Deep into the Abyss

As dawn broke, the team stood at the entrance to the rift.

It wasn't a natural cave; it was more like an ugly scar torn open by some force. The edges were jagged, and the rock face still retained the glassy luster of high-temperature melting followed by instantaneous cooling. Looking inside, there was only a bottomless darkness, with occasional tiny, strangely colored fragments of energy drifting out, which would sizzle and disappear upon hitting the rock walls, leaving scorch marks.

Yun Youzi stood at the forefront, his gray eyebrows furrowed, his withered hand pushing forward. A pale golden, semi-transparent shield, composed of countless fine runes, slowly opened, enveloping the five of them. The runes' light flickered, clearly enduring continuous impact.

"Let's go." The old man uttered only one word, his voice heavy with solemnity.

Lu Yuan breath and followed. Inside his inner pocket, the Source Seed Crystal radiated warmth through the fabric, even carrying a subtle, heart-like pulsation. It sensed something.

The moment Lu Yuan stepped into the crevice, he felt as if he had plunged headfirst into viscous water filled with blades.

The omnipresent turbulent energy was tearing at the shield with a piercing, metallic screeching sound. The air was no longer air; the spatial structure was extremely unstable, and the scenery in sight would distort from time to time. The rock walls seemed to be slowly writhing. Gravity also became strange, sometimes light and sometimes heavy, and every step felt like walking on cotton or stepping into Mire.

Mo Chen walked slightly behind Lu Yuan, holding a palm-sized metal disc in his hand. The disc's surface was engraved with circuits, and a miniature crystal floated in the center, emitting a stable, pale blue halo. "The Stabilization Anchor output is normal, and the local spatial distortion rate... is seventeen percent, which is still within the acceptable range." He spoke quickly, his eyes fixed on the dancing light patterns on the disc.

Shen Moxin walked on Lu Yuan's other side, the light of the rune shield reflected in the glasses on her nose. She placed her hands in front of her, and a fainter, almost invisible mental barrier adhered to the inside of the rune shield, isolating the all-pervasive mental intrusions. Even so, Lu Yuan could still vaguely "hear" some sounds.

It wasn't something I heard with my ears.

It resonated directly in my mind. Like a malicious whisper coming through a thick wall, or like cold, slippery tentacles trying to pry open the cracks in my consciousness. The sound was indistinct, but the emotions it conveyed were crystal clear—hatred, greed, a pure malice towards living beings.

"Stay calm," Shen Moxin voice slightly strained. "Don't 'listen' to it; treat it like background noise."

Lin Xiao brought up the rear, his amber vertical pupils slightly narrowed in the dim light as he scanned every shadowy corner. His right hand remained resting on the hilt of the dagger at his waist, his fingertips tapping rhythmically. "This godforsaken place," he licked his canine teeth, "Even the wind smells of stale blood."

The downward trend was not smooth.

They found a narrow maintenance passage carved into the rock face, clearly an ancient relic. However, most of the passage had collapsed or was blocked by twisted, crystallized rocks. They could only rely on their Soul Power to adhere to the rock face, along with some simple climbing tools, to slowly move downwards under the impact of the energy turbulence.

The scenes along the way were shocking.

On the walls of the passageway, large patches of dark red stains, as if splashed on and metallicized, can be seen occasionally. Some strangely shaped fossils, resembling the limbs or shells of some kind of creature, are embedded in the crystalline rock, maintaining the posture of a final, painful struggle or utter horror. At one corner, there is even a half-melted, unidentified metal component remaining, its surface covered with honeycomb-like holes, as if it had been instantly vaporized and then solidified.

Yun Youzi would occasionally pause, his trembling fingers tracing the marks, his aged face a mixture of shock and sorrow. "The moment the rules collapsed... the forms of matter were forcibly distorted and frozen," he murmured. "These... are very likely the experimental subjects from back then, or researchers who didn't have time to evacuate."

The deeper they went, the more violent the energy turbulence became, and the more frequent the spatial distortions. The Stabilization Anchor in Mo Chen's hand began to hum under overload, its crystal light flickering erratically. Shen Moxin's mental barrier was under even greater pressure; her face was noticeably pale, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. The "Shadow Whisper" became clearer and clearer, beginning to be interspersed with some understandable fragments of short sentences, either tempting or threatening.

"Leave..." "Open..." "The pain... ends..."

Lu Yuan mobilized the "Primordial Qi" within his body several times, transforming it through his Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul and transferring it into Shen Moxin's mental barrier. That aura, brimming with vitality and a sense of order, was like a clear spring, temporarily cleansing away the filth and allowing the barrier to stabilize again. But with each activation, the Source Seed within his inner pocket pulsed more intensely, as if responding or urging him on.

After descending about three or four hundred meters, the maintenance access is completely cut off.

