jdhmnovel Chapter 364 The Ancient Kingdom of Gurtula (Page 12)
Chapter 364 The Ancient Kingdom of Gurtula (Page 12)
Zhang Yun, dressed in black, was receiving training from Zhou Ping while lying down and reading a book.
Zhang Yun, dressed in red, is traversing an endless sea of mist.
We have finally entered the ancient kingdom of Gurtura!
A forbidden place!
.....
The silver robes appeared and disappeared in the thick fog, like a wound tearing through the gray world.
The silver hue flowed eerily in the deathly mist, sometimes coalescing into a human silhouette, and sometimes scattering into countless tiny points of light.
Blue squinted his eyes, which were stinging from the mist, trying to see what it was, but with each blink, the silver seemed to get closer to him.
Bru could feel the damp, cold mist with every breath he took, which seeped into his lungs and seemed to have a life of its own, coursing through his veins.
The mist carried a salty, fishy smell, like the product of aged blood and seawater fermenting together.
His fingertips began to tingle, and a strange itch spread from the depths of his bones—the Sea of Mist was marking its prey.
The Sea of Mist—a death zone known locally as the "living fog"—has claimed the lives of countless explorers.
Blue's grandfather was the only one who left alive and with detailed records, but the last few pages of the leather-bound notebook were corroded beyond recognition by some kind of black viscous substance.
Now Bru finally understands that those missing records might have been deliberately protected by his grandfather.
“Three hundred steps to go…” Blue muttered to himself, his voice immediately swallowed by the thick fog, but it stirred up a strange ripple in the surrounding mist.
He immediately bit his tongue, regretting making the sound.
My grandfather’s notebook was marked in red ink: In the Sea of Mist, even breathing is a dangerous luxury.
He looked down at the ancient bronze compass in his hand, its pointer spinning wildly, sometimes pointing straight ahead, sometimes suddenly turning behind him.
The mysterious engravings on the compass surface were now emitting a dark green fluorescence, and the sound of the wind created by the rotating pointer was mixed with a faint whistling.
This ancestral compass was the only tool that could guide the way in this fog, but at this moment it seemed to be interfered with by some powerful force.
Blue suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn't the compass that was being interfered with, but rather that it was pointing in multiple real directions at the same time.
The ground beneath his feet suddenly became soft, and Blue stumbled, almost falling.
He looked down and found that the originally hard rocky ground had turned into a grayish-white viscous substance, like countless tiny creatures wriggling.
They clung to his boots, making a soft sucking sound, and the leather surface immediately showed signs of corrosion.
"Damn it!" Blue jerked his foot back, and the substances hissed sharply before quickly retreating underground.
But what was even more terrifying was that he heard the same hissing sound coming from all directions, as if the entire earth was made up of these living creatures.
His heart pounded, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead. His grandfather's warning echoed in his ears: "The Sea of Mist will test the will of every intruder; it will crush you with your deepest fears."
A strange laugh came from the fog, like dozens of people chuckling in the distance at the same time. The sound layered on top of each other, forming a dizzying echo inside Blue's skull.
He gripped the short knife at his waist tightly; the ancient exorcising runes engraved on the hilt began to heat up, burning his palms.
This is a dangerous sign—those runes only activate when evil spirits approach.
The laughter grew closer, then suddenly vanished, replaced by heavy breathing less than a meter behind him.
Blue could feel a cold air current brushing against the back of his neck, carrying the stench of rotting flesh and sulfur. Every hair on his body stood on end, but reason told him: don't turn around.
Blue did not turn around.
My grandfather wrote it clearly in his notebook: In the sea of mist, never answer any call, never look back.
The edges of the torn pages still bore traces of dried blood, suggesting that this rule was a lesson learned at the cost of lives.
“Bruce…” A familiar voice rang in his ears; it was his deceased mother’s voice, “Look back at me, child…”
The voice was so realistic, it perfectly replicated even the unique breathy sound of a mother's voice.
Bruce's eyes instantly welled up with tears, memories flooding back—his mother's pale face at the moment of her death, her cold fingers stroking his cheek for the last time.
And then there's that promise that can never be kept: "I'll watch you grow up..."
Blue's nails dug deep into his palms, using the pain to stay awake.
He forced himself to keep going, counting his steps:
"Two hundred and eighty steps...two hundred and seventy-nine steps..." But the mother's calls did not stop; instead, they grew more and more urgent, finally turning into a heart-wrenching cry: "Bruce! Save me! They are tearing my soul apart!"
The fog suddenly thickened, almost solidifying. Blue felt something brush against his cheek, cold and slippery.
He glanced to the side and saw a semi-transparent hand emerging from the mist, its fingers long and thin, unlike those of a human, with nails as black as ink.
The hand gently stroked his neck, leaving a cold sensation.
Even more terrifying was the ring he was wearing on that hand—a ring he knew all too well—the family heirloom silver ring he had personally placed on his mother's finger when she was buried.
"Get out of my way!" Blue finally roared, his short knife slicing through the mist. The hand vanished instantly, but an angry hiss echoed from within the mist.
