Chapter 165: The Elder of the Karst Cave
The hiss did not erupt into a sharp psychic shock. Instead, it spread like a slow, creeping cold current, oozing out from the jagged crevices of the rocks.
The already thin illusion web fluctuations in the surroundings suddenly contracted. All the scattered psychic nodes in the entire karst area, like a swarm of bees returning to their nest, converged entirely toward the depths of the cavern. The pale purple mist suspended above no longer drifted aimlessly. It slowly rotated along the contours of the gray limestone, weaving into a sealed cage that directly cut off the retreat path of the five.
The team members' hair stood on end, and they subconsciously huddled together. The injured team member leaned against the shoulder of the man with the knife scar. The toxin in his shoulder was still spreading, his fingertips already numb, unable to grip his rifle. Chen Ye held his shock baton horizontally, the low-frequency module preheated in advance. The humming vibrations gently oscillated in the air, barely propping up a flimsy resistance field. But he knew in his heart that this amount of power was insignificant before an Ancient Progeny Elder.
"The Elder is different from the secondary priests," Lin Yan said in a rapid, breathy whisper, suppressing the surging, agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness. The remaining numbness from the agent was almost completely gone, and the burning pain beneath his fissure was escalating by the second. "Secondary priests are only responsible for coordinating the scaled beasts in one rift and maintaining the local illusion web. The Elder governs a vast expanse of outer karst territory, holding dozens of pre-embedded psychic anchor points in the rock strata. It can directly rewrite the rules of the illusions in this area. Here, everything we see can be fabricated by it."
The entrance to the cavern was tall and deep, the pitch-black hole like the open maw of a giant beast. Gray fog poured out endlessly from within. Gradually, a slender figure emerged from the mist.
It was much taller than ordinary scaled beasts, nearly two and a half meters. Its body retained the iconic scaly skin of the ancient lizard progeny. The scales were a deep, dark cyan, covered in ancient, winding gray-white patterns—psychic curses passed down through generations of the ancient progeny. Its limbs were slender, and the ends of its forelimbs were not sharp claws, but five long, flexible digits. Translucent psychic silk threads hung from its fingertips, gently touching the rocks. Wherever they landed, a layer of pale purple luminescence rippled across the gray stone.
It was in no rush to pounce and kill. It simply stood at the cave entrance, its vertical pupils indifferently sweeping over the five intruders, much like a human observing insects that had accidentally wandered into a trap.
"They knew about this detour through the karst passage long ago," Chen Ye said, his Adam's apple bobbing. "The priests' pursuit was the overt thread. This Elder is the hidden sentry stationed here. From the moment we decided to detour north, we fell into its calculations."
The Elder slowly raised one of its forelimbs.
There was no roar, no violent burst of energy. Suddenly, the surrounding gray rocks began to distort.
The chaotic stones beneath their feet and the rock pillars beside them changed their appearance in an instant. The originally interlaced strange rocks transformed into the city walls of the West Bastion. Familiar beacon fires burned on the ramparts. Gu Shen, Instructor Wen, and the soldiers of the defense line stood on the walls, shouting loudly at them to come back quickly, saying that the defense line had held and all danger had passed.
The familiar voices were incredibly real. The smoke from the beacon fires and the smell of gunpowder seemed to rush to their faces.
The injured team member's eyes wavered, and he subconsciously took a step toward the bastion in the illusion.
"Don't go over there!" Lin Yan shouted in a low voice, forcibly releasing a wisp of perception and fiercely crashing it into the resonance node of this layer of illusion.
The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness violently erupted with excruciating pain, and his vision went black in waves. This illusion was far more delicate and real than those created by the priests. The emotional hooks were buried extremely deep, precisely grasping the most desperate desire in everyone's hearts—the desire to return to the bastion alive.
The Elder's vertical pupils shifted slightly, seemingly showing a hint of interest that Lin Yan could easily see through the illusion. Its mental silk threads at its fingertips gently flicked, and the illusion switched again.
The soldiers on the ramparts instantly collapsed to the ground, blood flowing down the city walls. Gu Shen was pinned down by a third-tier scaled beast. He turned his head to look back at Lin Yan, his eyes filled with despair. Agonizing screams filled everyone's ears.
