txolops Chapter 57 The Messenger of the Ice Coffin
Chapter 57 The Messenger of the Ice Coffin
The cold water flowed underground, the sound like countless fine needles drilling into the ear canal.
Most of the people on the outer ring of the altar were already dead. The demon lamps that Huang Chen had pulled out earlier were still smoking, their wicks emitting a pungent, sweet-smelling stench, mixed with the salty, putrid smell rising from the Cold Water Vein, pressing heavily in the cave like a sticky, black pot.
Huang Chen squatted beside a cracked Xuanbing sacrificial brick, his palm pressed against the control talisman on the outer ring of the altar, his knuckles turning white.
The dense patterns on the talisman's surface gradually lit up and then dimmed, as if a living creature was slowly breathing inside.
He's already spent most of the night here.
It's not that I don't want to smash it directly.
No, it's not possible.
In the previous chapter, he followed the outer chains all the way down, fought his way through the guards, and overturned the outer ring of the altar before finally realizing that this thing was not an ordinary altar at all.
The real "fire" is not in the black pool at the center of the altar, nor in the upside-down bone banners, but in the ice coffin in the center.
Sealed inside the coffin was the mirage-like body of a half-human, half-mermaid.
The coffin is connected to the cold water vein beneath Buzhou Mountain, and is further encased in a layer of locking array patterns, with arrays within arrays and talismans hidden within talismans. If he acts rashly, the ice coffin will most likely escape directly through the cold water vein, or even pull back the entire earth vein, turning the entire Cold Soul Ferry area into a dead land.
Huang Chen exhaled a breath of white mist and raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth.
He had experienced a backlash during the forced demolition of the outer perimeter, and his chest still feels tight.
Dark gold sorcerer markings lay beneath the skin, like red-hot iron wires, flickering in and out with each breath.
"The last one."
'
He said in a low voice.
The sound was swallowed up immediately by the sound of the tide.
Huang Chen narrowed his eyes slightly, his divine sense probing along the control talisman to trace the illusory chain pattern hidden behind the left side of the ice coffin. That thing was even more troublesome than a real chain, like a venomous snake that had been soaking in cold water for many years, sometimes gathering and sometimes dispersing, and it would retract at the slightest touch.
He didn't rush to suppress it.
Instead, they first reverted back to the thirty-seven secondary patterns that had been deduced earlier.
One tap, one jolt.
Tap again, vibrate again.
The remaining stone pillars around the altar trembled slightly, and the merman script, witch patterns, and demonic symbols on the pillars seemed to be pulled by the same hand, beginning to reverse their original flow. The ice on the ground cracked, and wisps of dark blue mist emerged from the cracks, feeling as cold as knives scraping into the bones as they brushed against Huang Chen's calves.
He didn't back down.
The next moment, he suddenly straightened the last chain pattern.
hum-
The entire altar suddenly sank slightly.
It's like something buried at the very bottom has been pried open with a crack.
Huang Chen looked up at the central ice coffin.
The coffin hung silently in mid-air, with not the ground below, but a slowly swirling vortex of black water.
The ice surface was translucent, and the half-human, half-mermaid body inside still had its eyes closed, its skin so pale it was almost bluish, gill patterns clinging to the side of its neck, and a faint bluish tinge on its tail.
She doesn't look like a corpse.
It looks more like he's sleeping.
The thought had barely crossed Huang Chen's mind when the sound of the tide around him suddenly stopped for a moment.
Immediately afterwards, a pressure heavier than the cold water pressed down from above the dome.
It wasn't footsteps.
It wasn't the roar of the formation being activated.
It was like the deep sea turning over overhead.
Huang Chen's pupils contracted, and almost instinctively he took half a step back. The Asura Blood Blade was already in front of him, and the Karmic Fire Red Lotus spun wildly in his sea of consciousness.
In the darkness, water droplets fell.
Snapped.
Snapped.
Snapped.
After three drops, what emerged from the cracks in the dome was no longer water, but a layer of pitch-black tide.
