Chapter Twenty-Nine: Into the Abyss

“Hand it over!”

Su Li’s bloodstained right hand, burning with searing hatred and the last dregs of her explosive strength, sliced through the air like an eagle’s claw, tearing towards Lin Mo’s throat. Her fingers sliced sharp as blades, carrying that peculiar, mind-bending wave unique to the Sect of Enchanting Desire—even grievously wounded, the strike remained lethal.

Lin Mo had only just escaped the maddening pull of the Void Scripture’s fragments; stiffness and loss of control still lingered in his body. As that deathly hand closed in, he could feel the icy intent to kill coming from her fingertips, and a strange, cold fragrance in the air.

No escape!

At that very instant between life and death—

A thunderous crash!

It was as if the ancient backbone of the Immortal Burial Abyss had been shattered by an invisible giant hammer. A suffocating, heart-pounding tremor erupted without warning from the depths of the earth, from every wall of stone around them.

The massive stone beam beneath them reeled and rocked like a rotten, solitary boat in a storm. The thick, slick moss underfoot was instantly shaken loose and flung into the air. Bone fragments scattered across the beam bounced and tumbled like beans in a hot pan. Overhead, the rock ceiling groaned, sending down a hail of gravel and centuries-old dust.

A sharp, splintering crackle split the air—stone snapping like brittle glass. Behind the two, at the root where the beam met the cliff wall, a web of gaping fissures spread in a heartbeat. Rock that had withstood countless millennia of deathly erosion and the shifting of earth veins now splintered, crushed inch by inch under an overwhelming force.

The stone beam was about to collapse.

After untold ages, battered by the wrathful strike of the old ancestor of the Green Wood and the shockwaves of the Abyss’s core mutation, the ancient structure had finally reached its end.

Su Li’s lethal strike at Lin Mo’s throat was abruptly broken off by the earth-shattering quake. Her body was flung helplessly aside. Instinctively, her uninjured right hand groped for the wall, but found only slick moss and loose, crumbling stone.

Lin Mo too was hurled into the air. The world spun; his ears rang with the roar of breaking stone and the howling of thick, swirling mist in the abyss below. Survival instincts drowned out all else. As his body was thrown from the beam, his left hand—overdrawn by the power of the “Reversed Seed”—snatched out, as if by reflex, and grabbed a jagged black rock jutting from a fissure.

The rough stone tore open his fingers, blood gushing forth—yet the downward pull was arrested by that desperate grip. His body slammed against the trembling, crumbling edge of the beam, his back wounds reopening. Darkness threatened to swallow him as he nearly lost consciousness.

“Help me…!”

A desperate, terror-stricken scream pierced the din of shattering rock and stabbed into Lin Mo’s ears.

It was Su Li.

Fighting dizziness and pain, Lin Mo twisted his head.

He saw Su Li’s body, like a severed kite, plummeting towards the abyss below, where black deathly mist churned. Her shattered leg dragged limply; her sound right hand clawed futilely at the air, her eyes wide with mortal terror and unwillingness. The hideous wound at her temple had torn open again, blood mingling with the ashen miasma, dyeing her pale cheek red.

She was but a hand’s breadth from falling away from the beam, into the abyss that devoured all.

Time froze.

To save her, or not?

She was of the Sect of Enchanting Desire! She had used her spirit to spy on him, stolen the fragments, attacked him mercilessly. She was the enemy!

A cold voice screamed in Lin Mo’s mind: Let her go! Let her die! The Abyss will swallow her, and your troubles end!

And yet…

As Su Li’s body teetered at the mist’s edge, Lin Mo’s pupils seemed to reflect the ruined cliffs of the Ghost Wailing Ravine—the crashing boulder, Zhou Xiaoxiao’s resolute back as she shoved him into the abyss… and the ghastly wound at this woman’s brow.

A surge—indescribable, furious, resentful, and sharing in her desperate plight—burst through the icy calculation in his heart.

“Damn it!”

A hoarse, agonized roar, mingled with fury and unwillingness, exploded from Lin Mo’s throat like a wounded beast.

No thought—only pure instinct.

His bloodied left hand, hooked into the rock, erupted with strength beyond its limit. Twisting his waist, he forced his battered body to pivot on the trembling edge. His right hand—corroded by the Soul-Eating Leech, its wounds suppressed by the Reversed Seed’s vitality—shot out like lightning, heedless of consequence, grasping for Su Li’s falling form below.

His fingers splayed, slicing the air.

He caught her!

Cold, slick skin met his fingertips—her ankle, beneath the tattered hem of her dress.

The immense force of her fall wrenched at him. The rock his left hand clung to shuddered; his finger bones groaned, almost breaking under the strain. His body, stretched between two terrible forces, hung over the abyss—his right hand gripping Su Li’s ankle, bearing both their weight and the pull of the fall.

Su Li’s fall jolted to a halt. She looked up in horror, through the swirling mist, and saw the blood-drenched, ferocious youth clinging to the beam—his eyes aflame with a relentless, almost maddened resolve, and the grimness of one prepared to perish together.

“Grab the wall!” Lin Mo spat through gritted teeth, every syllable flecked with blood. His right hand, bearing the brunt of the weight, felt his arm’s wounds tear open, dead flesh peeling back, agony searing through to the bone.

