Light Fortress

Chapter 1719 - 381: Frost Iron Mountain

Clouds surrounded the airship, with faint thunder sounds, suggesting a heavy rain may be imminent.

Chu Ling took over the mooring of the micro-vessel.

Mu Wanqiu and Gu Shen jumped directly from the airship.

In the black night, the mountains stretched endlessly; the majestic iron-blue hue resembled a gloomy painting. This area is strictly controlled by the Deep Sea, an uncharted territory with nearby towns forcibly relocated by the Federation Government, leaving nearly a hundred miles desolate and uninhabited. Naturally, no light sources are constructed here due to its nature as a no man’s land.

"Hiss."

Gu Shen landed on the ground, and as he rose, he waved his hand, releasing two clusters of Chi Huo.

The two clusters of Chi Huo landed and spread, bouncing up to transform into two simple lanterns that floated at shoulder height.

"I have a question."

Mu Wanqiu spoke, "Since this task is between the Netherworld King and the Angel Envoy, why didn’t you call Shen Li out?"

"You seem to care about him quite a bit."

Gu Shen chuckled, "If you want him to come along, we can turn back to Changye now and pick him up."

"... Let’s pretend I didn’t say that."

Mu Wanqiu hurriedly waved her hand and raised her eyebrows, "What’s the next task?"

From the meeting until now, Gu Shen had not mentioned the task.

This mystery piqued Mu Wanqiu’s curiosity.

However, now that they arrived at the task location, it seemed to be just a controlled mountain area with nothing special.

"The next task is simple."

Gu Shen carried his hands behind his back, surveying the surroundings. He materialized the scene he saw earlier in Liu Quan’s memory with spiritual power and transmitted it to Mu Wanqiu’s Heart Sea.

Mu Wanqiu watched carefully.

She furrowed her brows, "The spiritual imagery in this memory with the Black Folding Knife seems to contain the same source of calamity as the Netherworld Fire?"

"Correct."

Gu Shen nodded, "I shared half of my authority with you, so when it comes to sensing calamity... there really isn’t much difference between us."

Throughout the history of the Five Continents, no other Crown-bearer has been as fortunate as Mu Wanqiu.

No Divine Throne has ever favored a Crown-bearer so much or spared no effort.

To share half the original authority?

This is practically splitting half of one’s fate!

Of course, Gu Shen always had an excellent eye for people... During his years away from the Five Continents, Mu Wanqiu completed everything a Crown-bearer should do. Although she guessed Gu Shen’s true "life or death," she never revealed it, discreetly cooperating with the plans of the two Divine Thrones; her cooperation and protection are crucial elements pushing the chess game to this point.

Most importantly, Mu Wanqiu independently completed the interface with golden spike flowers, expanding the old maps of the North Continent Old World to several times their original size!

"In a place like this, there’s calamity with the same source as the Netherworld Fire?"

Mu Wanqiu suddenly realized the problem.

The true Netherworld King is still growing.

How did the same source of calamity leak out?

There is only one possibility.

The former Netherworld King left behind a Disaster Realm here!

The original entrance to the Disaster Realm was very tight, but over time and erosion, a gap developed, leading to the leakage of "calamity"!

"Now, we need to find the location of that Black Folding Knife."

Gu Shen calmly said, "And then uncover the Disaster Realm left by the former Netherworld King."

...

...

Night rain began to fall in the uncharted territory.

The lanterns ignited by Chi Huo wouldn’t be dampened by raindrops nor extinguished.

These two lanterns illuminated the shadowy mountains.

Based on the imagery from years past, Chu Ling locked onto the specific coordinates of Frost Iron Mountain. However, the dying person who gave Liu Quan the Black Folding Knife walked a certain distance after delivering the knife.

Gu Shen and Mu Wanqiu released their Spirit.

The Chi Huo hovered between the mountain ravines.

Also swaying... was a giant white-robed ghostly figure.

In no time, with the carpet search by the two titled individuals, Frost Iron Mountain was thoroughly scoured.

The Judge crouched in a mountain ditch, its white robes fluttering, reaching out with scarlet fingers to dig out a large pit.

The pit was deep, and inside lay a coffin.

"This coffin craftsmanship looks familiar..."

Gu Shen looked at the coffin, his eyes involuntarily twitching.

"Familiar?" Mu Wanqiu was puzzled.

"I just saw an extremely similar coffin not long ago, hmm... only the craftsmanship of this coffin is much inferior."

Upon first glance, this coffin seemed somewhat similar to the one created by Xie Zheng in the Tundra.

Due to the series of "coincidences."

Gu Shen was almost suffering from Turing PTSD.

However, upon closer inspection, this coffin only bore resemblance and lacked the "starship crafting" level of ingenuity, and as for the engravings on it, they were utterly nonsensical.

Attempting to paint a tiger but ending up like a dog.

That about sums it up.

"..."

Though Mu Wanqiu didn’t understand what Gu Shen meant, she found the presence of this coffin highly unreasonable.

According to the spiritual imagery.

When delivering the Black Folding Knife, the person was gravely injured and on the brink of death.

So, in the remaining time of "a severely injured person," they didn’t reserve the strength to seek help but rather to bury themselves?

"The engravings on this coffin are quite unfamiliar. Are they ancient script?"

Mu Wanqiu examined them closely but couldn’t decipher them.

Luckily, there was a Turing heir proficient in "ancient script" nearby.

"Utter nonsense."

Gu Shen raised his eyebrows; the coffin surface had some simple forbidden barriers seeming to counteract opening.

But he lacked patience and snapped his fingers.

The Judge beside him caught his signal.

It swung a heavy punch, violently opening the coffin.

"Bang!"

A clear explosion sound echoed through the mountain, and with a bang, the coffin shattered, releasing a massive spiritual poison fog!

Evidently, this is the price of opening this coffin—

The force of this spiritual poison fog is terrifyingly immense.

Taking merely seconds to erode the Spirit Sea, no matter how strong the willpower of the Transcendent opening this coffin might be, as long as they come into contact with it, they will be engulfed by nightmares for a long time!

Because the source of this poison is the Netherworld King’s Spark!

But it’s unfortunate.

The coffin at this moment was opened by the Netherworld King and his Crown-bearer.

Gu Shen and Mu Wanqiu stood silently before the coffin, enduring the spiritual poison assault, waiting until the mist entirely dispersed...

Unscathed.

Mu Wanqiu frowned and waved her sleeve, saying, "The poison in this coffin seems quite similar to that from Duolu River."

"It’s the same source power, only here the poison is diluted."

Gu Shen remained calm, finding the concentration of the poison too low to bother taking out the snuff bottle to collect it.

If the poison from this coffin spread out, it would be enough to destroy an entire town.

But now it was all absorbed by him.

Hmm, the taste wasn’t bad?

Inside the coffin lay a corpse, dried like a husk, its skin eroded beyond recognition, leaving only a thin layer.

At this moment, Gu Shen discerned the coffin’s barriers and engravings.

Though inferior.

The coffin’s engravings sealed the poison fog from the deceased.

The purpose of exhausting the last strength for "burial" becomes clear now; the deceased wished to prevent their posthumous spiritual poison fog from spreading, sparing the innocents around Frost Iron Mountain from the Netherworld Poison.

...

...

(PS: I’d like to explain about updates. Continuous explosive updates over fifty days have taken a toll on my body, and the plot could easily decline. I want to change the update status, and from now on, aim to upload one large Chapter with over seven thousand words daily. The update timings won’t be so late; I’ll try to post by six in the evening.)