Ahead lay a vast, seemingly torn-out underground space. So vast that the opposite rock wall was invisible, only endless darkness and void. And in the center of this immense space—

Everyone held their breath.

A slowly rotating vortex of chaotic energy, over ten meters in diameter, floated silently there. It had no fixed color, as if it had absorbed and shattered the entire spectrum, presenting an indescribable, dizzying chaotic hue. Countless fragmented, translucent chain phantoms and broken runes surrounded it, like a dilapidated cage. The vortex itself exuded an indescribable pressure; merely looking at it made one's Soul Power stagnate and breathing difficult.

At the very core of that vortex, the vague outline of an ancient, heavy stone door could be seen. The door was tightly closed, and its surface seemed to be engraved with indistinct patterns.

In the vast void surrounding the vortex, some dim, fist-sized, dark red energy clusters floated. They drifted slowly as if alive, emanating intense negative emotions—the very source of the "Shadow Whisper."

The team landed on a relatively stable floating boulder about a hundred feet away from the vortex. This boulder looked like a section of the structure that had collapsed years ago, and its surface was relatively flat.

"A safe distance... relatively speaking." Yun Youzi removed his runic shield, his face pale, clearly exhausted. He stared at the distant vortex, his eyes filled with complex emotions. "That's the manifestation of the ' Gate of Finality ' in its current state. No, perhaps it's more accurate to say it's the 'wound' between the 'Gate' and this world."

Mo Chen immediately took action. He took out several fist-sized metal spheres from his backpack, activated them, and threw them at the edge of the giant rock. The metal spheres unfolded into small detection bases, extending slender probes aimed at the direction of the vortex. He then took out the palm-sized Stabilization Anchor, carefully turned its power to maximum, and a pale blue halo steadily enveloped a small area above the giant rock.

Shen Moxin quickly set up several simple calming runes to help everyone stabilize their minds, which were being continuously bombarded. Lin Xiao had already disappeared into the shadows at the edge of the giant rock, his dagger half an inch out of its sheath, watching the wandering dark red energy clusters warily.

Lu Yuan walked to the very edge of the giant rock and sat down cross-legged. He first closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and tried to bring himself to his best condition. Then, he carefully sent a wisp of consciousness, mixed with a very faint wisp of "Primordial Qi," toward the core of the vortex in the distance.

It's not a deep resonance, just the slightest contact, an attempt to "interpret" its current state.

The moment contact is established--

Boom!

An unimaginably vast flow of information, mixed with countless fragmented images, sounds, and sensations, surged into Lu Yuan's consciousness like a flood bursting its banks!

A fragment of a broken ancient text log. "... Seventh calibration failed... backlash... rule anchor point collapses..."

A terrifying sight: invisible chains snapped inch by inch, space cracked like a shattered mirror, and the concepts of color and matter collapsed simultaneously, transforming into an indescribable chaos...

A heavy, despairing sense of constraint, as if the weight of the entire world was pressing down on me, rendering me immobile and even freezing my thoughts...

Amidst all this chaos, collapse, and despair, Lu Yuan detected a faint yet remarkably clear "demand."

That wasn't language; it was more like an instinctive "direction." It pointed to a specific, complex frequency of energy operation, to a fragmented piece of rules about "stability" and "growth."

Lu Yuan's heart clenched.

This frequency, this fragment of rules... it subtly... perfectly matches the essence of the "Primordial Qi" within his body, and his evolved Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, which has begun to touch the Origin life and order!

Could it be...?

Before Lu Yuan could think it through, a sudden change occurred!

Those dark red energy clusters that were originally slowly drifting in the distance seemed to be completely enraged by Lu Yuan's slight contact. They stopped and then turned in unison toward the giant rock where the team was located!

A silent, yet soul-piercing shriek swept in like a tsunami!

Yun Youzi's expression changed drastically, and he shouted in a low voice, "They've been lured here! Prepare for defense!"

Lin Xiao's figure flashed, leaping out of the shadows and blocking Lu Yuan's diagonal front, his dagger gleaming with a dark light. Mo Chen's hands moved swiftly on the Stabilization Anchor controller, the pale blue halo suddenly brightening, but its range shrinking to a more concentrated area. Shen Moxin groaned, shrinking his mental barrier to only cover five people, his face turning even paler.

Lu Yuan forcibly pulled his consciousness back from the deluge of information, veins throbbing on his forehead. He opened his eyes, looking at the dark red energy clusters slowly approaching from all directions, and then at the blurry stone door at the core of the vortex.

At that very moment, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Deep within the vortex, the outline of that ancient stone door seemed to... tremble very slightly.

Immediately afterwards, a thin, straight crack, seemingly composed of the purest light, quietly appeared on the surface of the stone gate.