Transmigrating Into a Fantasy World: Signing in During Pregnancy, Reaching the Summit with My Childhood Sweetheart

76: Chapter 76: The Deep Palace, the Star Pivot, and the Bone-Corroding PatternsCold darkness instantly swallowed everything.

The violent energy eruption and City Lord Bai He’s roar behind her were suddenly cut off, as if separated by another world. Only the pain of her body hitting the ground and rolling several times, along with the faint fluctuations from Lin Mo’s light orb in her arms, reminded Su Muxue that she was still alive.

She struggled to cough up some clotted blood and quickly flipped up, holding the zhenyuan remnant sword across her chest, her icy blue eyes scanning the surroundings warily.

This seemed to be the interior of the stone palace, a place of absolute darkness where even with her vision, she could only see a few feet around her. The air was cold and stagnant, filled with a thick, inseparable smell of dust and a strange scent of Stellar Power intertwined with decay, several times more concentrated than outside!

Silence, a deathly silence.

”Lin Mo?” she called out softly, her voice dissipating into the vast darkness before traveling far.

”I’m fine,” Lin Mo’s thought came through, carrying a trace of weakness and an unprecedented gravity. ”Be careful, the energy field here is extremely chaotic and... dangerous. My nirvana star core can perceive some things, but many areas are distorted and shielded by powerful force fields.”

His light orb slowly lit up with a faint grayish-blue light, like a flickering candle in the wind, barely illuminating a small area around them.

By this faint light, Su Muxue could see the general environment they were in.

This was an extremely wide and tall corridor. The floor and walls were made of light-absorbing black giant stones, polished exceptionally smooth. Despite countless ages and the recent impact, there wasn’t much damage, only a thick layer of dust. On the walls of the corridor, star charts far more complex and precise than those in the ruins outside were carved, along with various never-before-seen exotic creature totems. Some creatures looked hideous and terrifying, not at all like things of the human world.

The corridor stretched forward into the depths, vanishing into the endless darkness, its destination unknown.

What made them most apprehensive was that in certain corners of those murals and totems—or rather, on the walls, floor, and even in the air of this entire corridor—faint dark purple patterns, fine as blood vessels, could be seen!

These patterns seemed like living things, writhing extremely slowly and emitting a decaying, evil aura identical to that drop of poisonous blood and the bone rotting grass! They were like maggots on a bone, eroding this ancient stone palace!

”It’s them...” Su Muxue’s voice was dry. The Star Palace’s desperate warning still rang in her ears, and here was the living proof! The power of ”them” had already permeated this place!

”These patterns are absorbing and polluting the Stellar Power here,” Lin Mo’s Perception was even sharper. ”The reason this stone palace’s Core went berserk is that it has been eroded and polluted by this power for a long time, reaching a critical point. My communication just now happened to trigger it.”

His thoughts pointed toward the depths of the corridor: ”The source of that polluted Core power is over there. And... I feel like there’s something else... a very weak, sealed... life fluctuation?”

Life fluctuations? Deep within this stone palace that had been abandoned and eroded for eons?

Friend or foe? A survivor? Or... an even more terrifying trap?

The two became even more vigilant.

”We must go see,” Su Muxue said solemnly. ”City Lord Bai He will never give up; he likely has a way to get in. We have no choice but to move forward; perhaps there’s another way out in the depths.”

She took a few healing Medicinal Pills and, after a brief moment of meditation, held zhenyuan and walked carefully toward the depths along the wide corridor. Lin Mo’s light orb floated by her shoulder, its faint light doing its best to dispel the darkness ahead, while the nirvana star core’s Perception was pushed to its limit, warning of potential dangers.

The corridor seemed endless, sloping downward all the way.

The sights along the way were shocking.

The deeper they went, the more numerous and dense those dark purple corrosive patterns became, like a spreading disease. In some places, they had even condensed into bizarre tumor-like lumps that throbbed slightly, emitting a nauseating aura.

The star murals on both sides were also being wantonly destroyed and covered by these patterns, becoming blurred in many places or even distorted into eerie patterns that profaned the sacred.

The decaying aura in the air had almost solidified, constantly trying to erode the protective spiritual light of the two. Su Muxue had to continuously circulate her Profound Yin Qi to resist, while Lin Mo’s nirvana star core was like a bottomless pit, silently swallowing the approaching decaying aura. Although slow, it was indeed converting and absorbing it, and the dark marking on the surface of the star Core became increasingly clear.

Finally, after walking for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the path ahead suddenly opened up!

At the end of the corridor was an incredibly vast circular hall!

The hall’s ceiling was so high that its top was invisible, as if it led directly to the surface. Faint Starlight fell from a great height, yet it couldn’t illuminate the entire hall, instead making the place seem even deeper and more mysterious.

The surrounding walls of the hall were no longer murals, but were embedded with countless giant star crystals that were slowly rotating on their own! These crystals formed an unimaginably complex celestial orrery, simulating the movement of the stars in the sky!

Although many crystals had become dim and were covered by dark purple patterns, a portion still stubbornly functioned, projecting faint beams of light that intertwined in the center of the hall to form a fragmented, slowly rotating star map!

And the heart of this star map was the center of the entire hall’s energy field, as well as the source of the polluted Stellar Power and the weak life fluctuation—

It was a massive Light Pool of pale blue, condensed from pure stellar energy!

But now, the Light Pool was no longer pure. The pool water had become murky, with most areas covered and polluted by thick, oil-like dark purple sludge! The sludge writhed slowly as if alive, constantly devouring the remaining power of the Light Pool and emitting a dense decaying aura.

In the center of the remaining Light Pool that hadn’t been completely polluted, a small area still emitted a faint, pure Starlight.

Within the Starlight, a curled-up, blurry figure could be vaguely seen!

The faint life fluctuation was coming from that figure!

At the edge of the Light Pool stood a broken stone tablet, covered in ancient characters of the Star Palace, seemingly recording important information.

Just as the two were shocked by this grand yet sinister sight—

Gurgle... gurgle... the dark purple sludge in the Light Pool suddenly began to churn violently!

From within the sludge, dark purple eyes filled with pure malice suddenly snapped open one by one!

Simultaneously, countless twisted tentacles made of sludge, like leeches smelling blood, shot out from the pool, sweeping toward Su Muxue and Lin Mo from all directions like a net!

An attack! A malicious attack from the polluted Core!