Transmigrating Into a Fantasy World: Signing in During Pregnancy, Reaching the Summit with My Childhood Sweetheart

123: Chapter 123: On the Frontier of Life and Death and the Netherworld WoodThe path to the east was completely different from the desolate silence of the northwest and the scorching violence of the south.

The further east one went, the more the Spiritual Qi became rich and vibrant. The vegetation gradually became unnaturally lush, with towering ancient trees blotting out the sun, thick vines winding like Dragons, and exotic flowers and rare herbs growing everywhere, emitting a life essence so dense it was almost viscous. If one only looked at the surface, this place could be called a cultivation Holy Land, with Wood Spirit Qi so abundant it was intoxicating.

However, beneath this extreme appearance of ’Life’ lay a bone-chilling Nirvana of ’Death’.

As Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue ventured deeper, their brows furrowed tighter. Their Perception far exceeded that of ordinary people, and they could clearly sense the eerie and contradictory nature of this land.

The life essence was concentrated to the extreme, yet they could not feel the vigorous vitality that large living creatures should possess. A deer ran through the forest, but its eyes were hollow, and its running posture was as stiff as a stringed puppet; birds chirped in the treetops with a crisp sound, yet it was a mechanical repetition, devoid of any emotional fluctuation. It was as if the ’life’ of all living beings in this region only remained on the surface, while their inner Core had long been hollowed out, leaving only their form.

Even more unsettling was what lay beneath the soil. Nangong Xuan’s nirvana golden core was attuned to the earth, and he could sense that what came from the depths of the ley lines was not vibrant vitality, but a heavy, cold Deathly Resentment. The root systems of countless plants were frantically absorbing nutrients, but what they transported was not pure vitality, but a bizarre mixture of some kind of cold energy.

Life and death coexisted here in a distorted and pathological way. The extreme appearance of life seemed only to cover and nourish a deeper layer of deathly silence.

“Life is abundant yet deathly silent... Senior Brother Lin Mo’s Perception was indeed accurate.” Su Muxue’s fingertips brushed over a strange orchid flowing with milky-white spirit liquid. The fragrance of the liquid was refreshing, but her Taiyin Star Power keenly captured a trace of an extremely subtle, cold aura that corroded the Divine Soul. “The life force here has been contaminated, or rather... stolen and parasitized by some kind of deathly power.”

Nangong Xuan crouched down, pressing his palm against the moist humus soil, sensing carefully with his Nirvana Dao Rhyme. “Nether Qi is leaking from the depths of the ley lines, forcibly blending with the Yi Wood Spiritual Qi to form this bizarre balance that is neither living nor dead. It’s like... a massive wound connecting the living world and the death realm, where two powers leak, intertwine, and deteriorate.”

He looked up toward the deeper parts of the forest, where spiritual mist billowed and rays of light shone in a thousand directions, looking like a fairyland, but his Divine Sense felt waves of bone-chilling cold. “The one that caused this wound is likely the star key we are looking for. It has lost its balance, or... it has been contaminated.”

The two remained on high alert as they continued deeper. Along the way, they saw even more bizarre sights: a fruit forest flowing with nectar, yet beneath the trees were piles of pale animal skeletons; a stream filled with Spiritual Qi, yet the riverbed was made of pale, fine bone fragments; they even saw several remains of Cultivators covered in moss, still maintaining a cross-legged posture for cultivation, yet their bodies were empty, as if all their essence, spirit, and even their souls had been sucked dry by something.

This was a cursed land of abundance, a twisted border between life and death.

After traveling for several more days, the surrounding trees became increasingly tall and deformed. Some tree textures even vaguely formed painfully twisted human faces, and their branches were like arms stretched out in despair. A faint grey mist, sweet yet carrying the scent of decay, began to permeate the air.

From deep within the grey mist came faint weeping and whispering, disturbing the mind. Even Nangong Xuan and Su Muxue had to constantly circulate their Cultivation Technique to maintain the clarity of their spiritual platforms.