Void Cultivation-Chapter 243- Headless Corpse (3)

At this point, Grey was truly afraid.

He had not expected this cluster of ancient structures to contain such a terrifying existence. Worse still, he had arrived at the exact moment it was feeding.

Even though the purple crystal embedded within him did everything it could to prevent Grey’s body from breaking down, the outcome was still inevitable. Fine cracks spread across his skin, and slowly, agonizingly... his flesh began to peel away from his body, separating as if it no longer belonged to him.

The pain was so overwhelming that Grey could no longer suppress it. A hoarse, broken scream tore out of his throat.

At that moment, the chewing sounds coming from beyond the wooden door began to slow.

The blood pooled on the corpse’s chest thickened, trembling slightly before overflowing. It spilled downward in heavy drops, splashing onto the stone floor below. As for the flesh, blood, and bones of the white figures, they shrank unnaturally, compressing and twisting together until they were reduced to a single mass no larger than a clenched fist.

That fist-sized lump of flesh floated through the air and drifted toward the headless corpse.

The chewing sounds resumed.

The wooden door stood silently, as though deliberately ignoring what was happening before it. The headless corpse reached out, its movements stiff and unnatural, seized the mass of flesh, and shoved it directly into the stump where its head should have been.

The instant the flesh disappeared, the corpse froze.

Then slowly, it began to move again.

Its shriveled, dried body convulsed as new vitality surged through it. Cracked skin smoothed out. Sunken muscle swelled. The lifeless husk transformed, piece by piece, until it no longer resembled a corpse at all.

Yet despite the change, it remained headless.

When the existence behind the door finished devouring the souls of the white figures, a deep, echoing burp reverberated throughout the temple. Fresh blood seeped from the cracks along the doorframe, spilling down and dyeing the corpse’s chest a vivid crimson once more.

Finally, the existence behind the door noticed Grey.

Its voice was calm, yet carried a sharp, unsettling edge. Grey could not tell whether it was male or female. The sound alone dragged his mind into a trance, twisting his thoughts into chaos. Blood began to stream from his eyes, ears, and nose, dripping down his face and staining the ground beneath him.

"Oh?" the existence murmured. "What is this? A foreign food."

As it spoke, Grey heard a loud gulping sound. More blood leaked from beneath the door, pooling on the floor like thick saliva escaping an unseen mouth.

Before Grey could react, his body lifted off the ground.

An invisible force seized him, pulling him closer and closer to the headless corpse. With every inch he moved, the pressure on his body increased. His bones creaked, and his organs felt as though they were being squeezed by unseen hands.

As he drew nearer, the wooden door filled his vision.

The countless scratches carved into its surface became clearer, too clear that the moment Grey truly saw them, a violent pain exploded inside his skull. His thoughts shattered, and before he could even scream again, his eyes burst apart.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Grey’s cry echoed through the temple, raw and desperate.

As if awakened by the sound, the blood flowing from beneath the door surged even faster, spreading across the floor in widening ripples. A suffocating sense of death washed over Grey. He felt as though he would be devoured at any moment, erased completely, body, soul, and existence alike.

The pulling force wrapped around him tightened further.

"Ahh, it’s so nice to have foreign food. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted real blood..." The voice spoke softly, however, to Grey’s ears, it was as if several thunderbolts had gone off in his mind.

Just the words spoken by the other party were enough to make Grey’s mind go completely blank. As his body continued to rise, dragged inexorably toward the headless corpse, a violent pain tore through his head once more. In the next instant, Grey’s eardrums ruptured.

Blood poured from his ears and splattered across the floor in thick, wet drops. The metallic scent seemed to stimulate the existence behind the door, making it even more impatient and frenzied.

The countless scratches carved into the door suddenly shuddered. Slowly, unnaturally, they twisted and rearranged themselves, forming the shape of a single eye. That eye narrowed as it fixed its gaze on Grey, its pupils brimming with extreme hunger and malice.

Moments later, the scratches shifted again.

This time, they transformed into an enormous, grotesque mouth.

The mouth gaped wide, far larger than both the door itself and the headless corpse before it. Rows upon rows of jagged, uneven teeth lined its interior, while a stiff, wooden tongue lay coiled within. Thick streams of blood seeped from the corners of the mouth and dripped downward, making it appear as though the thing was salivating in anticipation.

At this point, Grey had lost both his sight and his hearing.

Yet even so, he could feel it.

Death was unbearably close.

His body trembled violently, every muscle shuddering as though he were already in the jaws of the monster. The instinctive terror was overwhelming, threatening to consume his remaining sanity. But in the midst of that suffocating fear, Grey forced himself to calm down.

Think, Grey. Think!

How do you stop yourself from being eaten? he shouted inwardly.

However, before he could even form the beginnings of a plan, his body was violently hurled forward, straight toward the blood-salivating mouth.

