"Drip!"
Jia Xin walked down the damp stairway. At its lower end lay an enormous natural cavern. Every fifty meters downward, the stairs branched into four separate paths leading toward different areas. Some led to hidden rooms, while others continued downward and split again.
The cavern, nearly five hundred meters deep, had close to two thousand different stairways leading to corresponding rooms.
Zhang Chen's room was at the very bottom. As for what existed within the other rooms, and what was being held there, Jia Xin did not yet know.
"What a powerful restriction. Damn Azathoth!"
Whenever Jia Xin's thoughts strayed toward investigating the other rooms, the mark Gray Yu Ming had left on his neck would trigger a tentacle within, threatening his brain.
Jia Xin could use the Demon Devouring True Method to remove the mark, but doing so would draw Gray Yu Ming's true body here.
"Until everything succeeds, I'll endure for a while longer. Yu Ming has spent tens of thousands of years arranging this, while I've had only a little over ten years. Victory or defeat hinges on the changes at several crucial points."
Jia Xin sheathed the Xiang Long Sword behind his back for the moment. His hands alternated as he regulated the flow of Immortal Essence within his body, using a method akin to a profound Daoist art to divert the hostility in his body and calm his exceptionally restless mind.
He continued down the stairs from memory until he reached the door at the deepest level.
Before Jia Xin could knock, Chong Ying had already opened the door in her fused human-insect state. She watched him warily. "Lord Yu Ming entrusted this place to my care. What are you here for?"
Despite their past friendship in the human world, Chong Ying now looked