Path of Shadows
Translator: Mr Voltaire
Editor: Modlawls123
It was as if Ling Chen had jumped into a bottomless, dark chasm. As he quickly fell, the light completely disappeared. The sound of wind passing by howled in his ears, and Ling Chen activated the [Feng Chen Technique], slowing down his descent. Gradually, he stopped falling until he was hovering in the air.
Ling Chen took out a luminous pearl, using the faint light to look around the dark space, and found that he was simply in a dark hole. Ling Chen summoned Snow Cherry and Xiao Hui, and then he slowly descended onto Snow Cherry’s back.
If everything was as he expected, this should be the starting point to the Underworld Blood Lake!
Regardless, since he had come here, there was no turning back. No matter what was ahead, he had to break through!
The Underworld Blood Lake was at the lowest point in the Underworld, and it was far below the surface. Although Ling Chen already knew this, the depth caused him to be quite surprised. After descending for 15 minutes, he still could not see the bottom. Although his descent wasn’t very fast, he must have descended at least 3 kilometres. This was almost as deep as the Pacific Ocean, which made him incredibly shocked.
At this moment, Xiao Hui, who had been silent the entire time, barked in warning. Ling Chen immediately gave the order to stop descending, and he detected that they were nearly at the bottom from the change in airflow. However, Xiao Hui’s bark wasn’t warning him that they had nearly reached the bottom, but rather that there was something dangerous down there!
Just as Ling Chen stopped, information was transmitted into his mind from Xiao Hui’s Eye of the Holy Spirit:
[Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation]: A devouring formation laid down by the Underworld King within the [Path of Shadows] to prevent anyone from reaching the Forbidden Area, the Underworld Blood Lake. It has an incredibly powerful soul-reaping effect, and once living creatures or Undead go within the formation, their life force and magic power will be consumed until there’s nothing left.
Soul-Reaping Formation… this was the one that the Undead Warrior had told him about! This meant that below was the Path of Shadows that he had to pass through in order to reach the Underworld Blood Lake!
According to the Undead Warrior, the Path of Shadows was incredibly long, and it would take a few hours at a normal speed. Moreover, this Soul-Reaping Formation covered the entire Path of Shadows, which meant that he would have to stay within the Soul-Reaping Formation for a few hours!
Ling Chen took out the luminous pearl and used the faint white light to look below him. There was an entrance flickering with a strange grey light… 3 words were scrawled above the entrance: Path of Shadows.
Without hesitating, Ling Chen quickly descended. As he reached the grey entrance, his feet finally landed on the cold, hard, and dark floor. He put his arms around Leng’Er in front of him as he rode on Snow Cherry and stepped into the Path of Shadows.
Sss…
The instant Snow Cherry’s paw stepped into the Path of Shadows Ling Chen felt an incredibly strong suction from below, which brought with it a bone-chilling coldness and eeriness, causing Ling Chen to shudder.
-10,000, -10,000.
-10,000, -10,000.
The red and blue figures above his head gave Ling Chen a great shock. The red figure represented his HP being lost, while the blue figure represented his MP being lost.
Every second, the Soul-Reaping Formation stole 10,000 HP and MP from him!
With Cai’Er’s [Nature’s Heart], Ling Chen and all of his pets’ HP and MP were increased by 60%, and Ling Chen currently had 32,270HP. To players, this was Boss-level HP, but he would only last a mere 3 seconds in the Path of Shadows!
At this rate, even with the Dew of Dawn, which was the most powerful potion he had, as well as the Fairy’s Blessing Earrings, he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the loss!
Ling Chen hurriedly retreated from the Path of Shadows, stopping the drain to his HP and MP. After looking at his HP and MP, both of which had been greatly decreased, he felt at his wit’s end. 10,000 per second meant 600,000 per minute, 36 million per hour, and a few hours… let alone a player who was not even LV60, even a LV60 Mysterious God grade Boss would not be able to survive.
When facing this [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation], it doesn’t matter how powerful one was. There was only one way to pass through the [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation], which was to recover one’s HP faster than the formation could absorb. The MP loss didn’t matter, but it was impossible for players to recover more than 10,000 HP per second. After all, Ling Chen had never encountered a potion that had more powerful effects than the Dew of Dawn.
Ling Chen tightly frowned and looked at Leng’Er when he suddenly thought of something… from this [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation]’s description, no matter if it was living creatures or Undead, their HP and MP would be forcibly absorbed. However, when they had entered, only he had been affected, while Leng’Er had been completely fine! This was because if Leng’er was affected by the [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation], the ‘damage’ she took would be transferred to Ling Chen because of their Soul Sacrifice Contract, meaning he would lose twice as much HP and MP. However, he had only lost HP and MP once per second.
Could it have to do with Leng’Er’s body’s constitution?
This thought flashed in his mind as Ling Chen suddenly knocked on his forehead! Goddamit! How could he have forgotten the little Fairy who he had just obtained!
“Cai’Er, hurry and come out!”
