Earth fiend qi surged wildly into the karst cave.
Qin Sang shivered. Not daring to delay any longer, he quickly suppressed his injuries and circulated his movement technique, darting into the depths of the cave. Just then, a strange sensation washed over him. He halted and turned to look back.
As the earth fiend qi poured into the cave, golden runes suddenly lit up along the stone walls. Connected by threads of golden light, some runes shone brightly while others remained dim, scattered everywhere across the rock faces.
When the earth fiend qi slammed into the golden radiance cast by the runes, its relentless advance was actually brought to a halt.
Qin Sang’s eyes lit up. His guess had been correct—there was indeed a restriction within the karst cave designed to isolate earth fiend qi; otherwise, it would have been impossible for anyone to cultivate in such a place.
Yet his relief was short-lived.
Whether due to the absence of a controller or because countless years had eroded the restriction’s potency, the runes held out only briefly against the swelling tide of earth fiend qi before rapidly dimming and extinguishing.
Like rotting wood crushed beneath a gale, the runes throughout the cave were obliterated. The oncoming surge had barely been slowed.
Witnessing this, Qin Sang abandoned all lingering hope of an easy way out. Sighing softly, he sped deeper into the cave abode. In truth, he felt utterly uncertain, fearing most of all that the cavern might end in a blind alley while the earth fiend qi refused to disperse. He had no choice but to take things one step at a time.
The passage was not wide, and there was no telling what might lurk ahead, making it ill-advised to travel openly on a flying sword.
Qin Sang activated his Cloudfall Wings, slipping forward under their cloak of concealment.
This magic tool had accompanied him all the way from the Kuiyin Sect, rendering great service time and again. Unfortunately, its nature as a baleful artifact meant it would inevitably destroy itself one day. Qin Sang used it as sparingly as possible, reserving it for critical moments.
Not knowing what lay within the cave, caution was paramount.
Fortunately, the cave was no dead end. The further he traveled, the more forks appeared, branching and converging above, below, left, and right, extending in every direction. Qin Sang was inwardly astonished; the cavern was far more expansive than he had imagined.
Darting swiftly along, he soon arrived before an intersection leading deeper into the cavern, splitting into three paths: one to the left, one upward, and one descending.
After a moment's consideration, Qin Sang chose the downward path.
The upper portion of the subterranean shaft lacked cavern entrances and was very likely a dead end. He had tried striking the stone walls earlier; while their restrictions could not withstand the earth fiend qi, they were not something he could shake either.
Back then, Qin Sang had been the quickest to react; if the others had managed to flee into the caves, they would be lower down. The subterranean cavern was exceedingly bizarre, and he decided his best course was to reunite with his companions so they could face any lurking dangers together.
Flitting forward without hindrance, Qin Sang reached the end of the stone corridor, only to find a stone door shut tight ahead, seemingly protected by a restriction.
At the sight of this obstacle, his expression shifted slightly. Along the way, he had passed other stone doors, but all had been flung wide open. This was the first closed door he had encountered. If the restriction proved too formidable, he risked being trapped and dying right here!
Tentatively sending out a strand of spiritual power, he easily shattered the restriction on the door. It was separate from the formations lining the cavern walls.
*What a relief!* Qin Sang thought, silently counting his blessings.
Just then, a rumbling roar echoed from behind—the earth fiend qi was hot on his heels. Daring not hesitate, Qin Sang shoved the stone door open with force, only for a foul, vicious wind to suddenly strike toward him.
*Someone’s inside?*
Startled yet hopeful, Qin Sang recoiled swiftly, evading the ambush.
The attacker was not particularly fast. Qin Sang easily leaped far out of reach and watched as a dark silhouette lunged toward the spot where he had just stood. A withered, blackened human hand grasped at empty air, its five fingers slamming into the adjacent stone wall.
With a sharp screech, sparks flew from the rock.
The hand was dry as firewood, its skin covered in coarse, needle-like black hair. Its dagger-sharp nails were longer than the fingers themselves, inky black and faintly veiled in an eerie, dark-green vapor—obviously laced with lethal poison.
*“Hrrgh…”*
The silhouette whirled around, revealing a humanoid monster with the hideous countenance of an evil ghost. Its fangs and talons dripped with the same black and green vapors, and beneath its dense coat of black bristles, its skin gleamed with a metallic sheen of bronze and iron.
The creature glared greedily at Qin Sang, strange rasps rattling in its throat.
“A zombie?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Qin Sang’s face. No wonder he had failed to detect its presence—it was not a living creature, but an undead corpse aroused by the aura of the living on him.
Plants, stones, and inanimate implements could all assume spiritual forms to become spirits and monsters; corpses naturally could as well.
This was especially true when cultivators met sudden, violent deaths. If their bodies happened to fall into unusual terrain where residual spiritual power preserved them from decay over countless years, the lingering obsessions of the deceased could trigger a corpse transformation.
Among the demonic sects, some cultivators walked the path of corpses and ghosts, mastering corpse refining arts that allowed them to forge the corpses of mortals or even cultivators into corpse puppets to command in battle.
What Qin Sang had obtained from Gu Tiannan was not a corpse refining art, but rather something akin to alchemy.
Zombies were the lowest and weakest grade of refined corpses, and naturally formed zombies mostly belonged to this category.
Given the right conditions, a mortal buried in a place overflowing with yin qi could easily become a zombie. Some sprouted white hair, while others grew black fur, taking on all manner of grotesque forms. Mortals, ignorant of the truth, believed white and black zombies to be distinct species, when in fact both were merely common undead.
The weakest zombies possessed only brute strength, immunity to pain, and tough hides; furthermore, they feared objects imbued with yang energy, so even mortals had means to subdue them.
However, ancient corpses seasoned by time, or corpse puppets refined by cultivators, were beyond the reach of mortals.
The creature before Qin Sang belonged to this latter sort. Its flesh was exceptionally tough, like tempered iron, and it moved with remarkable agility, possessing virtually no weaknesses. Imbued with corpse poison, it would take an eighth- or ninth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator considerable effort to handle, and a single misstep could prove fatal.
Once a zombie absorbed enough yin baleful qi, it could evolve into a baleful corpse. A formidable baleful corpse moved like the wind and could manipulate yin baleful qi, posing a threat that even Foundation Establishment cultivators had to treat with caution.
Natural evolutions into baleful corpses were exceedingly rare. Filled with hatred for the living and a bloodthirsty nature, their emergence in the mortal realm invariably spelled catastrophe.
Certain demonic cultivators could also channel yin baleful qi to painstakingly forge baleful corpse puppets of their own.
It was said that above baleful corpses were Flying Yakshas, beings rivaling Golden Core cultivators. Proficient in Five Elements escape techniques, they were immensely powerful and inscrutably bizarre.
Few demonic cultivators possessed the ability to refine a corpse puppet of that caliber. The difficulty was self-evident: it required not only the remains of a powerful cultivator but also numerous rare spiritual materials. The process was exceedingly complex, rivaling the forging of a magic treasure.
In ancient times, there had even been legends of celestial corpses achieving the Dao and ascending to the Immortal Realm. But nowadays, when human cultivators struggled even to attain the Nascent Soul stage, such tales remained nothing more than myth.
Realizing his assailant was merely a zombie, Qin Sang felt a twinge of disappointment. He promptly summoned his Five Elements Dharma-Breaking Sword and cleaved the creature in two, then darted forward to land beside the severed corpse.
Chapter 158