All that was left was the empty forest path and the pounding of Blore's heartbeat in his ears.
"I've known him... maybe longer than I thought."
This realization made his heart sink suddenly, as if he had fallen into a bottomless abyss.
Just as he felt strange emotions growing, there was a sudden crackling sound above his head.
Throughout the branches of the black firs, thousands of flower buds simultaneously broke free from the bark.
Those enchanting black and purple petals completed the entire process from germination to decay the moment they opened, and the corrupted juice fell like tears.
A few drops splashed onto the back of his hand, instantly burning a black, star-shaped scar - the pain made him clearly realize that the scene before him was no illusion.
His eyes were fixed on the two familiar figures in front of him.
Father Brolian's palm was naturally resting on Wushanqing's shoulder, and the slightly bent arc of his knuckles was a gentle gesture that he had rarely seen since he was a child.
At this moment, they were standing among the rotten petals falling all over the sky. The flowers that should have been brightly colored were decomposing into dark red flocs in the air, like a strange blood rain.
Wu Shanqing suddenly raised his head and chuckled, and his father followed suit.
The smile lines at the corners of Blore's eyes relaxed, that was the most relaxed expression on his father's face that Blore remembered.
Their laughter intertwined in the scent of rotten flowers, and the hems of their clothes were lifted into the same arc by the fishy wind.
Blore felt a throbbing in his temple.
He remembered that Bai Di and Ma Tuan always strolled across the training ground arm in arm, and Nan Song would suddenly jump on their backs and make them laugh.
At that time, I was standing in the corridor wiping the long sword, and the blade reflected their overlapping reflections - just like the overlapping corners of my father and Wu Shanqing's clothes now.
Corrupted petals clung to Blore's eyelashes, and he blinked them away.
His right hand instinctively grasped the weapon at his waist, but when his fingertips touched the cold metal, he forced himself to release it.
Now is not the time to pursue this, he told himself. His father and Wu Shanqing were standing in too relaxed a posture, as relaxed as the last illusion of safety before the storm.
Blore was brainstorming when a force on the surface pushed him away.
Some stumbled backward, their backs slamming into the cold wall.
The hard touch made him shudder all over, and a piercing chill ran down his spine - the chill was too real, so real that he felt it was real.
"What the hell is this place?" He felt very strange.
"Why did I see those things just now? Do these things have anything to do with Yu Si bringing me and my friends here?"
He wanted to think about this possibility seriously, but his mind came up blank.
But the cold air continued to rise.
Only then did he realize that he was in a huge tomb.
The cold air, carrying a rotten smell, filled my nostrils, and my lungs felt like they were stuffed with a handful of crushed ice.
The surroundings were horribly quiet, even the beating of my own heart seemed deafening.
The surrounding environment has changed.
No longer are the swaying shadows of trees in the black forest, no longer are the rusty chains wrapped around the tree trunks, and no longer are the thick, continuous, gorgeous and luxurious clouds in the sky that are suffocating.
Those scenes in memory are like erased charcoal drawings, leaving only vague traces.
Instead,
A huge tomb appeared.
The walls of the tomb are covered with translucent ice coffins, each of which contains a vague human figure frozen in it. Their bodies are distorted to varying degrees, some seem to be stretched, and some seem to be kneaded into strange postures by some force.
Blore could feel his breath condensing into white mist in the cold air.
Fine frost flowers condensed on the surface of the ice coffin, flickering strangely in the dim light, as if these frozen bodies were still slowly wriggling.
In the center of the tomb, there flows a solid lava river.
Yes, solid state.
The magma had an obsidian-like texture, but its surface was covered in dark red cracks, like rage that was forcibly cooled.
It was not completely still, but was wriggling at an extremely slow pace, like a sleeping giant snake.
Heat seeped from its cracks, distorting the surrounding air, but was suppressed by some greater force, preventing it from truly boiling.
"That doesn't make sense..." Blore muttered.
He tried to move forward as carefully as possible on the raised black stones on the lava river. Every step he took felt like he was stepping on the back of some living creature. The stones under his feet would occasionally tremble slightly, as if they would wake up at any time.
Finally, after circling left and right, he seemed to have reached the bottom of this space - a huge circular space with a dome so high that it was almost hidden in the darkness, and in the center of the ground, grew a hideous giant tree.
The tree was pitch black, its trunk as thick as an ancient dragon's, covered with rugged, scaly bark, and its roots dug deep into the ground, like the blood vessels of some living creature.
What is most surprising is its branches - they are not ordinary branches, but twisted, forked, dragon-horn-like structures, with sharp ends shining with a metallic luster.
His pupils suddenly contracted and a slight sound came from his throat.
"What the hell?"
But a huge pressure quickly poured down.
His mental picture poured out uncontrollably - the ten-sided coffin on the thousand-foot cliff was currently being eroded by some indescribable mutation.
The vines that were originally wrapped around the sarcophagus were strangely metallizing, with honeycomb-like holes appearing on the surface and a sticky black substance oozing out.
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