"Don't celebrate too soon; there's no telling what lies ahead." Lin Xue doused his enthusiasm with a bucket of cold water.
The two continued forward, crawling for another ten minutes before finally reaching the end of the duct. The end was a ventilation grate, through which they could observe the situation below.
The interior of the base was far larger than they had imagined. The massive space was divided into several levels, each serving a different function. Their ventilation grate was located on the second underground level; below them lay a long corridor flanked by laboratories. The walls of the laboratories were transparent, allowing them to see clearly inside.
Chen Hao witnessed a scene that filled him with fury.
Inside one laboratory, a black-robed cultist was pinning a man who looked like a civilian onto a stone slab, which was covered in bizarre runes. The cultist held a black dagger wrapped in black mist. He chanted some sort of incantation before plunging the dagger into the man's chest.
The man let out a blood-curdling scream as his body convulsed violently. A gray aura drifted out from his body, absorbed by the dagger. The man's face instantly turned ashen, his hair whitened, and his skin shriveled up, making him look like a withered log drained of all life force. A few seconds later, the man had been reduced to a desiccated corpse, which the black-robed cultist tossed aside like trash.
Chen Hao clenched his fists tightly. The blade of his Sword of Light trembled slightly, as if resonating with its master's fury.
"Stay calm." Lin Xue gripped Chen Hao's hand. "Our mission is to sabotage the core research, not to save people."
Chen Hao took a deep breath and nodded. He knew Lin Xue was right; rushing out to save them now would only alert the enemy and cause the mission to fail. But the anger in his heart surged like an erupting volcano, and he itched to leap down immediately and tear that black-robed cultist into a thousand pieces.
Lin Xue released her Shadow Cat Martial Soul. Her body merged with the shadows, rendering her nearly invisible. She gently pushed open the ventilation grate and dropped down silently, landing in the shadows of the corridor. Chen Hao followed closely behind, gripping his Sword of Light, his eyes warily scanning the surroundings.
At the end of the corridor stood a massive metal door, engraved with complex runes that swirled with black mist. A powerful energy fluctuation emanated from behind the door, sending a jolt of palpitations through Chen Hao's heart, as if some terrifying entity lurked within.
"The core area," Lin Xue's voice drifted from the shadows. "Behind that door is the core research zone."
"How do we get in?" Chen Hao asked.
Lin Xue carefully observed the door and noticed a groove on it, shaped like some sort of token. She pondered for a moment, then retrieved a black stone from her robes—it was an item they had scavenged from a black-robed cultist on the battlefield earlier, though they had never figured out its purpose.
She placed the black stone into the groove; the size was a perfect fit.
With a *click*, the runes on the door lit up, and the heavy door slowly swung open.
The sight behind the door left both Chen Hao and Lin Xue completely stunned.
It was a colossal circular hall, at least two hundred meters in diameter and over fifty meters high. In the center of the hall hovered a gigantic black sphere, suspended in mid-air and spinning ceaselessly.
The black sphere was riddled with cracks that seeped a dark red glow, resembling a heart on the verge of bursting.
Surrounding the sphere were dozens of black-robed cultists. They sat cross-legged, their hands forming seals as they chanted some sort of incantation.
Every pulse of the black sphere sent a tremor through the air in the hall. This wasn't a physical vibration, but a resonance at the soul level. Chen Hao felt his consciousness being seized by an invisible hand, dragging him toward the black sphere. It felt like a massive vortex, intent on devouring everything in its vicinity.
"Don't look at that sphere." Lin Xue's voice sounded in Chen Hao's ear, carrying a suppressed tremor. "It's affecting your mind."
Chen Hao viciously bit the tip of his tongue, the sharp pain snapping him back to his senses. He tore his gaze away, locking his eyes onto the walls surrounding the hall. The walls were carved with densely packed runes, different from the ones they had seen before—far more complex and ancient. Every rune seemed alive, writhing slowly across the wall and emitting a nauseating black mist.
"So this is what they're researching," Chen Hao whispered. "That black sphere... what exactly is it?"
Lin Xue didn't answer, but she retrieved a recording soul tool from her robes and began silently documenting everything in the hall. This was one of the tasks Su Chen had assigned her before their departure—to gather as much of the Void Cult's research data as possible and bring it back to the Heaven Dou Empire for the military and scholars to analyze.
Directly below the black sphere, at the very center of the hall, stood a figure.
This person wore a robe of a different style than the other black-robed cultists. It was a deep purple, its edges embroidered with silver runes that pulsed with a bizarre silver luminescence. He was tall but emaciated, resembling a bamboo pole wrapped in a robe. His face was mostly concealed by a hood, revealing only a pointed chin and a pair of cracked lips.
The figure raised his head, and Chen Hao finally got a clear look at his face.
It was a face one would never forget. His skin was pale to the point of being almost transparent, clearly revealing the blue veins beneath. His eyes were deeply sunken into their sockets; his irises were purple, devoid of any white, making the entire eyeball a solid purple. They looked like two purple gemstones, but within those gems lay no emotion—only endless apathy and madness.
"The Void High Priest." A hint of tension laced Lin Xue's voice. "According to intelligence, the Void Cult has twelve High Priests, every single one a powerhouse at the Titled Douluo level. This man... must be the one in charge of the Extreme North base."
Chen Hao's palms began to sweat. A Titled Douluo—that was the pinnacle of existence in the Soul Master world, and there weren't many on the entire continent. He was merely a four-ring Soul Ancestor. Facing a Titled Douluo was like an ant facing a giant dragon; they weren't even in the same league.
"Our mission isn't to fight him," Lin Xue said, seemingly reading Chen Hao's mind. "We just need to sabotage the core research. According to Lord Su Chen's analysis, that black sphere should be the nerve center of their entire operation. As long as we destroy it, the base's research will be completely paralyzed."
"How do we destroy it?" Chen Hao asked.
Lin Xue retrieved a small jade vial from her robes. Inside was a silver-white liquid that flowed slowly within the bottle, emitting a faint glow. This was a special potion developed specifically by the alchemists of the Heaven Dou Empire, capable of neutralizing the power of the Void and breaking down the structure of Void runes. As long as they splashed this potion onto the black sphere, the entire core research project would be destroyed.
"I'll do it," Chen Hao said, extending his hand.
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