Decaying World

Chapter 132

The Mist Zone.

Holding a stick of Tranquil Incense, Lin Hui remained constantly alert to the movements of the surrounding Mist. Tranquil Incense could isolate the Mist, forming a spherical cavity to protect the holder, but it was ineffective against the Night Mist. Night Mist and the Mist of the Mist Zone were two different things.

The Night Mist, capable of intruding into the Mist-Free Zone, actually posed a far greater hazard than ordinary Mist.

Walking within the Mist Zone, Lin Hui was surrounded by vast whiteness on all sides. Only by observing the traces left on the terrain beneath his feet could he compare them with his map to determine his location.

In the Mist, the muddy ground was covered in tracks left by various monsters of different sizes. Some looked like the trails of giant pythons, some were webbed footprints of varying depths, and others were simply spike-like cuts.

He walked slowly through the Mist Zone for a while.

Suddenly, several gray-white Faceless Ones lunged out, charging at Lin Hui from behind in an attempted ambush. These gray humanoid monsters, which grew a single horn but lacked facial features, belonged to the Harmless level and were among the first monsters Lin Hui had ever dealt with. Once, only disciples of the Clear Wind Temple at the sixth rank of Body Tempering could hope to handle them.

Woo—

Amidst strange, low roars, three Faceless Ones grabbed at Lin Hui’s back from three directions simultaneously.

But in the next instant, their bodies froze in unison.One second.

Two seconds.

The three Faceless Ones were simultaneously split in two, turning into six chunks of remains that collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

Lin Hui acted as though he hadn’t noticed them at all. Keeping his back to the three monsters, he continued on his way. Without pausing to harvest materials from the Faceless Ones, he picked up his pace and quickly crossed a quiet, ice-cold stream.

Ahead in the Mist, a dark, silent black forest finally appeared.

In the forest, the canopies of vigorous, twisted black trees linked together, forming a large area of shadow.

"This should be the place." Lin Hui glanced at the map, confirmed he hadn't gone the wrong way, and put it away.

Caw!

Suddenly, a massive black crow with four wings swooped out of the woods.

The crow had a body length of three meters and a wingspan of six or seven meters;

its approach alone whipped up a gale. It flew over Lin Hui’s head with no intention of attacking him. Instead, it plunged into the Mist behind him and vanished.

Lin Hui narrowed his eyes and continued forward.

Entering the black forest, faint sounds of speaking drifted from ahead. The thick gray mud underfoot gradually turned into a carpet-like accumulation of black leaves. An inexplicable, pungent, choking scent wafted through the air.

Lin Hui took out the map again and searched the surrounding tree trunks. Before long, he found an underground entrance hidden within a small patch of shrubbery.

It was located on a hill-like rise facing the stream. On one side of the hill, a round, black wooden door was embedded. The door's surface was covered in green moss;

only through the occasional gap could one see that the thing used to be black. On one side of the door, Lin Hui found the engraved inscription: Purple Crystal Ruins.

The speaking voices were becoming clearer now, evidently close by.

If he hadn't seen the intelligence report beforehand, he might have truly believed people were talking. But in reality, this sound was a mimicry produced by a creature called the Four-Armed Man-Eater. Its purpose was to lure living humans closer, making them think it was also human, only to prey on them. Lin Hui turned his head and looked toward a specific direction within the spherical cavity propped up by the Tranquil Incense.

There, he could already vaguely see a black shadow, only half his height, floating up from the bottom of the water and charging toward him at high speed.

Only when it got close did he see it clearly: it was a humanoid monster with four arms, its body covered in a dark yellow hard shell.

The monster’s face was rigid and expressionless, its features unable to move at all. A closer look revealed that these so-called human features were nothing more than a false mask, crudely pieced together from shell.

"First time seeing a Four-Armed Man-Eater."

Chi.

A sword light flashed.

Lin Hui slowly sheathed his sword.

Directly in front of him, the Four-Armed Man-Eater’s upper body toppled to the ground. Its lower body continued to rush forward a few steps before spraying blood and collapsing as well.

Milky white blood dyed a small patch of the stream white, but it was soon swarmed by a mass of black insects surfacing to frantically suck the blood.

Lin Hui withdrew his gaze, found the mechanism to open the door on one side, and twisted it gently.

Hiss...

Immediately, the wooden door of the ruins slid open to the left, revealing an empty, dark environment inside, free of Mist.

Inside was a pitch-black cave, with the entrance connecting to a tunnel leading to an unknown destination. Embedded in the walls were faint blue illumination stones used for lighting.

Lin Hui first looked down at the green crystals on the left side of his neck.

The crystals were embedded in his skin, each only the size of a pinky fingernail and easy to overlook. Nine in total formed a line from his arm to his neck, neatly covering his left shoulder. Now, only one crystal glowed with a faint green light—so dim it was barely visible.

This was the change brought to his body by the Spirit-Sealing Array.

He needed to figure out when the second crystal would finish charging. Could killing monsters count toward the charge?

Unfortunately, the Nine Eyes crystals showed no response;

only a single one remained dimly lit, just as before.

He sighed inwardly.

Lin Hui stepped into the wooden door. Suddenly, his steps paused, and he turned to look diagonally upward to his right.

On the dark brown cave wall there, like mushrooms, grew two dark red human heads, one large and one small. One head was male, the other female. Both had short dark red hair. Their eyes rolled nimbly, sizing up Lin Hui as he entered.

"Can you talk?" Lin Hui asked aloud.

