A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Chapter 1277: Exposed

After entering the building, they were greeted by the sight of a long and extremely dark passageway that led downward, extending into a circular, underground space that had been segmented into a series of independent sections.

At the center of the underground space was a crimson pond, while a series of cages in which all types of souls were being held were present in the segmented areas.

The soul harvesting envoys were currently in the process of locking up the souls that they were escorting into the vacant cages, and there were also some other envoys standing in the crimson pond, but it was unclear what they were doing.

"Looks like this is where the souls are held. There's not much to see here, let's go elsewhere to try and find a way to leave this place," Weeping Soul urged.

"What's going on with the Yama Cauldron at the moment? Is it still pointing in a certain direction?" Han Li asked.

Weeping Soul hesitated momentarily, then replied, "The cauldron is trying to guide us toward that dark cloud."

For some reason, Han Li had expected this to be the case, so he wasn't overly surprised to hear this.

After some contemplation, he suggested, "Let's split up to search for ways to leave this crimson space. There's no need to go looking outside the city. I already examined the area with my spiritual sense earlier, and I couldn't find any ways out."

"The effects of this secret technique should be able to last a day and a night, so we should be safe during this time," Weeping Soul replied, and the two of them exited the building before parting ways.

Close to a day later, the two of them reconvened at the entrance of the same building, and both of them had grim looks on their faces.

Neither of them had managed to find a way out.

"How about we try and break through this crimson space by force?" Weeping Soul suggested.

Han Li was just about to respond when his expression suddenly changed slightly, and he led Weeping Soul into the building before casting his gaze toward the souls locked up in the cages.

"What is it, Master?" Weeping Soul asked.

"I suddenly thought of a way out," Han Li replied with a smile.

"What is it?" Weeping Soul asked in an eager manner.

"It doesn't look like this is the underworld, so I'm assuming that these souls won't be held captive here forever. Instead, they'll most likely be transported from here to the true underworld. If we can find out how these souls are transported, then there's a chance that we'll be able to leave this place through the same means," Han Li replied.

"That could definitely work!" Weeping Soul said in an elated manner.

"The only problem is that we don't know when they're going to carry out the next step of the process," Han Li mused.

"That's not a problem, we can just ask someone," Weeping Soul said as she led Han Li to a secluded area in the building.

A soul harvesting envoy had just thrown a soul into a cage, and it was just about to leave, but as it was passing by a corner, a hand suddenly shot out like lightning, grabbing onto them before dragging them into the darkness.

There was another soul harvesting envoy behind them, and from their perspective, it looked as if their companion had just vanished into a dark corner all of a sudden.

As the soul harvesting envoy was passing by the corner, they looked inside to discover that it was a dead end, and there was nothing inside with the exception of a dusty, red cauldron sitting on the ground.

The soul harvesting envoy murmured something to itself, then continued onward, quickly putting the matter out of its mind entirely.

Inside the internal space of the Yama Cauldron, the soul harvesting envoy was bound and immobilized by streaks of black light that resembled chains, and there was an enraged look on its face as it let loose a string of strange sounds that were extremely unpleasant to the ears, resembling the wailing of a ghost late at night, or the sound of countless crawling centipedes.

"Can you understand what it's saying?" Han Li asked as he turned to Weeping Soul, and the latter shook her head with a wry smile.

"How about you?" Han Li asked as he turned to Sun Chongshan.

"I know some underworld text, but not much, and I don't understand it in its spoken form," Sun Chongshan replied with a shake of his head.

"It looks like we have no choice but to search its soul. That way, we'll at least be able to see its memories, even if we can't understand what's being said in them," Weeping Soul said, then pressed a palm down onto the soul harvesting envoy's head.

A pained look appeared on the soul harvesting envoy's face, and it began to shriek in agony, while its body rapidly withered away.

Shortly thereafter, Weeping Soul released its lifeless body, then turned to Han Li as she said in an elated manner, "It's just as you guessed, Master! The underworld sends ghostly generals to the city every once in a while to escort souls to the underworld, and it looks like they should be scheduled to arrive in the next few days!"

"Good," Han Li replied with a sigh of relief. "How will those ghostly generals be coming here?"

"They'll be coming from that dark cloud, and a spatial passageway will open up for them to transport the souls in the city through," Weeping Soul replied, and Han Li nodded in response.

A thought then occurred to him, and he asked, "By the way, is the absence of this soul harvesting envoy not going to be noticed?"

