Following the encounter with the Curse Beasts, the atmosphere within the small group shifted. The last vestiges of doubt in Wei's leadership had evaporated. They followed him without question as he led them deeper into the petrified forest, the invisible necrotic thread now a thick, black cable in his spiritual perception.
The land itself seemed to grow more malevolent with every step. The grey mist was now a thick, clinging fog that limited their visibility to a few meters, and the silence was so profound it felt like a physical pressure against their eardrums. The ground was littered with the petrified forms of not just animals, but cultivators—rogues and adventurers who had likely wandered into this cursed land seeking treasure and had found only a silent, grey eternity.
After another half day of walking, Wei stopped. He stood before a sheer cliff face of grey rock, indistinguishable from the countless other cliffs in the blighted landscape. The necrotic thread he had been following plunged directly into the solid stone and vanished.
"It is here," Wei announced.
Elder Jin stepped forward, his eyes scanning the rock. "There is no cave, no entrance. Is it hidden by a formation?"
"Of a sort," Wei replied. He reached out, not with his hand, but with a single, invisible thread of Stygian Weaver's Silk. The thread touched the cliff face and, instead of stopping, phased through it as if it were an illusion. "The entrance is real, but it is sealed with a high-level concealment array keyed to necrotic energy. To any normal spiritual sense, this cliff is solid rock. Only those who carry the energy of death may enter."
He focused his will, and a small, almost imperceptible amount of his 'Domain of Silent Death' flowed along the silk thread and into the formation. The rock face shimmered, and a section of it turned dark and translucent, revealing a gaping, black tunnel leading down into the earth.
"The heart of the sickness," Elder Jin rumbled, his voice low and grim.
"The sheer amount of necrotic energy... it's suffocating," Elder Lihua whispered, her life-attuned senses recoiling from the sheer wrongness pouring out of the tunnel.
The four of them entered, descending into the oppressive darkness. The tunnel was long and spiraled deep into the earth. After several miles, it opened into a cavern of impossible scale. They stood on a ledge, looking out into a subterranean space so vast it could have contained an entire city. A faint, sickly black light emanated from the cavern's center, revealing a swirling vortex of black and grey mist. And at the heart of that vortex stood a single, monolithic structure.
It was a tower, carved from what appeared to be a single, massive, petrified bone. Its surface was covered in jagged spurs and unnatural, spiraling patterns. It pulsed with a necrotic light that was the undeniable source of the Grey Rot curse. This was the Necrotic Anchor.
Wei's eyes were narrowed in intense, academic focus. "It is not just an anchor," he said, his voice sharp. "It is a ritual array. The tower is a catalyst, drawing power from an external source, and the array is refining that power into the Grey Rot curse and spreading it through the earth itself."
"Then we just need to smash it," Jin stated simply.
"No," Wei countered immediately. "An array of this complexity would have a failsafe. A direct, brutish attack would likely cause it to overload, releasing its entire store of necrotic energy in a single, catastrophic wave. It would petify this entire province in an instant." He turned his gaze to the base of the tower. "The array is being controlled. There is someone, or something, inside."
As he spoke, a figure emerged from a crack-like entrance at the base of the bone tower. The figure was tall and emaciated, wrapped in tattered, black robes. His face was hidden in the shadow of a deep hood, but the aura he radiated was one of ancient, profound death. It was the unmistakable pressure of a Spirit King, one whose Dao was in perfect harmony with the necrotic energy of the tower.
The robed figure raised a hand, and a wave of Curse Beasts—dozens of them, from petrified wolves to monstrous, stone-skinned insects—poured out from the base of the tower, forming a silent, grey army.
"It seems we have been discovered," the figure's voice echoed through the vast cavern, a dry, rasping sound like dead leaves skittering across pavement. "Visitors from the Verdant Serpent Sect. How bold of you to step into my laboratory."
"Who are you?" Elder Jin bellowed, his own Spirit King aura flaring to create a protective barrier around the group. "Why are you doing this?"
The figure let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "I am called the Bone Sage. As for why... why does a scholar conduct his research? I am merely observing a fascinating interaction between life force and necrotic law. This province is my petri dish."
"You are turning innocent people to stone for an experiment?" Sun Ling cried out, her voice filled with a renewed, horrified rage.
The Bone Sage simply tilted his head. "Innocence is a matter of perspective. To me, they are merely raw materials." He then focused on Wei, his unseen eyes seeming to pierce the distance between them. "You... you are different from the others. Your aura... it is not of life, but of a different, more refined death. A poison master. Interesting. A rare and fascinating specimen."
Wei met the Bone Sage's unseen gaze, his own expression unreadable. "Your curse is impressive," Wei stated, his voice calm and even. "The mechanism is elegant. But your control is flawed. Your Curse Beasts are inefficient puppets. You waste too much energy on animating them."
The Bone Sage was taken aback. He had expected fear, or righteous anger. He had not expected a clinical critique of his life's work. "You dare to criticize my creations?"
