At Another's Mercy

In an instant, Mo Chen felt a wave of dizziness threaten to swallow his consciousness.

Mo Chen opened his eyes to find nothing but emptiness around him. One moment he felt weightless; the next, he felt himself being pulled in every direction, until he could no longer distinguish up from down or left from right.

His stomach churned with nausea, but he could not even move a finger, much less rub his belly.

The power of space had locked Mo Chen's entire body in place.

It seemed this Teleportation Array was of a far higher grade than I imagined!

After an unknown length of time, Mo Chen awoke to find himself lying in the center of a cavern, the Teleportation Array's markings dim beneath him.

Mo Chen struggled to prop himself up, his bones aching as though his whole frame had fallen apart.

After sweeping his Divine Sense over his surroundings and confirming that he was safe for the moment, he decided to meditate and restore his Spiritual Power first.

After all, if there really had been any danger, it would have struck while he was unconscious. There would have been no need to wait until he started meditating.

Mo Chen sat cross-legged and regulated his breathing, circulating his remaining Spiritual Power through a full Heavenly Cycle. Only then did the discomfort from the teleportation ease a little.

After a short rest, Mo Chen rose to investigate the cavern, only to discover that it was astonishingly vast. His Divine Sense could cover barely a tenth or a fifth of it.

He would actually be better off relying on his eyes.

Looking closely, he saw a stone lamp embedded in the cavern wall every hundred feet. The lamps were archaic in design and burned with blue-green flames, bathing the entire cavern in a hazy glow.

Beyond the Teleportation Array lay a stone path some twenty feet wide, stretching into the depths of the cavern.

Mo Chen followed the stone path at a slow pace. After roughly the time it took an incense stick to burn, the path remained entirely unchanged. The wall lamps on either side converged into a point in the distance, with no end in sight.

Just how long was this stone path?

If I kept walking like this, who knew what year or month I would finally reach the end?

Mo Chen therefore formed a hand seal and cast the Divine Movement Technique. His body instantly became as light as a feather, and he sped deeper into the tunnel.

The stone path was far longer than Mo Chen had expected. He ran for a full quarter of an hour before an enormous stone door finally appeared ahead.

The stone door was about thirty feet tall, made entirely from an unknown black stone. Intricate patterns covered its surface, with faint spiritual light flowing through them.

Mo Chen tentatively extended his Divine Sense inside, but it rebounded as though it had struck an invisible wall.

This stone door actually had Restrictive Wards against Divine Sense. This was clearly no ordinary place.

But then Mo Chen reconsidered. I couldn't exactly stay here until I died, could I?

There were Demonic Cultivators and Demon Beasts at the other end of the Teleportation Array, while this end did not even have spiritual energy. Naturally, he could neither cultivate nor grow spiritual herbs here.

His only choice was to explore beyond the stone door.

Mo Chen examined the stone door carefully again, comparing it closely against the Illustrated Guide to Restrictions, and discovered that it seemed to have only Restrictive Wards against Divine Sense.

Could it be that whoever laid these Restrictive Wards wasn't worried about anyone forcing the door open?

Half doubtful, Mo Chen circulated his Dharma Power and cast the Giant Strength Technique, pressing both palms against the stone door and pushing hard.

To his surprise, the seemingly immense and heavy stone door opened at his touch.

Uh...

In that instant, Mo Chen felt that all his cautious, repeated comparisons of the Restrictive Wards had been... a joke...

Once he stepped through the door, the sight beyond left Mo Chen speechless.

An entirely different world lay beyond the stone door!

The spiritual energy inside was even denser than that of the Twin Crane Sect. The rough stone path had become a floor of superior spiritual wood planks, polished like a mirror and free of dust. Clearly, someone cleaned it regularly.

The interior was far larger than it appeared from outside. He wondered whether a spatial expansion technique had been used.

Dozens of rooms stood in orderly rows, their doors ajar.

