Underworld Netherworld

The great doors slowly opened. What met his eyes was not any rare treasure, but a hazy expanse of chaos—empty of everything, without even walls, nothing but chaos.

Ning Chen turned his wheelchair and entered. Before he could react, ranks upon ranks of headless Underworld Soldiers came marching forth. Beside them lurked ghosts and specters, a terrifying sight.

The Underworld Soldiers borrowed the path, and the ghosts possessed bodies. Ning Chen tried to avoid them, only to discover that no matter how he dodged, the Underworld Soldiers drew ever closer.

"An illusion?"

Ning Chen frowned, unable to understand what was happening. When he turned back, he found that the doors had vanished. The entire chaos held only him and thousands upon thousands of Underworld Soldiers.

"Kill!"

The Underworld Soldiers raised their halberds, their battle cries shaking the heavens. In the blink of an eye, they were before him.

The sight was bizarre, yet not wholly illusory. Ning Chen raised a hand and drew the Ink Sword from behind him. With one slash, he swept aside several halberds and retreated ten paces.

Fortunately, the wheelchair beneath him had been personally made by one of the Academy's teachers. Otherwise, it would have long since been unable to endure such repeated battles and been completely destroyed.

This battle had come from nowhere. Ning Chen did not dare let down his guard. He swung his sword, gathered his qi, and charged into the Underworld Soldiers.

The Underworld Soldiers were not powerful, weaker even than ordinary soldiers. Yet with ghosts and specters accompanying them, they were far more troublesome to deal with.

There were simply too many Underworld Soldiers. Wounds gradually began appearing across Ning Chen's body. Whenever a halberd tore through his flesh, blood sprayed in all directions, carrying with it an extremely yin and frigid aura.

Ghostly blades and swords could scarcely be harmed. Only true qi could forcibly suppress them. Yet every time a ghost passed through his body, Ning Chen felt his true qi stagnate, and his spirit weakened considerably.

"Forward is blocked, retreat is impossible, and demons fill the road."

Anger rose in Ning Chen's heart. Qi Sea True Essence surged, frost condensed upon the Ink Sword, and with a single sweeping slash, seven Underworld Soldiers were sent flying in pieces.

Endless Underworld Soldiers, ghosts that could never be killed—Ning Chen's wounds multiplied, and more and more blood flowed from him. In the chaotic world, severed limbs and corpses carpeted the ground, piling higher and higher until bones formed mountains.

There was no rest, not even a moment to catch his breath. The Ink Sword in Ning Chen's hand had already been stained crimson by dark red blood, while the corpses beneath him were too numerous to count.

He did not know how long he had been killing. Ning Chen only felt that the hand gripping his sword had gone numb. Driven solely by instinct, he continued harvesting the Underworld Soldiers and ghosts blocking his path.

"Cough, cough."

The severe depletion of his true qi caused the injuries he had previously suppressed to flare up once more. Ning Chen coughed up blood and looked ahead, only to discover that at some point, there were no longer any Underworld Soldiers capable of standing before him.

Everywhere in the world of chaos looked the same. There was no distinction between night and day, as though it were the disorder of the world's first beginning, with no rules governing anything.

Here, Ning Chen discovered that his true qi recovered much faster than usual. Even his cultivation, which had shown no progress for some time, faintly showed signs of a breakthrough.

Unfortunately, this was no safe and pleasant place, much less a treasured ground for cultivation.

He had no idea when the Underworld Soldiers would appear again. Though these dead things felt no pain, lacked intelligence, and possessed insufficient combat strength, their sheer numbers and the ghosts that accompanied them made them truly difficult to handle.

"Clop, clop."

Just as Ning Chen finally suppressed his injuries and regained a little strength, warhorses thundered in the distance. In an instant, four headless, black-armored Underworld Cavalrymen swung their halberds down at him.

With a bang, sword and halberd collided. The headless Underworld Cavalry charged in with the remaining momentum of their warhorses. Ning Chen's right hand went numb, and the impact of the halberd sent him flying five zhang away.

"Does this never end?"

Ning Chen coughed softly as he looked at the four headless Underworld Cavalrymen closing in around him. The Ink Sword in his hand trembled and rang, blood flowing down it and dripping onto the corpses beneath him.

"Bang!"

