Chapter 220: The Guardian
On the other side, deep within the South Ridge County King’s residence.
This is a wood-structured building with very obvious characteristics of Tang Dynasty architecture.
Perhaps due to long-term corrosion and decay, combined with the absence of any biological activity within the building, one could not experience the grandeur and beauty that Tang Dynasty architecture should possess; what remained was only a dilapidated and desolate, eerie atmosphere.
The damaged corridor pillars and the peeling exterior walls were covered with a layer of dull color, and the exquisite carvings appeared like decaying corpses, mottled in color. The white paper stuck to the window frames had broken, and in the breeze, it danced like struggling hands trying desperately to grasp something.
Gu Qiqi, who had rushed from the city gate, climbed over the outer wall of this small palace. After wandering for a long time, she finally found the entrance to the operational center of the God Realm in a side hall named the Heart Retaining Hall.
What surprised her and the system was that someone seemed to have been here before her.
At the entrance, the bronze door, perfectly integrated with the stone wall, opened to reveal a narrow gap, and sparks continuously flew from the forcibly damaged spell formula circuit, releasing thick smoke.
Illuminated by the glow of her fingertip spell formula, she could see that beyond the gap was a narrow path.
Looking at the passage entrance before her, the system quietly said, “I didn’t expect someone to arrive here before us. No wonder the journey was so smooth without any sudden encounters with urban legends or mechanisms.”
In the system’s original assumption, this journey should have been fraught with challenges and dangers.
After all, the operation center of the God Realm Yumen had been there for a thousand years. If there was nothing guarding it, it would likely have been destroyed long ago.
If someone had acted before them to clear the obstacles along the way, it made much more sense.
“I thought we were just lucky!” Gu Qiqi mumbled quietly, asking, “System, what should we do now? Do we continue in?”
“Go in! Why not!” the system replied. “Even if someone arrived before us, they are ahead, and we are in the dark. As long as we don’t ambush them, why should we be afraid?”
The calamity and the void were still in that small building! What else was there to fear besides them? The system thought.
Seeing that Gu Qiqi was still a bit hesitant, the system added, “Let’s go, we are already here!”
“Oh!”
Moved by the phrase “we are already here,” Gu Qiqi nodded twice, grasping the metal bat, and stepped into the narrow passage.
As they proceeded along the passage, they soon witnessed the extent of the Shaman Queen’s power and the severity of the corruption affecting the God Realm Yumen.
This was the passage leading to the most core area of the God Realm Yumen, but traces of corrosion were evident everywhere.
On the ceiling, walls, and floor, every corner visible was dotted with countless specks of crimson.
Like spots of mold, but with an internal organ-like texture, as the Shaman Queen awakened, her power spread within the God Realm Yumen, seeming to activate and continuously writhing and spreading.
Walking through it gave one the feeling of traversing a diseased esophagus, heading toward some terrifying monster’s belly.
Moving silently, cautiously alert for any possible attacks, about a quarter of an hour later, Gu Qiqi suddenly stopped, gripping the metal bat tightly, and glanced around as if searching for something.
“What’s the matter?” the system asked, puzzled.
“Um…” Gu Qiqi pouted and answered softly, “System, don’t you think it feels like someone has been watching us the whole way?”
Upon hearing Gu Qiqi’s words, the system fell into a brief silence.
Honestly, it had felt it too.
Although the passage to the operational center of the God Realm Yumen was very narrow, less than three meters in height and just over a meter wide, without any branches, one could vaguely sense that behind the solid walls of the passage, there seemed to be a vast space that felt like it didn’t exist in the real world.
Within that space, countless deep black shadows swirled, and in those shadows, something enormous was moving.
The feeling brought by that huge entity felt somewhat familiar to the system; it faintly remembered that while following Calamity, there were occasions when Calamity made horrifying decisions that made it uncomfortable, and a similar aura would drift around invisible to them.
“……”
Could it be that Calamity did something terrifying again?