Su Li snapped awake—survival instincts surging. Her left hand clawed frantically at the cold, slippery wall below. Her nails tore and peeled away, but the wall was slick as grease, sheathed in thick moss—there was nothing to hold.

“It’s too smooth—I can’t!” her voice broke with despair.

Above them, stone shattering thundered even louder. The base of the massive beam, already cracked, finally gave way.

Like a mountain falling.

A monstrous black boulder, the size of a house, tore free from the wall and plunged down, aimed straight at where Lin Mo and Su Li hung.

The shadow of death swept over them like a giant’s hand.

“Let go! Let go, you’ll die!” Su Li shrieked as the boulder howled down.

Let go?

Lin Mo’s bloodshot eyes fixed on the falling stone, then flicked down to Su Li’s terrified, bloodstained face.

Let her go? Let her die? And then he too would be crushed to pulp?

No!

Backed into a corner, a savage, bone-deep ferocity roared to life in him, mixing with the cold pulse of the Void Scripture’s fragment and the sinister vitality of the Reversed Seed, exploding inside him like a volcano.

“Up—get up there!”

A roar not quite human. His left hand, hooked in the rock and streaming blood, unleashed its final, greatest strength. His fingers shattered with a sickening crack. At the same time, his body swung upward, all remaining strength wrung from his waist and core. His right hand, still gripping Su Li’s ankle, swung her like a meteor, hurling her up towards the beam and away from the falling stone.

Su Li felt a massive force wrench her body skyward, sending her rolling across the beam’s inner side.

Lin Mo, having burnt out his last strength, felt his body go boneless, unable to hold on. His left hand, slick with blood and torn flesh, slipped from the jagged rock.

The boulder, howling with death, was nearly upon him.

Below—an endless abyss, black mist churning.

Was this the end?

Lin Mo’s mind went blank, filled only with the shriek of wind and the roar of the falling stone.

As he fell from the beam’s edge—

A cold, savage energy erupted, mingled with a sinister, chilling vitality, from deep within the cold “stone” in his chest, and the Reversed Seed latched to it—unleashed together as if a furious beast had been truly provoked.

This time, there was no conflict, no gnawing discord. At the brink of death, as his body lost all control, the two strange powers—of the same origin, or at least now sharing one aim—achieved, for a fleeting instant, a wild, destructive synchronization.

A thin but resilient aura, interwoven of gray and green light, enveloped Lin Mo’s falling body.

His eyes, once dim, flashed with a cold, indifferent gleam that seemed not his own. His right hand, which had just hurled Su Li to safety and now hung limp, moved as if guided by some other will—lashing out to the side with unerring precision.

His fingers, red-hot, drove into a crack in the nearby wall exposed by the falling boulder, clawing deep into the mossy crevice.

The fall was arrested again, his body hanging like a painting from the crumbling beam’s edge.

Above, the house-sized stone swept past his back, close enough to brush his clothes, and plunged into the swirling abyss below. The blast of air struck him like a hammer.

Blood spewed from his mouth.

The crash of the boulder echoed dully from the depths, like the roar of a beast.

Dangling from the wall, Lin Mo gasped for breath—each inhalation a fresh agony in his battered organs. His right hand was buried in the icy crevice, gray-green light sheathing his arm, keeping the slimy moss at bay, though wracking him with tearing pain. His left hand hung limp, flesh and bone in tatters.

He forced his head up.

Not far above, on the beam’s inner side, Su Li was struggling to rise from the cold, slippery moss. Staring at Lin Mo, bloodied and suspended from the cliff, her face was twisted with shock, confusion, and an emotion too complex to name. She tried to speak; her lips moved, but no sound came.

Then—

Another, even more violent tremor shook the ground. The wall to which Lin Mo clung groaned, cracks spreading before his eyes, shards of stone raining down.

This place wasn’t safe either.

A savage gleam flashed in Lin Mo’s eyes. The urge to survive overwhelmed everything. He spared Su Li no further glance, scanning the mist-draped wall below.

There, not far down, the broken end of the beam jutted out in a mass of jagged rocks, half-shrouded in mist—perhaps two or three fathoms from where he hung.

He’d have to risk it.

Lin Mo drew a ragged breath, gray-green light flickering in his chest. He released his grip on the crack.

His body plunged into the mist again—but this time, he twisted in midair, like a hunting leopard, and lunged for the ragged outcrop.

He crashed into the cold, sharp stones, the impact turning his vision black. Several ribs snapped with a sickening crack; his back wounds burst open, hot blood flooding out.

Curled amid the rocks, Lin Mo convulsed uncontrollably, each movement lancing him with agony. Blood streamed from mouth, nose, and back, pooling and cooling on the stone beneath him.

For now… he was safe?

He rolled his eyes upward, towards the collapsed ledge above. Through the swirling mist, he could just make out the broken beam’s outline, and Su Li’s figure, still sprawled, staring down in his direction.

Lin Mo tried to twist his mouth into a cold smile, but only spat up blood. He struggled, trying to rise from the jumble of sharp rocks.

But just as he braced himself—

A faint, ancient, mournful wave—like a call—rose from deep within the rocks beneath him, with no warning at all.

That wave… seemed to echo the lingering will of the “Defy Immortals, Slay Kings” blood inscription from the beam above.