The curtain of tides descended from above, as if someone had twisted the entire night sea into a single sheet and crammed it into this underground altar.
Behind the curtain of the tide, a figure slowly emerged.
That is not a physical entity.
It resembles a human figure entangled by countless black waters, shadows, and thin mists.
His face was sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, and the edges of his robes looked as if they were being constantly gnawed by the tide. Only his eyes were as deep as two bottomless cold wells.
Huang Chen only glanced at it, and the hairs on the back of his head stood on end.
This aura has already pressed down to the threshold of the Celestial Immortal realm.
But it's still half a line short.
It is not the main body.
"The human anomaly who stirs up trouble."
'
The black tide avatar spoke.
The sound wasn't loud, but it carried an underwater echo, layer upon layer, squeezing in from all directions.
With each word spoken, the shards of ice at the edge of the altar would bounce slightly.
"Severed Vein Camp, Cold Soul Ferry, Outer Ring Sacrifice Canal... you've ruined a lot of things."
'
Huang Chen stared at it, his breathing very low.
"The envoy from Beiming is here.
'
The black tide emanated a half-smile, as the tidal mist slowly swirled behind its shoulders.
"You're not stupid."
'
"You're using the Mirage Sea Lord's avatar projection, but you don't dare to come down in your true form?" Huang Chen smirked. "Or is it that even you Northern Seas can't quite get your hands on Buzhou Mountain?"
'
The air fell silent for a moment.
The next instant, the mist surrounding the Black Tide Avatar suddenly rippled outwards, and the temperature of the entire altar dropped even further.
"You have good teeth."
It said slowly.
"Unfortunately, you're too young. Do you think you can get to the edge of the chessboard just by dismantling a few sacrificial veins and killing a few batches of useless people?"
'
Huang Chen didn't respond.
His left hand remained pressed on the control talisman, his palm energy seeping into it in strands, as if speaking, but actually constantly patching up the gaps in the outer array patterns.
The envoy from the Northern Sea clearly saw through it.
"Don't bother."
'
It raised its hand and pointed its fingertips at the ice coffin.
You can't break it.
What's sealed inside is beyond your level to access.
Huang Chen sneered.
"You're getting impatient."
As soon as those three words were uttered, the faint light in the eyes of the Black Tide incarnation noticeably turned colder.
Huang Chen didn't give it a chance to show off its power again and said directly, "You came in such a hurry not for me, but because you were afraid I would completely break the lock on this coffin. You've been setting up this for so long, nailing the Mirage's body to the Cold Water Vein as an ignition medium. You didn't intend to burn just this one point, the Cold Soul Crossing, did you?"
'
The damp fog rolled in.
The black water vortex beneath the altar suddenly accelerated.
The envoy from the Northern Sea looked at him, and after a moment, actually chuckled softly.
"Among humans, you rarely see a brain like yours."
'
"It would be a pity if he died."
Huang Chen's eyes turned cold.
"Then you can give it a try."
"try?
The Black Tide avatar slowly floated forward, getting closer to the ice coffin and also closer to Huang Chen. "I prefer to let people see themselves clearly first."
As soon as the words were spoken, the damp mist around the altar suddenly rose up all at once.
Huang Chen felt the stone bricks beneath his feet sink, as if someone had wiped the scene before him with their hand.
The ice cave, sacrificial pillars, and black water beneath Hanpo Ferry were instantly obscured.
The first thing I smelled was blood.
Not new blood.
It has that fishy, rusty smell that comes from being exposed to the sun and then dried by the wind.
Huang Chen felt a sudden jolt in his chest.
The wind whistled past his ears, carrying dust from the dirt road and cries of distress. In a flash, he found himself standing at the most familiar yet most unwanted crossroads.
A rotten wooden cart overturned on its side by the ditch.
A long trail of blood was left on the ground.