The compass suddenly became scorching hot, and the needle spun wildly for a few rounds before stopping, pointing straight ahead.
Blue looked up and saw a blurry outline appear in the mist—a huge archway covered with twisted runes that glowed faintly in the mist and seemed to writhe like living things.
Two statues stand on either side of the archway, but their forms are constantly changing:
One moment it is a solemn guardian, the next it transforms into a twisted monster, and finally it settles into a terrifying form somewhere in between.
“Gurtura…” Bru murmured, his heart pounding in his chest. He quickened his pace, passed through the archway, and suddenly—
The fog disappeared.
Blue stood in a wide-open square, the sky a sickly dark yellow, as if infected by some disease.
There was no sun, but the entire space was filled with an eerie, pus-like dim light.
The surrounding architecture is extremely bizarre, with walls twisted at impossible angles and windows resembling gaping, painful mouths.
Most disturbingly, these buildings seem to breathe slowly—the walls undulate slightly with some kind of rhythm, and dark red sap seeps from the gaps between the bricks.
The air was thick with the smell of decay, mixed with a cloyingly sweet fragrance.
Blue's throat immediately began to itch; the smell reminded him of the abandoned church he had wandered into as a child, filled with rotting flowers and animal carcasses.
“Finally…we’ve arrived…” Blue’s voice sounded particularly jarring in the deathly silence.
He then noticed that the square was covered with runes similar to those on the archway, forming a huge circular array, and he was standing at the center of it.
The runes were slowly writhing, like countless snakes mating.
A gentle breeze carried the faint sound of sobbing from afar.
Blue looked around warily and spotted several blurry figures standing in the shadows at the edge of the square.
They remained motionless, their postures contorted, as if frozen in a moment of painful struggle.
As Blue's gaze swept across, the heads of the figures all turned toward him, even though most of them didn't have complete heads at all.
Blue carefully took a step forward, and the stone slab beneath his feet suddenly sank, making a dull thud.
The runes across the entire plaza simultaneously lit up with a dark red light, and the still figures suddenly looked up—their faces had no features, only flat, pale skin.
But Blue could feel them “watching” him; the feeling of being watched was like countless ants crawling on his skin.
Blue gasped and instinctively backed away. Just then, the ground began to shake, and the stone slab in the center of the square slowly rose, revealing a dark hole.
A putrid stench erupted, accompanied by a metallic hissing sound.
The sound didn't seem to come from inside the cave, but rather it seemed to explode directly into Blue's mind, instantly blurring his vision and causing warm liquid to well up in his nostrils.
“No…this shouldn’t be happening…” Blue trembled as he wiped the blood from his nose and searched through his grandfather’s notes.
The parchment pages rustled in my hands, and the familiar handwriting seemed so strange now.
The notes indicate that the entrance to Gurtura should have been a temple, not this eerie square and terrifying cave.
Blue's finger suddenly stopped on a certain page, where the words were changing—the ink was writhing and rearranging itself like a living thing, forming new sentences:
"When the fog clears, you will see the real Gurtura—a living nightmare. It has waited a thousand years, awaiting a new sacrifice..."
Blue slammed his notebook shut, but then heard soft footsteps behind him.
He slowly turned around and saw a woman in a white robe standing not far away. Her face was beautiful but lifeless, and her eyes were completely black with no whites.
When the woman smiled, her mouth stretched all the way to her ears, revealing layers of sharp teeth.
“Welcome home, Blue,” the woman said, her voice sounding like countless people speaking at once. “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
Blue felt a wave of dizziness, and fragments of memories suddenly flooded back—he had been here before, in his dreams, countless times.
Those memories, shrouded in mist, are now as clear as yesterday:
Inhuman screams echoed through the twisted corridor, eyes opened and closed on the walls, and there was a labyrinth from which he could never escape... He would forget each time he woke up from the dream, but now, all the memories had returned.
The woman reached out her hand to him, and Blue was horrified to find his arm rising uncontrollably, trying to grasp the pale hand.
Just as their fingertips were about to touch, the compass suddenly became scalding hot and emitted a blinding blue light.
The woman screamed and backed away as her skin began to melt under the blue light, revealing the writhing black substance beneath.
"You're not human!" Blue finally found his voice and staggered backward.
His short sword automatically unsheathed, and the runes on the blade emitted a dazzling golden light.
The woman's body began to twist and swell, her white robe bursting open to reveal a body composed of countless tiny tentacles.
Her head split open, turning into a gigantic maw filled with sharp teeth, and an eerie green light shimmered deep within her throat.
“None of us are…” the monster said in a distorted voice, while the other figures in the square also began to deform, their bodies tearing apart and releasing all sorts of terrifying creatures.
Blue turned and ran, rushing towards a narrow street at the edge of the square.
The monsters behind them emitted terrifying screams and chased after them relentlessly.
The buildings on both sides of the street seemed to come alive and pressed in on him, with countless yellow eyes opening on the walls.
Blue's lungs burned with pain, but he dared not stop—a crossroads lay ahead, and he had to make a choice immediately.
“We must find the temple…” Blue struggled to recall the map from his grandfather’s notes amidst the chaos. “Only there is a way to seal them away!”