The Hidden Monster of House Vale

Chapter 112: Chapter - 112 - The Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms

Lucien opened his eyes to the soft, heavy warmth resting against his chest.

Besriel lay tangled over him, entirely bare, her fair skin still flushed from the long night. They had spent the hours until dawn in dual cultivation, circulating their energies together without pause. The process had granted her notable gains in her cultivation base, but her physical endurance had fallen far short of his. As a practitioner of the fourth realm—the Abyss Core Realm—blessed with a potent Yang physique, Lucien possessed stamina that vastly outmatched hers. Though the session had pushed her to her physical limits, the lingering benefits of his dense, warm energy continued to settle comfortably within her meridian channels.

A gentle shift in his breathing caused her eyelashes to flutter. Feeling his gaze fixed on her, Besriel slowly woke up.

”Did you sleep well?” Lucien asked, his voice low and smooth in the quiet morning light.

”Yes... I’ve never slept that well in my life,” Besriel murmured. A sudden flush crept up her neck as memory returned, making her blush with sudden embarrassment over how bold she had been during the night. ”What about you?”

”I enjoyed it,” Lucien replied, a slight smirk playing on his lips. ”Especially your mouth.”

Besriel gasped softly, burying her burning face directly into his chest. ”Axel... noooo!”

Nested deep within the wilderness, the Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms had remained sealed for three hundred and seventeen years. Today, its ancient gates finally moved.

There was no sudden roar of thunder, nor did divine light descend from the heavens to announce the event. The massive stone doors merely trembled. Then, with a low, grinding grrrrrrrrr, they began to part. Decades of heavy dust poured from the top of the monumental stone frame as the twin doors separated inch by inch.

From the abyss beyond, a draft of icy, long-trapped air spilled out, sweeping across the valley.

The hundreds of cultivators gathered outside the ruin fell completely silent. For a brief breath, no one moved, as if terrified that a single sound might cause the doors to slam shut again. Then, the silence shattered.

”The Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms!”

”Impossible! It really opened!”

”The rumors were true!”

”Three hundred years... the ancient formation actually weakened!”

”An ancient inheritance must be inside!”

Frenzied shouts echoed across the valley. Like a dam breaking, waves of cultivators rushed toward the yawning stone entrance, desperate to be the first inside.

Lucien stood near the perimeter of the crowd, flanked by Prince Rumil and Lady Aelene. Beside them stood two other Realm Masters who completed their party. One was Beiro, a young man whom Aelene introduced as her primary disciple and a recognized genius. Lucien gave him only a passing glance; the youth’s proud demeanor held little interest for him.

The second person, however, immediately caught Lucien’s attention.

Her name was Caelia. Like everyone else in the group except Lucien, she was an elf. She had joined their party at the very last moment, securing a spot after revealing she had reached the Spirit Forge Realm—a claim that Prince Rumil had accepted without hesitation. Beyond her realm, however, her background remained a mystery.

Caelia possessed sharp, fierce eyes, and the heavy wind blowing from the opening ruin tossed her flowing hair around her shoulders. She wore a thick mantle styled with a high turtleneck, while her main outfit resembled a tight, specialized combat suit—similar to a full-coverage swimsuit that protected her core while leaving her cleavage subtly visible. Heavy armor covered her forearms and lower legs, and the suit’s high-cut sides exposed the pale line of her thighs with every step. At her waist hung a ornate scabbard; when asked, she had simply stated that her weapon was a divine sword.

”It seems like we should move on as well,” Prince Rumil said, taking the lead.

With the prince in front, the group passed through the monumental stone doors together. The passage initially resembled a standard underground ruin, cold and cavernous, but they had not walked far into the entrance before the atmosphere shifted.

Scattered across the wide stone corridor lay the corpses of seventeen Realm Masters.

Lucien’s party had encountered no monsters or traps yet, yet here, right at the threshold, lay the dead. Some were half-buried beneath loose soil, while others slumped uselessly against cracked stone pillars. One cultivator had been cleanly cleaved from shoulder to waist. Another was pinned to the wall by a thick metal pole driven through his sternum. A third lay on his side, his own blade driven deep into his chest, still gripped by his dead fingers.

To most, such sights were merely the grim reality of an ancient site; the Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms was notorious for its lethality. But as Lucien looked closer, something felt strangely off.

He crouched beside the cultivator who had died by his own blade. The man wore the distinct robes of a dedicated sword cultivator. Lucien carefully examined the entry wound. The cut was impossibly precise—a single, clean entry point into the heart with no sign of a struggle, no hesitation, and no defensive marks on the hands.

Moving to another body, Lucien inspected a female cultivator. His Divine Inspection revealed that her core was aligned with the fire element, yet her corpse was frozen solid. Lucien reached out and touched her bare shoulder; the flesh was like ice, yet the stone beneath her and the surrounding air carried no drop in temperature. Only her body had been chilled to death.

A few steps away lay a third cultivator—a practitioner of the demonic path who manipulated soul energy, similar to Lucien’s own methods, though on a far crude scale. This man’s body bore not a single mark, bruise, or scratch. Yet his eyes were wide, glassy, and completely hollow. His soul had been utterly destroyed.

A slight, amused curve touched Lucien’s lips. ”Interesting.”

”What’s interesting?” Caelia asked, stopping nearby.

”Nothing,” Lucien said smoothly, standing back up.

Beiro frowned slightly, watching him. ”But weren’t you just examining those corpses?”

”Did I?” Lucien replied casually. ”I was merely looking at their wounds. Or perhaps I was just curious—as a simple traveler often is.”

