Chapter 8: The Hall of Traps
The transition from the sunlit valley to the interior of the Nine Prison Ruins was like stepping into the throat of a beast. The air dropped twenty degrees instantly. The smell of pine and earth was replaced by the stale, dry scent of dust that had been undisturbed for centuries, and the fresh, copper tang of blood.
The entrance corridor was massive, easily thirty meters wide, paved with slabs of grey stone that seemed to absorb the light from the disciples' illumination stones.
"AHHHH!"
A scream tore through the darkness ahead, followed by the wet thwack of something sharp hitting flesh.
"Hold formation! Watch the floor tiles!" someone shouted in panic.
Lin Yun walked steadily, his footsteps silent despite the heavy bone armor he wore under his cloak. Through the eyeholes of his skull mask, the world looked different. The darkness was not an obstacle; it was a canvas. His pupils, now permanently altered by the Dragon Marrow and Spirit Fire, dilated to capture the faintest glimmer of light.
He saw what the others could not.
About fifty meters ahead, a group of five Outer Disciples stood frozen. One of them was pinned to the wall by a massive steel bolt the size of a spear. He was already dead.
"Don't move!" the leader of the group yelled, sweat dripping down his face. "The trigger is pressure based!"
They were paralyzed by fear, blocking the path for everyone behind them.
"Move or die," Lin Yun rasped, walking straight toward them.
"Are you insane?" the leader shouted at the masked figure. "You'll trigger the volley! We're trapped!"
Lin Yun did not break stride. His ears twitched. He could hear the faint, rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the ancient gears beneath the floor. It was not random. It was a pattern.
Third tile left. Fifth tile right. Center is hollow.
"Long Xi, is this the Nine Prison layout?" Lin Yun asked internally.
"A rudimentary version," Long Xi scoffed in his mind. "This was the outer perimeter meant to keep mortals away from the prison cells. The traps are mechanical, not spiritual. Crude."
Lin Yun reached the group of terrified disciples. They flinched, expecting him to stop.
Instead, Lin Yun stepped onto a tile they had assumed was safe.
Click.
The disciples screamed, shielding their heads.
Nothing happened.
Lin Yun stepped again, moving in a zigzag pattern that seemed suicidal. He stepped on a raised stone, then a cracked one, then leaped over three perfectly smooth ones.
Click.
Clack.
Silence.
Not a single bolt fired.
He walked right past the group, leaving them gaping in disbelief.
"How..." the leader stammered. "He... he walked right through."
"Follow him!" one of the disciples cried out. "Step where he steps!"
The group scrambled to follow Lin Yun's path. But they were clumsy. They were rushing.
One disciple missed Lin Yun's footprint by an inch.
SNAP.
The wall to their right slid open. A jet of green flame erupted, engulfing the three disciples in the rear. Their screams were brief as they were turned into ash in seconds.
Lin Yun did not look back. Compassion was a luxury he had left at the bottom of the ravine. If they were too weak to walk their own path, they deserved to fall.
He continued deeper into the hallway. The further he went, the fewer disciples he saw. The weak had been filtered out. Only the strong, the lucky, or the ruthless remained.
The hallway finally opened up into a colossal cavern.
It was a labyrinth. Hundreds of stone pillars rose from a bottomless pit, connected by narrow stone bridges. There were no railings. One slip meant a fall into the abyss below.
"The Hall of Judgment," Long Xi noted. "Below lies the Void Wind. If you fall, the wind blades will shred you before you hit the bottom."
Lin Yun scanned the area. He saw flashes of light in the distance. The Inner Disciples, led by Liu Xue and others, were already halfway across the bridges, fighting off flying stone gargoyles that animated from the pillars.
"The Heart of the Earth is in the lower levels," Lin Yun recalled the objective. "I need to find a descent point."
"There is no staircase," Long Xi said. "In a prison, the only way down is for the condemned. You have to jump."
"Jump?" Lin Yun looked at the abyss. "Into the wind blades?"
"Not into the void. Look there."
Long Xi guided his vision. Far to the left, hidden in the shadows of a broken pillar, was a vertical shaft. It was not a walkway; it was a ventilation shoot for the earth energy.
"That shaft leads directly to the core," Long Xi explained. "But getting there requires crossing the western bridges. They are... occupied."
Lin Yun looked. The western bridges were not empty. A group of ten disciples wearing black robes with red trim were blocking the path. They were not from the Spirit Beast Sect.
"Blood Fire Sect," Lin Yun narrowed his eyes. "Rivals."
The Blood Fire Sect was a neighboring power, known for their brutal, demonic cultivation methods. They must have sneaked in when the gate opened.
They had set up a checkpoint. They were ambushing lone disciples, killing them, and taking their storage bags. A pile of three bodies already lay at their feet.
"Hey! You there!"
A burly Blood Fire disciple with a scar across his nose spotted Lin Yun. He grinned, hefting a heavy serrated saber. "The toll for this bridge is your storage bag and one arm. Pay up, and we might let you live."
