Walker Of The Worlds

Chapter 3896: Blood, Sweat And Vomit

That confiscation remained standard procedure as prisoners naturally lost access to their possessions. They had thoroughly searched Little Bull.

Or at least, they believed they had.

Lin Mu quietly smiled. "They never found the ring."

His hidden storage ring remained exactly where it had always been. Invisible and untouchable. Only two beings could perceive it: Lin Mu himself and Xukong.

The ring had accompanied him from the very start of his journey and it continued proving invaluable. Without further hesitation, Lin Mu reached into the hidden storage space and a moment later a perfectly round Night Pearl appeared within his palm.

He possessed hundreds, perhaps thousands. They had accumulated over the years until he barely remembered acquiring most of them. Usually, they had remained forgotten among countless treasures.

Today... One finally became useful.

Lin Mu briefly considered using an illumination talisman instead but he dismissed the idea almost immediately. Activating talismans required Qi, formation lamps required Qi and even simple illumination techniques created energy fluctuations.

Inside an unknown prison... That sounded unwise.

The Night Pearl required nothing as it simply glowed naturally. And the instant it appeared, a brilliant white light flooded the corridor. The darkness retreated immediately. The change proved almost blinding after spending so long beneath the faint moss light.

The entire passage became visible and Lin Mu could now see every crack, stone and shadows that did not exist before.

Lin Mu looked down at the object in his hand. "So it really is cloth."

The torn fragment measured roughly the size of his palm. Its edges had been violently ripped rather than cleanly cut. The original fabric appeared surprisingly durable, probably belonging to cultivation robes.

Several dark stains covered portions of it and one corner had nearly disintegrated while another remained damp. Lin Mu carefully turned the cloth over when his nose twitched slightly.

Years of handling herbs, cooking with Shrubby, as well as his own body cultivation had sharpened his sense of smell to extraordinary levels. He gently inhaled and recognition quickly followed.

"Hmm... Blood." The metallic scent lingered faintly.

It was quite old.

Another scent followed. "Sweat."

It was considerably stronger.

Then... His expression shifted slightly.

"...Vomit?" Lin Mu looked at the cloth again.

Most people would simply wrinkle their nose. But to him, every scent represented information. The blood barely remained as time had almost erased it. He estimated several weeks had passed since it stained the fabric.

Perhaps longer.

The sweat differed considerably as Human sweat faded much faster. The remaining odor suggested roughly one day. Perhaps slightly less. It was clear someone had worn these robes recently.

Finally... The vomit.

That scent remained unmistakably fresh and his eyes shifted toward the damp corner.

"I didn’t even realize the back was still wet." Lin Mu gently pressed the cloth between two fingers. Moisture remained trapped within the fabric showing it was fresh. Very fresh.

’Certainly within the past few hours.’

Which meant... Someone had been here recently.

His gaze slowly lifted from the torn cloth toward the dark corridor stretching ahead. The silence around him suddenly felt different. For the first time since arriving Lin Mu had discovered evidence that another living prisoner had passed through this very passage.

And judging from the condition of the cloth, whatever had happened to its owner, had not been pleasant.

Lin Mu looked at the damp piece of cloth once more before carefully folding it and placing it into his hidden storage ring.

Fresh vomit, recent sweat and old blood; those three scents alone painted a picture. Someone had been alive recently, someone had been injured weeks ago and someone had become violently sick only a short while before Lin Mu arrived.

The owner of the cloth could not be far away. Or at least, they had not been far away recently. Lin Mu slowly lifted his head and stared deeper into the tunnel.

"If someone was here... then they should have left more traces." Without another moment of hesitation, he increased his pace.

Little Bull still maintained the appearance of an ordinary body cultivator, but there was no reason for him to continue wandering aimlessly now that he had found an actual lead. His footsteps became quicker.

The polished Night Pearl illuminated the tunnel ahead, revealing far more details than the moss ever could. Tiny scratches decorated portions of the walls. Loose pebbles had been disturbed and several places carried faint drag marks that disappeared after only a few meters.

The signs were inconsistent as sometimes they appeared and sometimes they vanished completely. Whatever had happened here had taken place over an extended period rather than during a single event.

Lin Mu continued forward as ten minutes passed. The tunnel gradually widened before bending toward the left. The smell also changed, it became heavier, stale and utterly rotten. Though the odor itself remained surprisingly faint.

Lin Mu slowed and his senses sharpened instinctively. The smell of decay lingered ahead. Another few steps later, the Night Pearl illuminated something lying upon the ground which made Lin Mu stop.

"...A corpse?" He quietly approached.

Only after standing beside it did he realize the truth. There was barely any corpse left as most of the flesh had already disappeared. The body had long since become little more than a skeleton wrapped in scattered remnants of dried tissue.

Small black insects continuously crawled across whatever little flesh still clung stubbornly to the bones. Several larger beetles disappeared into the empty ribcage before emerging from another opening moments later.

The sight would have made ordinary people turn away but Lin Mu calmly crouched. His gaze slowly moved over the remains. The skull remained intact, and the spine had mostly held together but several ribs had broken apart.

The legs appeared almost completely stripped clean. He noticed countless tiny grooves covering the exposed bones.

"Teeth marks."

There were hundreds of them. The rats had clearly feasted here for a long time. Several bones had almost become polished through repeated gnawing.

Lin Mu quietly frowned. "So this is the first prisoner I found..."