Shrouded Sky

Chapter 177 - Ghost Mine

In front of the turbulent mine shaft, corpses were strewn across the ground, numbering fifty or sixty. Their faces were ashen, eyes wide open in death. Experienced miners, faces pale but composed, kept their distance, circling far around. Not a single person dared to approach. The Fifteenth Mining Zone was gripped by panic, and everyone had retreated, most trembling with fear.

From the mine shaft, wisps of gray mist seeped out. Even from a distance, one could feel an oppressive weight.

“This is damn eerie…” Ye Fan muttered to himself. He had long known that such incidents occasionally occurred in source mines, but experiencing it firsthand still left him startled.

An elderly miner, who had been working the mines for years, had a flicker of worry in his eyes. “I have a bad feeling,” he said. “This time, the evil presence might be extraordinary.”

Not long after, cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground arrived, led by several middle-aged men, with younger disciples following behind.

“Who was mining in that shaft? Are there any survivors?” one of the middle-aged men asked.

“I was working above the shaft,” a young miner stepped forward, visibly nervous.

“Anyone else?” the middle-aged man pressed.

Six or seven more people stepped forward, each one visibly shaken. “What did you see?” the cultivator inquired.

“Nothing… we only heard screams from below, and then we fled,” one replied.

“Where’s Senior Brother Qin? Wasn’t he patrolling here?” The middle-aged man frowned.

“That old immortal fell in the mine as well,” another miner answered nervously.

“At first, it seemed like they found something below. The old immortal was informed and went down to investigate. That’s when the evil incident happened, and everyone died.”

Another miner added, “If we hadn’t run fast enough, even those of us above the shaft wouldn’t have survived.” He didn’t need to elaborate; everyone could see the fifty or sixty corpses at the mine’s entrance.

The middle-aged cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground exchanged glances, their brows furrowed. This was the last thing they wanted, a source mine turning malevolent was extremely dangerous.

At the mouth of the mine, gray mist swirled, creating an unsettling, eerie atmosphere.

“Could they have dug up something alive?” one of the middle-aged men muttered.

The others paled at the thought. If that were true, it would be an ominous sign of great danger.

“I heard that not long ago, the Shan Clan dug into a Ghost Mine and unearthed a few blood-dripping bones. Many died as a result,” another remarked.

The conversation among the cultivators piqued Ye Fan’s interest. The underground source veins were full of mystery and the unknown.

“I’ll capture a wisp of that gray mist to see what it is,” one of the middle-aged men said. He opened his mouth and spat out a thumb-sized silver bottle, which transformed into a streak of silver light. It flew forward, emitting a soft glow as it began to absorb the gray mist.

Crack!

To everyone’s shock, the moment a wisp of gray mist entered, the silver bottle shattered, its light fading as it fell to the ground. “This is…” The middle-aged man staggered back.

“A weapon refined by a cultivator of the Dao Palace Realm couldn’t withstand a single wisp of gray mist. What is this thing?” Everyone was stunned.

The middle-aged cultivators’ faces grew solemn. This incident was far from ordinary, and they felt uneasy. It took a full hour for the gray mist to completely dissipate into the air. Afterward, a straw chicken was tossed into the mine. It clucked incessantly, and after a long while, it showed no signs of distress.

The cultivators let out a collective sigh of relief. “It’s not as bad as we feared.”

“It seems it was just a burst of baleful energy, not a ghost,” they concluded.

The group moved toward the mine’s entrance, inspecting each corpse before peering into the shaft.

“Move these bodies to an abandoned mine and bury them,” one of the middle-aged cultivators ordered.

The miners hesitated, reluctant to touch the mysteriously deceased. Seeing their hesitation, the cultivator frowned. “The baleful energy has dissipated. There’s no danger.”

Despite their fear, the miners reluctantly carried the dozens of corpses to an abandoned mine and disposed of them. The cultivators then discussed descending into the shaft to investigate further.

“Why not have them clear out the bodies inside first, then we go down?” one suggested, glancing at the miners.

The miners’ hearts sank, and many stepped back in fear. “What are you afraid of? The straw chicken is fine, so it’s safe. You lot, ”

Ye Fan inwardly scoffed. If they were so confident, why didn’t they go in themselves instead of sending miners to test the waters?

A young disciple from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground stepped forward to select people, and unfortunately, Ye Fan was chosen to descend into the mine to retrieve the bodies.

The mine was dim, with torches barely illuminating the surroundings. Corpses littered the ground, sprawled haphazardly. Some of the more timid miners trembled at the sight.

Ahead, a faint glow emanated from a head-sized piece of source stone embedded in the rock, shimmering with light. A fifty-something-year-old cultivator lay nearby, long dead.

“The problem lies here…” Ye Fan cautiously approached, and upon seeing the scene clearly, he gasped.

Inside the head-sized source stone was a claw, resembling a human hand but covered in red fur an inch long, even on the palm, giving it a sinister appearance.

“This must be a creature from the primordial era…” Ye Fan was shocked.

“A ghost claw!”

“A monster!”

The surrounding miners cried out in alarm.

