Chapter 262: The Hidden Sect Master

Huff... huff...

Shen Qianlin ran as fast as she could along the village's stone-paved path. Though she now had a pair of slippers on, she was untrained and delicate, making it a struggle for her to keep her pace. Each breath was more labored than the last.

With tears streaking her face, she kept wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her steps faltered every so often as she pushed forward.

An elderly woman nearby hurried over. "Young Mistress, what's wrong?"

Shen Qianlin ignored her. She just kept running toward the entrance of the ancestral hall.

Her mind was a whirlwind of images, sounds, and revelations from her dream, leaving her in complete turmoil.

The Small Nether Realm, the hall below, the Reincarnation Stone, the Earth Qi Seal...

She had seen them all. She couldn't understand why it had to be her, but right now, she was the only one.

An hour earlier, just after falling asleep, Shen Qianlin heard a gentle voice calling her name. It belonged to her mother, who had been dead for years. She jolted awake, only to realize she wasn't in her bedroom. Before her was a vast starry sky and the faint flow of water. She felt unusually light and free.

"Qianlin, over here..."

"M-Mom?" Shen Qianlin called out, her voice trembling.

Standing before her was a beautiful woman dressed in an ancient, plain white gown. She seemed to be in her thirties. Her eyes were full of warmth and sorrow, and her long hair fell smoothly down her back, tied only with a wooden hairpin.

Softly, she replied, "I'm sorry, Qianlin. I am your mother, yet I'm also not."

"Mom..." Shen Qianlin muttered as she sobbed uncontrollably.

The woman knelt before Shen Qianlin and gently wrapped her arms around her. In a hushed tone, she said, "Be strong, Qianlin. What you must shoulder goes far beyond what you've seen so far. Our bloodline cannot escape this fate. Every time it comes to pass, I always feel the need to say I'm sorry.

"This fate now falls upon you. The Small Nether Realm is about to break into the mortal world. If that happens, the Hua Republic will soon be destroyed. Whether you accept it or not, this burden is now yours to carry. If you must hate someone, then hate us for being too cruel."

Dozens of white silhouettes emerged from her, most of whom were women in their thirties or forties. Their faces bore some similarities, and they were all in the same clothing. They all quietly gazed at Shen Qianlin, who had sat down.

The woman holding her finally broke into sobs. "I'm so sorry, my dear daughter. I had no choice... Please forgive me. I'm sorry..."

Shen Qianlin threw her arms around the woman as she wept. "Mom!"

One after another, the silhouettes sighed quietly before fading back into the white-robed woman. Shen Qianlin's sobs slowly quieted.

With her voice trembling, she asked, "Mom, was it really Father's cultivation that killed you?"

"You silly child. Of course not."

The woman gently touched Shen Qianlin's forehead with her fingertip, changing the scene around them.

Now, Shen Qianlin faced a crude wall made of packed earth. Hanging on it was an ancient dark-blue robe. A white-robed woman knelt in front of it, repeatedly bowing. The woman then picked up a dagger, slit her own throat, and collapsed slowly into a pool of blood. Seemingly coming alive, the dark-blue robe absorbed every drop. It briefly turned crimson before gradually returning to its original color.

The scene changed again. The same robe now hung in the ancestral hall. Another white-robed woman knelt, bowed, and then slit her wrist, collapsing once more into her own blood. The robe once again took her soul and blood.

The scene shifted a third time, then a fourth. The background changed rapidly, but the key elements remained the same: the long robe and a woman in white taking her own life in front of it.

Finally, Shen Qianlin saw a familiar scene: the family ancestral grounds. Her mother knelt before the robe. With tears in her eyes, she held a dagger to her throat.

"No! Mom, don't!"

"These events are in the past now," the white-robed woman, who was beside her, softly explained.

The images vanished.

The white-robed woman walked toward her slowly. Sounding like a chorus of many whispers woven together, she added, "The Meng bloodline is the true sect master lineage of the Hidden Earth Sect. In every generation, we marry the most outstanding young man in our clan upon reaching adulthood. In the second year after the wedding, a baby girl is always born.

"After that, we wait quietly for this day to come. When the robe begins to lose its spiritual essence, we must offer our blood and souls to nourish it. Only our lineage can properly satiate it. After the primal qi of heaven and earth was severed, this became the only method we could find to preserve our legacy.

"Qianlin, you were meant to bear your mother's surname, Meng. However, your father tried to alter your fate and bore the pressure of the clan to register your surname under his instead. Even though you've resented him all these years, he never told you the truth. He even stayed away from the clan just to help you escape this cruel destiny."