The elderly human lay sprawled on the ground, half his body torn apart, his hand still clutching a broken piece of wood. Three jackal demons surrounded him, blood dripping from their mouths, bits of flesh clinging to their teeth, as they chewed and chuckled eerily.
Further away, the passing immortal stood on a blue stone by the roadside, watching with his hands in his sleeves, as if he were watching a slaughter of livestock that had nothing to do with him.
Huang Chen's mind went blank for a moment.
He could never forget that scene.
Chapter 1.
The very first cut. And also the dirtiest and cruelest.
"Help...help me..."
The old man on the ground raised his head, his eyes were cloudy, and his face was covered in blood.
The face turned around, as if it were truly looking at Huang Chen.
"Young man, save me..."
Huang Chen's Adam's apple bobbed, and his right hand involuntarily tensed.
One of the three jackal demons suddenly turned around and grinned.
"Didn't you want to save people?"
Come on.
'
Another jackal pounced on the old man's back, tearing off a large chunk of flesh. The old man's scream pierced his eardrums, like someone was stabbing Huang Chen's brain with a red-hot awl.
The passing immortal finally made a move.
He lowered his eyes, raised his hand, and a pale blue soul light in his palm reached down like a hook, directly pulling out half of the old man's remnant soul from his crown.
"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes."
"You mortals are of some use after all."
'
Huang Chen's vision went black, and the ground beneath his feet felt like it was about to collapse.
He almost rushed out.
At that very moment, deep within his sea of consciousness, a red lotus suddenly burst open.
boom!
The imitation of the Twelfth Grade Karmic Fire Red Lotus instantly erected a blazing fire curtain, forcefully blocking the illusory causal tide that was about to pull his soul in. A flash of red light, and the veins on Huang Chen's forehead bulged, and blood streamed down his nose.
fake.
He clenched his teeth tightly.
This is fake.
The pain was real, and so was the anger.
In the Kuroshio Current, the voice of the envoy from the Northern Sea seemed to penetrate right next to his ear.
"What, you don't dare to look anymore?"
'
"You've fought your way here, saving countless lives. Do you really think you can erase what happened at the very beginning?"
"You can't save him."
"We couldn't save them before, and we can't save them now."
"Humans should, by nature—"
"Shut up.
'
Huang Chen suddenly spoke.
The voice was hoarse.
The envoy from Beiming paused for a moment.
The wind still blows in the illusion, the jackal demons still tear and gnaw, and the passing earth immortals still coldly extract souls.
Huang Chen slowly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, like red-hot coals sinking into his pupils.
He didn't back down.
I didn't panic anymore.
The fire that had been simmering for too long was finally ignited by this attack.
"Are you trying to pressure me with this?"
Huang Chen chuckled softly, but there was no warmth in his voice.
"That's how I climbed out of this situation."
boom!
He took a sudden step forward, and the illusory ground beneath his feet exploded with large cracks. Dark gold sorcerer runes burned from his neck down to his arms, his bones throbbed, and his fist, wrapped in blood and karmic fire, slammed into the old scene before him.
Nothing fancy.
It's just smashing it.
boom--
The overturned wooden cart shattered first, followed by the old road, the ditch, the jackal demon, the old man, and the earth immortal—every scene was like an ice shell struck by a giant hammer, instantly covered with spiderweb-like cracks. The next instant, the entire illusion collapsed with a deafening roar.
Countless fragments of the Black Tide surged back.
Huang Chen stood in the center of the altar, his fist still suspended in mid-air, his hand covered in blood, his chest heaving like a bellows.
The scene before my eyes had returned to that of an underground ice cave.
The Black Tide incarnation of the envoy from the Northern Sea was only ten feet away from him, and for the first time, the condescending composure on that blurry face was gone.
"it is good."
Its voice trailed off.
"Then die here."
As soon as he finished speaking, a wave of damp mist rushed in from all around.
Huang Chen had been waiting for this moment.
He flipped his left hand and summoned the Wind-Stabilizing Pearl. The pearl spun in mid-air, and the surrounding mist, which had been permeating the air, seemed to be gripped by an invisible giant hand. It paused for a moment and then was forcibly compressed into concentric, twisted walls of mist.
