Chapter 92: The Masked One
The full moon cast long shadows across the trees as a cloaked figure made its way through the forest. The figure was careful not to tread on any twigs that would give away its presence. It would also occasionally pause, head cocked as though it was listening for pursuers, before continuing on its way.
After around an hour of travel, the figure reached a cliff face. At that moment, the moon passed overhead through the canopy above and threw down an ellipse of light, illuminating the figure’s features hidden under the hood.
The same righteous bearing, the same proud features, it was Li Yuan, or at least someone wearing his face. But now there was something different in his eyes, a hollowness that hadn't been there before.
Li Yuan took a final look around. It was silent, except for some birds' hooting or scurrying of the small creatures in the underbushes. Satisfied that he was not being followed, he entered a simple cave that had its entrance partially hidden under a curtain of vines.
The entrance to the cave was deceptive; what started as a narrow opening soon opened up into a vast cavern system. The sound of Li Yuan's footsteps echoed back from the high roof as he made his way deeper underground. The walls were smooth, too smooth to be natural, and veins of luminous crystal emitted dim illumination at infrequent intervals. These weren't ordinary spirit crystals either – they pulsed with an unsettling rhythm, like a heartbeat just slightly out of sync with normal time.
He pressed on through a series of branching corridors, never pausing at the intersections. He had made the trip many times before. As he went lower, the air grew colder. There was also the faintly metallic tang of something strange, something that imbued the crystal light with a reddish tinge, casting long crimson shadows that seemed to writhe at the corner of the eye.
Finally, the passageway opened into a huge circular chamber. The ceiling rose into darkness, lost beyond the reach of the crystal light. The walls were lined with alcoves containing what looked like cultivation resources: jade boxes, spirit herbs, mysterious artifacts that hummed with power. But these weren't arranged with the careful organization of a sect's treasury. Instead, they were scattered about haphazardly, as though whoever placed them there didn't quite understand their proper use or care.
At the far end of the room, on a throne that looked to have been hewn from a single piece of black crystal, sat a figure. Its surface writhed with patterns that hurt the eye to look directly at—like they existed in more dimensions than the human mind could conceive. The seated figure wore pitch black robes, and a mask that looked as though it were constructed from the same material as the throne.
Li Yuan walked up the steps to the throne and dropped to one knee. "Master," he bowed his head. "I have completed my mission."