novelraw Chapter 1231: The False Debt of Gratitude
Chapter 1231: The False Debt of Gratitude
Translator: CinderTL
Primordial Qi Death Zone.
In a ditch at the foot of a mountain, Song Wen lay prone, buried under tens of meters of yellow earth.
Five thousand kilometers ahead lay the mountain valley where Qingming Sanren had said the Six Fiends Hall was stationed.
He dared not approach too closely, knowing that Wei Gu, the hall master of the Six Fiends Hall, also possessed a void fiend—a late-stage seventh-tier entity. Getting too close would risk detection.
A hint of impatience flickered across Song Wen’s face.
He had been here for half a year, maintaining this motionless posture the entire time. Yet not a single person had emerged from the valley, fueling his frustration.
"Shadow Void, has anyone entered or left the valley yet?" Song Wen asked in his Sea of Consciousness.
"No," Shadow Void replied. "My senses detect no anomalies within the valley. It doesn’t seem like a cultivator’s stronghold. Could Qingming Sanren have lied?"
Song Wen frowned slightly, his fingers unconsciously crushing a pebble.
He meticulously recalled the interrogation of Qingming Sanren, yet he remained convinced the man hadn’t lied.
But if the Six Fiends Hall were truly here, why hadn’t they made a move in half a year?
Could they have already relocated?
Or were the Six Fiends Hall members hiding in the mountain valley, never venturing out?
Song Wen found himself uncertain.
"I can’t keep waiting like this. I need to find a way to investigate the situation in the mountain valley," he thought to himself.
Despite making this decision, Song Wen had no intention of personally approaching the valley.
If the Six Fiends Hall members were indeed hiding there, investigating would be tantamount to suicide.
His mind raced, and suddenly, Song Wen recalled the scene where Xu Mengyu and the other two women had been ambushed by two peripheral members of the Six Fiends Hall within the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
An idea immediately formed in Song Wen’s mind.
He slowly emerged from the ground and soared into the air, heading toward the outer reaches of the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
When he was only ten thousand miles from the edge of the Death Zone, Song Wen abruptly changed direction, speeding off to the left.
After flying approximately a million miles, Song Wen’s eyes suddenly lit up at a reminder from the shadow void.
He made a slight adjustment to his course, and soon, a natural cavern stretching dozens of miles underground appeared within Song Wen’s perception.
Inside the cavern, a middle-aged male cultivator was carefully excavating the rock wall with an iron pickaxe, as if searching for some hidden treasure.
To Song Wen’s surprise, the cultivator’s cultivation level was only at the late-stage nascent soul realm.
Such a cultivation level would be considered audacious to venture ten thousand miles into the Primordial Qi Death Zone.
The cultivator seemed concerned about damaging the treasure hidden within the rock wall. Combined with the rock’s exceptional hardness, his excavation proceeded at a snail’s pace. Each swing of the pickaxe only shattered a basin-sized chunk of stone.
He had clearly been digging here for some time, as piles of rubble littered the cavern floor.
Clang!
The pickaxe struck the rock again, dislodging several irregularly sized fragments.
A flash of joy lit up the cultivator’s eyes.
Embedded in the newly exposed rock wall was a crystal the size of a child’s head.
The crystal was perfectly spherical, its surface as dark as ink, radiating an eerie, dim light.
The cultivator hastily drew a short sword and began meticulously chiseling away the surrounding rock, as if terrified of damaging the crystal.
Song Wen, who had been observing the scene from afar with his divine sense, wore a puzzled expression.
His confusion stemmed from the purpose of the crystal.
"Shadow Void, do you recognize that crystal?" Song Wen asked.
"This crystal contains pure Primordial Qi," Shadow Void replied. "It would be somewhat useful to us Void Clan members or resentful spirits. But why a human would seek such a thing remains a mystery to me."
Unable to discern the crystal’s purpose, Song Wen decided not to dwell on it.
His primary goal in exploring the outskirts of the Primordial Qi Death Zone was to find someone willing to investigate the mountain valley.
However, this male cultivator’s cultivation level was too low; he would never dare venture 100,000 li deep into the Primordial Qi Death Zone to reach the valley. Even if he did, he likely wouldn’t uncover anything significant.
Still, the man wasn’t entirely useless. At least Song Wen could extract some information from him.
Song Wen was about to approach when he suddenly stopped after flying only a few dozen meters.
"Shadow Void, are there any void fiends nearby?"
"Master, there are no void fiends within a 50,000-li radius," Shadow Void replied. "However, there’s a fifth-tier early-stage resentful spirit about 30,000 li to the south."
"A resentful spirit will do. Guide me there."
Guided by the shadow void, Song Wen quickly located the resentful spirit—a creature resembling a ferocious dog.
Upon seeing Song Wen, the spirit immediately lunged at him.
But Song Wen casually unleashed a bolt of lightning, instantly subduing it.
Then, under Song Wen’s urging, the resentful spirit headed toward the underground cavern where the male cultivator was hiding.
As the spirit squeezed through a narrow fissure and entered the cavern, the cultivator finally realized what was happening. His face twisted in panic as he scrambled deeper into the cavern.
But his speed was no match for a fifth-tier resentful spirit. Before he could escape far, the spirit was already hot on his heels.
He could even feel the icy, despair-inducing Primordial Qi erupting from the dog’s maw, sweeping across the back of his neck.
Under the shadow of death, he desperately activated his short sword, slashing backward like a shooting star.
But before the sword’s light could even approach the spirit, it was blasted away by a torrent of Primordial Qi.
The sword arced through the air with a clang before embedding itself in the distant rock wall, its hilt still trembling violently.
The cultivator’s pupils constricted to pinpricks, his face ashen.
At that critical moment, a blinding silver light illuminated the entire cavern, as if all the Primordial Qi within had been purged.
It was a bolt of silver lightning.
Boom!
Thunder struck the resentful spirit.
Before it could even let out a wail, the spirit was reduced to ashes, vanishing completely along with the Thunderlight.
The male cultivator’s face immediately lit up with the wild joy of a narrow escape.
"May I ask which senior intervened to save me? This junior, Feng Xin, is eternally grateful," he said, bowing slightly and clasping his hands in a fist salute toward the direction from which the thunder had struck.
Song Wen slowly drifted into the cavern and came to stand before him.
"I was merely passing through and happened to save you. No need for such formalities."
The man who called himself Feng Xin looked at Song Wen with deep gratitude.
"A debt of life-saving cannot go unacknowledged. May I ask for the senior’s esteemed name?"
"Ji Lin," Song Wen replied casually, then asked, "Did you excavate all these rubble in the cavern? What were you searching for?"
Feng Xin’s expression stiffened slightly. He hesitated, as if concealing some unspeakable secret.
"Does this involve some hidden secret?" Song Wen pressed.
"No," Feng Xin shook his head, but still avoided answering Song Wen’s question directly.
"Could these treasures be something that can’t see the light of day? Some kind of sinister artifact?" Song Wen’s lips curved into a faint smile, his eyes clear and bright. "Little friend, rest assured. I’m just a rogue cultivator, not some sanctimonious follower of the Orthodox Path. You can speak freely. I won’t make things difficult for you."
(End of the Chapter)
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