Chapter 259: The Eighteen Levels of Hell (II)

"This is the place. Shall we unlock the seal now?" asked the grand elder.

"What lies beneath the seal?" Yan Zhengnan replied.

After pondering for a moment, the grand elder answered, "It's merely a passageway for monitoring the Eighteen Levels of Hell. You can think of it as... a sightseeing elevator."

"Unlock it," Qing Yanzi calmly instructed.

The grand elder put away the Eight Trigrams plate and took out a scroll from his robes. After unrolling it, he began chanting in an ancient tone.

His enchanted power was slowly drawn out. The wisps of gray mist keeping the temple sealed began to stir, quiver, and flow. It then rapidly condensed into two three-

zhang

-tall humanoid "monsters."

Composed entirely of yin qi, they had no physical form. The triangular eyes on their heads glowed as they stared intently at the group.

As the ancient chant continued, the two ghost guardians buzzed lowly.

Mu Wanxuan and Xi Lian had already hidden behind Wang Sheng. Although Mu Wanxuan was clearly frightened, she still munched on sunflower seeds.

"Not good!" the grand elder exclaimed, and the group tensed immediately. Now wanting to keep them in suspense, he lowered his voice. "The guardians of this place say someone has forcibly broken in before. We don't know if the area inside has been damaged."

Qing Yanzi replied, "We'll know once we go in."

𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Frowning, Zhang Zikuang muttered, "Do they mean the cultivators who stormed the Small Nether Realm a thousand years ago?"

The other Daoist masters and monks remained silent. Since that disaster had implicated nearly every Daoist heritage, no one was in a position to comment.

The grand elder stepped forward. The two ghost guardians moved aside, and the group of Daoists and monks slowly entered the temple. As Mu Wanxuan passed through, the two guardians seemed to notice something. They slowly knelt down, bowed their heads, and shut their eyes tightly.

Choosing to ignore it, Wang Sheng just led his senior sister and the half-immortal fox into the temple, where they found half-meter-tall statues of the Small Nether Realm's immortals. The entire hall seemed untouched and spotless.

The two elders of the Hidden Earth Sect stepped forward, ignited the temple candles with their enchanted power, and bowed to the statues. Qing Yanzi also gave the statues formal Daoist salutes, and the others followed suit. Wang Sheng and Mu Wanxuan were no exception. However, when Mu Wanxuan offered a salute, about half the statues suddenly rotated and turned their backs, surprising everyone.

Are immortals secretly watching us right now? How else could the statues react this way? Then again, perhaps these statues have simply developed sentience.

The grand elder resumed chanting. Green light and streams of pure yin qi emerged from the gaps in the temple's stone floor. Aside from cultivators like Qing Yanzi and Wang Sheng, whose cultivation technique revolved around Pure Yang Qi, they could all refine and absorb the yin qi if given enough time. It was a rare source of great nourishment, though they could develop traits similar to Dongfang Yuelin if they absorbed too much.

The temple gently trembled as a fissure opened on the floor. While it widened, the group immediately took to the air and waited quietly. Half a minute later, the floor had vanished completely, revealing a shaft that ran so deep the bottom could not be seen. It was filled with green and white light, and ethereal immortal music echoed from within—a stark contrast to the grim Tongue-Plucking Hell.

Fourteen lotus platforms, each two

chi

in diameter, floated over and stopped under every member of the team.

Zhang Zikuang nodded in satisfaction. "Seems like the Small Nether Realm immortals were quite used to welcoming leaders from the Heavenly Court."

The two Hidden Earth Sect elders chuckled and gestured politely. They then descended on their lotus platforms. The rest followed, with Wang Sheng's group taking up the rear. Once they had entered, the stone floor above closed, and the ghost guardians outside stood up and blocked the entrance.

As the grand elder had said, the shaft was indeed a "sightseeing elevator" within Hell.

They descended about a hundred meters. Eventually, the wall of green light on the left turned translucent. With some concentration, they could make the light recede, revealing gloomy scenes that were suffused with a green glow.

They effortlessly bore witness to the Scissors Hell, the second level. Beyond it was the visually shocking Iron-Tree Hell and Retribution-Mirror Hell. The Iron-Tree Hell was filled with enormous iron trees, pieced together by sharp blades, with tattered clothing hanging from the branches.

The lower they descended, the smaller the layer.

Mu Wanxuan had stopped eating sunflower seeds. From the Iron-Tree Hell onward, she and Xi Lian had been hiding behind Wang Sheng. Xi Lian had turned pale, and Mu Wanxuan had once again tightly gripped Wang Sheng's arm. She would sometimes squeeze hard enough to hurt, but he just kept it all in.

In just a short while, they passed through the first seven empty levels of Hell and soon reached the eighth: the Ice-Mountain Hell.

Green light blanketed the space, and thousands of ice mountains towered across the landscape. Countless vengeful ghosts and fierce spirits aimlessly wandered all over them.

A sharp-eyed Daoist master suddenly cried out, "Look at the central ice mountains!"

The lotus platforms stopped. The fourteen cultivators turned to the center, finding human figures sealed within several of the tallest ice mountains. On a closer look, they noticed that the captives were all in Daoist robes. Some were men, some were women, their conditions unknown.

"Leave them be," Qing Yanzi calmly instructed. "If they chose to fall into the Small Nether Realm, there's no need for us to interfere."

The Daoist masters nodded lightly, while the Hidden Earth Sect elders merely sighed.

Since the lower levels were increasingly compressed, they spent less and less time passing each level as they descended. They descended past the Blood-Pool Hell, the Unjust-Death Hell, and then the Dismemberment Hell.

Soon, they saw more figures in Daoist robes. They had been cast into the Volcanic Hell. Raging flames blazed within the volcanoes, but they did not kill. On the contrary, they burned their prisoners for eternity.

Wang Sheng saw a dozen figures drifting up and down in the flames, their robes untouched. Some were standing, some were sitting, while some lay motionless like clay sculptures.

They were the cultivators who had invaded the Small Nether Realm long ago. Their existence was an unclean stain on the Daoist sects' history.

Reminded of the ancient devil that he and his master had slain, Wang Sheng murmured, "These people have likely already fallen into the devilish path."

Inwardly shaken, the Daoist masters around him sighed.

Meanwhile, the two spheres beside Qing Yanzi captured all the footage. Since there was no signal here, they had switched to autopilot mode. As long as they could get out, they'd be able to send the data to the transfer station.

Soon, they reached the Stone-Mill Hell, the seventeenth layer. It was filled with wandering spirits and vengeful ghosts. There were no signs of ancient cultivators.

Wang Sheng frowned.

Where did all these fierce spirits and vengeful ghosts come from? Were there still mortal souls trapped here when the Small Nether Realm immortals left? Did these souls... Never mind. I shouldn't dwell on this.

The more he thought about it, the more it would tarnish his impression of the Heavenly Court and Small Nether Realm immortals.

"We're almost at the bottom. There's an exit below that'll lead us outside the eighteenth level of Hell," the grand elder said in a hushed tone.

Everyone nodded. Turning their attention away from the scenes beyond the wall, they all looked down.

Xi Lian, the strongest cultivator among them, screamed sharply from behind Wang Sheng. "

Aah—!

"

All the Daoist masters and monks turned toward her. Xi Lian, who had sunflower seed husks stuck to her lips and face pale, quickly forced herself to calm down.

"Something's not right! There are a lot of dried corpses below, but they still have auras! Be careful! Don't go down yet, Little Xuanxuan!"