Chapter Thirteen: A Nocturnal Summons

A frigid, unyielding wooden bed, its crevices filled with years of grime and bits of dried grass. Lin Mo curled upon it, his body trembling imperceptibly from the agony and terror that gripped him. The wound on his back, torn open once more during his earlier struggle, oozed warm blood that mingled with the intermittent powder of black jade, sticking viscously to his skin. Each breath tugged at the dull numbness, revealing a hidden, piercing pain beneath.

Within his chest, that icy “stone” throbbed, harboring a lingering fury from having its “feeding” forcibly interrupted. Each pulse struck like a heavy hammer wrapped in frost, pounding deep within his organs, bringing a suffocating sluggishness and a tearing ache. The faint suction lay dormant now, like a viper recoiling into its nest, but Lin Mo knew it remained. It coiled around that cold core, waiting for another chance to awaken, greedily eyeing any hint of life nearby.

Fear tightened around his heart like frozen vines, growing ever more constricting. He stared fixedly at the pile of dry grass in the corner, as if he could smell the sharp freshness of the Red Sun Grass roots hidden within, tempting him like poisonous bait in the darkness. He dared not move, dared not make a sound, simply endured like a rigid corpse, suffering through darkness and pain, feeling the heavy, cold, and strangely lively throbbing in his chest.

Time crawled by in dead silence. Outside, the wan moonlight was swallowed by thick fog, leaving only endless darkness. The snores of other laborers rose and fell, unusually loud in the stillness.

He had no idea how long had passed, when, just as Lin Mo’s consciousness teetered between pain and cold, about to succumb to exhaustion—

The “stone” in his chest, without warning… changed its rhythm!

No longer the slow, ponderous pulses like an ancient glacier shifting. Its frequency suddenly quickened! As if a slumbering beast was startled awake by some ancestral tremor in its blood, it began to stir restlessly! Each pulse grew shorter, stronger! The heavy sluggishness did not fade; instead, it churned and compressed with the faster beats, forming a sharper, more suffocating pressure!

At the same time, a feeble, yet several times clearer strange suction erupted from the heart of the “stone”! This time, its target was not the dry grass beneath him, nor the Red Sun Grass in the corner!

Its target… was Lin Mo himself!

It sought his body, already ravaged by pain and weakness!

Buzz!

His mind felt as if thrown into an invisible whirlpool! That suction, like countless cold, barbed tendrils, instantly probed into his meridians—already shredded by the mountain-protecting array and violently scoured by the fragments of the Void Heaven Scripture!

Pain! Pain more intense and distinct than ever before swept through him!

This agony did not come from flesh, but from somewhere deeper—from the faint remnants of his qi and blood, as fragile as a flickering candle in the wind! The last source of vitality sustaining his battered body!

That cold suction seized him ferociously, like a starving beast! Lin Mo felt clearly that his already weak qi and blood were being forcefully extracted, strand by strand, from every fiber of his being, converging toward the icy “stone” within his chest!

Weakness flooded him like a cold tide, drowning him instantly! His vision darkened, his ears buzzed, his limbs and bones felt hollowed, limp, and cold! As if in the next moment, he would be drained into a shriveled corpse!

No! He could not allow this!

A primal terror for survival overwhelmed the pain in his body! He could not die—not in such a bizarre, humiliating way, drained by something within himself!

The Void Heaven Scripture! Those three fierce ancient characters seared into his chaotic mind like molten iron! It was this—this evil thing devouring his vitality!

He had to… do something!

The thought sparked in the darkness like a fire, and almost by instinct, using the last remnants of will, he stopped resisting the terrifying suction and instead… tried to guide it!

Not to guide it to devour his own qi and blood—that would be suicide! Rather, to direct it… to seek other “food”! Just as it had instinctively tried to absorb the essence from the dry grass and Red Sun Grass before!

Guide it… to absorb!

But what? The dust in the foul air? The decaying energy in the wooden boards? The stale, rotten breath exhaled by the other laborers?

Lin Mo did not know! But he knew, if he failed to find it another “food,” he would be the next to be completely drained!

All his spirit, all his will, all his fear and desire to live focused on the cold, throbbing “stone” in his chest, coalescing into a vague yet overwhelming thought—

Absorb! Absorb from outside! Absorb those… ownerless things!

That thought, a formless command born from Lin Mo’s desperate struggle and reckless gamble, crashed against the cold, fierce “stone”!

Buzz—!!!

The “stone” in his chest jolted violently! Like ice cast into boiling oil, it exploded in a more furious resistance! An icy, defiant will struck back, assailing Lin Mo’s fragile soul! The pain blinded him, blood oozing from his ears and nose!

But in the interval between that fierce backlash, the cold suction that had been ravenously devouring Lin Mo’s own qi and blood seemed… ever so briefly… to be nudged outward by the intense, external-focused thought!

Like a beast’s muzzle forcibly turned!

The greedy suction paused! Then, as if it sensed a new prey, it abandoned the frantic devouring of Lin Mo’s depleted qi and blood, and instead… for a brief, fleeting moment… extended an invisible “tendril” out into the foul air, thick with sweat and mildew!

This “tendril” was as faint as spider silk in the wind, gone in an instant, almost an illusion.

Yet—

At the precise moment that faint suction reached outward—

A sudden change occurred!