"It is toying with our attachments," Lin Yan gritted his teeth, pressing his perception down to the absolute minimum, not daring to continue resisting. "It doesn't intend to kill us immediately. It wants to slowly crush our minds, making us voluntarily give up our consciousness and become nourishment for the illusion web. Ancient Progeny Elders don't need to rush into a fight. Mental collapse is far more valuable to them than physical death."
The team member with the knife scar tightened his grip on the trigger, his voice trembling. "Should we just open fire? Can we hurt it?"
"It's very difficult," Lin Yan shook his head. "The Elder's curse-marked scales have far higher resistance to low-frequency oscillations and firearms than ordinary scaled beasts. Its vital point is not on its neck, but on the bone armor at the top of its skull where the curse marks converge. That is the core of its psychic link. But it won't stand still for us to aim at."
The Elder stepped slowly out of the cavern, its feet treading on the gray rocks. With every step, a ring of purple patterns lit up beneath its feet. It was in no rush to close in. The silk threads at its fingertips scattered and extended, wandering through the chaotic rocks, quietly sealing off all the crevices that could be used for escape. The large and small cave intersections in this karst area were now all locked down by its psychic anchor points. Anyone who drilled into any of them would fall into a deeper, looping illusion array.
"We cannot be led astray by its illusions," Chen Ye took a deep breath. "We'll split into two groups. I will attract its attention. You find an opportunity to aim for the top of its skull. If the first strike misses, we can only desperately charge into the depths of the cavern and gamble on whether there is another way out."
"The risk is too high," Lin Yan frowned tightly. "If it divides its psychic power to target me alone, the fissure in my Sea of Consciousness won't be able to withstand a second high-intensity impact. I only have two strong-dose agents left. The backlash after the drug wears off would be enough to make me lose my combat capability entirely."
Before his words had even finished, the Elder suddenly raised its head slightly. A silent psychic shockwave shot straight at them.
Unlike the previous large-scale illusion tides that spread out in patches, this time, the impact precisely locked onto Lin Yan alone.
It had realized that in this squad, Lin Yan was the Sea of Consciousness fulcrum, the core that saw through the illusions. As long as Lin Yan was incapacitated, the rest would be at its mercy.
An invisible force slammed fiercely into his consciousness.
Lin Yan groaned muffledly, stumbling backward, his back crashing heavily against a sharp rock. The fissure felt as if it had been poured with molten iron. The burning, agonizing pain spread through every strand of his consciousness. Countless fragmented images exploded wildly in his mind: the barren mountain where his master passed away, the countless wounded he saw when he first entered the bastion, the innumerable scaled beasts waiting to hatch in the rift mother nest, the final gaze of his fallen comrade... All the regrets, guilt, and fears hidden deep in his heart were dug out and magnified.
His body trembled uncontrollably. Half of the world before his eyes was the real, dark cyan Ancient Progeny Elder; the other half was an endless sea of blood-red illusions.
"Lin Yan!" Seeing this, Chen Ye no longer waited. Gripping his shock baton, he fiercely charged straight at the Elder, the low-frequency hum of the baton erupting at full power. "I'll hold it back!"
The Elder diverted a portion of its psychic silk threads to sweep toward Chen Ye. Chen Ye groaned muffledly, his steps faltering as chaotic phantoms exploded in his head. But relying on his formidable physical will, he endured it, gritting his teeth and continuing to charge forward.
At the same time, the team member with the knife scar and another assault team member who could still move seized this window. Having completed the charge on their shock pistols, they fired two low-frequency shockwaves directly at the curse-marked bone armor on top of the Elder's skull.
A purple light suddenly exploded at the top of the Elder's head.
The shockwaves collided with the curse-marked barrier on the surface of the bone armor, only stirring up a rippling ring of purple patterns. They failed to penetrate. The Elder tilted its head slightly, a trace of anger flashing in its vertical pupils. It waved its forelimb, and a heavy wave of psychic force swept out. The two team members who had fired were directly blown away by the impact, crashing heavily onto the rocks. Their rifles slipped from their hands, and they curled up in agony, clutching their heads, completely losing their combat capability.
In the blink of an eye, the squad's combat power was nearly collapsed.
