Modern Cultivation : The Strongest Couple Bonded by Vampire System-Chapter 642 - 642: Abyss Heart

Mingyue looked at the frozen guardians. "Make sure first."
"No." Alex shook his head.
"I have a feeling these guardians are related to whatever is inside.
If we completely destroy them, there's a chance another system will trigger."
"I see."
Alex drew a few more runes in the air, then sent them forward.
The barrier trembled for a heartbeat, then opened a narrow gap, just wide enough for them to slip through.
The moment they were past it, the gap sealed again.
The corruption on this side was worse.
It pressed against their skin like prickling needles. Even Alex's cleansing rune barely had any effect.
Mingyue exhaled slowly. "We're close."
Alex nodded. "This corruption… most people would die just by coming here."
"I doubt even the governor could survive, unless he has some special method," Mingyue added.
Both of them could feel it.
They were only surviving because their souls had strength at progenitor level. Otherwise, their souls would have already gone mad.
They walked forward in silence. Then Alex stopped.
A sound reached them through the fog.
A slow, deep heartbeat.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Between the beats, a painful roar echoed through the tunnel.
Mingyue's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't sound human."
Alex didn't answer. He followed the sound.
They passed the last turn.
A huge heart-shaped rock sat in the center of the chamber.
Its surface kept moving, pulsing like living flesh.
Monstrous faces bulged out of it at random places, as if they were trying to crawl out from inside the rock.
Some looked like men.
Some looked like beasts.
Some didn't look like anything he could name.
They appeared for a moment, mouths open in silent screams, then sank back into the surface.
Black chains surrounded the heart-rock, anchored into the floor and the walls.
Each chain was wrapped in complicated formations, and the formations didn't stop at the chains.
They spread across the entire chamber, covering the ground and climbing the pillars, locking the space down layer by layer.
At the center of it all, a sword was planted upright.
Its blade was crystal clear, so clear it almost didn't look real, like it was made from condensed light.
The heartbeat thumped again.
A face pushed out harder than the others.
It twisted, stretched, then tore free from the heart-rock.
SWOSSH!!!
The moment it escaped, the sword flashed.
A line of light cut through space.
The creature was split in half before it could even roar again.
Both halves dropped straight into the formations under it, and the moment they touched the glowing lines, they dissolved and vanished like smoke.
Alex and Mingyue froze.
Then another face forced its way out.
The sword flashed again.
Another slash.
It happened again and again.
The heart-rock kept trying to push things out, and the sword kept cutting them down the moment they crossed a certain line.
Alex swallowed and muttered, "So this is where it comes from… what is this?"
He raised his senses from a distance, but he didn't dare to extend them too close to the heart.
He could tell the sword would react the moment anything approached the core line.
Mingyue's eyes stayed on the blade.
She could feel it clearly.
This wasn't a normal weapon.
It didn't feel like a tool. It was something she couldn't describe.
She wanted to take it, but she knew it was still outside her strength for now.
"Any idea, Alex?" she asked.
"Some," Alex said.
He didn't point directly. He traced the chamber with his eyes instead.
"Most of these formations exist to lock the corruption coming from that heart."
His gaze moved to the glowing lines under the heart-rock. "Then the rest is for transporting whatever comes out of it."
Mingyue frowned. "A space formation?"
"Yes." Alex nodded slowly. "The remains get broken down inside the formations. Their flesh gets destroyed, leaving only the soul, then it gets pulled away and sent to the refinery."
His eyes narrowed as he studied the chains and the patterns on the walls.
"The only thing truly sealing that heart is the sword."
Mingyue's expression sharpened. "What about the sword? Any idea?"
Ba-dum.
The heart-rock pulsed again, and a dozen faces bulged out at once, fighting to escape.
Swoosh!!!
All of them were cut instantly.
At that moment, Alex tried to sense what those creatures were, but he failed to detect anything. They were killed too fast, and the sword's pressure made it hard to probe the space around the heart.
"This sword should've been crafted by someone who mastered space power," Alex said. "The structure isn't simple at all. I can feel a very dense formation inside it."
He looked around the chamber again.
"The style is similar. Whoever made this sword probably built this room too."
"Is it the human progenitor?" Mingyue asked.
"Who knows. I've never met him," Alex said. "But at the very least, it's someone he knew. To put something like this here…" He didn't finish the sentence.
Mingyue's voice dropped. "Alex, what does the governor want then, if he's willing to destroy his mining operation?"
Alex's eyes stayed on the heart. "He probably wants to release this so-called heart."
Another face appeared and got cut again before it fully formed.
Mingyue said, "Do you think this is a prison? Or are those things created by the heart to try to escape?"
Alex exhaled slowly. "Without getting close, I can't tell for sure. But I think we can confirm part of this with the governor."
"Should we pay him a visit?" Mingyue asked.
Alex shook his head. "No. Not yet. First we take care of the dragon prince. Facing the governor now could trigger a direct confrontation."
He glanced back at the layers of formations across the chamber.
Seeing how complicated everything was here, Alex was sure the governor had prepared more than one method to make his plan run smoothly.
This also meant Alex couldn't just ambush and knock him out like the chief engineer.
They weren't on the same level.
"The name of the material is Abyssal Ingot," Alex said quietly. "I wonder if 'abyss' is related to this."
"Abyss?" Mingyue's eyes narrowed. "Is that related to the Primordial?"
"I don't know," Alex said. "But I feel it's connected somehow."
Alex's gaze hardened. His instincts kept screaming the same warning.
Whatever that heart was, he couldn't let it be released.