"I state a simple fact," Wei replied. "But I am willing to learn. Tell me, the necrotic energy you are channeling... it is not of this world, is it? The power source is extra-planar. A connection to the Netherworld, perhaps?"
The Bone Sage was now genuinely intrigued. "You can perceive that? Your senses are truly remarkable. Yes. This tower is a conduit, a pinhole I have bored into the Netherworld itself, allowing me to draw upon its endless, beautiful death."
This was the final piece of the puzzle for Wei. This was not just a rogue cultivator; this was a true heretic, a man dabbling in forces that could destroy the entire continent. He was also an invaluable source of knowledge and, more importantly, power.
"A fascinating project," Wei said. "But it ends today."
He turned to his companions. "Jin, you and I will handle the Bone Sage. Lihua, Sun Ling, your task is the Curse Beasts. Do not engage them directly. Your goal is to distract them, to draw their attention away from us. Do not use your light-based arts, Sun Ling. Use physical attacks, create diversions. Just keep them occupied."
"I am not asking you to kill them," Wei said, his voice sharp. "I am asking you to be a nuisance. Now go."
With a shared look, Lihua and Sun Ling shot off to the side, creating a series of loud, flashy but ultimately harmless explosions of spiritual energy to draw the attention of the grey army. The Curse Beasts, their simple intelligence drawn to the bright lights and sounds, turned and began to move towards them.
With the cannon fodder distracted, Wei and Jin focused on the true threat. They descended from the ledge, landing a hundred meters from the Bone Sage.
"Two Spirit Kings," the Bone Sage rasped, a hint of excitement in his voice. "Excellent. Your petrified forms will make fine additions to my collection."
He raised his hands, and the ground around him began to tremble. Skeletal hands made of grey stone erupted from the earth, reaching for them.
Jin met the attack head-on, his fists shattering the stone hands with explosive force. "I will keep him busy, Wei! Find a weakness!" he roared, charging forward to engage the Bone Sage in a direct confrontation.
Wei did not join the fight. He melted into the shadows at the edge of the cavern, his 'Domain of Silent Death' expanding, not as an attack, but as a sensory field. He watched the battle between Jin and the Bone Sage, his mind a whirlwind of analysis. The Bone Sage was powerful, his control over necrotic energy absolute. He could raise walls of bone, fire lances of solidified death energy, and summon lesser undead creatures from the ground. Jin was a match for him in raw power, but the Bone Sage was on his home turf, his energy seemingly endless as he drew power from the tower behind him.
Wei was not watching the fight itself. He was watching the flow of energy. He saw the threads of necrotic power flowing from the tower into the Bone Sage, replenishing his strength with every passing second. He also saw how the Bone Sage controlled the Curse Beasts, not with his own spiritual sense, but through a broadcast by the tower.
He had his solution. He needed to sever the connection.
He opened his inner world, not to draw out a weapon, but a single, perfect flower: the Midnight Belladonna. He crushed it in his hand, mixing its soul-attacking pollen with a catalyst that amplified its effects when airborne.
While Jin's furious assault occupied the Bone Sage's full attention, Wei acted. He used his Stygian Weaver's Silk, not to attack, but to deliver his poison. A hundred and eight invisible, ethereal threads shot out, not at the Bone Sage, but into the swirling vortex of mist around the tower itself. The threads were coated in the Belladonna mixture.
As the threads entered the energy field, the poison was atomized, becoming a part of the necrotic mist. The Bone Sage, focused on his battle, inhaled the tainted energy without noticing a thing.
The poison did not attack his body. It attacked his soul, specifically the part of his spiritual consciousness that was connected to the tower.
The Bone Sage suddenly faltered, a choked gasp escaping his lips. The flow of energy from the tower into his body sputtered and died. The red light in the eyes of the distant Curse Beasts, who were chasing Lihua and Sun Ling, flickered and went out. They crumbled into inert sand, their puppet strings cut.
"What... what have you done to me?" the Bone Sage shrieked, clutching his head as he felt his connection to his life's work being severed.
It was the opening Jin needed. With the Bone Sage weakened and distracted, Jin's final, devastating punch landed square in the necromancer's chest. The sound was like a boulder cracking in two. The Bone Sage was sent flying, crashing into the base of his own tower, his body broken.
But he was not dead. He lay in a heap, his Spirit King life force desperately trying to heal his shattered bones.
Wei walked calmly out of the shadows, appearing before the fallen necromancer. He looked down, not with triumph, but with the cold curiosity of a scientist examining a failed experiment.
"Your connection to your power was your greatest strength," Wei said softly. "And your greatest weakness. A single point of failure."
He raised a hand, a single black needle appearing between his fingers. This was not the God-Slaying Tear. That was a tool for a specific kind of enemy. This was a new poison, one he had brewed from the Curse Core of the first beast he had encountered. A poison designed to interact with the Grey Rot curse itself.
"I will take your knowledge," Wei said. "And your power."
The needle shot forward, not to kill, but to paralyze and begin a different, more interesting kind of dissolution.