"seal up!"
Huang Chen shouted.
The Wind-Stabilizing Pearl can suppress the wind and also lock the direction of the fog. The illusory fog curtain that the envoy from the Northern Sea had created by using the Black Tide as an incarnation was immediately cut in half by this pressure.
The Black Tide incarnation changed color as expected, and raised its hand to reach for the whirlpool of cold water beneath the ice coffin.
It will use the core of the altar to counteract the pressure.
This was exactly what Huang Chen wanted.
He didn't waste the whole night.
The control runes around the altar emitted a piercing buzz in his palm, and the thirty-seven secondary runes that he had previously pushed back bit by bit lit up at the same time. The merman script and demonic inscriptions on the four stone pillars suddenly rolled back, the outer stone gates crashed down, and the array that had been channeling spiritual pressure outwards instantly became locked inwards.
click!
Click click click!
One after another, streaks of dark blue light shot up from the ground, first locking the ice coffin, then the vortex, and finally enveloping the entire center of the altar like an iron cage.
Huang Chen and the black tide avatar were trapped inside along with the ice coffin.
The envoy from the Northern Sea finally realized something was wrong, and for the first time, his voice carried anger.
"You dare lock the altar from the inside?"
'
Huang Chen wiped the blood from his face and smiled rather cruelly.
"Didn't you want me to die here?"
'
"What a coincidence."
"I'm too lazy to let you run away."
'
The black tide suddenly surged, the entire tidal curtain crashing violently against the four walls. However, the outer ring of light had been altered in advance by Huang Chen using control talismans, borrowing its own momentum.
The first time it hit, it only made the stone pillar tremble violently, but it didn't break.
Upon the second impact, the lock tightened its grip inwards.
The oppressive atmosphere at the center of the altar suddenly intensified several times over.
Huang Chen's knees sank, his chest heaved, and he almost coughed up blood.
He still held on tightly to the control talisman, letting the pressure on his hand crack and blood flow into the talisman's patterns.
As the blood seeped in, the entire control talisman became dazzlingly bright.
The envoy from the Northern Sea stared at him, his eyes almost frozen with a chilling light.
"An anomaly among humans."
'
"Do you really think you can keep me trapped for long with these little tricks?"
Huang Chen did not answer.
Because at that very moment, the system panel suddenly popped up at the edge of his field of vision.
[The core objective of the main storyline, "Ignition Medium for the Frostfire Altar," has been completely locked.]
[Main Quest Part 3: Entering the Final Stage]
Current Status: Unsettled
[Please destroy the altar's core/eliminate the key carrier/sever the ignition chain of the Cold Water Vein]
The handwriting was cold and disappeared in a flash.
Huang Chen glanced at the words out of the corner of his eye, gripped the Asura Blood Blade tightly, and suppressed his breathing to a minimum.
next moment.
Click.
The sound wasn't loud.
Yet it rang clearly in everyone's ears.
It's not that the stone pillar is cracked.
It wasn't that the outer ring light lock collapsed.
Huang Chen and the envoy from Beiming turned their heads at the same time to look at the ice coffin in the center.
A thin white crack appeared on the edge of the coffin lid.
Then the second, and the third.
The cracks spread rapidly, as if alive, covering the entire coffin in the blink of an eye. Deep within the ice, the mirage-like body, half-human and half-mermaid, twitched its fingers, which had been hanging by its side.
The underground vortex of cold water began to spin wildly.
The temperature of the entire altar plummeted, and even Huang Chen's breath froze into ice crystals in mid-air, which then jingled and fell down.
The Black Tide incarnation remained motionless.
It stared at the coffin as if it were looking at something it didn't want to lose control of.
click -
The coffin lid suddenly burst open with a crack about a finger's width along its center line.
A pale eye, devoid of any blood, slowly opened.
His pupils were deep blue, like a frozen sea.