Chapter 157: The Inescapable Nether Forest, Tianji Zi of Langya Pavilion
Chapter 157 – The Inescapable Nether Forest, Tianji Zi of Langya Pavilion
After violently cursing Zhang Bairen’s ancestors in his heart, Chen Changsheng ultimately had no choice but to brace himself and slowly wade toward the Zombie Horde.
As Chen Changsheng shifted his steps, tens of thousands of dead, milky eyes shifted in unison to follow him.
Pinned under the collective weight of so many unblinking corpses, even a weathered soul like Chen Changsheng couldn’t suppress the icy chill creeping up his spine.
Fortunately, the suffocating Zombie Horde made no move to tear him apart.
After the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, Chen Changsheng finally reached the source of the abyssal glow.
Staring down at a luminous vortex no larger than a washbasin, Chen Changsheng leaped straight into its maw without a shred of hesitation.
Whether a dragon’s den or a tiger’s lair lay waiting beyond this portal, he absolutely refused to linger in this cursed domain for a single breath longer.
……
Swish!
The suffocating buoyancy vanished in a flash, and Chen Changsheng’s boots planted firmly against solid earth.
Yet, having escaped one death-trap, Chen Changsheng found no joy in his survival—because a dead man was waiting to greet him.
Chen Changsheng: “…”
I may be a coffin peddler, but that doesn’t mean I want to trip over corpses every waking moment of my life. This is truly abysmal karma.
Muttering curses inwardly, Chen Changsheng strode toward the withered skeleton resting a few paces away.
Emerging from the vortex, Chen Changsheng found himself standing before an overwhelmingly dense, ancient forest.
At the threshold of this gloomy timberland stood a heavily weathered stone stele, and nestled quietly at its base was the withered skeleton.
The “dead man” Chen Changsheng had complained about was none other than these sun-bleached bones.
“Senior, the coffin may be a bit plain, but my hands are tied.”
“You haven’t left a single spirit artifact behind to cover the toll, and I simply cannot run my undertaking business at a loss!”
“Please, just make do with it.”
After properly burying the withered skeleton beside the stele, Chen Changsheng unhurriedly turned his attention to the archaic text carved into the stone.
“Nether Forest: entry is permitted, escape is denied.”
“To seize a sliver of survival, one must venture into the gluttonous heart of the woods.”
“However, Demon Beasts run rampant within the shadows. Those without peerless divine abilities will undoubtedly be devoured.”
“This cursed domain is an unpredictable void, its topography shifting and distorting with the passing of each day. I exhausted six millennia of vital essence, yet I could only force my way forward three thousand paces.”
“Alas, with my lifespan crumbling to ash, I ultimately sat in meditation and perished here.”
“I carve this stele to deliver a final warning to future generations: under no circumstances should you ever set foot within this hollow hell—Tianji Zi.”
Running his thumb over the signature, Chen Changsheng stroked his chin and muttered aloud.
“Tianji Zi… isn’t this the founding patriarch of the Langya Pavilion?”
“According to the ancient annals of the Zifu Holy Land, Tianji Zi tore across the heavens ten thousand years ago.”
“His divinations never missed a single karmic thread. Mastering the secrets of the cosmos and the earth, he was universally hailed as the supreme intellect of a ten-millennia epoch.”
“Two thousand years after establishing the Langya Pavilion, he vanished without a trace. So, he buried himself in this forsaken void!”
With a sigh, Chen Changsheng turned his gaze back to the freshly packed mound of earth beside him.
“Senior Tianji Zi, you were a sovereign existence who commanded the winds and clouds ten thousand years ago. The Nether Forest shouldn’t have been able to trap you so pathetically.”
“Exactly how monstrous are the Demon Beasts in this place, to render an absolute master like you completely powerless?”
Just as the words left his lips, the fabric of the surrounding environment violently blurred.
When the rippling space stabilized, Chen Changsheng found himself plunged deep within an unfamiliar tract of the forest. Tianji Zi’s grave mound was completely gone.
The sole anchor of familiarity was that weathered stone stele standing beside him.
Roar!
A frenzied, blood-curdling roar tore into Chen Changsheng’s ears as a massive bear, towering over a hundred feet tall, violently lunged at him.
Chen Changsheng: “…”
Violent Vajra Bear, an ancient primordial remnant.
Possessing the raw physical might to uproot mountains, it was a creature of innate savagery, its thick pelt completely impervious to water and fire.