As we approached this place… the system thought anxiously.
When it and Gu Qiqi set foot on this passage, it keenly felt that its five senses were influenced by that aura, becoming extraordinarily sensitive, then as if being forcibly mixed by an invisible great hand, forming a perception more peculiar than spiritual perception, one that ordinary people could not comprehend.
That feeling was like the unseen giant was deliberately trying to approach someone or an urban legend who was gradually closing in on the core of the God Realm Yumen, trying to discover its existence.
However, that unsettling giant seemed unaware of their presence until Gu Qiqi uttered that sentence, and everything changed…
That eerie perception suddenly intensified, as if something was approaching, penetrating through the solid stone walls surrounding them, gradually enveloping them.
“Gu Qiqi, why are you suddenly afraid after not seeing you for a few days? Who’s watching? It’s all in your head,” the system pretended to be relaxed and said.
It knew that some terrifying things in this world, though not urban legends and unlike Cataclysm-grade urban legends that possessed self-awareness, would respond to calls of their names or probing behaviors.
The consequences of that feedback wouldn’t be as swift and severe as that of a Cataclysm-grade urban legend; it was usually slow and unknown, even after many years, negative effects would gradually manifest.
The system’s previous host had researched those ambiguous entities, concluding that they were similar to wandering spirit energies and would react to self-suggestion and other behaviors.
It was as if some people kept thinking they would get sick, or became anxious about their appearance, then their bodies would indeed change unexpectedly.
And it was very likely that many who had not been corroded by Nightfall were wholly unaware that they were important reasons for contracting Nightfall Syndrome.
That host, upon reaching this conclusion and planning to utilize this seemingly weak yet frightening power against the Seven Great Cataclysmic Factors, unexpectedly died on a sunny morning, serene and without any signs of struggle, as if asleep…
To this day, the system still did not know the cause of that host’s d*ath, but it was certain that it could not let the same thing happen to Gu Qiqi.
Clearly, Gu Qiqi’s earlier words had triggered the gathering of something; the best way to deal with it now was to ignore its existence. If that were the case, it wouldn’t be long before it would dissipate on its own.
If one kept thinking about it, it could potentially evolve into “what one constantly thinks of will surely echo back”.
“Really?”
After hearing the system’s words, Gu Qiqi looked around and continued to walk forward.
She trusted what the system said unconditionally. Although she did indeed feel something watching her in the dark, since the system said there was none, she figured she must have been mistaken.
However, just as she was battling intense discomfort, stepping across a floor covered in slippery, viscous substances, after continuing forward for a while, the bronze door that had already faded from her sight suddenly began to turn as if pushed by someone, emitting a nauseating sound.
“Boom——!”
Before Gu Qiqi could react, the bronze door suddenly slammed shut.
The wave of energy mixed with spirit energy that surged from the closing door rushed into the narrow passage, extinguishing the illuminating flames conjured by the spell.
Darkness flooded in like a raging tide, instantly swallowing their line of sight.
After a brief silence, Gu Qiqi weakly said, “System, what do we do now? There really is someone following us…”
“…” The system pondered for a moment and replied gravely, “Keep moving forward. Turning back now will just run into that stalker. Only going forward gives us a chance to shake that guy off.”
Gu Qiqi nervously glanced behind her, then nodded, continuing forward through the long and narrow passage. After about twenty minutes, she finally arrived in front of the operational center of the God Realm Yumen.
It was a massive underground cave, with the walls densely covered with tunnel openings clustered together, resembling a beehive or an anthill.
Black chains forged from some unknown metal extended from those tunnels, crossing over and intertwining like veins, outlining some special totem. Thin but exceptionally pure spirit energy slowly flowed along those black chains.
In the center of the vast underground cave, a mass the size of a building floated in midair, shaped like a massive heart but had stopped beating; only grains of yellow sand fell from it like flowing water, disappearing before they even touched the ground.
