6kv Chapter 650: Scorching Water Pool, Swordsman by the Bank
Chapter 650: Scorching Water Pool, Swordsman by the Bank
At the bottom of the passage, Lin Yu climbed onto a protruding rock from the bubbling, boiling pool, then wiped his face.“Isn’t a pool like this supposed to be a cold one in martial novels? How did it become a hot spring here?”
Lin Yu said with a hint of helplessness.
Calling it a “hot spring” was an understatement; this was basically a cauldron of boiling water.
When he first fell in, Lin Yu felt the water churning and thought it might be caused by an underground spring — only later, when the talisman above his head rapidly depleted him, did he realize something was wrong.
There was no spring at all; the water was boiling because the temperature was too high.
Most likely some magma vein ran beneath this area.
This Fire Hell not only had three suns suspended in the sky, it was sweltering belowground as well!
No wonder the airflow through the cracks in the stone slabs earlier wasn’t normal fresh air, but mostly scalding steam…
It also explained why this house’s insulation felt worse than the others — in the middle of a heatwave, someone had installed a heater indoors.
Chen Yongde’s nephew was a vicious type; after living in Fire Hell for so many years he probably slept on a heated bed — Lin Yu mused, thinking maybe that was why the fellow hadn’t returned for so long.
“This Prison Mountain Realm really does surprise you at every turn!”
Lin Yu used the Prayer Water Necklace to suck the moisture out of his clothes and the water clinging to his skin, then sighed.
Although the pool of boiling water wasn’t enough to seriously injure him — with the Prayer Water Necklace and still wearing Li Nian’s soft clothing, Lin Yu came away practically unscathed.
Still, being scalded like that put him in a slightly sour mood.
And…
With a pool of boiling water here, those three dart masters above truly couldn’t come down.
With their skills, if they jumped down, they’d be severely burned in an instant.
But it didn’t matter whether they were here or not.
Lin Yu quickly adjusted his mindset, then stood and raised his torch to light the surroundings.
The cavern below turned out to be unexpectedly large — in the pool, stones poked out of the water at intervals, as if intentionally left as stepping platforms.
Lin Yu did not follow the stone path; instead he jumped back into the pool.
This time, using the Prayer Water Necklace’s power, Lin Yu stood on the water’s surface — he could manipulate the water beneath his feet, compressing its density and lifting it to generate enough force and support.
He had been able to do this before, but using the Prayer Water Necklace’s water-control function consumed spiritual energy.
Before his spirit had been trained during this period, he didn’t have the strength or precision to sustain it.
Now he walked on the water as if it were solid ground.
His reason for doing so was not some whim to mimic a reed crossing the river or to gather chakra underfoot.
It was because…
Lin Yu sensed, out in the darkness ahead, a presence that was both powerful and faint, silently watching him.
This must have been the flicker Old Zheng had detected earlier.
Now that he was close enough, Lin Yu could feel the other’s existence himself.
So Lin Yu’s water-walking was part of a preemptive performance.
He quick-stepped across the water, and soon felt the temperature underfoot gradually drop, the boiling easing considerably.
After not walking far, the pale light of the Fear Torch swept over the “shore.”
Lin Yu leapt lightly and climbed out of the pool.
It was a natural underground cavern; the bank’s stone wall was similar to the cave formations seen earlier, big rocks embedded with gravel, rubble, and soil, only this spot near the subterranean pool was even damper.
Leaning against the stone wall below, a middle-aged man in tattered armor sat there.
The man was sturdy, clutching a long black iron spear, disheveled hair, and a scruffy beard, looking like an injured beast.
He opened his eyes, stared at Lin Yu who had come close, and spoke in a low voice.
“I really wasn’t mistaken. Your Excellency truly is a skilled hand… Even my subtle, weak qi sense perception could be locked onto and tracked back to my position by you.”
Lin Yu gave the torch a little shake. “So you let me find you on purpose… Who are you, and why did you do this?”
The bearded man struggled to prop himself up with the spear, then said, “I am Chen Yuanye, the ‘Gate-Cracking Spear’ of the Mingzhen Martial Arts School, disciple of Great Elder Bai Shiying of Mingzhen Martial Arts School — the one who taught ‘the spear defies eight towns, fists dominate three mountains’. I’m also one of the Chen Family Fort people.”
“A year ago I was ordered by my school to investigate a demon that was wreaking havoc on nearby villages and towns. Because the investigation site was close to Chen Family Fort, I decided to head home first to rest.”
“But upon returning I found a strange matter… I discovered many houses in the fort inexplicably emptied, and a caravan of merchants with few people but many horses, only six in number, had arrived.”
“That struck me as odd, so I began investigating. At night when temperatures were lower, I went to surrounding villages to ask questions… Only then did I learn that Chen Family Fort had been continuously reporting disappearances.”
“I tracked down the merchant caravan that remained, and after checking them out, they belatedly realized many people in their own ranks were missing!”
“That shocked me, so I sent word to the nearest Taoist temple — Deqing Temple, one of Fire Hell’s largest temples — to find out what was going on.”
“But the Taoists at Deqing Temple gave me an even stranger reply… They said Deqing Temple had repeatedly come to investigate Chen Family Fort many times and found nothing unusual!”
“They said those missing were being dragged off and killed by demons in the middle of the night — and that they had cleaned up the demons behind it several times.”
“Deqing Temple’s stance was… although it sounded like some conspiracy, it really seemed like a string of coincidences.”
“As for the rumors, they were just ignorant villagers spreading hearsay.”
“But I didn’t accept that, so I took my leave of Deqing Temple and vowed to investigate myself — find evidence, report back to my school, summon my senior brothers or even my master and uncles for help, and with Mingzhen Martial Arts School’s name persuade Deqing Temple to assist, so together we could sweep away Chen Family Fort’s shadow.”
“But…”
Chen Yuanye’s face broke into a bitter smile.
He didn’t continue, but looking at the man cowering and struggling to survive by the subterranean pool, Lin Yu could see what had happened.
“It seems you failed miserably, Brother Chen.”