Chapter 1541: A Fortuitous Mistake
Seeing its two “blood food” burrow into the rock to escape, the Ghost-Faced Demonic Python’s eyes burned with even greater ferocity.
With a violent lurch, its massive head slammed into the cave from which the tentacles had emerged.
The cave, barely ten feet wide, seemed like a pinprick compared to the python’s colossal head.
Boom!
Rock shattered, sending countless fragments flying.
The python’s head smashed through the rock wall, burrowing into the earth.
However, its tunneling speed paled in comparison to the Blood-colored Tentacle, and the distance between them steadily widened.
Realizing this, the python opened its jaws slightly, unleashing a torrent of white poison qi.
Confined by the rock, the poison qi didn’t dissipate, instead forming a massive, ten-foot-thick white pillar that slammed toward the fleeing pair.
Among the two, Rong Shao, positioned at the rear, felt a surge of anxiety.
The python’s poison qi could corrupt mystic treasures. Though he possessed the means to quickly resist its corrosive effects, his gaze involuntarily shifted to Gu Huang ahead.
Gu Huang’s power was truly terrifying. Whether it was that bizarre blood sea or the overwhelming divine thunder, the sheer might he displayed surpassed that of any Body Integration Stage cultivator Rong Shao had ever encountered.
No wonder Gu Huang had managed to escape unscathed from the joint assault of two Great Ascension Stage cultivators.
Gu Huang likely had a way to deal with the poison qi behind them, but he was too embarrassed to ask.
The reason was simple: constantly relying on Gu Huang made him feel utterly useless.
Just then, Song Wen’s voice suddenly rang out.
“Fellow Daoist Rong Shao, move aside!”
Before the words had fully left his lips, a pair of black wings materialized behind Song Wen.
The wings were massive, seemingly too large to fully extend within the narrow, ten-foot-wide cave, forcing them to remain partially folded.
With a gentle tremor, the wings unleashed a blinding silver-white thunderlight that surged forward.
Rong Shao immediately dodged, pressing himself against the stone wall to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
The thunderlight grazed past Rong Shao’s body and collided with the approaching white poison qi.
Earlier, the Haotian Divine Thunder had effortlessly pierced through the poison qi, leading Song Wen to realize that the poison qi spewed by the Ghost-Faced Demonic Python was vulnerable to thunder magic.
As Song Wen had predicted, the moment the thunderlight struck the poison qi, it sliced through the toxic mist like an impossibly sharp blade, its momentum unstoppable.
Under the thunderlight’s assault, the poison qi rapidly dissipated and disintegrated, transforming into wisps of smoke, like cotton batting consumed by flames.
Simultaneously, a violent surge of energy erupted from the point of impact.
The narrow mountain cave passage was instantly pulverized into fine dust by the cataclysmic energy, the pulverized stone swirling wildly like a raging tide.
Seeing the dust billowing toward him from behind, Rong Shao immediately prepared to channel his spiritual power into defense.
Resisting the aftershocks of the attack was one of the few “useful” things he could do at the moment—at least, that’s what Rong Shao believed.
But just then, he noticed that “Gu Huang” suddenly changed direction, abandoning its attempt to burrow deeper into the cave wall and instead diving straight downward, into the earth.
Rong Shao immediately abandoned his defensive stance and leaped into the vertical shaft.
The energy shockwaves, however, couldn’t change course. Like an out-of-control flood, they slammed into the cave walls, grinding the rock into dust and widening the passage even further.
The Ghost-Faced Demonic Python refused to give up, also turning to burrow into the earth.
But its digging speed couldn’t match that of its “blood food” ahead, and its poison qi was completely countered by the “blood food’s” thunder magic. With no means to restrain the two “blood food,” the python could only watch helplessly as they vanished into the depths.
Song Wen, leading the way, suddenly sensed the pressure at the tip of the tentacle, which had been boring through the rock, vanish abruptly.
It was as if the rock obstructing the tentacle’s progress had suddenly disappeared.
Song Wen’s intuition proved correct.
In the next moment, he realized the tentacle had breached into a massive underground cavern.
Song Wen and Rong Shao immediately followed the tentacle into the cavern.
A dense wave of nether ghost qi washed over them.
“How can the Yin Energy here be so concentrated? It’s several times denser than outside,” Rong Shao said, frowning.
Then, as if struck by a sudden realization, his eyes flashed with insight.
“Could it be… the Yin Spring?”
Song Wen’s expression brightened at the mention.
Rong Shao’s theory seemed highly plausible.
Could they have stumbled upon the Yin Spring by sheer chance?
The Yin Spring wasn’t at the bottom of the canyon, nor on some ledge along the cliff face, but hidden within a natural underground cavern?
A surge of excitement coursed through both men.
But then, a violent tremor shook the cavern’s ceiling, sending countless fragments of rock cascading down like rain.
The Ghost-Faced Demonic Python was pursuing them!
The tremors caused by its burrowing shook the surrounding rocks incessantly.
Song Wen and Rong Shao wasted no time, diving straight downward.
They had no idea how vast or deep this cavern might be.
The rapidly intensifying Yin Energy within the cave further compressed their perception range to a mere few dozen meters, making it impossible to sense the full extent of the cavern.
After plummeting for roughly ten kilometers, the pair finally landed.
However, the “ground” beneath their feet wasn’t solid rock, but a chilling mountain of white bones.
The bones were piled in layers upon layers, forming a grotesque landscape.
Skulls of bizarre shapes, fractured ribs, and twisted limb bones lay jumbled together in chaotic disarray.
Most of these bones belonged to demon beasts, but human remains were also scattered among them.
“How could there be so many bones here?” Song Wen murmured. “Could this not be a Yin Spring after all, but rather the lair of some demon beast or poisonous insect?”
Rong Shao clung tightly to the bone dragon as it soared through the air, turning to Song Wen beside him.
“This doesn’t seem like a nest for demon beasts or poisonous insects,” Rong Shao said. “While the proportion of human remains is small, the overall number is staggering.”
“The Fallen Demon Valley Secret Realm can only be entered once every hundred years. Moreover, the valley’s intense Yin Energy makes it impossible for cultivators below the Divine Transformation stage to withstand its corrosive effects. Consequently, the Divine Blood Sect sends only a handful of disciples each time.”
“Even if every one of those disciples had perished here, they couldn’t account for such a vast accumulation of human bones.”
“Furthermore, the uniform weathering of these bones suggests they all died around the same time—within the last decade, at most.”
Song Wen calmly shared his observations.
After listening, Rong Shao replied, “Fellow Daoist, are you suggesting that this mountain of bones… is the result of human actions?”
“Indeed. This place… likely conceals a world-shattering secret. Perhaps the Yin Spring truly lies here,” Song Wen said.
(End of the Chapter)