Chen Ye had already reached the front of the Elder, his baton fiercely striking the scale gaps beneath its ribs. The Elder sidestepped to dodge, its slender forelimb whipping backhand toward Chen Ye's chest. Chen Ye hastily raised his baton to block. The immense force traveled along the baton to his arm, and his bones emitted a creaking sound. He was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, the baton slipping from his grasp and rolling among the chaotic rocks.
Now, the only one left standing was Lin Yan.
The Elder slowly turned its head, its gaze falling back on him. It took slow, measured steps closer. The psychic silk threads floated gently beside it, like a hunter waiting to close the net.
"Don't take it head-on, Lin Yan!" Chen Ye lay on the rubble, his chest in excruciating pain, screaming desperately. "Find a way to retreat!"
Lin Yan leaned against the sharp rock, panting heavily. The pain in his Sea of Consciousness was already on the verge of breaking through his tolerance limit. His hand trembled as he reached into his pocket, his fingertips brushing against the two remaining stabilization agents.
If he injected, he could temporarily suppress the agonizing pain and gain a brief window to fight back. But his ability to distinguish illusions would decrease. Facing an Ancient Progeny Elder who was a master of illusions, it would be equivalent to crippling half of his own advantages. If he didn't inject, in a few more moments, the continuous damage to his fissure would cause his Sea of Consciousness to collapse directly. He would turn into a madman.
The Elder stopped. It was less than ten meters away from him.
It did not immediately launch the next round of psychic killing moves. It seemed to be waiting for him to make a choice. From deep within the cavern came the faint, rustling sounds of scaled beasts being summoned by it, slowly closing in along the rock crevices.
The retreat was sealed. All his teammates had lost their combat capability. Pursuers were continuously gathering.
Lin Yan slowly straightened his spine. He was a third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator. The distance to the ninth tier was a long, seemingly endless road of life and death. This innate, unhealable fissure in his Sea of Consciousness had always been his greatest shackle. But now, beneath the shackle, he had no room to retreat.
He slowly drew the short blade at his waist. His other hand pinched one of the strong-dose stabilization agents.
The gray fog flowed through the karst terrain. The Elder's vertical pupils watched him quietly. A confrontation that gambled with his entire mind and soul had reached its most perilous juncture in the deep,secluded cave.
End of Chapter.
The already thin illusion web fluctuations in the surroundings suddenly contracted. All the scattered psychic nodes in the entire karst area, like a swarm of bees returning to their nest, converged entirely toward the depths of the cavern. The pale purple mist suspended above no longer drifted aimlessly. It slowly rotated along the contours of the gray limestone, weaving into a sealed cage that directly cut off the retreat path of the five.
The team members' hair stood on end, and they subconsciously huddled together. The injured team member leaned against the shoulder of the man with the knife scar. The toxin in his shoulder was still spreading, his fingertips already numb, unable to grip his rifle. Chen Ye held his shock baton horizontally, the low-frequency module preheated in advance. The humming vibrations gently oscillated in the air, barely propping up a flimsy resistance field. But he knew in his heart that this amount of power was insignificant before an Ancient Progeny Elder.
"The Elder is different from the secondary priests," Lin Yan said in a rapid, breathy whisper, suppressing the surging, agonizing pain in his Sea of Consciousness. The remaining numbness from the agent was almost completely gone, and the burning pain beneath his fissure was escalating by the second. "Secondary priests are only responsible for coordinating the scaled beasts in one rift and maintaining the local illusion web. The Elder governs a vast expanse of outer karst territory, holding dozens of pre-embedded psychic anchor points in the rock strata. It can directly rewrite the rules of the illusions in this area. Here, everything we see can be fabricated by it."
The entrance to the cavern was tall and deep, the pitch-black hole like the open maw of a giant beast. Gray fog poured out endlessly from within. Gradually, a slender figure emerged from the mist.
It was much taller than ordinary scaled beasts, nearly two and a half meters. Its body retained the iconic scaly skin of the ancient lizard progeny. The scales were a deep, dark cyan, covered in ancient, winding gray-white patterns—psychic curses passed down through generations of the ancient progeny. Its limbs were slender, and the ends of its forelimbs were not sharp claws, but five long, flexible digits. Translucent psychic silk threads hung from its fingertips, gently touching the rocks. Wherever they landed, a layer of pale purple luminescence rippled across the gray stone.
