Chapter 1743: No Path to Heaven, No Door to the Earth

However, Li Yan saw something else on Jiang Tingye’s body—not a storage ring or anything of the sort. When Xu Yihua first appeared, though Li Yan hadn’t gone to check personally, his Divine Sense had scanned him thoroughly. These two had nothing left on them except for their clothes.

There was blood on Jiang Tingye’s left hand, but it was under his fingernails. His exposed skin bore many wounds, but none of them were scratch marks.

‘Someone on the enemy side might be injured too…’

When Li Yan saw this, a possibility occurred to him. During a fight, a cultivator would only scratch themselves if they were poisoned and felt an unbearable itch. Such scratches would be widespread and couldn’t be entirely hidden by other wounds.

Li Yan guessed that after Yang Zun and the others entered the core, they likely discovered the anomaly early and got separated while fleeing, much like he and Ming Qi had. Or, the array had intentionally isolated them. This explained why they hadn’t died all at once and why he hadn’t been attacked again yet; the enemy was dividing their forces to hunt them down.

So far, aside from the missing Ming Qi, Li Yan hadn’t seen Yang Zun or Xie Xingzhi either. Furthermore, he couldn’t hear any sounds of fighting. What felt even more eerie was that he kept returning to the front of the Man-shaped Pass, which meant he was lost and couldn’t leave the trap. He could also guess that even though Yang Zun and Xie Xingzhi were strong and might possess powerful life-saving means, they had also failed to escape the core.

Li Yan naturally wouldn’t enter the core to find them. According to his Soul Search, the array was controlled by the late-stage Void Refining expert. This person was likely directing the other two to hunt down Yang Zun and the others while he watched for an opportunity to use the array to kill, ensuring the assassination was perfect. This was a business transaction, so he wouldn’t allow his plan to have any loopholes just to kill them faster.

In this process, someone like Jiang Tingye would have been desperate while fleeing, using every means at his disposal. Thus, he either injured his opponent or died with them. The result was likely the former, which would slightly impact the enemy’s combat strength. Regardless, the Void Refining expert wouldn’t be the one in trouble. Once they killed Yang Zun and Xie Xingzhi, they would surely come for him and Ming Qi.

By now, Li Yan felt that even if Ming Qi was still alive, her situation was dire.

‘What kind of danger did she encounter? Was it the same as mine?’

Li Yan’s thoughts spun, considering many possibilities within a few seconds. He didn’t dare stay in place. Looking at the entrance of the Man-shaped Pass, he turned and flew toward the left—the direction he had just come from.

Li Yan was very fast. With a flicker of his figure, he was at the corner of the mountain on the left. In this situation, he had to take risks with his caution. But as he reached the corner, his eyes twitched violently.

What met his gaze was once again that Man-shaped Pass. For a moment, Li Yan felt as if he were trapped in an infinite loop. What chilled his blood even further was that now… three people were hanging from the pass!

He had moved extremely fast. Though he was still on guard, it had taken less than a second for him to see this bone-chilling scene. Everything happened in silence, yet the howling wind and rain filled the dark night with killing intent!

Xie Xingzhi’s corpse was now dangling there. The rain had turned his long robes into cascading streams of water; he looked as if he had been hanging there for a long time. There was a large hole in Xie Xingzhi’s head. The brain and blood were gone, replaced by the rain that constantly poured in. The hole was full to the brim. Now, the hole was like the rim of a broken jar; the water continuously overflowed, carrying bits of red and white matter that swayed like silk threads…

Xie Xingzhi’s limbs were twisted at bizarre angles, clearly having been broken by someone. his eyes stared hollowly at Li Yan. Just as Li Yan recognized him, the dangling, rain-soaked body of Xie Xingzhi suddenly began to struggle violently. But it seemed his strength was only enough for struggling, as if the rope around his neck had locked all his power away.

His dangling body was like a stiff corpse using the neck as a pivot, swinging in an arc through the wind and rain. The arcs of water he threw out created a perfect circle in the endless night…

The voice he produced, though still sounding like it was being squeezed out, suddenly became sharp.

“You! Where can you run! Where can you run…”

This eerie scene in the dark night, accompanied by the crashing of the rain, reached Li Yan’s ears clearly despite the wind. Li Yan felt his scalp go numb. He knew the hunt at the core was likely over. He dove desperately toward the earth below; there had to be a boundary there.

But Li Yan also knew that easily exposed boundary points were often the strongest parts of an array’s defense.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The wind and rain roared in Li Yan’s ears. He was like a giant bird with broken wings in the night, “flowing” rapidly with the rainwater. Fortunately, he practiced the Kui Water True Scripture, so his protective shield remained pitch-black as his magical power circulated, merging perfectly with the night. This prevented him from becoming a bright, conspicuous meteor in the darkness.

‘If all else fails, I must use Stealth Night-Hiding with all my strength. With the addition of the Shouyi, I can turn myself into a mortal. With this double concealment, I should have a chance of evading them…’

Li Yan frantically thought of a way. He was in someone else’s grand array, and so far, he only knew he had killed one person. The enemy had a late-stage Void Refining expert. Li Yan felt that against such a person, his only option was to flee, not to mention the other Spirit Transformation assassins.

‘I also need to find a place to lay down some poison. If they pass by, I might have a chance, or I can create one…’

Li Yan’s mind raced. Because of the limited time and the speed of his thoughts, his sea of consciousness began to ache. He had to be fast; he had to find a way now…

Sweat broke out on Li Yan’s forehead. He was trapped in their snare, and he didn’t even know what other functions this array had. Just the eerie repetition he had experienced was enough to leave him without a plan. As he considered how to survive, his Divine Sense scanned his surroundings for a final opportunity.

But after just a short descent, his heart turned cold and desolate. The sweat on his forehead became icy and vanished… Li Yan’s body stiffened. A chill rose from his back and seeped into his body, as if to freeze his organs.

In his Divine Sense, the dark space below should have been filled with floating peaks, and he should have been able to see the ground. But as he descended at high speed, dodging peak after peak, he didn’t feel like he was getting any closer to the ground.

What made the chill in his heart surge like an icy spring was that every time he passed a peak during his descent, his Divine Sense saw the same image. Every peak he dodged during his fall was identical—it was always that dark passage formed by the Man-shaped Peaks…

And at every single one, three corpses were hanging. He could even see Xie Xingzhi’s slightly twitching body and the mocking, eerie smile on his face as he watched Li Yan fall!

Thus, in this rapid descent, it felt as if a top-down looping image had appeared before him. He passed one identical scene after another, and these images flashed before his eyes without end… It was as if Li Yan could fall forever, with the endless Shura Hell below and the entrances to layers of hell before him. But these entrances were all identical, as if he couldn’t help but enter. They were waiting for him, always waiting…

Suddenly, Li Yan’s falling body shifted violently to one side.

Buzz!

With a dull hum, a dark shadow sliced past his waist. Li Yan’s pupils constricted. A long-handled giant hammer had sliced through the rain, thrusting toward his waist.