The archaic records regarding the beast instantly surfaced within his ageless mind.
Faced with this sudden ambush, Chen Changsheng let out a deeply exasperated sigh, and then…
…he battered the Violent Vajra Bear into a bloody pulp with exactly three punches.
It was indisputable fact that the Violent Vajra Bear was a primordial terror, its strength utterly tyrannical. However, true strength is strictly relative.
Unlucky enough to cross paths with Chen Changsheng—the “enlightening mentor of a Heaven’s Mandate bearer”—being dismantled in three strikes was merely the result of the undertaker trying to conserve his energy.
After dealing with the ruined bear, Chen Changsheng immediately began probing the environment to verify several dark suspicions.
Because his instincts were screaming that the Nether Forest was a far more terrifying maw than he had initially anticipated.
……
Six hours later, Chen Changsheng descended from the canopy of a thousand-foot-tall ancient tree, his face dark as a storm cloud.
Having sensed the oppressive nature of the Nether Forest, he had dedicated those hours to thoroughly testing the laws governing this domain.
The experiments proceeded flawlessly, but the conclusions were a reality Chen Changsheng utterly abhorred.
Within the crushing airspace of the Nether Forest, the absolute zenith of flight was restricted to a mere hundred and fifty feet. Even burning his vast foundational Qi couldn’t push him an inch higher.
Yet, the absolute shortest trees in this cursed expanse started at a towering height of a hundred and fifty feet.
Furthermore, the Nether Forest possessed a ravenous gluttony for Divine Sense. No matter how tyrannical the mental probe, the moment it extended beyond a hundred and fifty feet, the forest would silently devour it.
Fortunately, Chen Changsheng’s current position sat atop a slight elevation. Consequently, he had ruthlessly chopped down every surrounding tree that obstructed his line of sight.
Six grueling hours of exerting his full physical prowess had only barely yielded a small clearing.
He had no choice; the dark timber here was practically as unyielding as divine iron.
Only then did Chen Changsheng finally catch a glimpse of the Nether Forest’s core.
The absolute center wasn’t terribly far from the stone stele—a mere span of three miles.
At his maximum velocity, Chen Changsheng could traverse that distance in twenty breaths. The agonizing reality, however, was the impenetrable wall of steel-hard ancient trees clogging the path.
Beyond the geographical nightmare, an untold number of terrifying Demon Beasts nested within that inner ring.
The aura bleeding from some of those alpha predators forced even Chen Changsheng to tread with extreme caution.
While breaching the Nether Forest’s core was a grueling trial, relying on his monstrous strength and ageless intellect, he could simply brute-force his way through given enough time.
But there remained one supreme, unsolvable paradox: the perpetual spatial shifting of the forest’s terrain.
Exactly how unfathomably vast the Nether Forest was, Chen Changsheng couldn’t even begin to guess.
When he had stood atop that hundred-and-fifty-foot stump, casting his gaze to the four cardinal directions, the suffocating timberline bled into infinity without a single visible boundary.
Today, he stood three miles from the center. Tomorrow, the spatial shift might throw him six miles away, or perhaps thirty miles deep into the rim.
As for the sheer luck of being randomly shifted directly into the core? Chen Changsheng didn’t even entertain such naive fantasies.
Tianji Zi had been imprisoned here for six millennia. With the terrain distorting once per day, the supreme intellect had endured over two million spatial shifts.
If Tianji Zi hadn’t struck gold across two million chances, Chen Changsheng highly doubted his own karmic luck would miraculously deliver him there anytime soon.
Grounding himself in this grim reality, Chen Changsheng sucked in a deep breath, his ageless gaze hardening as he stared into the oppressive darkness ahead.
“Three miles. Not impossibly vast, yet not a trivial stroll.”
“I refuse to believe that I, Chen Changsheng, cannot violently carve a path through such a meager distance.”
Tossing aside all hesitation, Chen Changsheng’s figure blurred into a streak of light, tearing his way deep into the dense, devouring timber.
……
Six hours later.
Boom!
Drenched head-to-toe in Demon Beast blood, Chen Changsheng was violently blasted backward out of the shadows.
Staring at the core region still exactly three miles out of reach, the corner of Chen Changsheng’s mouth twitched uncontrollably.
In this crushing moment, Chen Changsheng intimately understood how a supreme being like Tianji Zi had been buried alive here for six thousand years.
Because this hollow hell was fundamentally inescapable!