Chapter 416 - 221: The Entrance to Darkness

Chapter 416: Chapter 221: The Entrance to Darkness

He was a man of action.

Zheng Xiu had never been one to hesitate.

Otherwise, he never would have become the Richest Person.

He had already set his plans in motion.

Zheng Xiu had Qing Shisan periodically drag "guilty" parties into the Eternal Purgatory for floggings, deep-fryings, and shearings, constantly cementing its terrifying reputation in the minds of the Imperial City’s people.

Now, as long as he was within the Zheng Residence, Zheng Xiu could connect to the Heart Prison and bring the Prisoners online.

After a lively dinner,

Zheng Xiu used the excuse of "taking a bath" to send his soul out via Divine Travel.

His Human Soul left his body, drifting lightly into the night sky.

With the Crow Fosterer dead, Ye Weiyang was but a name. The night sky was free from the nuisance of Ravens, allowing Zheng Xiu to move about as a Human Soul with even greater impunity.

Shielded by the night, Zheng Xiu changed poses over a dozen times in the sky, savoring the exhilarating rush of the wind passing through his body. Before long, he reached the vicinity of the Imperial Palace.

Of course, while his posture seemed brazen, he was in fact outwardly relaxed but inwardly tense—extremely cautious.

The longer one was in the business, the more one realized that the world of Miracle Masters was rife with bizarre and endless Miracle Techniques. Any seemingly unremarkable Imperial Guard could possess a Miracle Technique designed to counter a Human Soul. He could not afford a single mistake.

He floated cross-legged high above the Imperial City, observing the moving torchlight within the Imperial Palace. After quickly calculating the patrol routes of the Imperial Guards, Zheng Xiu chose a hidden spot outside the palace’s high walls and plunged straight into the ground.

Even though Zheng Xiu, through Gongsun Mo’s perspective, had sat in the underground chamber beneath the Imperial Palace for a century, he didn’t know the location of its entrance. However, the advantage of his Divine Travel state was the ability to pass through any obstacle. To a Human Soul, walls were of no consequence.

A short while later, Zheng Xiu successfully found the secret chamber. The chamber beneath the Imperial Palace was vast and spacious; his sense of direction had been correct, so he found it with ease.

The pitch-black cavern was deathly silent, save for the occasional long, whistling gust of wind from above.

CLINK! CLANK!

In the upper section of the cavern, many cages hung from chains. They were filled with corpses, all long dead.

Zheng Xiu landed. He was currently using his Zheng Er Incarnation.

The surroundings were pitch-black and lightless. Zheng Xiu struggled to make out the scenery in the oppressive darkness.

’It’s very different from how it was over a century ago,’ Zheng Xiu thought.

Zheng Xiu glanced back and saw a door; he had landed not far from the entrance. After a moment’s thought, he suppressed the urge to investigate where the entrance led. Its location wasn’t important to him—all that mattered was that he was inside.

Just then, a faint, almost imperceptible pull emanated from ahead, making Zheng Xiu’s consciousness blur. It was a wonderful, indescribable sensation. The moment his attention focused even slightly on that "pull," he was instantly hit with a series of illusions—floating to the clouds, the rising and falling of tides, plummeting heavily to the ground—and he couldn’t help but let out a moan.

But he was quickly jolted out of it, breaking into a cold sweat at the inexplicable feeling of "climax" that had washed over him. ’A Human Soul can’t get close to that place!’ Alarmed, he quickly solidified his Incarnation, planting his feet firmly on the floor.

Only then did the strange suction vanish without a trace.

A look of horror filled Zheng Xiu’s eyes. His deduction had been correct—this place was indeed incredibly close to the Darkness!

By approaching as a Human Soul, he could clearly feel the... "temptation" of the Darkness!

Yes. Temptation.

Though the experience had been fleeting, it was intoxicating, leaving Zheng Xiu with an impulse to throw himself forward and be completely drained. SLAP! He slammed his right fist into his left palm, having finally found the words to describe the feeling of being drawn to the Darkness.

’It’s as if a bewitching beauty is hidden there, skillfully tempting me with a hundred different poses.’

Yes, that’s exactly what it felt like.

Still shaken by the experience, Xiaoma the Evil Child groped his way forward in the dark.

The stench of rot wafted toward him.

Massive Coiled Dragon Pillars, each so thick it would take five people with arms outstretched to encircle them, rose up to support the underground palace.

Zheng Xiu glanced around. ’These pillars weren’t here before,’ he thought.

SQUISH!

Zheng Xiu had stepped on something. He looked down. The ground was littered with the long-dead bodies of Ravens, their rotting flesh a playground for fat, white maggots doing the backstroke.

He got up and continued onward. After crossing a narrow bridge, he found himself looking down at a "pool."

Zheng Xiu stopped in his tracks. The pool wasn’t filled with water, but with corpses. Most of them were decapitated, and he could faintly discern the style of prison uniforms on their rotting clothes.

’Death row inmates? What are they doing piled up here?’

Zheng Xiu squinted, trying to make sense of the scene. The sight before him defied imagination.

It was a pool of the dead.

Soon, Zheng Xiu crossed the narrow bridge and arrived before a platform that seemed to be completely empty.

No, it wasn’t empty!

Zheng Xiu stood at the platform’s edge, the hairs on his body standing on end. It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head, chilling him to the core. He couldn’t help but mutter, "Madness! This is utter madness!"

In the center of the platform, a gray, palm-sized "mirror surface" hovered in mid-air.

The "mirror surface" was smooth. Every so often, the phantoms of red flowers would drift out of it, flashing across its face before disappearing.

It was a Passage!

A Passage to the Darkness!

Zheng Xiu had originally thought that, because of Gongsun Mo’s actions all those years ago, a gathering place for Human Souls had formed beneath the Imperial Palace—a place akin to a Ghostly Realm, bordering on the Darkness. But he had only been half right.

It wasn’t that there was a place *close* to the Darkness beneath the Imperial Palace. Rather, this place was a direct...

Entrance!

’What lies beyond the Darkness?’

’What would I get if I stuck my hand in?’

’Could a living person squeeze through?’

’Could something come out of it?’

’Is there eternal life inside?’