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

123: Chapter 123: On the Frontier of Life and Death and the Netherworld WoodThe path to the east was completely different from the desolate silence of the northwest and the scorching violence of the south.

The further east one went, the more the Spiritual Qi became rich and vibrant. The vegetation gradually became unnaturally lush, with towering ancient trees blotting out the sun, thick vines winding like Dragons, and exotic flowers and rare herbs growing everywhere, emitting a life essence so dense it was almost viscous. If one only looked at the surface, this place could be called a cultivation Holy Land, with Wood Spirit Qi so abundant it was intoxicating.

However, beneath this extreme appearance of ’Life’ lay a bone-chilling Nirvana of ’Death’.

As Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue ventured deeper, their brows furrowed tighter. Their Perception far exceeded that of ordinary people, and they could clearly sense the eerie and contradictory nature of this land.

The life essence was concentrated to the extreme, yet they could not feel the vigorous vitality that large living creatures should possess. A deer ran through the forest, but its eyes were hollow, and its running posture was as stiff as a stringed puppet; birds chirped in the treetops with a crisp sound, yet it was a mechanical repetition, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. It was as if the ’life’ of all living beings in this region only remained on the surface, while their inner Core had long been hollowed out, leaving only their form.

Even more unsettling was what lay beneath the soil. Nangong Xuan’s nirvana golden core was attuned to the earth, and he could sense that what came from the depths of the ley lines was not vibrant vitality, but a heavy, cold Deathly Resentment. The root systems of countless plants were frantically absorbing nutrients, but what they transported was not pure vitality, but a bizarre mixture of some kind of cold energy.

Life and death coexisted here in a distorted and pathological way. The extreme appearance of life seemed only to cover and nourish a deeper layer of deathly silence.

“Life is abundant yet deathly silent... Senior Brother Lin Mo’s Perception was indeed accurate.” Su Muxue’s fingertips brushed over a strange orchid flowing with milky-white spirit liquid. The fragrance of the liquid was refreshing, but her Taiyin Star Power keenly captured a trace of an extremely subtle, cold aura that corroded the Divine Soul. “The life force here has been contaminated, or rather... stolen and parasitized by some kind of deathly power.”

Nangong Xuan crouched down, pressing his palm against the moist humus soil, sensing carefully with his Nirvana Dao Rhyme. “Nether Qi is leaking from the depths of the ley lines, forcibly blending with the Yi Wood Spiritual Qi to form this bizarre balance that is neither living nor dead. It’s like... a massive wound connecting the living world and the death realm, where two powers leak, intertwine, and deteriorate.”

He looked up toward the deeper parts of the forest, where spiritual mist billowed and rays of light shone in a thousand directions, looking like a fairyland, but his Divine Sense felt waves of bone-chilling cold. “The one that caused this wound is likely the star key we are looking for. It has lost its balance, or... it has been contaminated.”

The two remained on high alert as they continued deeper. Along the way, they saw even more bizarre sights: a fruit forest flowing with nectar, yet beneath the trees were piles of pale animal skeletons; a stream filled with Spiritual Qi, yet the riverbed was made of pale, fine bone fragments; they even saw several remains of Cultivators covered in moss, still maintaining a cross-legged posture for cultivation, yet their bodies were empty, as if all their essence, spirit, and even their souls had been sucked dry by something.

This was a cursed land of abundance, a twisted border between life and death.

After traveling for several more days, the surrounding trees became increasingly tall and deformed. Some tree textures even vaguely formed painfully twisted human faces, and their branches were like arms stretched out in despair. A faint grey mist, sweet yet carrying the scent of decay, began to permeate the air.

From deep within the grey mist came faint weeping and whispering, disturbing the mind. Even Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue had to constantly circulate their Cultivation Technique to maintain the clarity of their spiritual platforms.

“This mist can erode Divine Sense and amplify Heart Demons.” Starlight flowed between Su Muxue’s eyebrows as she opened up a small area of purity, her expression solemn.

Nangong Xuan’s Nirvana Dao Rhyme enveloped his body, making him impervious to all techniques, but his expression was equally serious: “We are almost at the Core area. Be careful, there are ‘things’ here.”

Before his voice could fade, the grey mist ahead churned violently, and with a tooth-grating ’crack,’ several figures stumbled out.

They were not living creatures, nor were they pure spirits of the dead. They had tree branches for bones, twisted black water grass for tendons, and their surfaces were covered in pale fungi and slippery moss. What beat inside their chests was not a heart, but a bizarre ball of ghostly green light that emitted dense life essence and Deathly Resentment. Their eyes were dried-up tree hollows, flickering with a greedy and hungry ghostly light.

“Wood Ghouls? No... it’s something even more sinister!” Su Muxue recognized at once that these were not ordinary mountain spirits or wood fey, but monsters born from the twisted union of life and death forces in this place, hungering for both life essence and the souls of the dead!

“Roar!”

The monsters detected the aura of living people, let out a hoarse roar, and pounced forward with extreme speed, bringing with them the stench of the grey mist.

Nangong Xuan pointed his fingers like a sword, and a strand of grey-black Nirvana Dao Rhyme slashed out, silently sweeping past the monster leading the charge.

The monster’s body suddenly stiffened. The twisted vitality and Deathly Resentment that composed its body seemed to have met their nemesis, instantly losing all activity. With a clatter, it scattered on the ground, turning into a pile of truly withered branches and rotten leaves, and the ball of ghostly green light vanished along with it.

