Path Of The Dragon (A Dark Fantasy Cultivation Wuxia Xianxia Progression Series)

Chapter 91 Darkness

Jie spiraled down into darkness as light faded and she lost sight of her friends while water rushed in a chaotic swirl all around her.

A moment later, the spiraling vortex spat Jie out into a dark room.

The room looked much like the one she was just in... only there was no sign of her friends and the orange-red glow of the magma tubes below her was muted somehow... giving only the faintest light to see by as long, impenetrable shadows danced around her... even though nothing was moving.

Even the color of the magma itself was muted. The bright orange glow seemed distant, closer to a light gray as darkness hung like a swirling fog in the water around Jie.

She cycled her qi and scanned the area with her spirit sense. Even that felt oddly muted too. Like she could sense only a fraction as far as she normally could. And, what little she could sense felt cold and dead.

The water itself felt colder against her skin even though the magma tubes were right below her, their vents still shimmering slightly with heat. It should be hot. Oppressively so. The only reason it hadn't killed her in the previous room was because she was a cultivator. But, the vents were like candles now compared to the incinerators they'd been only moments ago and the water was icy cold.

Jie heard a whisper right next to her ear. She spun around to face it, but there was nothing there. Then, another whisper. Again, she whirled to confront the source but saw nothing. And still no sign of her friends.

She thought of using her qi armor just in case. But she worried that the bright blue, electric glow would make her stand out in this dark place. There was no sign of anything around her just yet... despite the odd whispering noise. It sounded like words, but she couldn't understand them.

Maybe it's just a trick of this trial. To freak me out... Jie thought. Though she didn't quite believe that.

There was a circular door on the far side of the chamber. The plaque had hinted that this would test them each individually, so rather than wait around for her friends that may never come, she swam over to the door. Whatever this challenge was, she would crush it and find her friends.

The door was sealed in a way none of the others had been. With a metal version of the monstrous face on the mosaics and mouth of the temple. Its eyes were soulless and hungry with the tentacles extending from its mouth across the stone and into sockets in the doorway like the world's creepiest deadbolts. Only, Jie saw no way to move them back and open the door.

Then, as though sensing her desire to enter, the metal tentacles that locked it in place slid back with a series of soft clicks and a stream of bubbles. There were other clicks coming from behind or perhaps inside the stone. Though all the sounds were... wrong. Things that should be loud sounded impossibly far away while whispers and soft noises seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

She heard something behind her and spun around, but once again there was nothing there. Or nothing she could see anyway. She reached out with her spirit sense, but it felt like only water, and Essence... at least in her very limited range.

Still, she couldn't quite shake the unpleasant feeling that something was watching her.

The door rolled out of the way, revealing another large room with rows of things that looked almost like benches. A massive mosaic of the same creature's head decorated the enormous far wall along with a raised platform with what looked like a stone altar on it.

Magma tubes lined the floor as they did in most rooms, but the light was still muted and penetrated only a few meters above the tubes, leaving the ceiling lost somewhere above in utter blackness. A blackness that she could swear was moving.