99: Chapter 91 A Fortress Forged of Flesh and Blood

The corridor resembled an esophagus leading into the stomach of a giant beast. The further down they went, the fainter the nauseatingly sweet and fishy odor became, replaced instead by the pungent smell of sulfur, tar, and a mixture of industrial exhaust fumes and rust.

Pei Duo clenched her jaw tightly, her lungs feeling like they were burning. The bronze steps beneath her feet had long lost the exquisite cloud-and-thunder patterns seen on the top level of the Deer Terrace; they were now slippery, covered in blackened grease and some kind of dark red scab.

"Watch your step!"

Lin Sa let out a sharp cry, flicking the 'blood kiss' dagger in her hand backward, sending sparks flying. She had just severed a rusted steel rebar jutting out from a crack in the wall.

How could this still be considered an Immortal Palace of the Yin Shang Dynasty?

As their altitude rapidly decreased, the surrounding camouflage began to peel away frantically. Murals originally depicting mythological stories fell off, revealing the rough and terrifying riveted structure underneath. Giant black pipes crisscrossed overhead like blood vessels, emitting a dull, thunderous roar, as if the entire mobile fortress was gasping in pain.

"These bastards are using the foundation of the Industrial Revolution, draped in the skin of the Investiture of the Gods."

Xu Mo sprinted while quickly scanning the surrounding valves that were still seeping high-temperature steam, a layer of white fog covering his lenses.

His speech was extremely fast, laced with suppressed madness: "Space folding technology combined with steam power—this isn't an ancient setting at all. This is a steampunk-style mobile prison!"

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The impact sound coming from behind interrupted his analysis. The sound wasn't like footsteps; it was more like a heavy hammer striking a steel plate.

Pei Duo hastily looked back, her gaze instantly freezing.

Above the dim vertical corridor, more than ten twisted shadows were defying gravity, clinging to the greasy steel plates like giant geckos.

In the dim and narrow vertical corridor above, over a dozen massive Red Oni and Blue Oni were defying the rules of gravity, clinging to the walls and ceiling like geckos. They contorted their limbs, their joints reversed, and every crawl etched deep ravines into the steel walls.

This biologically impossible method of movement made their speed astonishingly fast.

"Emissary of the Underworld, make way! The living must avoid!"

Xu Mo abruptly stopped running, pulled out the slightly cracked 'underworld emissary token' from his chest, and fiercely waved it toward the fork in the path behind him.

A wave of ghostly green light spread out. The originally straight corridor instantly twisted visually, transforming into a solid wall.

That was the 'Ghost Hitting the Wall'.

The two Red Oni charging at the front couldn't brake in time, hitting the air wall with a 'bang,' their brains splattering.

But before the three could breathe a sigh of relief, a shriek erupted from the Blue Oni group behind them. A single-horned Blue Oni, nearly three meters tall, sneered as it tore apart the corpse of its companion. It violently flung the beast-catching net lined with barbs in its hand, completely ignoring the illusion Xu Mo had created, brutally tearing through the layer of ghostly green light.

"Illusions are useless against these high-ranking Shikigami! They feel no pain, they only obey orders!" Xu Mo's face turned pale; the backlash from the underworld emissary token made him taste blood in his throat.

"To the left! I sense airflow that way!"

Lin Sa grabbed Pei Duo's wrist and, relying on her acute perception of air currents, dragged the two of them crashing into a horizontal pipe filled with sewage.

The space here was extremely compressed; the height was less than two meters, and the width barely allowed two people to stand side-by-side. For the enormous Fiends, this was disadvantageous terrain, but for the three whose physical strength was nearly exhausted, this was also a dead end.

There was no path forward.

A massive, dark brown wall blocked their way.

"Damn it!" Lin Sa growled, the core of her right prosthetic arm spinning wildly, emitting an overloaded hum. Without any hesitation, the S-rank dagger in her hand whistled through the air and stabbed fiercely into the wall, attempting to violently carve a path.

"Splat—"

There was no crisp sound of metal colliding, nor the noise of shattering rock. The dagger seemed to sink into a piece of rotting leather, immediately followed by a surge of incredibly foul, black-red slurry erupting from the cut, splashing all over Lin Sa's face.

Even Lin Sa, accustomed to mountains of corpses and seas of blood, felt her stomach churn. The veins on the back of her hand gripping the dagger bulged, and she instinctively retreated half a step.

Illuminated by the flickering emergency red light in the corridor, the three finally saw the true face of this 'wall'.

It was not building material at all.

It was people.

Tens of thousands of naked humans were forcibly squeezed, twisted, and stacked together like mud by some terrifying, colossal force.

Countless legs, arms, and torsos were interlocked, leaving not a single gap. After being air-dried and compacted for who knew how many years, they had brutally formed the wall sealing off their escape route.

The most scalp-numbing thing was that this wall was 'alive'.

As the blade was withdrawn, the wound writhed and contracted like a living thing.

A half-crushed face twitched slightly in the black-red slurry. That eye, not even covered by an eyelid, rotated sluggishly to stare directly at Pei Duo.

It stared at Pei Duo, its lips moving, letting out a faint, thread-like moan:

"Kill... kill me..."

Fear instantly gripped Pei Duo's heart like a pair of icy hands. Using living people as bricks to construct a fortress with flesh and blood—this level of inhumanity surpassed every torture she had witnessed in Xibalba.

This was not a dungeon instance; this was a slaughterhouse.

"Screeech—"

The sound of sharp claws scraping metal came from the darkness behind them.

The three spun around abruptly.

A dozen pairs of red-glowing eyes lit up at the end of the pipe. The Red Oni and Blue Oni had caught up. They blocked the only retreat, the beast-catching nets covered in barbs slowly opening in their hands, greedy saliva dripping from their mouths.

Fiends in front, a wall of humans behind. Lin Sa's soul hooking rope was smoking from overheating; Xu Mo's underworld emissary token was dim, showing signs of energy depletion; and Pei Duo tightly clutched the black jade pendant, her fingernails digging deep into her palm, drawing blood.

Was this the real world without the protection of the Underworld Son of Heaven?

A foul wind wrapped in the shadow of the beast-catching nets descended upon them. Behind them was the writhing human wall, the path ahead sealed off.

At this moment, even the air they breathed carried the scent of rust—the aura of a dead end.

"Roar!"

The leading Blue Oni let out a roar, and the beast-catching net descended over their heads with a foul gust of wind.

Just at this fatal moment.

"Click."

Below the 'living wall' on the side, which had only been emitting faint moans, a inconspicuous, long-rusted iron plate suddenly and abruptly sprang open, revealing a gap.

Before Pei Duo could react, several withered, corpse-like hands with purplish-blue skin suddenly shot out from the darkness.