Within My Sect, All Realms Unite-Chapter 66: Beginning

Time slipped quickly as three full days passed, and Lin Xiaotian now stood on the ship deck with a calm yet focused expression. Around him, everyone had already gathered, their auras steady as they prepared themselves for what was about to happen next.

The domain slowly began to fade away as the ship regained its freedom, and without hesitation, it surged forward toward the depths of the forest. At first, they moved openly, expecting attacks at any moment, but strangely nothing came.

As they continued deeper, confusion slowly spread among them because the forest felt far too quiet for a place filled with demonic corruption. The ground below looked completely barren, and even the demonic energy in the air seemed to be thinning instead of growing stronger.

They kept moving forward for a long time, the silence only becoming heavier with each passing moment as tension built naturally. Finally, in the distance, they spotted a cavern that emitted extremely dense demonic energy, making everyone’s expressions turn serious immediately.

Lin Xiaotian narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked toward it, his tone calm but certain as he spoke without hesitation. "This should be the source of the demonic corruption, or at least something very close to it."

As the ship descended into the valley, the moment they entered, everyone froze slightly at what they saw before them. Everywhere around them were massive corpses of demonic beasts, their bodies shriveled as if something had completely drained them dry.

The sight alone was enough to make even experienced cultivators feel uneasy, as the entire place carried a strange and unsettling atmosphere. It was not just death... it felt like something had consumed everything here and left nothing behind.

Han Leu’s eyes sharpened immediately as he observed carefully, his perception far more precise than most present there. He suddenly noticed faint red tendrils slipping away along the ground, moving almost like living things.

Without hesitation, he attacked one of them instantly, his strike landing cleanly as the tendril disintegrated without resistance. Even so, his expression did not relax, because that only confirmed that something far worse was hiding deeper within.

As they moved forward carefully, their guard fully raised, the atmosphere grew heavier with each step they took. Soon enough, they reached the end of the valley where a massive abyss opened before them, leading deep into darkness below.

Lin Xiaotian stepped forward slightly as he looked down into it, his gaze steady despite the overwhelming demonic energy rising from within. "Everyone disembark," he said calmly, his tone leaving no room for hesitation.

One by one, they stepped off the ship and gathered near the edge, standing together as they looked down into the abyss below. The moment they got closer, the demonic energy hit them fully, making even their breathing feel heavier.

A faint sense of repulsion rose in their instincts, as if their bodies themselves were rejecting whatever lay beneath that darkness. Something down there was not just dangerous.

As they saw that the path ahead was a complete downward slope, everyone moved without hesitation and began jumping inside one after another. Han Leu led the descent, followed closely by Lin Xiaotian and Chu Yue, while the rest came down carefully behind them.

The moment they landed, everything around them was swallowed by an oppressive darkness that seemed to dampen even their senses slightly. Han Leu raised his hand calmly and used a simple elemental martial art, igniting a steady flame that illuminated the cavern.

The instant the light spread, several disciples stiffened as their expressions turned pale, their bodies reacting instinctively to what they were seeing. A few of them nearly vomited on the spot, barely managing to hold themselves together under the overwhelming stench and horror.

The cavern walls, ground, and ceiling were completely covered with countless thin tendrils, stretching endlessly like a living network that filled the entire space. They twisted and shifted slowly, moving in uneven rhythms that made it feel as if the cave itself was breathing.

Each tendril pulsed faintly as a dark fluid-like energy moved through them, flowing in steady waves as if being drawn toward a single unseen center. Their surfaces contracted and expanded constantly, giving the impression that they were feeding on something continuously.

Some tendrils burrowed deep into the ground while others wrapped tightly around scattered corpses, embedding themselves into flesh without resistance. Half-consumed human bodies lay everywhere, hollowed out from within in a way that made it clear they had been devoured slowly.

As they looked further ahead, their eyes landed on a massive beast that was still twitching weakly, its body only partially consumed. Even in that state, its aura was unmistakable, a Nascent Soul existence reduced to nothing more than a living source of nourishment.

A wet, rhythmic sound echoed faintly throughout the cavern, slow and unsettling as it repeated without interruption in the background. It sounded less like movement and more like something alive continuously feeding in the dark.

Then their attention shifted upward toward the center of the cavern where everything seemed to converge into a single point. There, suspended above the ground, stood a young boy surrounded by an arch of tendrils that held him firmly in place.

His body was almost completely embedded within the structure as countless tendrils pierced into him, connecting through his limbs and torso without any visible resistance. They did not simply bind him but seemed to merge into him, as if he was the core sustaining them all.

Only his face remained mostly visible, pale to an unnatural degree as faint dark veins spread beneath his skin like cracks. His eyes were half-open and unfocused, yet something within them felt disturbingly present, something that was no longer human.

A strange tattoo stretched across his face, its lines shifting faintly as it pulsed in sync with the tendrils surrounding him. Each pulse sent a subtle ripple through the entire network, as if his existence controlled everything within the cavern.

The tendrils tightened slightly as they sensed the presence of intruders, reacting in a way that made it clear this was not a passive environment. The entire cavern felt aware now, as if something had turned its attention toward them.

Han Leu’s expression changed instantly as his gaze locked onto the boy’s face, his breathing slowing as recognition struck him clearly. Lin Xiaotian’s pupils shrank at the same moment, his thoughts aligning with the same realization.

That face was far too familiar to mistake, even in this twisted and unnatural state that barely resembled a living human anymore. It belonged to one of the most important members of the previous generation of Raven, someone they could not possibly forget.

The only son of their sect head stood before them, now reduced to something that should not exist at all. The next potential heir... had become the core of this nightmare.