Lin Yun stopped. He stood at the edge of the bridge, the abyss howling below him.
"One arm?" Lin Yun asked, his voice flat.
"That's right, Ghost," the scar faced man laughed. "Or are you deaf under that mask? Strip your gear. That snake scale armor looks worth a few coins."
The other nine disciples chuckled, fanning out to surround the entrance of the bridge. They sensed no Qi from Lin Yun. To them, he was just a body refiner, a meat shield who had gotten lucky with the traps.
Lin Yun slowly reached over his shoulder.
His hand gripped the bone handle of the massive weapon wrapped in cloth on his back.
"I don't have money," Lin Yun said softly.
He pulled the weapon free. The cloth unraveled and fell into the abyss.
It was not a sword. It was a Greatblade crafted from the jawbone of the Obsidian Bear.
He had sharpened the edge with the Spirit Fire, creating a weapon that was crude, jagged, and incredibly heavy. It was five feet long, a slab of dense bone meant for crushing as much as cutting.
"But I can pay you in violence."
The scar faced man blinked. Then he roared with laughter. "A bone club? You primitive savage! Die!"
He charged, his saber glowing with blood red Qi. Blood Slash!
He swung the saber at Lin Yun's head.
Lin Yun did not use a technique. He did not circulate Qi.
He simply swung the bone blade.
He swung it with the full force of his 8,000 Jin physical strength, accelerated by the explosive power of his legs.
WHOOSH.
The air exploded.
The bone blade met the steel saber.
CLANG. CRUNCH.
The steel saber shattered into a dozen pieces. The bone blade did not stop. It continued its arc, smashing into the scar faced disciple's chest.
There was no resistance. The disciple was folded in half. He flew backward like a chaotic artillery shell, smashing into two of his comrades behind him.
They screamed as the force knocked them all off the narrow bridge.
Doomed wails faded into the abyss below.
Silence fell over the remaining seven disciples.
"One hit..." one of them whispered, his face pale. "He killed Senior Brother Ma with one hit?"
"Formation! Kill him!"
The remaining disciples panicked. They unleashed fireballs, wind blades, and blood arrows.
Lin Yun charged.
He moved like a heavy tank with the speed of a cheetah. He ignored the wind blades. They sparked against his python scale armor and bronze skin but drew no blood.
He reached the next disciple. He did not swing the blade this time. He grabbed the man's face with his left hand.
Blue Lotus Spirit Fire.
Flash.
Blue flames erupted from his palm. The disciple's head turned into an ice sculpture instantly. Lin Yun shoved him aside, shattering the frozen head against the stone railing.
"Monster! He's a monster!"
The morale broke. The Blood Fire disciples turned to run, scrambling across the narrow bridge.
"No witnesses," Lin Yun growled.
He stomped on the bridge.
The ancient stone, already weakened by time, groaned under his monstrous strength. A spiderweb crack spread from his foot.
CRACK!
The section of the bridge ahead of him collapsed.
The fleeing disciples lost their footing as the stone gave way beneath them. They clawed desperately at the air, at the smooth stone of the pillars, but there was nothing to hold.
Five disciples fell screaming into the Void Wind.
Only one remained, clinging by his fingertips to the edge of the broken bridge where Lin Yun stood.
He looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Please... I have a mother... I..."
Lin Yun looked down at him through the bone mask. The blue flame in his eyes flickered.
"You blocked the path," Lin Yun said.
He stepped on the disciple's fingers.
The man screamed and fell.
Lin Yun stood alone on the precipice. The path ahead was broken, a ten meter gap to the next pillar where the ventilation shaft was hidden.
"A ten meter jump," Lin Yun calculated. "With this heavy blade."
"Use the recoil," Long Xi advised. "Channel the Spirit Fire into your feet. Explode it."
Lin Yun nodded. He took three steps back.
He ran.
At the very edge, he did not just jump; he detonated a blast of blue fire from his soles.
BOOM!
He launched himself like a cannonball across the gap. He soared over the abyss, the wind howling, grabbing at his cloak.
He crashed onto the platform of the ventilation shaft, rolling to absorb the impact. He came to a stop in a crouch, the bone blade raised defensively.
Safe.
He stood up and looked back at the carnage on the bridge. The Blood Fire Sect had been wiped out in less than a minute.
"Efficiency," Lin Yun muttered. "The Sovereign Path is efficient."
He approached the ventilation shaft. It was a dark, square hole in the floor, descending straight down into the bowels of the ruins. A strong updraft of warm, earthy air blew from it.
"The Heart of the Earth is down there," Long Xi said, her voice tightening with anticipation. "But be warned, Lin Yun. The guardian of the Earth Element is not a beast."
"What is it?"
"A Golem. An ancient war construct. It does not bleed, it does not fear, and it does not feel pain. Your fire will not work on it easily."
Lin Yun strapped the bone blade back onto his back. He cracked his knuckles.
"It does not bleed?" He peered into the darkness. "Then I'll just have to smash it until it stops moving."
He stepped into the shaft and let gravity take him.