However, more monsters continuously poured out from the mist behind. Several of them were significantly larger, with auras close to the Late Foundation Establishment Stage. They opened giant mouths made of vines and spat out viscous, foul-smelling green liquid that could slightly corrode the force field formed by the Nirvana Dao Rhyme!

Su Muxue’s jade-like hand rose lightly, and the Taiyin Lunar Blades flew like cold moonlight, precisely severing the monsters’ limbs. The extreme cold power could effectively freeze their movements. But these things seemed to have no sense of pain; unless their Core was completely annihilated, they would struggle to crawl forward even if their limbs were cut off.

“There are too many; lingering here is useless.” Nangong Xuan saw that these monsters were endless and must be controlled by some power in the Core area. With a thought, the zhenyu star key within his Dantian vibrated slightly.

Buzz!

An invisible yet heavy force, like a mountain, spread out with him as the center. It was not an attack, but pure ’suppression’!

The majestic power originating from the zhenyu star key descended instantly, and the movements of the pouncing monsters suddenly became incredibly sluggish, as if they had fallen into a quagmire. The twisted and chaotic energy flow within them was forcibly suppressed, and even the churning grey mist around them became stagnant!

“Go!” Nangong Xuan shouted low, and he and Su Muxue turned into streaks of light, passing directly through the slowed monsters and rushing toward the Core area where the grey mist was thickest.

The deeper they went, the thicker the grey mist became, even starting to obscure their vision and Divine Sense. The ground beneath their feet became soft and viscous, covered with a thick, constantly writhing pale carpet of fungi that made their skin crawl. Giant dark-red tree roots, pulsating like blood vessels, began to appear all around, buried deep in the ground as if they were siphoning something.

Finally, they burst out of the range of the grey mist, and the sight before them suddenly opened up, making both of them hold their breath instantly.

Ahead was a massive, sunken basin. In the center of the basin, there were no trees, only a giant tree so large it was beyond imagination... or rather, an object that had once been a tree.

Its trunk was already withered and charred black, as if it had been repeatedly ravaged by heavenly thunder and earthly fire, leaving only twisted and hideous remains. But on that charred withered wood, countless extremely lush, emerald-green, and even rainbow-colored leaves and vines grew in a completely discordant manner! Those new leaves frantically absorbed some power remaining in the withered wood, blooming with a pathological and vigorous vitality.

In the very center of the withered trunk, a massive hole was clearly visible. The edges of the hole were charred, but the interior was not wood; instead, it was a churning, rotating, bottomless darkness! Extremely pure Yi Wood Spiritual Qi and cold, deathly Nether Qi were continuously gushing out from that hole, filling the entire basin and forming the twisted mist sea of life and death on the outside!

That hole was like a passage leading to an unknown Netherworld!

And at the Core where these two powers of life and death gushed forth, at the top of the withered tree where the frantically growing emerald leaves were densest, a strange star key floated quietly.

Its entire body presented a semi-transparent color between emerald green and deep black, as if condensed from the most extreme vitality and the purest death. One half emitted a refreshing and vigorous vitality, while the other half emitted a chilling Death Qi that could freeze the soul. Two completely opposite powers achieved a bizarre and dangerous balance within it.

It was the power of this star key that had created that hole, breaking the boundary between life and death, and causing the bizarre situation in this region!

netherworld yi wood star key!

Below the star key, on the remains of the withered giant tree, among the tangled roots, one could vaguely see countless pale skeletons being entwined and swallowed by the tree roots—some were human-shaped, some were beast-shaped, and some were even strange-looking skeletons that did not belong to this world. On some ’fresh’ corpses that had not yet been completely swallowed, there were even fragments of clothing, clearly belonging to the Cultivators who had previously broken into this place to seek Opportunities!

Even more shocking was that at the edge of the basin, at the boundary between the grey mist and the clear area, dozens of figures were scattered about, sitting!

These figures were dressed in various ways, and their eras seemed to differ as well—some wore ancient clothing, while others were relatively modern. They were not corpses; they even had faint traces of vitality and Spiritual Qi fluctuations remaining. However, everyone’s eyes were tightly closed, and their faces were twisted as if they were immersed in a nightmare from which they could not wake. Their bodies were entwined with fine, pale fungal threads stretching from the ground, like stringed puppets, and strands of pure life force and Soul Power were being slowly drawn away along the threads, merging into the bizarre withered tree and new branches in the center.

They had been ’planted’ here, becoming the nourishment to maintain this twisted land and nourish that unbalanced star key!

The appearance of Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue seemed to have disturbed the ’Master’ of this place.

Upon the withered tree, those emerald-green leaves moved without wind, making a rustling sound. That sound converged together, forming a woman’s voice that was seductive to the bone yet cold and heartless, echoing throughout the basin:

“Is it more new nourishment... Eh? What a strange aura, both sweet and... a disgusting silence. But it doesn’t matter, become a part of the ’Life-Death Tomb’ and be... eternal with me.”

Following the voice, among the Cultivators entwined by fungal threads at the edge of the basin, seven or eight people suddenly snapped their eyes open!

The whites of their eyes had completely disappeared, leaving only a pure, greedy ghostly green. They instantly locked onto Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue. Then, they stood up stiffly, their bodies erupting with a bizarre power that was a mixture of the extreme contradictions of life and death. Like stringed puppets, they pounced forward, unafraid of death!

Among these controlled Cultivators, there were actually two Early Golden Core powerhouses! The rest were all at Foundation Establishment Perfection!