Wind poured in through the mouth of the passage, carrying a rank, bloody stench.
Chen Wuya stood before the entrance half-buried beneath shattered ice, his fingers still resting against the rock wall. The Profound Ice power that had seeped into his palm earlier had already sunk deep into his meridians. The flow of his misaligned force was much smoother than before, yet with every step, a dull ache still came from his ribs, as if something were lodged where his blood and qi converged.
He did not stop.
His feet made faint scraping sounds against the slick ground. The passage sloped downward. The farther in he went, the colder the air became, but that rotten, bloody smell only grew heavier. It was neither ordinary blood stench nor the smell of decaying corpses, but an odor mixed with rust and tar—one he had once smelled in Southern Ridge, when a Demonic Cult Protector licked his blade after killing someone.
The ice coating the walls gradually thinned, exposing gray-black rock beneath. A dozen or so steps farther on, the ground leveled out, and the space ahead suddenly opened up.
A larger ice chamber appeared before him.
Bronze lamps hung on all four walls, their wicks burning with ghostly green flames. The light was weak, yet it illuminated the footprints scattered all over the floor. They varied in size and depth, pointing in chaotic directions, as though many people had come and gone. Three ice coffins stood in the center. They were completely transparent, with indistinct figures inside, each face covered by a black mask.
He slowly approached the first one.
When he reached out and touched the coffin lid, cold immediately shot up from his fingertips. Through the ice, he could see a man in black robes, his hands folded over his