Dimensional Hotel
Chapter 423: Heart of the Crystal骸

Chapter 423: Chapter 423: Heart of the Crystal骸

The vast cave structure twists and turns, filled with dizzying forks and paths. Strange crystalline materials are scattered all around, emitting an unsettling faint glow in the dim light. In certain areas, those pale crystals even tremble slightly, as if they still harbor life within—though this is actually the lingering spasms in its "limbs" after the death of this massive structure.

Clusters of bright foxfire float around Hu Li, illuminating the path forward in the cave. Erin remains extremely cautious, constantly alert to her surroundings. Every so often, she summons a mass-produced puppet to guard the intersection, as she is always worried that something might emerge from the dark side paths to attack the team from behind.

Xu Jiali looks at the emerging mass-produced Erin in shock.

"How many Erins do you have now?" he asks, dumbfounded, as another mass-produced puppet "flips" out of the twisted space rift. He watches as the small figure, with a dead fish-like expression, quietly walks into a nearby stone recess and squats down, leaving him bewildered. "Hey, weren’t you increasing one by one before? How come there’s suddenly a whole group of them now..."

"Mass-produced ones, mass-produced ones," Yu Sheng explains, chuckling, as he anticipated this reaction. "Isn’t the travel agency short-staffed? Such a large valley, so many facilities, and way too few people."

Xu Jiali’s eyebrow twitches: "... Generally speaking, when normal organizations are short-staffed, they recruit people from outside."

Yu Sheng waves his hand dismissively: "Hiring takes time, making them right away is faster."

Xu Jiali: "..."

Lingdang holds her mechanical ball, walking at the back of the group, occasionally glancing at her "boss" and then at Yu Sheng. Her vertical pupils show a hint of doubt, her face presenting a conflicted expression of "The boss has made a bunch of slightly shady friends who technically aren’t bad people but don’t seem like good people either, should I report this?"

Just then, Luna, walking at the front of the group, suddenly stops and signals to those behind her.

Yu Sheng and Xu Jiali immediately stop their conversation, exchange a glance, and quickly move forward.

Luna raises her hand to point at a fork ahead: "Over there."

A ball of foxfire floats over immediately, following Luna’s gesture. Illuminated by the foxfire, Yu Sheng sees a figure.

Or rather, an intricate tangle of crystal branches gathered and swelled into a vague "human shape"—the body completely formed of white crystals, half fused into the nearby stone wall, with its upper body protruding from the crystal cluster, hair and beard bristling in anger, with an aged face identical to Yun Qingzi!

"It’s that old man!" Erin suddenly whispers in shock, clutching Yu Sheng’s head and tensing up (after all, she and her Erin army were miserably defeated by this old man before). "His real body is here?!"

Yu Sheng remains silent, cautiously examining the elder’s body fused with the surrounding crystals, then hesitates slightly. He raises a hand and turns to look at Luna: "Lu..."

Luna swiftly moves over, cutting a moderate wound on his hand.

Yu Sheng: "...Thanks."

With a subtle expression, he smears the blood oozing from the wound onto Yun Qingzi’s body and the surrounding crystals. Observing the blood quickly seep into the crystal, his brows furrow slightly.

"No, this is just a ’node’... The central part I perceive should still be ahead. This body has no difference in internal structure from the surrounding crystals."

Lingdang widens her eyes at Yu Sheng’s actions—this person on the alien planet without a protective suit, roaming recklessly in a crystal cave that might contain contamination, and in an unfamiliar environment using a small knife to make a cut, smearing his own blood on suspicious crystals. The boss says he’s the ’Angel Combat Expert’ of the Boundary Land... When did the experts of the Boundary Land look like this?

The young spiritual servant shakes her head, pupils slightly dilated, continuing to observe those dark places in the cave with caution.

Then she suddenly sees something.

"Boss! Over there!"

Lingdang widens her eyes, gesturing to Xu Jiali as she raises a hand to point at a small path ahead of the fork.

Another ball of foxfire floats over, Yu Sheng and the others rush forward, only to find another encased body in the crystal there—another "Yun Qingzi"!

Witnessing this bizarre scene, surprise and unease bubble up in everyone’s heart. Yu Sheng frowns, contemplating for a moment before suddenly thinking of something. He turns and heads further into the cave.

Clusters of foxfire float closely around him, Hu Li follows first, with the others trailing behind.

The eerie blue flames light the path forward, and ahead, the crystals become even denser. Amidst the increasingly numerous and massive crystal accumulations, there are more... crystal-formed bodies.

"There’s more here too!"

"There’s another one over here too!"