It was in no rush to pounce and kill. It simply stood at the cave entrance, its vertical pupils indifferently sweeping over the five intruders, much like a human observing insects that had accidentally wandered into a trap.
"They knew about this detour through the karst passage long ago," Chen Ye said, his Adam's apple bobbing. "The priests' pursuit was the overt thread. This Elder is the hidden sentry stationed here. From the moment we decided to detour north, we fell into its calculations."
The Elder slowly raised one of its forelimbs.
There was no roar, no violent burst of energy. Suddenly, the surrounding gray rocks began to distort.
The chaotic stones beneath their feet and the rock pillars beside them changed their appearance in an instant. The originally interlaced strange rocks transformed into the city walls of the West Bastion. Familiar beacon fires burned on the ramparts. Gu Shen, Instructor Wen, and the soldiers of the defense line stood on the walls, shouting loudly at them to come back quickly, saying that the defense line had held and all danger had passed.
The familiar voices were incredibly real. The smoke from the beacon fires and the smell of gunpowder seemed to rush to their faces.
The injured team member's eyes wavered, and he subconsciously took a step toward the bastion in the illusion.
"Don't go over there!" Lin Yan shouted in a low voice, forcibly releasing a wisp of perception and fiercely crashing it into the resonance node of this layer of illusion.
The fissure in his Sea of Consciousness violently erupted with excruciating pain, and his vision went black in waves. This illusion was far more delicate and real than those created by the priests. The emotional hooks were buried extremely deep, precisely grasping the most desperate desire in everyone's hearts—the desire to return to the bastion alive.
The Elder's vertical pupils shifted slightly, seemingly showing a hint of interest that Lin Yan could easily see through the illusion. Its mental silk threads at its fingertips gently flicked, and the illusion switched again.
The soldiers on the ramparts instantly collapsed to the ground, blood flowing down the city walls. Gu Shen was pinned down by a third-tier scaled beast. He turned his head to look back at Lin Yan, his eyes filled with despair. Agonizing screams filled everyone's ears.
"It is toying with our attachments," Lin Yan gritted his teeth, pressing his perception down to the absolute minimum, not daring to continue resisting. "It doesn't intend to kill us immediately. It wants to slowly crush our minds, making us voluntarily give up our consciousness and become nourishment for the illusion web. Ancient Progeny Elders don't need to rush into a fight. Mental collapse is far more valuable to them than physical death."
The team member with the knife scar tightened his grip on the trigger, his voice trembling. "Should we just open fire? Can we hurt it?"
"It's very difficult," Lin Yan shook his head. "The Elder's curse-marked scales have far higher resistance to low-frequency oscillations and firearms than ordinary scaled beasts. Its vital point is not on its neck, but on the bone armor at the top of its skull where the curse marks converge. That is the core of its psychic link. But it won't stand still for us to aim at."
The Elder stepped slowly out of the cavern, its feet treading on the gray rocks. With every step, a ring of purple patterns lit up beneath its feet. It was in no rush to close in. The silk threads at its fingertips scattered and extended, wandering through the chaotic rocks, quietly sealing off all the crevices that could be used for escape. The large and small cave intersections in this karst area were now all locked down by its psychic anchor points. Anyone who drilled into any of them would fall into a deeper, looping illusion array.
"We cannot be led astray by its illusions," Chen Ye took a deep breath. "We'll split into two groups. I will attract its attention. You find an opportunity to aim for the top of its skull. If the first strike misses, we can only desperately charge into the depths of the cavern and gamble on whether there is another way out."
"The risk is too high," Lin Yan frowned tightly. "If it divides its psychic power to target me alone, the fissure in my Sea of Consciousness won't be able to withstand a second high-intensity impact. I only have two strong-dose agents left. The backlash after the drug wears off would be enough to make me lose my combat capability entirely."
Before his words had even finished, the Elder suddenly raised its head slightly. A silent psychic shockwave shot straight at them.
Unlike the previous large-scale illusion tides that spread out in patches, this time, the impact precisely locked onto Lin Yan alone.
It had realized that in this squad, Lin Yan was the Sea of Consciousness fulcrum, the core that saw through the illusions. As long as Lin Yan was incapacitated, the rest would be at its mercy.
An invisible force slammed fiercely into his consciousness.