The sensation of death surged to its peak.

Just as Grey was about to be swallowed whole, the existence behind the door suddenly trembled. Once again, the scratches on the door writhed and condensed into the shape of an eye.

This eye was different.

It gleamed with an icy cold light as it shifted its gaze toward the headless corpse.

At that moment, the headless corpse was forming a hand seal.

Its movements were stiff and awkward, as though it had not performed this seal in countless ages. Nevertheless, it persisted. When the eye noticed what the corpse was doing, it narrowed sharply, and a thunderous voice rang out.

"What are you doing?! It’s not yet time for me to be sealed! What are you... wait!?"

The voice was suddenly filled with panic.

The headless corpse finished the hand seal and pressed its fingers into the golden blood flowing from the stump of its severed neck.

The instant its fingers made contact, it was as though the seal had been completed.

The golden blood trembled violently.

The headless corpse convulsed as a terrifying aura erupted from its body, an aura that did not belong to a cultivator, but to something far greater.

Divinity.

And it was overwhelming.

Suddenly, the corpse’s abdomen expanded grotesquely before exploding outward. Decayed flesh and clotted blood sprayed in all directions. Within the torn cavity of its stomach, a small figure could be seen sitting cross-legged.

The figure looked as though it had just awakened from a long slumber. Its eyes were half-lidded, heavy with fatigue. But the moment it fully awoke, it rose calmly from the corpse’s abdomen and flew toward the small door embedded in the woman’s chest.

Seeing this, the existence behind the door let out a shrill, ear-piercing shriek.

Its voice was filled with agony, despair, and unmistakable fear.

The small person, however, remained utterly indifferent. Without sparing the existence a single glance, it slowly extended its hand.

As the hand moved forward, the existence behind the door wailed in desperation. The scratches on the door surged outward and transformed into nine massive claw marks.

Each of the nine claws was infused with terrifying divine intent.

Yet before the palm of the small person, they were insignificant.

With a casual wave of its hand, the nine claw marks were completely suppressed and shattered. The divine existence screamed even louder this time, its cries filled with hysteria.

"Soul Devourer! Soul Devourer! I’ll never forgive you! The moment I leave this place, I’ll devour you and your entire bloodline! I’ll curse you to an eternity of undying damnation! When I recover my main body and fuse my divine sense, I will hunt you down and kill you!"

The once-calm entity that devoured souls as casually as eating rice was gone.

Now, it was nothing more than a prisoner, one that had finally encountered the being responsible for its imprisonment.

Although Grey could not see any of this, and despite the destruction of his eardrums, the divine existence’s words echoed clearly within his mind.

He was shaken to his core.

Anything capable of enraging a god, and sealing it in such a place, was unquestionably extraordinary. For a god to curse so viciously and react with such desperation... the other party had to be something far beyond reason.

Soul Devourer...

Grey repeated the name silently.

His body crashed to the ground as searing pain spread through him. Though blind and deaf, he remained alert. Suppressing the pain, he immediately retreated, crawling backward with utmost caution.

The existence behind the door did not seem to notice him. It continued to howl in rage, repeatedly launching futile attacks at the small person with its scratch marks.

"Noisy."

The small person spoke only a single word.

Then, it raised its hand and pressed it against the door.

In that instant, an astonishing presence erupted.

The pressure was so immense that it surpassed anything Grey had ever experienced before. The only thing that came close was the terrifying spikes of the great mackerel pike he had once seen in the sea.

Yet this power was not unleashed to destroy.

It was used to seal.

As the overwhelming presence descended, the existence behind the door fell silent. Its voice faded, though a few final words still echoed faintly in Grey’s mind.

"Even if the part of me you sealed is only my consciousness... my true body is still sealed by your main body. But there will come a day... when you will no longer be able to seal me again..."

The remaining words were lost, swallowed by a deafening ringing in Grey’s mind. It was strange, he was not hearing these words through sound, nor through direct communication, but through some deeper, unknown means.

The small person did not react.

It was as emotionless as a block of wood.

As the mutterings faded, the terrifying pressure gradually withdrew until it vanished completely. The small person glanced once more at the small door with an indifferent expression before returning to the abdomen of the headless corpse.

Flesh slowly regenerated, sealing the stomach shut.

The small person closed its eyes and sat cross-legged once more, as though it only ever awakened when the existence behind the door needed to be suppressed.

Throughout everything, it never spared Grey a single glance.

Grey could not see any of this, but he understood enough from what he felt and heard.

This was a place where a god had been sealed... by a cultivator.

As for the reason, Grey neither knew nor wished to find out.

The moment the pressure fully dissipated, he immediately used his divine sense to determine his location and fled as fast as he could. His face was pale, his expression filled with lingering terror.

From beginning to end...

He had been completely passive.