The battle resumed. Four halberds struck in succession, attack and defense alternating. Though Ning Chen's cultivation was somewhat superior, faced with the flawless coordination of the four, he could not break the deadlock for the moment, and blood once again stained his body.

"How annoying."

Unable to gain ground after a prolonged assault, Ning Chen grew irritated. Facing the incoming halberd, he neither blocked nor dodged, taking the blow head-on.

The halberd pierced his body, and blood splashed out. Yet a bleeding hand seized the shaft, leaving the bronze halberd unable to move even half an inch further.

"Clang!"

At that moment, the other three halberds came at him from three directions. Ning Chen swept the Ink Sword through the air, knocking aside two halberds. Then he retreated, narrowly avoiding the third.

With one of the four halberds missing, a flaw briefly appeared in their coordination. Ning Chen used his left hand to pull backward, closing in as he did so. His sword flashed, severing one arm from the headless Underworld Cavalryman before him.

"Cough, cough."

In that brief instant, the battle had changed several times. Ning Chen's body could not bear the violent strain, and he began coughing fiercely.

The Underworld Cavalry possessed boundless arm strength. Every halberd strike held the might to split mountains and shatter rocks, beyond the power of any human to withstand. Relying on his Houtian Fourth Rank physique, Ning Chen had blocked several moves, but his body was gradually failing him.

"This halberd..."

Ning Chen held the halberd he had seized from the Underworld Cavalryman and felt a cold, yin aura constantly burrowing from his palm into his meridians. Left with no choice, he forcibly suppressed it with true qi, only then feeling somewhat better.

If he had guessed correctly, this halberd must once have been an exceptional divine weapon in ancient times. But after remaining in the hands of the Underworld Cavalry for too long, it had become steeped in excessive yin energy and turned into an underworld weapon.

If the yin energy within the halberd could be expelled, it might perhaps regain the traits of its former divine nature. Yet that possibility was slim. More likely, once the yin energy was removed, this underworld weapon would become nothing more than a piece of scrap iron.

Of the four Underworld Cavalrymen, one had already been crippled. Major flaws had appeared in both their offense and defense, and they no longer posed much of a threat to him. Aside from their enormous strength, the Underworld Cavalry themselves were not particularly terrifying. Ning Chen ultimately defeated the remaining three one by one without much danger. After all, he was a Fourth-Rank martial artist who had once defeated a Sixth-Rank expert. Though the victory had not been honorable, a victory was still a victory.

Ning Chen put away one halberd, intending to study it carefully later. This halberd posed far too great a threat to him. Not only was it sturdy and difficult to break, but the yin energy within it also mutually restrained the true essence in his body. Every clash of moves invisibly drained a great deal of his true qi.

The yin energy in the land of chaos was growing heavier and heavier. Underworld Soldiers and Underworld Cavalry were originally soldiers of the netherworld, so why had they appeared here?

Had he just pushed open the gates of the Underworld Netherworld? Why had he arrived in this strange world of chaos?

Ning Chen could not make sense of it. He could only seize every moment to regulate his breathing and heal his wounds. Fortunately, the spiritual energy in this place was remarkably dense, and his true qi recovered far faster than it did outside.

His injuries were already severe. New wounds and old wounds, internal injuries and external injuries—all urgently required quiet recuperation. Unfortunately, what he lacked most right now was time.

He did not know when the Underworld Soldiers and Underworld Cavalry would appear again. If he remained here for long, even if he was not worn to death, he would starve to death.

At that moment, he somewhat missed Little White Horse. If that fellow had come along too, then when hunger became unbearable, it was meat no matter what.

As he thought of this, the Underworld Soldiers appeared again. Ning Chen's head throbbed. With a soft sigh, he had no choice but to force himself to draw the Ink Sword once more.

The battle was quite uninteresting, still a one-sided slaughter. Even someone with the most ordinary aptitude would become increasingly skilled through ceaseless combat. Ning Chen's aptitude was nothing remarkable in the eyes of geniuses, but among ordinary people, it was already quite good.

After the Underworld Soldiers came the Underworld Cavalry again, still four of them. The battle grew fiercer, and the injuries it brought grew more serious, but he had no choice.

By the end, even Ning Chen himself no longer knew how many Underworld Soldiers and Underworld Cavalrymen he had killed. Each time, it was the same monotonous cycle: battle, injury, healing, then battle again, injury again, healing again.

