Chapter 672
Lack of Water and Food
Chapter 672 Lack of Water and Food
It's just similar.
Gao De quickly added a sentence in his mind to remind himself.
Regardless, Liu Ying's status and position are what they are.
She is one of the most distinguished eighteen-year-old girls in the world... most likely the only one.
He could have gotten away with stroking the other person's head just now as an unconscious action.
Now that I've realized it, I would never dare to do it a second time.
Although in the current environment, Liu Ying's status and identity seem to be of little use.
When Gaode withdrew his hand, Liu Ying didn't say anything or make any further moves.
She simply lowered her head again, focusing her gaze back on their clasped wrists, intently watching Gao De's hands.
His gaze was almost excessively focused, as if he were examining an extremely novel treasure.
Gao De had no idea what Liu Ying was thinking.
He only felt the burning pain in his palm and the rapidly beating [Adaptive] progress:
[You are currently being eroded by pure, divine, radiant energy. Your body is undergoing extreme adjustments in response to its survival instincts. Your tolerance to radiant energy is gradually increasing, your resistance to radiant damage is increasing by 10.4%, and the rate at which divine energy erodes your life is decreasing by 10.7%.]
Because the divine radiance emanating from Liu Ying's body was so intensely hot and pure, it became the best whetstone.
Therefore, the progress of adaptive growth is even faster than that of non-magic adaptation, and it is about to catch up with the non-magic adaptation that started much earlier.
Her wound hasn't completely scabbed over yet. If I let go, it might reopen and bleed again. I'm treating her.
Under this strong "positive feedback", Gao De suddenly became "bold" and found a seemingly plausible reason for himself in his heart, so he continued to hold the girl's wrist with a clear conscience.
At the same time, he looked at the other person with a slight sense of trepidation.
The plan is to immediately let go if the girl shows any signs of wariness, resistance, discomfort, or dissatisfaction.
After all, a princess of Liu Ying's noble status, even without physical limitations, would surely be extremely averse to being touched by others—this is true in movies, novels, and in reality.
To his surprise, Liu Ying showed no resistance to his firm grip on her hand, and simply let him hold it silently and naturally.
She even slightly relaxed her wrist, allowing his fingers to rest more firmly on her skin.
It was as if this was not an inappropriate touch, but a perfectly normal thing.
There was no wariness in those jewel-like blue eyes; in fact, even the slight sense of distance from before had vanished.
"Shall we go in and take a look?" Gao De suggested tentatively.
Despite some unexpected events, he did not forget the purpose of his trip: to find any clues that Mordekai might have left behind and to find a way out of the Desolate Soul Domain.
"Okay." Liu Ying blinked her long eyelashes and said softly.
The burning sensation in my palms continued.
Gao De held Liu Ying's slender wrist and walked towards the stone tower. He could clearly feel the delicate curve of the girl's wrist bone and the faint pulsation of the pale blue blood vessels under her skin with his fingertips.
The stone tower's gates were wide open, like a silent, gaping maw, filled with a faint smell of dust and decay.
The pale gray light of the day illuminated the corpses of the three withered soul servants not far from the door.
They huddled stiffly on the ground, their exposed bones bearing the cracks left by Gaode's attack.
Gao De was about to step across without looking to the side when his wrist was suddenly tugged lightly.
The force was very light, carrying a hint of barely perceptible hesitation, yet it was enough to make him stop in his tracks.
"Wait a minute." Liu Ying's voice was still soft and gentle.
Her gaze was fixed on the most intact corpse of the withered soul servant, a hint of confusion flashing in her blue eyes, "There's... something inside."
"Things?" Gao De raised an eyebrow and followed her gaze.
Apart from broken bones and dried, rotting flesh, the corpse of the withered soul servant showed no abnormalities. "What was that?"
Liu Ying shook her head, her long golden eyelashes trembling slightly, her tone tinged with uncertainty: "Warm... a very clean feeling."
Gao De's heart skipped a beat.
Every mage has their own unique abilities, let alone a mage like Liu Ying.
Her intuition was most likely not a delusion.
Without hesitation, Gao De approached the corpse of the withered soul servant, used the broken bones as a sword, and slashed open the corpse's chest cavity.
Rotten flesh fell down in a rustling sound, and a faint, fishy smell filled the air.
Gaode operated with one hand, yet his movements remained swift and precise, avoiding the filthy tissues and focusing his gaze intently on searching the gaps between the bones.
A moment later, the broken bone fragments parted a broken rib, and a faint silvery-white halo suddenly shone through the bone gap.
The halo was soft and pure, like condensed moonlight.
