327 Tunnels

Xukong carefully tried to read the runes but found most of them to not make much sense. A vast majority of them had been destroyed, and thus they could not really be read anymore. Lin Mu tried to read it as well and could only make out some basic words.

But even then, the uncomfortable feeling that he was feeling was not dissipating and was still the same. Thinking of a solution, Lin Mu started chanting the calming heart sutra and a few seconds later felt much better. The uncomfortable feeling could not affect him anymore.

"Let's see what is here, there's bound to be something if it can make me feel like this." Lin Mu said before walking ahead.

A few minutes later he could smell the foul stench in the air again. He saw that he had reached a point where the tunnel branched into multiple parts. There was one of them that was the biggest in size and was also giving out the feeling of discomfort, while one of the other branches was where the foul stench was coming from.

The remaining tunnels had no effect on him, and he didn't particularly find them unique.

"Which one do we head to first?" Lin Mu questioned.

"Hmm, let's go to the one that is the biggest one." Lin Mu decided after a few moments.

Lin Mu walked ahead and saw that the runes that were carved into the walls were much more degraded than the previous parts. He touched the walls and could feel they were steeped in that uncomfortable aura. But even then the main source of that was quite ahead.

It took him about five minutes to reach the end of the tunnel. This was where the uncomfortable aura was the strongest, nearly ten times as much as when he first felt it. But now Lin Mu could not proceed anymore, for there was a large wall in front of him. This wall also had runes that had deteriorated with time carved on it.

"Now what?" Lin Mu asked.

He touched the wall and could feel the uncomfortable aura behind it. He tried probing the wall with his spirit sense and realized that he could not penetrate it more than an inch.

"Hmm, seems like this is a gate of some kind. But looking at the runes carved on it, the opening mechanism for it has also broken due to the time." Xukong answered.

Lin Mu looked at the wall and felt unwilling to head back. But then an idea appeared in his mind. He triggered the third skill phase and walked ahead.

~Thud~

"Ouch!" Lin Mu winced.

Lin Mu recoiled from the collision and rubbed his head. He looked at his hands and saw that they were still blurry. He touched the wall with his hands and found them unable to penetrate through them.

"But how?" Lin Mu felt confused.

"Looks like there is a barrier or some kind behind the wall that's protecting it. It is probably one of the defensive mechanisms and was part of the main one, but the one that controlled the gate has been destroyed over time. But due to the method by which the gate was made, it is still blocked." Xukong answered.

~Sigh~

Sighing in defeat, Lin Mu thought of any other idea. He got the idea of using the fourth skill Fade, but knew that it was risky. He had no idea what was in front of him and now that his spirit sense could not pierce it either, he couldn't use the method that he had previously used.

Even if he used the skill anyway, while he would be able to bypass the wall, he didn't know what kind of place he would end up in. Who knows what kind of a trap existed behind it. Or there could even just be nothing there, and his entire effort could have been wasted.

"It's better to come back later since we don't know much about this place. There are still other tunnels that you haven't checked, perhaps there is an alternate path there." Xukong suggested.

Lin Mu thought over it and indeed found it better to not take a risk.

He tenured around and walked back to the place where the tunnel branched into the other tunnels and then chose another one of the tunnels. He walked ahead and soon reached another dead end. This time the tunnel in front of him had collapsed and there was no way to proceed ahead.

Lin Mu used his spirit sense and found it to easily penetrate it. But even after using all of his spirit sense, he couldn't find an opening behind it. The debris had covered the entirety of the tunnel behind it. Now here Lin Mu could use his third skill phase, but he didn't want to as he felt like there wouldn't be anything here.

He went back to the point of split and checked the other tunnels. Nearly all of them were blocked as well in different manners. Some were collapsed like the previous one, some simply ended in a wall, while some were flooded with water.

~Sigh~

Lin Mu was now standing at the fork again and was looking at the last tunnel he had not gone through. This was the tunnel that was filled with the foul stench and the one that Lin Mu had the least desire to head into.

Still not wanting to give up mid way, he gritted his teeth and headed inside. This tunnel was deeper than any other tunnels and was also the steepest. This tunnel was heading downwards and the more Lin Mu walked in the harder he found himself to breathe.

The stench was once again burning his eyes, and he decided to hold his breath in. Lin Mu had walked in nearly twice the distance he had than any other tunnels, and he finally saw a change. A wide opening appeared in front of him and the tunnels ended up in a wide open cave.

This was the place that had the vilest of stench. It was as if corpses had been rotting side here for a few months and an area of absolutely horrific conditions was created.