Netherworld Retrograde

Chapter 454: Chapter 215 Human Village_2

It wasn’t vegetation or animals, but... some abandoned equipment. Among them, an orange object was particularly noticeable.

Li Yelai, carrying a gun and a lamp, approached for a closer look and discovered it was a large orange backpack.

The backpack seemed to have been sliced open by some sort of blade, its contents scattered on the ground. A mountain axe, sleeping bag, hunting knife, large-caliber ammunition, and some food. All were buried in the not-so-thick snow.

”A human Spiritual Ability User entering the Snow Mountain?” Li Yelai frowned, judging from these supplies it was hard to determine what force the person belonged to. But it was certain they were human.

Whether from Black Origin City or Heaven’s creatures, they all had their unique technologies, which made them easy to differentiate.

However, what really concerned Li Yelai was the bloodstain on the backpack.

What? Had this human Spiritual Ability User been attacked?

There were no living creatures in the Great Snow Mountain, even extraordinary creatures wouldn’t venture here.

Did they team up to enter the Great Snow Mountain, and then attack each other?

Or was it a coincidence they encountered an enemy? That seemed too coincidental, hardly likely.

Li Yelai looked at the scattered items, guessing they must have been attacked from a high place, causing the backpack to fall.

Afterward, Li Yelai checked the surroundings and dug into the snow layer slightly but found no corpse.

It was a pity the detective wasn’t here, otherwise with his Spiritual Eye Ability, he could have discerned many details, even directly seeing the events that unfolded.

Under what circumstances would Spiritual Ability Users entering the Great Snow Mountain attack each other?

Could it be they found something valuable, leading to an unequal distribution of loot?

This indeed seemed akin to the actions of Wild Spirit Ability Users or rather Scavengers. However, it was still unclear how they withstood such extreme cold.

”Could they have been chased and dropped it here?” Li Yelai pondered, looking up at the slope above, estimating it was about the same height as the cave entrance. Then he used Aerial Stepping to approach gradually.

As he ascended, the chill intensified, and Li Yelai spurred on his Fierce Fire Oil Lamp to drive away the cold.

Fortunately, the oil lamp had some fuel left as he approached the slope, indicating there was still some distance to the limit.

After successfully climbing the slope, Li Yelai saw no bodies. Thus, he didn’t linger but injected new rock marrow fuel, continuing forward following the compass.

Before the sky darkened, Li Yelai descended to the bottom of a new valley and found a pit suitable for shelter.

In the pit, Li Yelai ate some dried meat and rested with his oil lamp nearby.

However, an hour into his rest, he suddenly heard a strange sound.

”... awake.”

The sound was abrupt, as if it was right beside his ear. Li Yelai felt a shiver run through him, immediately grabbing his Black Gold Dragon Pattern Spear and vigilantly surveying his surroundings, but he saw no one.

”Another residual sound?” Li Yelai frowned. He wasn’t afraid of ghosts; even if there were ghosts, they would have been frozen by the Great Snow Mountain. This was the Extreme Cold Land, where even Spiritual Energy could freeze.

The sound must have been a residual echo from within the Snow Mountain, reportedly the frozen voices of the strong who died here sometimes echoed in the wind and snow.

It was quite thrilling.

After being startled awake, Li Yelai found it hard to sleep again, so he set off once more.

With his physical strength, he didn’t need much rest.

Two hours into his journey, Li Yelai noticed a significant deviation in the Path-finding Compass’s arrow.

With interest, Li Yelai continued along the valley, observing the arrow’s shifts growing more significant.

This pleased him, knowing he was nearing the target point. He found a lower slope and used Aerial Stepping to ascend, continuing in the direction of the arrow, crossing two more valleys.

As daylight broke, Li Yelai could roughly discern the location of his target.

”Good, if my Direction Perception is right, that position isn’t too far from the border of the Great Snow Mountain, at most a three-hour journey,” Li Yelai mused to himself. His sense of direction was indeed very good, especially with the Direction Perception skills imparted by Huo Qubing’s Face.

However, as he neared his destination, Li Yelai saw a dead body in a new valley.

It was the body of a woman around thirty, her death particularly gruesome.

Clearly, she had been frozen mid-air and then smashed into the valley, resulting in her body being severed in two.

Moreover, eerily, her severed head wore a smile. She was dressed in thin clothing, both legs’ tendons were cut, and even more strange, her abdomen was swollen.

She was pregnant?

Li Yelai frowned deeply. A pregnant woman whose leg tendons had been cut, why had she come to the Great Snow Mountain?

What kind of eerie occurrence was this? Had someone deliberately brought a pregnant woman into the snow mountain?

Could it be some evil ceremony?

Li Yelai pondered, yet he still moved forward to gather the woman’s body to burn it. He couldn’t stand such a grisly sight.

However, as he approached, he discovered that the woman’s swollen belly had already split open, with a bloody, slender hand protruding from it, forever frozen inside.

This gave Li Yelai a chill because that hand was deformed and withered, definitely not that of a human baby!

”Was it really an evil ceremony? The creature that was to be born from her womb, directly frozen... died within the womb. Damn, this makes even me, a part-time Chaos Chosen, feel sick,” Li Yelai hesitated for a moment but gathered the woman’s body nonetheless and set it aflame with a fierce fire oil lamp.

After all, we are all human, so I should see her off.

However, in the midst of the fire, a voice emerged.

’Finally... I can die...’

That was clearly the woman’s voice, perhaps the residual sound of her voice before death. Li Yelai could even hear a hint of relief in it.

Relief? Could it be, she committed suicide?

Li Yelai frowned deeply, the weird situation making him even more cautious.

Then, he continued towards the direction indicated by the compass.

After crossing another hill, he was certain of the target’s location.

Li Yelai moved back and forth on the hillside, finding that the compass pointed roughly five kilometers away to a towering snow mountain.

”Is it over there? It’s not too far, I hope the height doesn’t exceed the limit,” Li Yelai thought to himself.

He then climbed over the hill and descended into a valley, beginning to approach the mountain peak.

However, as Li Yelai progressed about a kilometer into the valley, he began to feel the temperature around him rise, and he even felt a hint of warmth.

At first, Li Yelai didn’t care too much, as the lower terrain inside the valley would naturally be warmer, which was why he chose to walk along the valley floor.

Yet, after turning around a mountain base, Li Yelai paused in shock.

For in front of him was a densely vegetated jungle, and Li Yelai even saw a stream.

”Could it be, have I left the Great Snow Mountain?” Li Yelai was indeed surprised and immediately looked into the distance.

Had it not been for the snow-capped mountain peak directly in front, Li Yelai would have thought he had left the Extreme Cold Mountain Range.

”We’re still in the Great Snow Mountain, is the high temperature due to the low enough terrain?”

This was indeed a significant discovery.

The officials could set up a base here, in the valley surrounded by the deadly snow mountain, and the Forbidden Zone would hardly notice!

But why would such a place exist?

There didn’t seem to be any substantial difference in elevation compared to other valleys.

Li Yelai pondered, recalling the woman’s body he saw earlier. He still cautiously entered the jungle.

He noticed that the vegetation here was ordinary, but the ground seemed to contain some heat.

Geothermal? Was it this heat that created this valley?

Li Yelai pondered and continued onward.

A few minutes later, he passed through the jungle and was shocked to see farmland and houses in the distance.

It was a village nestled at the foot of the snow mountain.

There were farmlands, fruit trees, houses, and children running through the fields.

Inside the Great Snow Mountain, there was actually a human village?

Was Taoyuan actually real?