Ye Fan extended his divine sense to investigate further and was stunned again. The source stone had been exposed when miners cracked open a larger rock, revealing skeletal patterns connected to the source.

“This…” He was astounded.

It was a fossil, with only the hand preserved intact within the source, while the rest of the body had turned to stone.

“This must be a humanoid creature, no, it has bat-like wings!”

A humanoid creature with wings was definitely not human.

Ye Fan realized why the gray mist had appeared and why so many had died. When the large rock was broken, a corner of the source stone was damaged, exposing a bit of the claw’s flesh to the air. It had withered, producing the gray mist.

“What kind of terrifying creature is this? A tiny bit of its flesh, rotting in the air, had such horrifying power that a mere wisp of mist shattered a Dao Palace cultivator’s weapon. Unimaginable!” Ye Fan was shaken.

Thankfully, the source stone was extraordinary, glowing with radiant light and autonomously gathering the surrounding spiritual energy, sealing the damaged corner.

At that moment, the cultivators above descended into the mine. Their keen senses detected no danger, so they no longer hesitated.

“This is… a claw with flesh!” they exclaimed in shock.

“A few years ago, we unearthed a severed arm sealed in source stone, which was sent back to the Sacred Ground. The Supreme Elder once said that if such flesh is found, it must be reported immediately. This is a matter of great importance.”

The cultivators carefully cleared the surrounding stone, transporting both the source stone and the large rock to the surface.

A Supreme Elder of the Radiant Light Sacred Ground was summoned and personally arrived to inspect the claw and the humanoid traces on the rock. “Incredible!” he seemed deeply shocked.

“What kind of creature is this?” a young disciple cautiously asked.

“From the ancient…” The Grand Elder began but abruptly stopped.

Clearly, he was unsettled. After a long pause, he let out a deep breath, swept his sleeve, and collected the head-sized source stone and the rock.

“Continue mining here. If you find anything new, report it to me immediately. This is of great importance, and you will be greatly rewarded.”

His expression was grave, and then he vanished.

“Why didn’t the Supreme Elder elaborate? What kind of creature is it?”

“It’s at least from the primordial era, and it seems extremely terrifying and powerful.”

“Were humans even around back then? What was our status?”

The young disciples’ questions echoed Ye Fan’s own curiosity. He desperately wanted answers.

“Could that claw hold secrets to some ancient technique or divine power?”

“It’s hard to say. If it’s a powerful enough creature, that claw might truly be a priceless treasure.”

The middle-aged cultivators whispered among themselves. “Even the great figures of our Radiant Light Sacred Ground may not fully understand.”

“In this day and age, perhaps only the Primordial Mine holds answers. They say beings from divine source stones have emerged there…”

“Enough! The Primordial Mine is a forbidden place. Don’t speak of it carelessly in the Mining Zone.”

The Primordial Mine, located at the heart of this region and surrounded by the source mines of various sacred grounds, was a place no one dared to explore, a land of bad omen.

For several days, they dug through seven or eight abandoned shafts without finding a single piece of source stone. Ye Fan cursed his bad luck; he had hoped to pocket some for himself. The other miners, however, were relieved, as no disasters had struck, and no ghosts had been uncovered.

Just when they thought the trouble had passed, on the seventh day, a cry of alarm came from a mine shaft.

“What happened?” the cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground shouted from the surface.

They hadn’t left the Mining Zone in days, diligently carrying out the Supreme Elder’s orders.

“Bones! We found a huge number of bones!” came the panicked reply from below.

When word spread to the other shafts, miners rushed out and fled into the distance. Miners often faced malevolent events, and at the slightest hint of trouble, their first instinct was self-preservation. The Fifteenth Mining Zone descended into chaos.

Ye Fan finally understood why so few miners lived past ten years. With eerie incidents happening every few days, even cultivators would struggle to survive a decade.

“What’s going on? Normally, we don’t see something this strange even once a year. Why is it happening so often now?”

Several experienced miners shared a bad feeling.

“I think that claw we dug up wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning. This Mining Zone is likely a Ghost Mine, and something catastrophic is coming.”

“I feel it too. Something big is about to happen.”

“They say the Primordial Mine has been restless this past year. This could be an omen of great disaster.”

Ye Fan’s heart sank. These veteran miners, constantly exposed to such phenomena, likely had a kind of instinctual awareness. Their premonitions might very well come true.

“No need to flee! It’s just dry bones, no danger. Come back and dig!” The cultivators ordered everyone to return, gathering all available manpower to excavate the deep mine.

To boost morale, they entered the mine themselves to oversee the work. But when they saw what lay below, even they gasped.

Countless fossilized bones filled the area, too many to count. Every shattered stone revealed more bones, chilling everyone to the core. Eventually, there were no stones left, only fossilized bones. It was like a burial pit.

Even the cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground felt a chill down their spines. The atmosphere was growing increasingly sinister. Then, someone screamed, “We’ve dug up blood!”

In an instant, screams filled the air, and over a hundred people died on the spot.

“My God… a Ghost Mine! A catastrophic evil!”

“I saw it! Heaven help us!”

At that moment, whether it was Ye Fan or the cultivators from the Radiant Light Sacred Ground, everyone was horrified.