A thought struck Gao De, and with a gentle flick of his bone, he extracted a crystal the size of a fingernail, irregularly shaped.
The crystal feels slightly cool to the touch, but not piercingly so; instead, it has a soothing and warm sensation.
Its surface shimmers with a faint silver sheen, and inside, tiny specks of light seem to be slowly flowing.
“This looks like a fragment of soul essence,” Liu Ying said after examining it carefully.
"Fragments of soul essence?" Gaode still finds it "uncultured."
In terms of knowledge, he, a commoner mage, was no match for a noble mage of Liu Ying's caliber.
"Hmm." Liu Ying nodded gently and explained to him in a soft tone, "Soul essence is the core remains of a high-level creature's soul that has not been contaminated after death, containing the purest soul energy."
"It can not only purify the soul from corruption, such as the pollution caused by withered soul energy, but also slightly enhance mental power. It is an extremely rare treasure."
She paused, her gaze falling on the corpse of the withered soul servant, and added, "This withered soul servant is actually the corpse of the necromancers who were banished to the Desolate Soul Domain back then."
"They were all very powerful in life, but after being eroded by the energy of withered souls, their souls shattered and they died. However, some of their soul cores did not completely dissipate and settled over the long years, forming these fragments of soul essence."
"This must be one of the key reasons why Mordecai was able to escape the Desolate Soul Domain back then," Gao De suddenly realized.
He looked at the crystal in his palm, his eyes shining: "The withered soul servant contains fragments of soul essence, which can alleviate the withered soul's erosion."
"He must have discovered this secret back then, so he used some means to hunt down the withered soul servants and collect these fragments to resist the erosion."
"In this way, he was able to survive in the Desolate Soul Domain for far longer than ordinary people expected, giving him enough time to find a way out and eventually escape."
If there hadn't been enough time, even if Modica were incredibly powerful, he wouldn't have been able to escape alive.
The loot system for defeating monsters is reasonable.
Thinking this, Gao De immediately began searching for the corpses of the other two withered soul servants.
Sure enough, a fragment of soul essence the size of a fingernail was found in each of the other two corpses.
They may differ slightly in size and strength, but their properties are exactly the same.
Gao De spread the three fragments out in his palm, examined them carefully by the light of day, and then handed the fragment of soul essence in his palm to Liu Ying, saying, "Take it, it will be useful to you."
Liu Ying stared at the crystal in Gao De's palm, not reaching out to touch it. The next moment, her gaze shifted from the fragment to Gao De's face, a hint of doubt flashing in her blue eyes: "Aren't you going to use it?"
“I have a special constitution,” Gao De explained frankly. “You were wrong when you said I could only last three days here.”
I have a natural resistance to soul-corroding energies like those of withered souls, and I can actually hold out here much longer than you, so I don't need this for now.
"So you can use this fragment first."
He wasn't lying. At this moment, his [Adaptive] progress bar was still steadily rising, and the corrosive feeling brought by the withered soul energy was still clear.
For him, this erosion was not a bad thing; on the contrary, it could continuously promote adaptive evolution, allowing him to adapt to the environment of the Desolate Soul Domain more quickly.
If using fragments of soul essence to alleviate the erosion actually slows down the evolution process, it would be a net loss.
Liu Ying paused, the doubt in her eyes gradually fading.
She hesitated for a moment, then finally stretched out her slender fingers and picked up the three fragments of soul essence from Gao De's palm.
Crystals the size of a fingernail were neatly arranged in her palm, shimmering with silver light.
Liu Ying brought her palms to her forehead and gently closed her eyes.
The next second, the three fragments of soul essence suddenly transformed into three silver-white streams of light, slowly rising along her fingertips and finally adhering to her smooth brow, seeping into her fair skin.
A silvery-white halo flowed across her smooth forehead.
Gao De could clearly see that her face gradually lost its paleness in the halo of light, gaining a healthy rosy glow, and even her breathing became long and steady.
A few breaths later, the halo gradually dissipated, and Liu Ying slowly opened her eyes, her eyes now filled with a clear brightness.
"Thank you," she said softly.
"Let's go, let's look for clues inside the stone tower." Gao De breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that her complexion had improved, and pulled Liu Ying into the tower.
Step through the gate and enter the stone tower.
Compared to the previous stone tower, this stone tower is relatively intact, with not many damaged areas.
This also meant that no sunlight could penetrate through the broken cracks, making the interior of the stone tower unusually dark.
Thanks to its adaptive evolution, Gaode Maps is still able to see the situation inside the tower clearly, while Liuying is completely in the dark.
Inside the tower, fine patterns are carved on the bluish-gray stone walls, resembling dried vines.