A white light flashed as a small Fairy girl appeared before him. She beat her wings as she stretched. “Wowww! I’m finally out! It was so boring in that strange place! Luckily Xi Ling was there to play with me…” Following that, the little Fairy suddenly became angry as she looked at Ling Chen in displeasure, her lips pouting. “Big brother! It’s so unfair! Why haven’t you called me out to play for such a long time! You take Leng’Er out to play and tell Leng’Er stories every day! You’re so biased! Hmph… aiya! What is this place? Why’s it so dark and smelly?”
Ling Chen’s mouth twitched as he helplessly said, “Because this place is the Underworld and contains the power of death and darkness, which is completely at odds with your element and power. I was sure you would hate this place and could be harmed by the environment, so I didn’t want to call you out.”
“Underworld?” Cai’Er sniffed around her and tapped a finger against her mouth as she said in a small voice, “I think I’ve heard granny talk about this place before. Granny said that it’s an incredibly scary place, and she said that it’d be incredibly easy for us to die if us Fairies came here… ugh, apart from being very dark and smelly, it doesn’t seem that scary.”
“That’s because we have Leng’Er protecting us, so the deathly aura isn’t able to harm us,” Ling Chen explained before he pointed ahead of them. “Cai’Er, the path in front of us is very dangerous, and it will quickly devour our life force, so I need you to continuously use [Nature’s Light] to recover HP for me and Xiao Hui. Can you do that?”
“Ah? Oh, got it!” Cai”Er immediately nodded and added, “Can I sing? I like singing more.”
Cai’Er was referring to [Song of Healing – Drizzle At The Light Of Dawn], which recovered 20% HP and 20% MP every second. This skill, which recovered not only HP but MP as well, would have been super powerful under normal circumstances. However, in the face of the [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation], it simply wasn’t enough.
“If you want to sing, you can sing while you use [Nature’s Light],” Ling Chen said. It should be possible for Cai’Er to use normal skills while she sang.
“Okay, okay!” Cai’Er, who had been incredibly bored in the Pet Space, eagerly nodded. She closed her eyes as she started to sing with her sweet and cute voice.
“The sky is blue, the wind is blowing. The beautiful flowers are blossoming~
“Dew is falling, the tree’s shade is swaying, receiving the early morning’s beautiful sunlight~
“The birds in the trees are singing, the bugs in the grass are stretching~
“We’ve spread the wings of the dawn and are being bathed in the Nature Goddess’ light…”
When Ling Chen had first met Cai’Er, she had been happily singing. As Cai’Er sang, her voice sounded just as beautiful and refreshing. At the same time, he felt as if his body was basking in sunlight, and he felt incredibly warm and pleasant.
As Cai’Er sang, she spread out her hands as a pure white light, with a tinge of green, fell around her.
+64,350, +8507, +8507.
+8507, +8507.
+64,350, +8507, +8507.
…………………………………………………….
The white light from [Nature’s Light], combined with the [Song of Healing], quickly restored Ling Chen’s HP as 2 red and a blue figure appeared above Ling Chen’s head. The [Nature’s Light] restored HP equivalent to 3 times Cai’Er’s Magic Attack Power and added on her [Nature’s Blessing] Passive Ability,boosting all healing abilities by 50%. Adding on the [Fairy’s Blessing], which gave an increased 30% recovery, with Cai’Er’s current 11,000 Magic Attack Power, the recovery from [Nature’s Light] was simply shocking, healing Ling Chen for twice his maximum HP!
Moreover, the [Nature’s Light]’s cooldown time was incredibly short, only 1 second! This meant that Cai’Er could use [Nature’s Light] every 2 seconds! Cai’Er’s own recovery rate was already absurd, recovering 90% HP and 90% MP every second. With that sort of recovery, unless she lost more than 90% of her health in an instant, she would instantly return to full health in the next second, and she had almost unlimited MP. Although the [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation] was quite terrifying, it didn’t matter at all to her because of her incredible recovery.
Ling Chen was delighted and didn’t have to worry anymore. He brought Cai’Er onto Snow Cherry’s back and charged forwards into the [Underworld Soul-Reaping Formation].
-10,000, -10,000, +64350, +8507, +8507.
-10,000, -10,000, +8507, +8507.
-10,000, -10,000, +64350, +8507, +8507.
-10,000, -10,000, +8507, +8507…
The cold suction force came from below, stealing Ling Chen, Cai’Er, and Xiao Hui’s HP and MP. Different-coloured figures rose above Ling Chen’s head chaotically, but with Cai’Er’s singing, they were continuously bathed in pure light of Nature, and his HP remained almost full the entire time. Even the bone-piercing coldness and eeriness was greatly decreased.
Currently, without any skills, Snow Cherry’s Movement Speed when mounted was 425. 3 hours later, with a bark from Xiao Hui, they arrived at the exit of the Path of Shadows.
With Cai’Er’s incredibly powerful healing abilities, this terrifying soul-reaping path was just a normal path to Ling Chen, and they had passed through it easily. He had almost fallen asleep with the little Fairy in his arms. Holding the luminous pearl up, Ling Chen slowly stepped out of the Path of Shadows, and the suction force below them disappeared. In front of him was another dark entrance where 3 words were scrawled.
Path of Shadows!
According to the Undead Warrior, this was where countless vampiric Undead were residing!