They continued deeper into the palace.
The path was riddled with traps—sword formations, illusions, puppets—covering almost every defensive technique used in the cultivation world to protect sects. Every step was treacherous, every corner hiding deadly intent. Yet the more Gu Qing advanced, the more his brow furrowed. If this weren’t a treasure worthy of sealing, why set up such an enormous formation?
Milton followed silently. He had seen battlefields before, even the technology of other races, but nothing like this. He felt acutely that this place was far more dangerous—and far older—than he had imagined.
Still, Gu Qing moved through it all with calm precision. Whenever a trap or formation appeared, he either sliced through it with his sword or manipulated it with gestures, his technique flawless. Not once did his expression betray surprise, as though these deadly arrays and illusions were entirely ordinary to him.
“Who exactly are you…?” The question rose quietly in Milton’s mind. He had thought he understood Gu Qing well, but every step challenged that assumption.
When they arrived at a door, they encountered their first truly sealed room. Layers of heavy spells coiled over the door like tangible threads, faintly glowing.
Gu Qing said nothing. He drew his long sword, light flickering as he cleaved the seal in one stroke.
Beyond the door, the stench of blood was thick. The air felt frozen, the walls and floor streaked with dried blood. Though the palace had clearly stood for a thousand years, the stains looked fresh, as if countless lives had been spilled here recently.
Gu Qing’s gaze darkened as he stepped inside. Shattered instruments of torture lay scattered around—some designed to restrain a cultivator’s spiritual power, others to immobilize the body entirely.
This was no ordinary prison.
Milton remained at the threshold, face pale. He instinctively felt the heavy aura of pain and darkness emanating from the room.
“This… was for fighting the insectoid race?” he asked quietly.
Gu Qing turned, his tone calm yet resolute: “No. This… was to punish their own kind.”
The certainty in his voice struck Milton.
These insects—capable of inflicting such punishment on their own? Then who were they really? And what connection did Gu Qing have with them?
Milton opened his mouth to ask, but his throat went dry. He couldn’t speak.
Gu Qing, apparently unsurprised, seemed to already know all of this. His composure made Milton suddenly feel an unbridgeable chasm between them.
Gu Qing then turned his attention to the runes etched within the room, communicating silently with the little heavenly orb in his mind: “This… should be a place for sealing ancient monsters and performing sacrifices. Look—”
The orb spun in circles, murmuring excitedly: “That formation over there is a ‘Soul Gathering Array,’ and this one—yikes!—is a ‘Divine Incinerator’! Haven’t seen these in ages! This setup isn’t a simple prison; it locks living people in as vessels… jeez, how wicked.”
He examined the residual runes in the corners of the floor, faintly emanating the aura of binding and blood sacrifice. His voice continued chattering in Gu Qing’s mind, rapidly analyzing the array’s structure and purpose.
The two of them moved further in.
Turning a corner, they found an even deeper cell. The iron bars were rusted and mottled, doors half-open as if long abandoned. Yet certain walls were covered in slanted, scrawled writing—not in the insectoid tongue, but in the ancient script of the cultivation world.
Milton could not read it, but Gu Qing recognized it at a glance.
The words conveyed anger, pleading, and despair:
“I refuse—merely following orders, yet confined here…”
“Please, I still have a Dao companion outside, let me go…”
“If there is a next life, I would rather be a demon than a human.”
Gu Qing observed silently, a trace of emotion stirring in his dark eyes. He lowered his gaze, murmuring softly:
“Indeed… those imprisoned here were cultivators.”
“They just wanted to survive.”
Milton’s eyes slowly swept over Gu Qing’s profile, a face both ephemeral and real, carrying a pain and distance he could not articulate. This insect—did not belong to this land, nor to any world Milton knew.
Yet here it stood, real, guiding him step by step into this unknown, dark abyss.
His chest ached with an unbearable heaviness. He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to speak—he only wanted to confirm, in this foreign solitude, that Gu Qing still existed, that he was still here.
In that moment, all Milton wanted was to hold that hand tightly, even if only for an instant, clinging to the sole warmth and support he could find.