Chapter 1308: The Royal Palace

Under Wu Yi's guidance, the outline of an underground palace slowly emerged at the end of the abyss.

This palace looked like a structure carved out of some mysterious giant rock. It occupied a massive area, and both inside and out, it exuded an aura that was primitive and mysterious. Although it wasn't as intricately crafted as a human imperial palace, it felt like a totem of the earth, giving one a sense of ancient and magnificent impact.

Seeing this underground palace, Chen Ling was surprised. It was hard to imagine that such a large palace had been dug out by this group of centipedes and scorpions. Even for human craftsmen, building such an underground palace would be extremely difficult, right?

"Who built this palace?" Chen Ling couldn't help but ask Wu Yi.

Wu Yi let out a series of chirps, responding to Chen Ling's question:

【The outline of the palace was dug out after you ordered all the calamities of the Ghost Mockery Abyss to spend many years on it... The fine details inside were arranged by you, Great King, yourself. But because you would change your personality every so often, the style inside is a bit... chaotic?】

In Chen Ling's mind, the image of the former "Mockery Calamity" standing high above, whipping these calamities like Qin Shi Huang to build him a palace, immediately surfaced.

Turning subordinates into art pieces, forcing them into hard labor...

The Mockery Calamity really was a tyrant, wasn't he?

But Wu Yi's response also brought Chen Ling a very important piece of information: the Mockery Calamity would change his personality every so often.

Chen Ling wasn't surprised by this. When he liberated the Mockery Calamity in the Red Dust Realm and let another "Audience" take the stage, his body had also been controlled by the other party for a period... The personality of that "Trash-talking Chen Ling" was vastly different from his own, and he possessed a completely independent personality and thoughts. Just as he said at the time, whoever stands on this stage is "Chen Ling."

Or rather... whoever stands on this stage is the next "Mockery Calamity" personality.

Teacher Ye had specifically tutored him on the knowledge regarding the Mockery Calamity. The Mockery Calamity was a combination of numerous individuals, falling into internal strife every so often. After the strife, a "personality" would often emerge to control the body, and he was one of them...

The only difference between him and the other "Chen Lings" was that he possessed the character biography written by the Red King. If the factory settings for other personalities were all defaulted to world-ending calamities, then his factory setting was defaulted to "human."

To Chen Ling himself, he was Chen Ling; but in the eyes of these Ghost Mockery Abyss calamities, "Chen Ling" was just the personality displayed by their Great King during this period.

Thinking about it from their perspective, the calamities of the Ghost Mockery Abyss had it tough. They say serving a king is like serving a tiger; they woke up every day to face a brand new Great King. If they didn't serve well, they might end up as an art piece on the Great King's nightstand the next second...

No wonder the number of calamities in the Ghost Mockery Abyss was so small compared to the Forbidden Sea. Anyone who wasn't strong enough or didn't have a tough enough life probably died out.

"Who has been in charge of the Ghost Mockery Abyss while I was away?" Chen Ling asked again.

【It was decided by the several poison heads together. But Master Gecko and Master Toad are quite lazy, so it was usually decided by the Centipede Ancestor, Master Black Snake, and Master Scorpion.】

"Oh."

Chen Ling was thoughtful.

Wu Yi stopped slowly at the entrance of the palace. Inside was the King's residence, and with its current status, it wasn't qualified to enter. After Chen Ling hopped off lightly, he walked inside alone.

The underground palace was indeed large enough. As Chen Ling strolled through it, he felt a sense of openness as if he were outdoors.

He spent a few hours touring the place. Just as Wu Yi said, the decoration styles in different areas were extremely chaotic. Chen Ling saw a pitch-black throne made of unknown material, a bloody tower built from the remains of calamities, a human bedroom carved out of stone, and a strange hot spring filled with blood... But seeing these, Chen Ling wasn't actually that surprised.

But there were some places Chen Ling truly couldn't understand.

For example, a museum filled with sculptures of sexy human women, a "Lego Land" where all items were built with fixed-size stones, an outdoor space that was a one-to-one recreation of a human basketball court but used human heads as basketballs, and even a pink room with walls covered in whips, collars, and candles, and the floor littered with centipede limbs...

Chen Ling couldn't imagine what kind of freak the "Mockery Calamity personality" who had created these rooms was.

Chen Ling wandered around for a long time and ultimately felt that only the black throne and the human bedroom were habitable. As for the other places, he felt psychological discomfort just by looking at them for a second longer...

After confirming there were no potential dangers around, Chen Ling lay down on the bed slowly.

The bed in the bedroom was unexpectedly soft. He stared blankly at the cold stone ceiling above, feeling a bit dazed for a moment.

From now on, this place would be his home...

No longer staying in anyone's home, no longer attached to any faction, everything here belonged only to him... No scheming, no leaving, eternally unchanging.

Honestly, this bedroom wasn't warm, nor was it comfortable, but Chen Ling was simply too tired.

He closed his eyes gently on the bed and drifted into a dream.

……

Outside the palace.

In the deep, dark cave, the eyes of the centipede poison head glowed with an eerie light. It looked toward the palace from afar, wondering what it was thinking.

Rustle, rustle, rustle——

A series of faint sounds came from the side, and the black snake poison head crawled out from underground, its tongue flicking lightly, as if questioning something:

【Centipede, have you lost your mind? You actually dared to block the King's path just now? Even if you don't want him back, you can't make it so obvious, can you??】

The centipede didn't respond immediately. Only after staring at the palace for a long time did it shake its head:

【...The King's state is not right.】

【Are you talking about his human appearance? The King's personality has always been random; it's not the first time. What else could be wrong?】

【I saw it with my own eyes back then.】

【What?】

【That person who was also wearing an opera robe broke into the Ghost Mockery Abyss. When he used four spirit tablets to imprison the King's body and stuffed that book into the King's mind, I saw it very clearly... After that book disappeared, the King's aura kept declining, and in the end, it completely vanished...】

【What does that prove? Don't forget, the King is the strongest creature in this world; no one can defeat him! The fact that he's back now proves that the opera-robed human failed, doesn't it?】

【No, haven't you noticed? This time the Great King returned, his aura is very weak...】

【So what?】

【So I suspect that the Great King's aura is weak not because he changed his personality and hasn't fully awakened... but because he was truly restricted by that book. He now has less than seventh-rank strength.】