From deep within the cold, hard wooden boards beneath Lin Mo, a barely perceptible, ancient and heavy breath, as if a sleeping vein of stone had been disturbed, briefly leaked out!

This breath was so weak it was nearly undetectable, carrying the coldness of rock, the weight of earth, and something indescribable—a decayed and dead force belonging to “soil and stone” itself.

This faint, primordial breath, once released, was instantly seized by the passing suction outside Lin Mo’s body! Like iron drawn to a magnet!

A faint, crackling sound, as if a dry leaf had been ignited!

The breath of earth and stone was pulled in by the suction, rushed through the invisible channel at Lin Mo’s skin, and plunged into the cold, throbbing “stone” in his chest!

“Ugh!” Lin Mo’s body shuddered violently, as though struck by a cold current!

An indescribable sensation—cold, heavy, sluggish, with a hint of negligible “satiation”—was fed back from the depths of the stone. The fierce, rebellious will, disrupted by the injection of this minuscule, yet fundamentally different “impurity,” paused for an instant!

The suction that had been devouring Lin Mo’s own qi and blood was abruptly interrupted by this strange new “food”!

Though it lasted only a moment, that moment’s respite was like the first breath of air for a drowning man!

He seized that fleeting chance with desperate greed! The sensation of successfully guiding the suction outward and accidentally capturing the breath of earth and stone was burned into his consciousness!

Absorb! Absorb from outside! Absorb what does not belong to him!

The thought, now clearer and more determined, gathered with post-survival madness and a sick clarity. He no longer tried to confront the cold “stone” directly, but, like a madman taming a wild horse at the cliff’s edge, he used all his will to “think”—absorb! Absorb from outside! Absorb the cold breath of earth and stone!

Buzz!

The “stone” in his chest trembled violently again! The cold backlash surged in like a tide! But this time, Lin Mo’s thought, like a nail in a crevice, wedged itself in. The faint outward suction, under his frantic guidance, once more painfully and unstably reached beyond his body!

This time, its aim was clearer—the wooden boards beneath him!

Absorb!

Crackle! Crackle crackle!

Several faint sounds like sand scraping—threads of even weaker, more muddled earth and stone breath were forcibly stripped from the cold, hard boards, drawn through the invisible channel and fed into the “stone” in his chest!

The cold sensation of satiation returned, feeble yet causing the fierce backlash to stall once more!

Success!

Lin Mo’s heart thudded wildly—not from excitement, but from overwhelming terror and a twisted survival instinct! He had found a temporary way to avoid being drained: feeding the greedy beast within him the impure, lifeless “qi” of this filthy environment!

He no longer hesitated, nor could he consider consequences. Survival instinct overrode all else! He concentrated all his remaining spirit, endured the agony of soul being lashed by cold will, and, like a prisoner dancing on a blade, repeatedly, frantically “thought”—absorb! Absorb from outside! Absorb the earth and stone beneath him!

Crackle… crackle…

The barely audible sounds continued intermittently in the dead quiet. Thread after thread of cold, heavy, decaying earth and stone breath were forcibly drawn from the boards beneath him, feeding the cold, throbbing “stone” in Lin Mo’s chest. Each successful “feeding” brought a brief pause in the fierce backlash, a precious moment to breathe.

The process was agonizing and strange. Lin Mo’s body, tormented by the cold breath and fierce backlash, trembled violently like a candle in the wind. Cold sweat mixed with blood soaked the grass mat beneath him. His face was pale as paper, lips bitten to shreds, his consciousness tossed in a storm of pain, sustained only by a stubborn refusal to die.

He was like a miner lost in endless darkness, madly digging in the icy rock for the poisonous stone that kept him alive, knowing it was poison, yet with no other choice.

Time lost meaning. He did not know how long had passed. From the place beneath him where the boards were repeatedly drained, a faint, brittle sound of rotting wood breaking came. That patch of wood seemed colder, more fragile, losing its last bit of supporting strength.

The throbbing of the cold “stone” in his chest seemed to slow slightly. The heavy sluggishness remained, but its desire to devour seemed temporarily sated by the impure breath of earth and stone, no longer hungrily coveting Lin Mo’s own qi and blood. The faint outward suction, too, slowly withdrew, spent, and fell dormant again.

Lin Mo lay limp as if in collapse upon the cold boards, drenched in sweat as if fished from water. Each breath grated with muffled friction and tearing pain from deep in his chest. The wound on his back burned with numbness. His consciousness was heavy, as if filled with cold lead.

Just as his spirit slackened, his awareness about to sink wholly into darkness—

A subtle yet unmistakable sense of “guidance” emerged from the depths of the cold “stone” in his chest, without warning!

Not a thought, but more like an instinctive, invisible “arrow”!

Its direction was not elsewhere—

But toward the back mountain!

Toward that fog-shrouded place, where seven lives had been lost, where fragments of the Void Heaven Scripture lay buried—the Forbidden Abyss of Immortal Burial!

The feeling came suddenly, clear as day! Like a ghostly lantern lighting a path into the abyss, cold, heavy, bearing a summons that brooked no denial!

Lin Mo’s dulled pupils contracted sharply! His remaining awareness was seized by this strange sense of guidance!

Immortal Burial Abyss… there… something there… is drawing it in!