The ground was paved with smooth stone slabs, with a thin layer of dust accumulated in the gaps.
In the very center of the tower, a black stone tablet about half a person's height stands silently, with several gray-white bones scattered on both sides of the tablet.
Gao De released Liu Ying's hand.
First, he needed to look for clues inside the tower; second, the burning sensation he had been forcibly suppressing had finally reached a critical point.
Although [Adaptive] has been slowly increasing his resistance, the continuous and prolonged impact of radiant energy has exceeded his body's current tolerance limit.
Gaode needs to take a break and wait until his body recovers before he can continue.
However, Gao De did not notice that Liu Ying's body stiffened the moment her wrist slipped from his palm.
She subconsciously lowered her head, her gaze falling on her empty wrist, then quickly raised her head to look at Gao De, her eyelids slightly lowered.
"Wait here, don't move. It's too dark in here, you can't see. I'm not affected. Call me if you need anything, I'm right next to you." Gao De's voice rang out in the dim tower, with a reassuring tone.
Liu Ying gave a soft "hmm".
Gao De didn't linger and went straight to the stone tablet in the center of the tower.
He crouched down, running his fingertips across the surface of the stone tablet. It felt rough, and the engravings were covered in a thick layer of dust.
He carefully wiped it with his fingertips, and as the dust fell away, lines and symbols gradually became visible.
It must have been carved from bones that were scattered nearby.
A moment later, Gao De suddenly stood up.
"I've made a discovery." He suppressed his excitement and shared the good news with Liu Ying.
"what?"
“The stone tablet is engraved with a topographical map of the Desolate Soul Domain!” Gao De tried to keep his voice steady. “It shows the direction of the Soul Wind and the approximate distribution of each area, but that’s not the most important thing.”
He paused, then turned his gaze back to the stone tablet, his eyes becoming serious yet excited: "Most importantly, it also marks the locations of all the stone towers in the Desolate Soul Domain."
"Their distribution is not random at all, but arranged according to a certain pattern, connected to each other by lines, forming a huge network structure."
"The network is divided into three layers, with the outermost layer having the most stone towers. The one we stayed in before should be on the outermost layer."
"The number of stone towers on the middle level has been halved, and the one we are in now is on the second level."
“And all the lines eventually converge at the center of the net, where there is a single stone tower, which I will call the Central Tower.”
“I think we might be able to go to the central tower and take a look. I feel that if there are any clues, they are most likely there,” Gao De said with certainty.
"That's great." Liu Ying's eyes lit up, but her voice was inexplicably dry and hoarse.
“Let’s go take a look at the central tower right now,” Gao De said immediately.
Liu Ying remained noncommittal.
Gao De walked towards Liu Ying, his gaze naturally landing on her cheek.
The dim lighting did not obstruct his vision.
Therefore, he could clearly see Liu Ying's pale and even slightly chapped lips.
Gao De then realized why Liu Ying's voice was so dry.
There's a water shortage!
Yes.
A very real problem, which the two had temporarily ignored due to the threat of being corrupted by the withered soul, suddenly appeared like a heavy boulder:
There are no edible plants or drinkable water sources in the desolate and barren Soul Realm.
The place was deathly silent; the ground was covered with rubble and bones, and not a trace of moisture could be found.
There are no living organisms that can provide energy. The only two protozoa, the Dead Soul Servant and the Dead Bone Mite, are not edible.
When the two were "exiled" into the desolate and barren Soul Realm, they had no idea of this situation and were carrying no food or water at all.
This is a real problem that any mage entering the Desolate Soul Realm must face.
However, in ancient times, those banished here were necromancers who had committed serious crimes.
Those necromancers who wield forbidden powers are not only powerful, but also extremely sinister.
In many cases, they have already transformed their bodies into something that is neither human nor ghost, freeing them from the need for food and water and thus avoiding such a predicament.
But Gao De and Liu Ying are both orthodox "white masters," so naturally they have never been involved in such evil methods.
Their bodies are still purely human in structure, with basic survival needs.
Three days without water and seven days without food is the line between life and death.
Despite the relentless erosion by the withered souls, Liu Ying was able to hold out for more than ten days.
Without food and drinking water, her body couldn't hold on any longer, not even before the withered soul began to erode her soul and dissipate.
Moreover, Liu Ying had just suffered a serious injury and lost too much blood, leaving her with a significant loss of vitality and a relatively weak body.
Now, the torment of hunger and thirst has been compounded. If they cannot find a water source soon, they may not even last a day before losing their ability to move, or even...
Therefore, thirst, a more pressing predicament than the decay of the withered soul, instantly became a huge problem standing in the way of the two of them.
(End of this chapter)