Chapter 949: Chapter 338: Message
The sky in the Netherworld is eternally dim.
The Qing Jiao Army hurried across the grey-black plains.
On the back of the black-blood paperman horse, Luo Si paused from healing his wounds, opened his eyes, and looked toward the horizon.
A hint of doubt flashed across his eyes.
“That’s the Water Burial Valley!” Ning Zhuo knew the location, as Sun Lingtong had been there before, but was intercepted nearby.
Ning Zhuo also showed a look of confusion—the scene before him was very different from his memory.
Thick black-grey mist rose from the valley, coalescing into a heavy, oppressive leaden cloud at low altitudes.
Two black hills looked like the skeletal remains of crouching giant beasts.
Ning Zhuo frowned, “Why do these two black hills seem much lower than I remember?”
The hills seemed like two giant beasts confronting each other, with a narrow yet unfathomable chasm torn in between—the entrance to the Water Burial Valley.
“Clearly, there has been a great battle here!” Luo Si said, transmitting thoughts.
Both he and Ning Zhuo showed a look of concern.
The former worried about the Grey Bone Elder, while the latter was concerned about Buddhist Doctor Meng Yaoyin.
As the distance decreased, the details of the grey-black mist became clearer.
Countless small, grey-white fibrous particles floated and drifted in the mist. They resembled the ash of burned paper or some type of fungal spores, silently rotating, emanating a scent mixed with decay, the stench of corpses, and a strong watery odor.
“This is the unique burial water of the Water Burial Valley. Ordinarily, it flows like streams and rivers within the valley,” Luo Si introduced with a heavy tone.
Sun Lingtong had never entered the valley, but Luo Si had been in and out many times and was quite familiar with the valley’s conditions.
Ning Zhuo remained silent, his heart growing more anxious, wishing he could enter the valley immediately to find his mother.
But he ultimately forced himself to endure, instead issuing orders for the whole army to be on guard and move slowly.
This action earned Luo Si a look of approval.
Having experienced several major events, Ning Zhuo’s military skills had surpassed those of ordinary people.
“You camp nearby, take good care of Qing Chi, and don’t let her get hurt again,” Ning Zhuo ordered. “We’ll be back soon.”
Qing Chi was still unconscious.
Unlike Luo Si, who had recovered quickly and could ride a horse by himself.
Ning Zhuo arranged for the Qing Jiao Army to camp temporarily near the entrance to the Water Burial Valley. He and Luo Si went to explore the valley together.
They finally reached the entrance.
The intense stench hit Ning Zhuo’s nose like a solid punch.
Ning Zhuo almost suffocated.
He quickly held his breath, letting Luo Si lead the way, following closely behind as they entered the Water Burial Valley together.
The valley’s mountain surfaces were covered with honeycomb-like holes, thick greasy moss, and many wet trails where snakes and insects had crawled.
“It used to be clear mountains and waters, with air at least quite fresh,” Luo Si sighed.
With the situation unclear, both chose to walk cautiously rather than fly into the air—making easy targets.
The ground wasn’t rocky or muddy but a clear path.
It was a swamp formed by the remnants of some destroyed ghost, rotten water grasses, sticky mud, and fragments of pale talisman paper mixed together.
The burial water was still being drawn up to the sky, turning into grey-black mist—the residual effect of spells after a fierce battle still influencing the surroundings.
But what kind of spell it was, Ning Zhuo could only tell it wasn’t a Water Element.
“There must have been a terrifying spell clash here!”
The further they ventured, the more rugged and abrupt the mountains on either side became. In the shrouding black-grey mist, they seemed like hideous ghosts that might pounce at any moment.
Both had already expanded their divine senses, activating detection spells.
Proceeding cautiously for several hundred steps, the gap between the mountain walls became wider.
Rounding a corner, they were greeted by a wide battlefield.
The ground was flat, half covered in heavy frost, chilling, the other half charred black, as if scorched by flames.
The foot of both mountains had spiderweb-like cracks interwoven. On the mountain walls, many twisted lines and scars were visible—it was hard to imagine what impact they had suffered.
“What are these?” Ning Zhuo squinted slightly, feeling a sinking sensation in his heart.
At the other end of the battlefield, he discovered many paperman remnants!
The two crossed the battlefield, and as they got closer, it became easy for the younger Ning Zhuo to recognize that these paperman scraps belonged to the paperman army of the White Paper Immortal City.
Continuing forward, they found the paperman remnants on the mountain path grew significantly more numerous.
The scattered paperman arms, legs, torn paper armor, and misshapen paper weapons mixed with mud and rubble formed a hair-raising paperman graveyard.
A moment later, they reached the middle of the Water Burial Valley.
The place had undergone major changes!
The once broad mountain path was now buried and blocked by a massive pile of broken rocks, forming a rocky heap.
Amidst the rubble lay several massive bodies, as large as mountains and badly damaged.
A large portion of a hundred-armed ghost god’s body was covered by the rocks, with over half of its hundred giant arms severed at the roots! Of the remaining dozens of arms, most were twisted and broken, hanging powerless.
The massive body was covered with deep claw marks that exposed bone, and blackened holes piercing front to back.
Its ferocious giant-horned head had already been separated, tossed far away.
Luo Si said solemnly, “This is the hundred-armed ghost god.”
He stared at the ghost god’s distant head, his gaze focused on its twisted expression.
The ghost god killed in battle was not the only one.