【 New book just released its rating, it will increase later, so feel free to read! 】
【 Dark + Traditional Cultivation! The protagonist follows the Deviant Dao, not benevolent! The ride begins, enter with caution!!! 】
This cave was not a place for the living.
Lu Li froze in place, barely able to breathe. He gasped like a dead fish, and his vision went black.
"...San Niu? What did you see?" Lu Ya whispered from behind.
Lu Li didn't answer, pressing his hand tightly over his mouth to keep himself from crying out, his body trembling uncontrollably.
His gaze was fixed on what lay ahead.
It was a massive grotto, with a ceiling like monstrous fangs, and damp walls covered in eerie green moss that emitted a cold phosphorescence.
But what first caught his eye were the dense piles of corpses, and the monsters crouched over them.
Hundreds of Spirit Monsters with greenish skin, short and twisted, with exposed fangs and eyes as black as ink.
They lay or sat, sprawled out on the ground, holding bone knives wrapped in animal hide, their blades gleaming with sticky black light.
The ground was covered with human remains: stark white bones, severed limbs, some still with scraps of flesh and black blood clinging to them.
The air was thick with the stench of decay and blood, as if rotting corpses had permeated the entire mountain interior.
Lu Li's throat churned, and he nearly vomited on the spot. He clamped his hand over his mouth, tears silently streaming from the corners of his eyes.
And just then, he saw it—the woman hanging on the wall.
It was a woman in white robes, her limbs nailed to the rock face with thick animal bones, her body spread-eagled.
Her clothes were long torn, a gruesome wound on her abdomen exposing her internal organs, her intestines dangling like earthworms in mid-air, still subtly wriggling.
But she was still alive.
Her body trembled slightly, and beneath her disheveled hair, a pair of blood-red eyes stared, her teeth clenched, as if she were desperately enduring intense pain.
Lu Li watched as a scrawny goblin staggered forward, holding a bone knife, and, like carving meat, slowly cut a piece of flesh from her thigh, then stuffed it into its fanged mouth, chewing, with juice splattering.
Lu Li felt his throat churn, nearly vomiting. But he didn't dare; he didn't even dare to blink.
Lu Ya's voice asking a question came from behind, yet it sounded like it came from another world.
He wanted to cry, but he clamped down on himself. He couldn't make a sound. He knew they shouldn't have come; they should have left long ago.
But they were already inside.
...
This mountain was called Demon Head Mountain.
The old villagers said that for eleven months of the year, the mountain fog was so thick that one couldn't see their hand in front of their face; only this month was it lighter, and only for a few days.
Some had seen white-robed ghosts emerge from the fog, and others claimed to have seen flickering lights deep in the forest, like foxfire or Dark Lantern . Still others said this mountain was the main base of the Spirit Monsters.
Someone said that ten years ago, a hunter found a purple-leaf Immortal Plant in the mountain and exchanged it for money for a coffin.
But after that, he went mad, howling for three days and three nights at the village entrance, finally hanging himself on a locust tree.
The things in the fog, who knew if they were immortals or ghosts.
But no one could say for sure, because no one had ever truly returned alive from the depths of Demon Head Mountain.
Lu Yuan, Lu Ya, and Lu Li were the "Three Oxen" as the villagers commonly called them.
The eldest, Lu Yuan, was sensible early on, the tallest and strongest, so he was called "Big Ox"; Lu Ya was the second, quick-mouthed and timid, known as "Second Ox"; the youngest, Lu Li, was only eleven, his bones so light he was like a chick, and everyone who saw him shook their heads, saying this child wouldn't survive the winter.
The three brothers' grandfather was sick, too sick to even leave the house, coughing blood and shivering all day, reduced to a mere skeleton.
The village said it was "old wounds choking the soul," and some said it was "earth Qi entering the bones"; either way, he wouldn't live much longer.
If they didn't find an Immortal Plant soon, the old man would die.
So, they secretly climbed Demon Head Mountain during these few days when the fog was thin.
"You say, on this mountain... is there really an Immortal Plant?" Lu Li had asked that day.
Lu Yuan didn't turn back, only whispered, "I don't know. But we have to go up."
The night was too cold, the mountain too high, their clothes worn out, their knuckles chapped from the cold. They were like three emaciated, skin-and-bone worms, crawling upwards bit by bit.
Until they discovered that cave entrance.
The cave was in a hollow on the cliff face, chillingly dark.
Wind whistled out of the cave, carrying an indescribable stench, like rotting meat, or the musty smell from under wet mud.
Even stranger, the wind carried a certain high-pitched shriek, like someone laughing in the deep night, or something gnashing its teeth.
"Let's rest a bit, go inside to shelter from the wind." Lu Yuan panted, the first to grip the edge of the cave. After glancing inside, he squeezed in.
The cave entrance narrowed sharply further in, barely allowing a child to crawl through.
The three adjusted their order at the entrance: Lu Li, being small, went first. Lu Ya followed, and Lu Yuan brought up the rear.
Their small bodies squeezed through the cave, only able to wriggle forward along the cold, damp rock walls, their limbs bent like 'earthworms'.
Their breathing was quickly swallowed by the echoes, leaving only the sound of fabric scraping against rock, softly rustling in the darkness.
"...There's wind in here, which means it's not a dead end." Lu Yuan whispered, his voice echoing slightly from ahead, "Maybe... there really is a path inside."
Lu Ya's face was already pressed against Lu Li's heels, his vision completely black, unable to move. He tried not to think about the overwhelming stench and dampness, only hearing his own heartbeat, like it was pounding on stone.
Behind them, the mountain wind howled into the cave entrance.
In the wind, some sound seemed to be subtly mixed in—
Not a human voice, but not the wind either.
It was as if something had been waiting for them in the cave for a long time.
The three crawled forward, their palms pressed against the cold rock walls, their fingertips already raw, blood and mud intertwined. There was no light in the cave, only their heavy breathing echoing.
"Ahead... there's light." Lu Li suddenly whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
After an unknown period of crawling, a glimmer of light appeared ahead. It wasn't sunlight, but a dead white fluorescence, seeping eerily through the cracks, like the faint glow in a dead person's eyes.
"There's a chance!" Lu Li whispered excitedly, "There must be something extraordinary inside."
He quickened his pace, scrambling forward with hands and feet, until he poked his head through a crack in the rock, almost tumbling out of the cave entrance. He got stuck at the edge of the cave, frozen.
Then, Lu Li saw the scene before him.
It wasn't the legendary Immortal Plant, nor any Opportunity; it was a Hell of silence and blood.
At that moment, he finally understood.
That wasn't a "cave."
That was a well.
A well leading deep into the mountain's core.
At the bottom of the well, there was no immortal.
No plant.
But Hell.