Prince Rumil let out a brief laugh. ”You’re overthinking things, Axel. Everyone knows the Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms is extremely dangerous.” He gestured toward the fallen cultivators scattered down the hallway. ”Whatever killed these people is still inside, waiting for us.”

”Which means the treasure is still there as well,” Caelia said coldly.

”The Heavenly Marrow?” Beiro chimed in.

”Yes... the legendary inheritance,” Caelia affirmed.

According to the few ancient records that survived, the Hollow of Ten Thousand Forms had once belonged to an unknown civilization that vanished long ago. No one knew its original name or who had constructed it. The sparse information available was compiled from fragmented texts that spoke of lost cultivation techniques, unidentified artifacts, forbidden formations, and bizarre creatures.

Above all, the texts mentioned the Heavenly Marrow—a legendary resource said to dramatically strengthen a cultivator’s foundation. What it did precisely remained unknown, but the mere rumor of its existence was enough to draw hundreds of powerful figures into the abyss.

”Let’s move forward,” Prince Rumil ordered, maintaining his steady pace.

As they walked deeper into the structure, Lucien glanced at the surrounding stonework. ”These dungeons are truly exquisite. Sometimes I wonder how they managed to build a massive structure like this.”

Beiro looked at him sideways. ”Have you never been in a dungeon before?”

”No,” Lucien said easily. ”I’m just a traveler. I simply wanted to experience the thrill of exploring an ancient dungeon. What about you?”

”I requested to join Lady Aelene so I could assist her as a healing Realm Master,” Beiro replied, raising his chin slightly. ”I have entered many dungeons, though never one this old. Don’t worry—I will heal you if you end up needing it.”

”And what about you, Lady Caelia?” Lucien asked, turning his gaze toward the elven woman.

Caelia’s expression darkened, growing strict and solemn. ”I came because my clan’s records explicitly mention this place. My ancestors entered this dungeon three hundred years ago.”

”Did they return?” Lucien asked, looking directly at her.

”No,” she said flatly.

”Then why do you believe you’ll succeed where they failed?”

Caelia met his gaze without flinching. ”I don’t know.”

Lucien offered a faint smile. ”At least you are honest.”

They continued down the wide corridor without incident. But the moment their group stepped across the threshold into the next massive chamber, an ancient formation buried deep within the stone floor quietly activated. None of the others felt it—but Lucien did.

Before anyone could react, a spatial gate manifested out of thin air and swallowed the entire party.

In a fraction of a second, the world shifted. The air grew bitterly cold, and the corridor behind them vanished entirely. The distant echoes of other cultivators shouting through the entrance were instantly cut off, replaced by a dense, suffocating silence.

Caelia’s eyes widened as she scanned their new surroundings. ”Spatial isolation... This wasn’t mentioned in any of the records.”

The chamber they had been shifted into was enormous. Thick stone pillars stretched upward into a dark ceiling that remained hidden in shadow. Faded and faintly glowing ancient symbols covered every wall, while a thick layer of dust rested undisturbed on the floor.

There were no treasures. There were no paths forward. There was nothing.

”That’s it?” Beiro muttered, looking around nervously. ”There’s nothing here.”

Suddenly, a strange sound echoed from the dark corners of the room. It was not human, nor did it sound like any common beast.

The entire party froze. Something was moving through the chamber, hiding just beyond the reach of their sight, its heavy scrapes echoing off the stone pillars.

”Draw your weapons,” Prince Rumil commanded.

Caelia instantly unsheathed her divine sword, its blade gleaming with a sharp, cold light.

Out in the shadows, a pair of glowing red eyes snapped open. Then another. Then dozens more. An endless array of glowing eyes emerged from the darkness as the creatures stepped into view. They possessed bodies similar to oversized wolves, but their flesh was entirely covered in hard, metallic scales, and their jaws opened unnaturally wide, lined with jagged teeth.

With terrifying speed, the pack lunged forward.

Caelia stepped up first, her divine sword sweeping out in a bright arc that cleanly sliced through the frontrunner. Prince Rumil raised his hand, unleashing a torrent of bright flames that engulfed three more beasts, burning them in seconds. The rest of the party joined the fray, locking the creatures into a chaotic battle.

Lucien moved casually among the combatants. Drawing his halberd, he struck down several beasts that leaped toward him, but as he fought, a growing sense of detachment took hold.

These monsters are too weak... Lucien thought, parrying an incoming claw with minimal effort. Is this merely a test?

He stepped back from the main clash and approached the corpse of the first creature—the one Caelia had cleanly bisected with her divine blade. Lucien lowered his halberd and brought the blade down against its scaled hide using purely physical strength, intentionally withholding his Astral Energy.

Clang.

The blade bounced off the hide, leaving barely a scratch. The scales possessed an extreme resistance to physical edges.

Lucien then turned his attention toward a second beast—one that had been burnt to a crisp by Prince Rumil’s attack. Lucien pointed a finger and cast a small, basic fireball onto a nearby, living creature of the same pack. The flame hit the beast dead-on, but it absorbed the heat completely, unaffected. Yet, when Prince Rumil’s fire hit it moments later, the creature burned instantly.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed slightly as the realization struck him.

The monsters weren’t just random spawn. Each one was individually constructed with specific immunities and vulnerabilities tailored to test or counter specific forces.

Lucien quietly walked over to the nearest wall, extending a finger to touch the glowing symbols carved into the stone. He channeled a tiny thread of Astral Energy directly into the ancient formation mark, feeling the intricate spellwork humming deep within the ruin.

He turned back toward the party, his voice cutting clearly through the sound of clashing metal and dying beasts.

”You aren’t defending the dungeon,” Lucien said calmly. ”You are studying us.”