Lin Yan groaned muffledly, stumbling backward, his back crashing heavily against a sharp rock. The fissure felt as if it had been poured with molten iron. The burning, agonizing pain spread through every strand of his consciousness. Countless fragmented images exploded wildly in his mind: the barren mountain where his master passed away, the countless wounded he saw when he first entered the bastion, the innumerable scaled beasts waiting to hatch in the rift mother nest, the final gaze of his fallen comrade... All the regrets, guilt, and fears hidden deep in his heart were dug out and magnified.
His body trembled uncontrollably. Half of the world before his eyes was the real, dark cyan Ancient Progeny Elder; the other half was an endless sea of blood-red illusions.
"Lin Yan!" Seeing this, Chen Ye no longer waited. Gripping his shock baton, he fiercely charged straight at the Elder, the low-frequency hum of the baton erupting at full power. "I'll hold it back!"
The Elder diverted a portion of its psychic silk threads to sweep toward Chen Ye. Chen Ye groaned muffledly, his steps faltering as chaotic phantoms exploded in his head. But relying on his formidable physical will, he endured it, gritting his teeth and continuing to charge forward.
At the same time, the team member with the knife scar and another assault team member who could still move seized this window. Having completed the charge on their shock pistols, they fired two low-frequency shockwaves directly at the curse-marked bone armor on top of the Elder's skull.
A purple light suddenly exploded at the top of the Elder's head.
The shockwaves collided with the curse-marked barrier on the surface of the bone armor, only stirring up a rippling ring of purple patterns. They failed to penetrate. The Elder tilted its head slightly, a trace of anger flashing in its vertical pupils. It waved its forelimb, and a heavy wave of psychic force swept out. The two team members who had fired were directly blown away by the impact, crashing heavily onto the rocks. Their rifles slipped from their hands, and they curled up in agony, clutching their heads, completely losing their combat capability.
In the blink of an eye, the squad's combat power was nearly collapsed.
Chen Ye had already reached the front of the Elder, his baton fiercely striking the scale gaps beneath its ribs. The Elder sidestepped to dodge, its slender forelimb whipping backhand toward Chen Ye's chest. Chen Ye hastily raised his baton to block. The immense force traveled along the baton to his arm, and his bones emitted a creaking sound. He was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, the baton slipping from his grasp and rolling among the chaotic rocks.
Now, the only one left standing was Lin Yan.
The Elder slowly turned its head, its gaze falling back on him. It took slow, measured steps closer. The psychic silk threads floated gently beside it, like a hunter waiting to close the net.
"Don't take it head-on, Lin Yan!" Chen Ye lay on the rubble, his chest in excruciating pain, screaming desperately. "Find a way to retreat!"
Lin Yan leaned against the sharp rock, panting heavily. The pain in his Sea of Consciousness was already on the verge of breaking through his tolerance limit. His hand trembled as he reached into his pocket, his fingertips brushing against the two remaining stabilization agents.
If he injected, he could temporarily suppress the agonizing pain and gain a brief window to fight back. But his ability to distinguish illusions would decrease. Facing an Ancient Progeny Elder who was a master of illusions, it would be equivalent to crippling half of his own advantages. If he didn't inject, in a few more moments, the continuous damage to his fissure would cause his Sea of Consciousness to collapse directly. He would turn into a madman.
The Elder stopped. It was less than ten meters away from him.
It did not immediately launch the next round of psychic killing moves. It seemed to be waiting for him to make a choice. From deep within the cavern came the faint, rustling sounds of scaled beasts being summoned by it, slowly closing in along the rock crevices.
The retreat was sealed. All his teammates had lost their combat capability. Pursuers were continuously gathering.
Lin Yan slowly straightened his spine. He was a third-tier Sea of Consciousness cultivator. The distance to the ninth tier was a long, seemingly endless road of life and death. This innate, unhealable fissure in his Sea of Consciousness had always been his greatest shackle. But now, beneath the shackle, he had no room to retreat.
He slowly drew the short blade at his waist. His other hand pinched one of the strong-dose stabilization agents.
The gray fog flowed through the karst terrain. The Elder's vertical pupils watched him quietly. A confrontation that gambled with his entire mind and soul had reached its most perilous juncture in the deep,secluded cave.
End of Chapter.