"This one also looks like ’Yun Qingzi’!"

The path ahead had almost completely transformed into a "tunnel" forged from piled crystal, and almost every few steps, a "Yun Qingzi" could be seen emerging from the nearby crystal clusters.

Each "Yun Qingzi" was entirely "forged" from pale crystals with hints of gray and black, merging with the surrounding crystal clusters and branches. Their faces differed in expression: some angry, some ferocious, others struggling, and some dazed—as if different states of a person had been "sealed" within these crystallized shells, spread deep underground.

Just how many more could there be ahead? Dozens? Hundreds? Even more?

The team was unusually silent, everyone remaining speechless in the eerie atmosphere as they continued to move forward. With Yu Sheng leading the way, they swiftly advanced towards the deepest part of this vast underground maze.

A stretch of "crystal radiance," distinctly brighter than the previous paths, suddenly appeared at the mouth of the cave ahead.

Everyone instinctively slowed their pace, with Yu Sheng signaling the others to heighten their alertness, gradually approaching the cave entrance.

As they stepped through the entrance, another expansive underground space came into view—an entire cavern enveloped with crystalline material. The faint light emanating from the crystals was enough to illuminate the surroundings. Large sections of crystal branches spread from the cave’s walls, converging in mid-air, drooping down, and expanding, while a few thick crystal pillars rose from the cave’s floor. These lifted and suspended a central "core" with a diameter of several dozen meters...

It was a grotesque mass made entirely of crystal, hanging at the center of the cave like some revolting swelling. Its surface shimmered with faint light, occasionally trembling and throbbing lightly, seemingly still active.

The last "vitality" of this underground realm seemed to converge at this place, centered within that crystalline mass.

Watching it, everyone was inexplicably reminded of—a "heart."

"Damn, this thing is still moving," Erin muttered quietly, clutching Yu Sheng’s head tightly. "Is it still alive?!"

Yu Sheng frowned, but before he could respond, a weak and aged voice suddenly emerged from a corner of the "heart": "No, it’s almost dead..."

Everyone was startled at the sound, with Hu Li’s tail turning into a forest of sword tombs on the spot. Xu Jiali raised his rifle, which seemed capable of piercing a hole in a city wall. Luna immediately positioned herself in front of Yu Sheng, while a faintly glowing, translucent barrier appeared around the team out of nowhere—Lingdang’s mechanical ball hummed, her body floating mid-air as she erected a spiritual protection shield for everyone.

But upon hearing the voice, Yu Sheng relaxed, waving his hand to signal the others not to be nervous as he moved forward, guided by the perception established through blood.

He saw another "Yun Qingzi."

This "Yun Qingzi" was embedded within the faintly writhing Crystal Heart, or rather, he was part of this heart.

Unlike the "Yun Qingzi" they had seen before, the expression on this body’s face was very serene, and... he was still "alive."

The "Yun Qingzi" merged with the Crystal Heart lifted his head, seemingly focusing his gaze on the person before him. After a while, he spoke in a low, hoarse voice: "I’ve been dreaming all along, and in the dream... I did meet you. But there have been too many dreams, and I can no longer distinguish reality from illusion."

The faint glow on the surface of the Crystal Heart started to surge, as though the remnants of vitality in this heart were reinvigorated by Yun Qingzi’s "awakening."

Yu Sheng frowned, cautiously asking, "Are you the ’real’ Yun Qingzi?"

The old man furrowed his brows, "Real?"

"On our way here, we saw many figures just like you," Erin, seated on Yu Sheng’s shoulder, immediately chimed in, "but they didn’t move. They looked dead."

"Real..." Yun Qingzi seemed to slip into a daze upon hearing this, muttering a few inaudible words before suddenly shaking his head slowly, "They all are, they all are. Every one you saw is a ’Yun Qingzi.’ This thing ’iterates’ me each time it ’cycles,’ trying to cast me off, expel me..."

"Iterates?"

Yu Sheng’s eyes widened slightly, comprehending many key points upon hearing this term. Observing this singular "awake" Yun Qingzi integrated with the Crystal Heart, he immediately frowned again—

"We were entrusted by the Taixu Spirit Hub to investigate the recent anomalies occurring in the Feiyu Star Domain—what is the origin of these crystals? What exactly happened on this planet a thousand years ago?"

Yun Qingzi lowered his eyes slightly, and only after a long while, just as Yu Sheng couldn’t help but want to urge, did he seem to wake up again and begin speaking: "That thing descended from the sky, brilliant as the stars. I don’t know what it is, but it seems to want to parasitize this planet..."