Shen Qianlin trembled. "Why?"

"For the sake of the people. The ritual allows us to suppress the Small Nether Realm when something like the incident today happens." The woman sighed deeply. "The Small Nether Realm is artificially created. It has always been unstable; it can fail at any moment. Fortunately, when the immortals left, a wounded immortal volunteered to stay behind and vowed that his descendants would guard the Small Nether Realm forever."

She gently touched Shen Qianlin's forehead again. When the scene changed, they found themselves hovering above a vast forest. A strange calm washed over Shen Qianlin's heart, and a cool sensation flowed through her, steadily wiping away the turbulence in her emotions.

Looking around, her attention was soon drawn to the surreal sight of two enormous mountains. The pyramid-shaped lower mountain stood upright in the forest center, while the pagoda-shaped upper mountain hung upside down from the low sky. Their peaks met in the middle, forming an irregular hourglass. Upon closer inspection, the pagoda's spire pierced into the pyramid's summit.

"What is this place?"

"The deepest point of the Small Nether Realm," the woman answered softly. "The mountain above is the Eighteen Levels of Hell. The one below contains the Earth Qi Seal. To keep its location hidden, it's kept a secret even among the Hidden Earth Sect. Only the Meng bloodline knows about it."

Shen Qianlin frowned. "What is the Earth Qi Seal?"

"You can think of it as the place that seals all the primal qi that the earth has produced. It has locked away every drop of primal qi that this planet has generated for the past thousand years. Anyway, that's enough for now. Since we still have a bit of time, let me show you how it all happened."

Her "mother" gently waved her hand, and the surroundings shifted once more.

She spoke again. "This is above the Eighteen Levels of Hell. In the distance lies Fengdu City. Look ahead."

Shen Qianlin struggled to keep up, but she still looked where her mother indicated. She saw a lone figure breaking through the seal of the tenth hall.

"That's..."

Sounding as gentle as ever, the woman revealed, "A former royalty. Her divine soul is on the verge of total collapse, and she has returned to the Small Nether Realm to attempt reincarnation. She's heading into the tenth hall, where the Immortal Record is kept. Let's follow her. This is merely a record of what has already occurred anyway; it's all imprinted in the Small Nether Realm."

The scene rapidly zoomed in. Shen Qianlin now stood behind the princess, finding two names inscribed in the Immortal Record.

"Wang Sheng? And his senior sister?" she cried out. Fortunately, these were just visions of the past. Her voice could not change what had already happened.

The princess, the female corpse from the moon, murmured lowly. Shen Qianlin didn't understand the words, but deep down, she knew what they meant.

"Why did only two of them return? Hua Qing's recorded here, which is only natural. Who is he, though?"

The corpse didn't linger. She flew past the Immortal Record and continued down the corridor, changing the scene again.

Shen Qianlin now watched the corpse stand before the Reincarnation Stone, weeping. It no longer glowed.

"For reasons unknown," the woman said beside her, "the Reincarnation Stone has been completely drained of its power. She broke down because she had placed all her hopes in that stone. She had hoped to use it to bring her fallen comrades back to life and give herself another lifetime. To her dismay, all of her plans were shattered here."

The female corpse suddenly struck the Reincarnation Stone, cracking its darkened surface. Furious, she then turned and left.

The next scenes flew by. In a frantic search, the female corpse tore through the seals of all Ten Yanluo Halls. After who knew how long, she ended up standing at the edge of a massive chasm.

She murmured a few words. It seemed she intended to let her residual spiritual consciousness return to dust, scatter, and fade completely. However, waves of radiant immortal light began to rise around the Eighteen Levels of Hell.

As the scenes shifted rapidly, Shen Qianlin accepted everything unfolding before her with a numb expression.

Rushing to the Earth Qi Seal, the female corpse discovered that it had already been broken, and the primal qi had flooded into the Eighteen Levels of Hell, slowly pushing it upward.

She immediately used herself to block the rupture, but the earlier surge of primal qi had swept through the entire Small Nether Realm, rendering the realm increasingly unstable.

The scene changed again. They were now at the trembling Mount Pingdu, the Nether Gate appearing behind it. Like watching surveillance footage on fast-forward, Shen Qianlin saw helicopters arrive, armored divisions mobilize, and researchers in white coats study the Nether Gate.

Soon after, someone attempted to enter it.

The scene occasionally returned to the "pyramid" below, where the corpse still struggled to seal the Earth Qi Seal. She had begun to crack and collapse, light spilling out of each fine line.