Chapter 509: Undercurrent (Part 3)

Chapter 509: Chapter 336: Undercurrent (Part 3)

After her secret arrest, the woman—who had seemed like a simple, ordinary housewife—displayed a terrifying frenzy as her Spirit rapidly collapsed. By the time she was stabilized, she was left completely catatonic. Even when interrogated with certain “Odd Skills,” the intelligence gathered was extremely limited.

Before long, she found Room 13. From the outside, it looked no different from the other rooms.

As long as she maintained her disguise as Zhang Qiu Fen without revealing herself, her senses were limited to those of the real Zhang Qiu Fen. This meant she couldn’t probe too deeply.

She took out the key, unlocked the lock, and pushed open the door.

CREAK!

With a faint sound, the door swung open. Peeking inside from the doorway, she saw the room had the ordinary decor of a guest room. Nothing seemed out of place.

However, the moment Ning Qiyang stepped across the threshold, she was hit by a wave of vertigo. The room around her began to twist and blur, and everything was shrouded in a blood-red glow.

Amidst the swirling chaos, the only thing that remained solid and clear was the door.

She whirled around to see that the door behind her had turned blood-red. Twisted strokes were branded onto the lintel, appearing to form a single character.

It was the character for “Death.”

Death Gate.

Before she could react, the twisting scene around her rapidly solidified. In the blink of an eye, she was no longer in the Lucky Inn, nor in Room 13. She was somewhere else entirely—an unfamiliar place.

It appeared to be a massive cavern. The stone walls were covered in twisting, blood-red runes, and a faint crimson light cast a pall over everything, creating an exceptionally eerie and sinister atmosphere.

Directly in front of her, a group of commoners in assorted attire were prostrated on the ground, their bodies pressed flat as they worshipped an object in the cavern’s center.

It was a high platform, upon which stood a two-meter-tall sculpture of a blood-red wooden tower. The tower had nine stories. On the first story, eight gates stood wide open, with faint, twisted characters visible above each one.

On the top floor of the wooden tower sat a simple clay statue. Its face was that of the Daoist Mother, and its benevolent expression held a profoundly eerie quality. The most striking feature was its left arm, sculpted from what appeared to be a type of blood-red jade. Within the jade, a crimson liquid seemed to churn and swirl.

‘One step, and I’ve appeared in an unfamiliar space?! This isn’t an illusion, not a dream of the Spirit—it’s real. Was that door set up with a tunnel using an Escape Technique?! Impossible. Tunnels made with Escape Techniques are incredibly complex and require immense Primordial Qi to sustain. An Array like that couldn’t possibly be placed on an ordinary door.’

‘Furthermore, from what I just saw, the door’s bizarre transformation shared traits with a fiendish artifact. Could this be the effect of a fiendish artifact combined with some terrifying Escape Technique? And to accomplish this right under the watchful eye of the city’s City God?!’

‘No wonder we could never find a single clue about this organization. They use these ‘Gates’ in different locations to bring their members and Believers to one central place. A network like that is nearly impossible to trace. This organization is far more terrifying than I imagined. Their mastery of this Escape Technique is a feat on par with Divine Techniques. I doubt more than a handful of people in all of Great Wei could achieve this. This situation is dire. I must find a way to get this intelligence out.’

Though Ning Qiyang’s thoughts were racing, she dared not let it show on her face. Instead, she adopted a fanatical expression, slowly stepped forward, and mimicked the others. She prostrated herself completely, bowing toward the tower and the statue of the Daoist Mother enthroned at its peak.