"There's no need to worry about that," Weeping Soul assured. "There are many soul harvesting envoys, and they're only considered to be fringe members of the underworld, so no one will bother to count them."

With that, Han Li's concerns were put to rest, and over the next few days, they remained in the Yama Cauldron's internal space to learn the language of the underworld from Sun Chongshan.

The soul harvesting envoy that Weeping Soul had searched the soul of had also had a basic grasp of underworld text, and that, in conjunction with Sun Chongshan's lessons, allowed Han Li and Weeping Soul to quickly develop an elementary understanding of the language.

Seven days later, the dark cloud above the city suddenly began to ripple violently, and a burst of tremendous energy fluctuations came surging out of it, causing the entire crimson space to tremble and quiver.

Countless black runes flew out of the dark cloud to form a black vortex, at the center of which was a black passageway that looked as if it were leading into the darkest chasm under the heavens.

A black-robed figure that was holding a black club came flying out of the passageway, and compared with the soul harvesting envoys, their facial features were much closer to those of a regular human.

The soul harvesting envoys in the city had already gathered in front of the dark cloud with the souls that they had detained.

"Time to go!" the black-robed ghostly general declared, and the soul harvesting envoys immediately cast the detained souls forward.

A burst of suction force surged out of the black passageway to suck in all of the souls, and it didn't take very long as there weren't many souls being detained in the city.

The ghostly general entered the passageway after the souls, and the passageway flashed momentarily before quickly closing, but right before it closed fully, two indistinct shadows flew into it in a flash.

Han Li and Weeping Soul felt a burst of tremendous force acting upon them, wrenching them in all directions, but they gritted their teeth and endured in silence.

Only after quite some time did the surrounding forces dissipate, and Han Li and Weeping Soul found themselves in a black space, standing before an enormous abyss.

The abyss was tens of thousands of feet wide and extended as far as the eyes could see in either direction.

Plumes of black mist were constantly rising up from within the abyss, giving off an extremely potent glacial aura and a peculiar type of ghostly qi.

In contrast with normal ghostly qi, the ghostly qi here was remarkably pure, and it was also much heavier and more viscous, almost resembling a liquid.

"Is this the underworld?" Weeping Soul murmured to herself as she summoned the Yama Cauldron, and it immediately swiveled around to point toward the bottom of the abyss.

Weeping Soul's eyes lit up slightly upon seeing this, yet right as she was about to spring into action, Han Li grabbed onto her arm to stop her.

"Hold on a second."

"What's wrong, Master?" Weeping Soul asked.

Instead of looking at her, Han Li was scrutinizing the abyss up ahead with a cold sneer.

"Did you think you'd be able to fool me? Show yourself!"

An alarmed look appeared on Weeping Soul's face upon hearing this, and even after being alerted by Han Li's words, she was still unable to detect anything.

"Oh? You must possess tremendous spiritual sense if you were able to detect my presence."

A voice that was as unpleasant as the sound of metal grating on metal rang out from up ahead, and it was speaking the language of the True Immortal Realm.

A cloud of black mist then appeared up ahead, and it rapidly swelled to transform into a black cloud that was tens of thousand of feet in size in the blink of an eye.

A chorus of ghastly shrieks rang out from within the dark cloud, striking Han Li and Weeping Soul's souls like a barrage of intrusive arrows.

Han Li and Weeping Soul hurriedly channeled their spiritual sense to protect their souls from the cacophony of ghastly shrieks ringing out up ahead, following which Han Li swept a sleeve through the air, releasing a flurry of golden lightning that scattered much of the black cloud.

As a result, it was revealed that there was an army of around two thousand to three thousand ghostly entities lurking within the cloud, and all of them were identical in appearance and aura to the one that Weeping Soul had devoured.

They were also wielding the same black tridents, and all of them were arranged in an orderly and well-organized formation.

Han Li paid no heed to these ghostly creatures as he focused a wary gaze on the figure at the forefront of the ghostly army.

It was a middle-aged man who appeared no different from the average human, but his eyes were glowing with a harrowing, crimson light, and he was observing Han Li and Weeping Soul with a sinister grin on his face.

Draped over his body was a black robe that appeared almost illusory in nature, and all types of fearsome, ghostly shadows were constantly poking their bodies out from beneath his robe. Strapped to his back was a black spear that was around ten feet in length, and it was giving off an aura so formidable that even Han Li was forced to regard it as a serious threat.

"Who are you, and why are you hiding here? Were you planning to ambush us?" Han Li asked.