The two heads gave no reaction, merely rolling their eyes around. They looked alive, yet for some reason, they did not respond at all.

Lin Hui hesitated for a moment, but ultimately didn't slash the two heads apart. He turned and continued walking inward.

This time, he hadn't walked far before he discovered that on the right side of the cave ahead, several neatly sized wooden boxes were actually stacked on the ground. These striped wooden boxes were piled one upon another, and on one box sat two glass cups with residual red liquid.

Lin Hui scanned his surroundings but detected no other movement.

He clearly remembered that when the exploration team came back earlier, they mentioned these ruins were uninhabited and that they were the first team to discover them.

But now...

Raising his vigilance, Lin Hui quickened his pace. He arrived in front of the boxes and pierced the surface of one with his sword.

Inside, dense layers of neatly stacked purple crystal ores were revealed.

Sure enough, the intelligence was leaked. Either someone in the Temple sold the info, or it was the Red Rice Association...

He scanned the passage extending deeper into the cave and continued inward.

His purpose in coming here was, first, to clear part of the purple crystal vein and establish a fixed resource point for the Clear Wind Temple. Second, to find the special Relic capable of isolating the Night Mist.

Following the tunnel inward, he went about three or four hundred meters deep.

A strange humanoid creature appeared in his field of vision.

It was a bizarre humanoid figure, two meters tall, composed entirely of purple crystals. Its head was rhombus-shaped, with a black vertical slit in the center of its face serving as an eye. Both its hands and feet bore sharp claws.

At this moment, it was hunched over like an old woman, moving slowly through the cave.

Purple Crystal Elemental? Lin Hui recognized the monster. Both Wang Yueheng and the exploration team’s intelligence had mentioned this thing.

This thing was strong, comparable to the Perfected level of Internal Force. It was these things that had eaten quite a few members of the exploration team back then.

But since there are people here, why is the Purple Crystal Elemental still wandering around freely? Lin Hui raised his guard.

According to Wang Yueheng's intelligence, the highest-level Elemental Lord of the Purple Crystal Elementals could even reach the level of a Divine Officer or High Divine Officer, so the danger was extremely great. He dared not be negligent in the slightest.

Quietly drawing his sword, he approached from behind.

Chi!

In an instant, sword light flared. Lin Hui, without a word, unleashed a strike of the Wild Wind Sword Technique.

The long sword, coated in Internal Force and boosted by extreme speed, immediately hacked open the Purple Crystal Elemental's chest.

With a ripping sound, sparks flew. A massive gash was torn into the Purple Crystal Elemental's body;

it was nearly cut in two.

It turned its head, about to roar in anger, but the next sword strike gave it no time. In the blink of an eye, with a crash, it was split into two segments, falling to the ground and shattering into countless tiny granules.

Hum!!

The sword strike seemed to have poked a hornet's nest. A massive, muffled roar instantly rang out from the deepest part of the cave.

Then, amidst the sound of heavy, thudding footsteps, Lin Hui saw at least five or six purple crystal figures rushing out from the depths of the cave.

Most critically, compared to the purple crystal figure just now, these few were wearing special armor made of purple metal.

The Blood Seal in his vision instantly performed an appraisal, and Lin Hui’s expression changed immediately.

[ High Purple Crystal Elemental: A symbiotic creature of the purple crystal mineral vein. Can self-destruct upon death. Current creature is not in a non-resistant state;

cannot be evolved.]

[Warning: You have received the gaze of the Mist God.]

Mist God?? Self-destruct!?

He jerked his head back to look at the purple crystal figure he had just cut down.

The granules scattered on the ground were now lighting up with blazing luminous flames.

BOOM!!!

In the next instant, Lin Hui retreated, covering his whole body in Internal Force. But it was too late.

The scorching firelight engulfed him completely in a split second.

Two breaths later, Lin Hui’s figure emerged. The white light on the surface of his body had been significantly weakened by that blast just now.

The two High Purple Crystal Elementals that had arrived later were also pushed back repeatedly toward the depths by the explosion.

Behind them, Lin Hui clearly saw two white-skinned men holding thick-backed machetes hiding behind the High Purple Crystal Elementals. They even exchanged a few words with the elementals.

These people could actually communicate with monsters of the Mist Zone!?

Lin Hui was startled and felt an urge to retreat.

The water here seemed much deeper than he had imagined—especially that gaze of the Mist God, which felt like a thorn in his heart.

But in the next moment, his intention to retreat turned into thick killing intent due to a sentence from the other side.

"That guy... looks like Master Lin Hui of the Clear Wind Temple?"

It’s over. They’ve recognized me…

Lin Hui’s body went rigid. He touched the black cloth wrapped tightly around his head. He’d even covered his hair—so how had they still managed to recognize him!?

"While there are still a few of them, I must silence them quickly."

His eyes turned cold as he gripped the sword hilt on his back with both hands in a reverse grip.

Purple crystals were highly valuable, and he didn't want to expose the limit of his strength too much. He had originally planned to secretly probe and clear the mineral vein, but he hadn't expected to be recognized as soon as he entered.

And by the looks of it, the other party seemed to be some kind of mysterious organized gang... Trouble...

"Couldn't you guys just... pretend you didn't see me...?"

He drew his sword abruptly, angling both blades downward as wisps of breeze began to encircle his body.

Become a Pledge Member to read chapters in advance.

Join our Discord community to explore exclusive visuals and connect with fellow readers.

Please leave a 5-star rating on Novel Updates!

[Index]

[Next Chapter]