Its surface was covered with some kind of charred material, and from the gaps in those materials, faint glimmers of molten-like light could be seen.
From afar, it looked like a sun about to extinguish.
Countless tiny, intricately forged solid spell formula components made of gold floated around the crimson crystal, swirling around the enormous “heart” under the influence of some force, exuding a sense of exhaustion and age.
It was as if they were stars orbiting around the sun.
On those golden components, numerous spots of crimson were crawling, seemingly affected by the Shaman Queen’s corruptive power, just like the earlier passage.
“I’ve long heard that the God Realm Yumen utilized many materials derived from Cataclysm-grade urban legends in its construction, but I didn’t expect the operational center to also simulate the core of an urban legend’s entity,” the system remarked.
“Eh? Is this the operational center of the God Realm Yumen?” Gu Qiqi exclaimed, “I thought the process of finding the operational center would be more complex and difficult.”
“Of course not. I guess the real operational center should be inside that heart-like ghostly object,” the system explained. “However, given it is a thousand years old, a simpler structure is understandable.”
“Moreover, the God Realm Yumen normally relies on Yumen Pass, so it doesn’t need such a complex operating structure.”
“However, it has been maintained for a thousand years without being destroyed; there must be someone watching it, right? And that guardian has likely gone to deal with those who got here before us. It’s a great opportunity, Gu Qiqi!”
“But…” Gu Qiqi hesitated, “The Bamboo Slips Illusion is also something from many years ago. You still haven’t found the operational center, have you?”
“Well… that’s not the same, is it?” the system countered. “I—I was just worried about damaging the structural integrity of the Bamboo Slips Illusion!”
Moreover, I can sense that the aura hovering over this “heart” is similar to that giant from earlier. Besides the operational center of the God Realm Yumen, would there be any other place with such an aura? the system thought.
“Oh!” Gu Qiqi nodded thoughtfully.
The system’s deductions typically didn’t go wrong. She didn’t bother thinking too much and simply acknowledged the system.
Just as Gu Qiqi was bickering with the system, a figure emerged from a narrow and deep passage behind them, slowly approaching, stepping on the fine gravel on the ground, making soft sounds.
“Sasa… Sasa…”
The figure wore the standard armor of the Longxiang Army, holding a rusted Fengchi Spear, draped with a faded large flag.
The dirty flag hung down like a cloak, obscuring his face, but from the visible contours of his features under the flag, he was quite different from the Longxiang Army soldiers wandering around Yumen City Gate… he seemed to still be alive!
In those murky eyes, there flickered the unique glimmer of life. The hand gripping the Fengchi Spear, though thin and frail, still had flesh, and the pale, thick beard slightly trembled with his steady breathing.
Just as the system guessed, the operational center of the God Realm Yumen was maintained for a thousand years without being destroyed because someone was guarding it, and this unknown Longxiang Army soldier seemed to be the guardian.
“Wait! System, there’s someone!”
“What?”
When Gu Qiqi sensed the presence of someone approaching instinctively, that figure had already closed in within five meters of her.
As she let out a soft gasp, the figure seemed to be stimulated, stopping its slow approach and letting out a low growl, its speed suddenly skyrocketing.
The distance of five meters vanished in an instant.
When Gu Qiqi turned to look back, she saw a shadow draped in black armor, holding a Fengchi Spear, rapidly charging towards her.
That figure was quite similar to the Longxiang Army soldier seen at Yumen City Gate, but was wrapped in a tattered banner with the character “骧” faintly visible.
The next moment, a howling sound rang in her ears, pain shot through her forehead, and Gu Qiqi stumbled a few steps before collapsing to the ground, her vision going black.
In the darkness, she heard a chaotic and jarring sound of clashing chains and felt a binding sensation across her body, as if the interwoven black chains within the cave had ensnared her.
Soon after, she felt her spirit energy swiftly leaving her body, and within a second, she was in a state of spirit energy depletion, losing consciousness…