Killing until he wanted to vomit—perhaps that was how he felt now.

He did not want to die, so he could only keep enduring.

Moreover, in this place, it seemed death did not come so easily.

The injuries on his body showed no signs of worsening. Time seemed to have ceased functioning here, though the accumulation of injury upon injury was still enough to make him drink a bitter cup.

He even wondered whether, if he managed to leave, such severe injuries would cause him to die immediately.

He did not know what the future held, but at the very least, he did not want to die now.

Without time to mark the days, he used the Underworld Cavalry's halberds to count. After killing one wave, he collected four halberds. After killing two waves, he collected eight. By the end, wave after wave appeared without pause, too many to count.

The halberds piled into a small mountain. Ning Chen's head hurt just looking at them, and he could not even be bothered to count them again.

Later still, he counted the halberds by piles instead. One pile, two piles...

The Underworld Soldiers and Underworld Cavalry appeared without end. After battle upon battle, Ning Chen dealt with them more and more easily. When he encountered the Underworld Cavalry again, it was no longer an evenly matched fight, but a one-sided massacre. He cut them down like melons and vegetables, leaving no suspense in the battle.

The blood on the Ink Sword had never dried. Its stench assaulted his nostrils, making him somewhat nauseated.

Days without time passed in such monotony and tedium that Ning Chen felt he was about to go mad. If not for the Underworld Soldiers and Underworld Cavalry constantly appearing to keep him company, he had no doubt he might have gone insane long ago.

He had killed until he was sick of it, killed until he was irritated, killed until the revulsion made him want to vomit. Yet he still had to keep killing.

The torment of the mind had far surpassed the pain of the body. If not for that stubborn sliver of determination to live, he might have already laid down the Ink Sword and allowed the Underworld Cavalry's halberds to tear him limb from limb.

Just as Ning Chen could finally endure no longer and was about to reach the brink of collapse, cracks suddenly appeared throughout the chaotic world around him with sharp cracking sounds. Then, with a thunderous bang, it shattered apart.

The scene before him abruptly changed. Within a gloomy, imposing great hall, Little White Horse swallowed a pearl from atop the altar in one bite, breaking the source of the entire illusion.

Ning Chen had been saved. The one who saved him was the Little White Horse whose meat he had been thinking of eating for so long.

Perhaps one second later, Ning Chen would have gone mad. But Little White Horse had eaten at exactly the right time, swallowing the most crucial thing at the most crucial moment.

Ning Chen had only seen Little White Horse swallow something that seemed to be a pearl. As for what it truly was, he had no idea.

On the altar were also a sheet of Golden Pages, a strange Bloody Demonic Blade, and a noble Purple-Gold Divine Sword.

Ning Chen turned his wheelchair over to the altar, patted Little White Horse's rump, and expressed his thanks with a very pleasant attitude.

"Snort."

Little White Horse did not understand. It could not comprehend why its master, who had always treated it so badly, had changed so drastically.

Before the altar, Ning Chen stared at the Golden Pages for a long time. Then he bit his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto them. Golden light burst forth, and the Golden Pages slowly rose into the air before turning into a streak of light that entered his dantian qihai.

Ning Chen used the same trick on the Bloody Demonic Blade and the Purple-Gold Divine Sword. Yet the blade and sword flashed with light, forcibly sending the blood droplets flying away, refusing to accept them.

Since the refined approach did not work, he would use a barbaric one. Ning Chen narrowed his eyes, circulated his true qi, and reached out to seize the demonic blade. A vast force surged forth, violently knocking his unwelcome hand away from the hilt.

Ning Chen withdrew his right hand and tried the sword instead, but the result was the same.

Ning Chen was no longer a novice in martial arts, so he naturally understood what was happening. The demonic blade and divine sword did not acknowledge him. Perhaps he and most others had been wrong from the beginning. These Underworld ruins were not ownerless, but were waiting for someone to arrive—and that person was clearly not him.

Had Little White Horse not swallowed that pearl and saved him just now, he would likely have been trapped in the illusion forever.

As for why Little White Horse had not been trapped by the illusion, that was beyond what he could know. Still, he truly could not imagine a horse being trapped by an illusion.

The reality now was that Little White Horse had swallowed someone else's pearl, he had taken someone else's Golden Pages, yet he could not take away the demonic blade and divine sword that appeared to be the most precious things here.