"Alive." Jared nodded.
What Jared said drained the color from Gwendolyn''s face in an instant.
"Aldric... is still alive? Still alive?" Her voice shook. Her eyes locked on Jared''s chest, like something terrible might tear its way out of him at any second.
Jared closed his eyes and carefully searched for that faint presence inside his body.
It really wasing from the Heart of the Northern Abyss.
No. It wasing from a wisp of remnant soul buried deep inside the Heart of the Northern Abyss.
It was too weak, so weak it was almost impossible to notice.
But it was there. It was real, like a me seed buried deep in ashes, something that could re back up again with the slightest stir.
"It''s not alive in the full sense."
Jared chose his words carefully. "It''s a wisp of remnant soul, sealed inside the Heart of the Northern Abyss. When I absorbed the pearl, it fused into my body with it."
Gwendolyn pressed a hand to Jared''s chest.
Ice-blue divine radiance poured into his body, trying to find where that remnant soul was hiding.
But after her divine radiance made a full circuit through Jared''s meridians, it found nothing at all.
"I can''t find it." Gwendolyn''s brows drew tight. "It''s hidden too deep."
Jared opened his eyes, his gaze heavy.
"It''s near my spirit well, lying dormant. It isn''t a threat for now, but I can tell... it''s waiting for something."
"Waiting for what?" Gwendolyn pressed.
Jared shook his head.
He didn''t know.
But his instincts kept warning him that whatever that remnant soul was waiting for, it wasn''t going to be anything good.
"We have to get out of here."
Jared got to his feet and worked the stiffness out of a body that still hadn''t fully loosened up.
After absorbing the Heart of the Northern Abyss, most of his injuries had already healed.
The power moving through him now was on apletely different level from what it had been before he came here.
Gwendolyn rose as well, her gaze sweeping across the surroundings.
The Sea of the Dead was still surging, and ghostly green mes roared at the bottom of the basin.
Under Jared''s chaotic force, the three skeletal hands had been badly damaged and had withdrawn for the moment into the depths of the Sea of me.
But there was no telling when they mighte tearing back out again.
"Do we go back the way we came?" Jared asked.
Gwendolyn shook her head. "We''ve already used up the Ice-Seal Talisman. There''s no way for us to cross the Sea of the Dead again. And..."
She lifted her eyes to the three moons hanging in the sky, her voice dropping low. "I can feel it. The Ancient Battlefield is waking up. The longer we stay here, the more dangerous it gets."
She took out the jade slip and projected the map again.
This time, her finger came down on a spot at the edge of the map.
"There''s a hidden passage here. The records left behind by the ancestors of the Frost Deity Branch say this hidden passage leads straight to the bottom of Voidreturn Lake. We won''t need to pass through the Sea of the Dead again." Jared looked over the route marked on the map, then gave a short nod.
"Move."
The two of them left the lone isle and sped along the edge of the basin, heading for the direction marked on the map.
All around them, the bones started stirring again.
The bone dragon, the ancestral remains of the celestials, and the ancestral remains of the demon progenitors that had retreated earlier seemed to sense the change in the aura around the two of them and woke from their slumber once more.
They didn''t attack right away. They stayed far behind, trailing them, the ghostly green mes in their eye sockets flickering like they were weighing something.
"They''re wary of the Heart of the Northern Abyss inside you."
Gwendolyn spoke under her breath. "Aldric was one of the most powerful beings in the Ancient Battlefield. His aura naturally suppresses these bones."
Jared said nothing and only picked up his pace.
He could tell those remains didn''t daree close for now, but they wouldn''t keep hesitating forever.
The moment they pushed past their dread of Aldric''s aura, they would swarm in. After moving through the mass of bones for about 1 hour, the two of them finally found the entrance to the hidden passage marked on the map.
It was a concealed cave, and a massive skeleton had been blocking the entrance. Gwendolyn shoved the skeleton aside.
A rotten stench poured out of the cave, and in the darkness ahead, a flight of stone
steps could barely be seen stretching downward.
"This is it." Gwendolyn stepped into the cave first.
Jared went in right behind her.
The instant the two of them entered the cave, a deep rumble rolled out behind them. The massive skeleton Gwendolyn had pushed aside shifted back into ce on its own and sealed the entrance shut again.
The cave was pitch-ck.
A faint glow spilled from Gwendolyn''s white jade hairpin, barely lighting the few
steps right in front of them.
The stone steps were narrow, only wide enough for one person at a time.
Both walls were carved all over with ancient sigils. Under the hairpin''s weak light,
those sigils flickered softly and gave off a dim blue glow.
"These sigils..." Jared reached out and ran his hand over the carved marks on the wall.
"They''re the Frost Deity Branch''s
sealing sigils, Gwendolyn said
without turning around. "The
ancestors used them to seal off the
hidde passage so the things
the
Ancient Battlefield couldn''t get out
through here."
The two of them kept moving down the stone steps.
After about thirty minutes, the stairs finally came to an end.
A stone door stood ahead of them.
That stone door was covered in sigils too, denser and far moreplicated than the
ones carved into the cave walls.
At the very center of the stone door was a palm-shaped indentation.
A faint ice-blue radiance still lingered around its edges.
Gwendolyn pressed her hand into the indentation.
Ice-blue divine radiance poured from her palm and resonated with the sigils on the
stone door.
One sigil after another lit up, likemps being kindled, and the light grew brighter
and brighter.
Rumble...
The stone door slowly opened.
Beyond the door was the dark sapphireke.
At the bottom of the Voidreturn Lake.
The two of them stepped out through the stone door.
Behind them, it shut without a sound. The glow in the runes faded little by little, and before long the whole door blended back into the surrounding rock until there was no trace of it left.
The waterward pearl was still in Jared''s mouth, and that blue film spread over his
body again.
Gwendolyn had no need for the waterward pearl. She was an heir of the Frost Deity Branch. In thiske, the water moved around her like air.
The two of them swam toward theke''s surface.
They had gone less than 300 yards when Jared caught that something was off.
The water around them had turned thicker than before, as if something hidden in the dark was stirring the currents.
Deep at the bottom of theke, those two masses of golden radiance lit up again— brighter than when they came in, sharp enough to sting.
Return to the Void had awakened.
Not that half-awake state from before.
This time, it was fully awake.
Those two masses of golden radiance kept growingrger.
They kepting closer.
The entirekebed shook. The dark sapphire fake churned into violent surges and a massive vortex rose
from below, ripping up the surrounding rocks and silt and hurting them through the water.
Jared and Gwendolyn were dragged by the force of the vortex, their bodies thrown
off bnce in the current.
"Hold steady!"
Gwendolyn''s shout tore through the water, and ice-blue divine radiance burst out of her, freezing the currents around them into a great mass of ice.
The great mass of ice rocked hard inside the vortex, shuddering back and forth, but it held together. At least for the moment, it stopped them from being torn away. Then Return to the Void slowly rose out of the darkness at the bottom of theke.