating from Cheng Xi himself actually produced a subtle resonance with the pulse of the Dragon Source Stone Pool, and with the deep rhythm of Lishan's uncontaminated earth veins...
Splash—!
The milky white dragon-source water in the stone pool stirred without wind, sending ripples across the surface! Drawn by that resonance, an even purer, gentler, and vaster Earth Vein Origin Power no longer needed to be forcibly extracted by the Ancestor Dragon Token. Instead, it actively flowed, strand by strand, into the pouring pale golden dragon energy like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, entering Cheng Xi's body together with it!
This newborn dragon energy, infused with Earth Vein Origin Power drawn in through active resonance, no longer domineeringly repelled everything else. Instead, it carried a nourishing, accepting quality! Following the optimal route calculated by the gray glimmer, it gently yet firmly washed through Cheng Xi's battered meridians, soothed the violent energy conflicts, and more precisely enveloped the Turbid Fiendish contamination core nodes marked by the gray glimmer!
Sizzle, sizzle...
The dark red Turbid Fiendish Meridians, washed by dragon energy infused with Earth Vein Origin Power, began to slowly dissolve and fade like snow beneath a blazing sun! Though the process was extremely slow, and though Cheng Xi's aura remained weak, the dead, sinking sensation that clung to him like a bone-clinging maggot was finally torn open by a tiny gap! A faint warm current belonging to life force, nourished by the dragon energy, struggled to sprout anew within his scorched-earth-like meridians!
Meng Tian felt the changes coming from the token in his hand in shock—the infusion of dragon energy had become exceptionally smooth, and there was even a faint, gentle suction force! He looked at the Turbid Fiendish Meridians beneath Cheng Xi's skin beginning to fade, then at the dragon-source water actively churning in the stone pool. Unbelievable light burst from his tiger-like eyes. "This... this is..."
Cheng Xi remained unconscious, but his tightly furrowed brow seemed to relax by the slightest degree. The gray glimmer in his brow dimmed after completing that earth-shattering guidance, sinking into deep silence as though it had exhausted all its strength.
At the edge of the burial pit, silence reigned like a tomb.
Wang Wu and the few Mausoleum Guards stood like frozen statues, staring fixedly at the trembling sea of terracotta soldiers below. The deep hum was like the sobbing of countless wronged souls, echoing through the vast pit and hammering against their taut nerves.
The drag marks extending from beneath the terracotta soldiers' feet to the fissures in the pit wall looked like vicious scars in the dim light. The fissures were deep and dark, their edges lined with soil of a strange dark gold hue, emitting a faint sulfurous odor.
Suddenly!
Crack... crack!
The ground beneath a Terracotta Soldier near the fissure's edge, one that had been trembling at high frequency, abruptly collapsed in a small section! The soldier lost its balance and crashed forward! Just as it was about to strike the ground—
Whoosh!
Several black roots covered in dark gold keratin, each as slender as an adult's arm and tipped with flower-like maws, shot out from the fissure like venomous snakes that had been lying in wait! With unerring precision, they wrapped around the falling Terracotta Soldier's ankles, waist, and the arm holding its halberd!
"Argh!" One of the Mausoleum Guards at the pit's edge could not help letting out a short cry of terror!
Those roots erupted with immense force! They suddenly recoiled!
Crack! Crack!
Dragged by the roots' terrifying strength, the heavy clay Terracotta Soldier was forcibly pulled toward the narrow fissure! Its clay feet scraped across the stone at the pit's bottom with a piercing screech, throwing off sparks! Under the violent friction and crushing pressure, fine cracks began appearing across its ceramic body, while large flakes of paint and clay broke away!
Within only a few breaths, that struggling Terracotta Soldier was completely dragged into the depths of the dark fissure! All that remained were several fresh scrape marks at the bottom of the pit and shattered clay fragments scattered across the ground!
Silence.
Even the Mausoleum Guards at the pit's edge stopped breathing. Fear coiled around every heart like an icy venomous snake.
Then, an even more terrifying scene unfolded!
From deep within the fissure that had devoured the Terracotta Soldier came a teeth-grating sound of chewing and grinding! As though something was tearing apart and devouring hard clay and bronze!
Woooo—!
At that moment, the trembling hum of the remaining terracotta soldiers suddenly intensified! As though they had been provoked by something or... summoned! They no longer trembled disorderly, but faintly turned toward the fissure that had swallowed their companion! The resonance of the bronze weapons in their hands grew sharper and more piercing, as though... they were afraid, yet also as though... they were yearning!
Wang Wu's face turned as pale as paper. He stared fixedly at that dark fissure, as though he had seen the entrance to hell. He abruptly turned and screamed hoarsely at his terrified companions:
"Quick! Sound the alarm! The highest level! Report to General Meng! Report to the Great King! Something in the Terracotta Soldier pit is eating the figurines! It... it's getting stronger!"