Mo Chen gently pushed open a door and found the room sparsely furnished. Even more astonishing, each room contained only a single item.

How strange!

Some doors opened onto a lone jade bottle sitting on a round table. In others, there was not even a stand—just a Magic Artifact suspended in midair.

Seriously, was this some kind of peculiar obsession?

Such luxurious rooms, yet each held only a single item. This contrast between extreme simplicity and extreme extravagance struck Mo Chen as suspicious. He could not fathom the owner's intentions.

Mo Chen pushed open the door to one of the inner rooms, took a Spirit Stone from his Storage Bag, and threw it at the jade bottle on the table.

The jade bottle was struck by the Spirit Stone and knocked over. After rolling a few times, it toppled toward the floor.

Seeing no Restrictive Wards activate within the room, Mo Chen raised his hand and beckoned, summoning the falling jade bottle into his grasp.

The jade bottle was translucent throughout, warm and smooth to the touch. It was clearly no ordinary object.

A talisman was attached to the bottle. Judging by Mo Chen's forty years of experience drawing talismans in his spare time while serving at the Twin Crane Sect, it was probably a Second Tier Soul-Calming Talisman. The soul of a cultivator or Demon Beast was likely sealed inside, and opening it rashly might cause trouble.

Mo Chen's heart tightened. He put the jade bottle into his Storage Bag and continued exploring. The deeper he went, the more alarmed he became.

Every item here was extraordinary, and quite a few were things he had never even seen before.

But Mo Chen did not dare touch those that were obviously valuable.

This was not because his conscience had suddenly awakened. Rather, the pressure emanating from those treasures was terrifying. Some Flying Swords and sharp axes merely floated there, yet their inherent Sword Qi kept Mo Chen from daring to approach.

These treasures were definitely beyond the category of Spirit Artifacts or even Magic Artifacts.

They were magic Treasures!

Unable to approach under the oppressive pressure of the magic Treasures, Mo Chen could only continue exploring.

After another few dozen steps, Mo Chen discovered that an enormous medicinal garden was hidden within the cavern!

The garden was vast, comparable to more than a dozen successive courtyards, and contained countless exotic flowers and rare herbs. With Mo Chen's current cultivation and knowledge, he could not identify these spiritual medicines at all.

Mo Chen noticed a small tree bearing scarlet fruit. The fruit glistened a vivid red, as though ready to drip, and gave off an enticing fragrance.

Finally, a spiritual herb I recognized!

Otherwise, Mo Chen would have felt that his forty years in the Scripture Pavilion had been wasted.

According to the Sixty Na Yin Compendium, this should be Vermilion Flame Fruit, which ripened once every two hundred years. It was highly beneficial both for rounding out the effects of an unfavorable fire element and for amplifying a spiritual root's favorable-element effects.

Mo Chen could not resist reaching out to pluck one.

But just as his fingertips were about to touch the fruit, an immense, invisible force pinned him in place. His entire body was lifted uncontrollably into the air and sent flying backward.

The force was so powerful that resistance was impossible.

In barely an instant, Mo Chen was violently dragged through the air into a stone chamber, then slammed onto the cold floor with a thud.

Wincing in pain, Mo Chen supported his lower back and got up. As he hastily raised his head, he found himself in a dim secret chamber. Its furnishings were exceedingly simple: only a white jade bed, upon which sat a stooped old man as thin as a rake.

I was done for. The owner of this Cave Abode had caught me red-handed!

Mo Chen swept his Divine Sense over him, only to encounter something even more shocking.

The old man had no cultivation at all!

It was just like sweeping his Divine Sense over a mortal. There was not a trace of Spiritual Power in the old man's body...

"You are..." Mo Chen had barely spoken before the old man cut him off.

"You need not know who this old man is."

The old man wore a thin, plain-colored gauze robe, his eyes tightly shut. Even as he spoke to Mo Chen, he could not be bothered to open them.

"You now have two paths before you: life or death. Which will you choose?"