Endless darkness filled the silent passageway. It felt like a realm of the dead, devoid of all sound.
Suddenly, a ghostly fireball ignited in the tunnel's depths. The orange-red flame radiated warm light into the surrounding darkness, dispelling large swathes of inky black.
Under this illumination, the shadows of a man and two women stretched long.
"Changtian, our pace has been severely held back because of you."
The clear, raspy female voice, tinged with amusement, drifted through the empty passageway. "Can't your Source Qi hold out a little longer?"
Xu Yuan chuckled. Taking out a goose-egg-sized Source Crystal, he circulated his cultivation art to recover Source Qi while walking slowly forward.
"I'm a peerless Soul Condensation expert, not like you two fledgling Origin Realms."
Li Qingyan glanced sideways at him. "If your cultivation were half as thick as your face, you'd probably already be a Transcendent Realm expert by now."
Xu Yuan rolled his eyes at Li Qingyan and said nothing more.
Listening to their bickering, Bai Muxi trailed behind them, a gentle smile playing on her lips.
This was already their sixth day inside the Blood Demon Cave, but the Silent Crypt was so vast that even at their pace, they had yet to approach the deepest parts charted by the subterranean city.
Of course, Xu Yuan's "unfathomable" cultivation deserved the lion's share of the credit.
After all, the upper limit of his speed was the ceiling for the whole group.
What was more, every time they ran a certain distance, he had to stop and rest.
Though he cultivated a blood-colored art, a Soul Condensation expert was still just Soul Condensation. On top of that, he had to supply part of the Source Qi required by the black death armor he wore—he simply couldn't keep up.
The three fell silent, walking forward with measured steps as the spongy, brownish-red fungal creep swallowed every trace of their footsteps.
In the quiet,
"Young Master..."
Bai Muxi's soft, gentle voice murmured, "Why not let Muxi carry you again?"
The moment the words left her mouth, the red-robed woman walking in front shot a cool, piercing glance back, though she said nothing.
Xu Yuan considered it seriously, then shook his head. "A little slower is fine. I explained why before: when facing aberrant ghosts, we can't take risks."
During their first two days in the Blood Demon Cave, they had traveled with Bai Muxi clearing the path ahead while Li Qingyan held Xu Yuan in a bridal carry as they sped along.
By the third day, aberrant ghosts whose physical bodies rivaled third-rank Grandmasters began appearing in the tunnels.
From that point on, Li Qingyan and Bai Muxi swapped roles.
The reason was simple: Bai Muxi was too weak, and Li Qingyan couldn't bear to watch.
Even though Bai Muxi could boost her cultivation to the second rank, the techniques of the subterranean city were far too crude. With second-rank cultivation, she couldn't even instantly kill those mindless, third-rank aberrant ghosts.
And failing to kill them instantly caused Source Qi vibrations to ripple outward, attracting even more aberrant ghosts.
So Li Qingyan dumped Xu Yuan into Bai Muxi's arms to carry.
Li Qingyan didn't mind, and Xu Yuan minded even less.
After all, Little Bai didn't bind her chest, so she came with built-in shock absorbers.
Besides, her movements were gentler than the princess's, and she even formed a barrier of Source Qi around him so he could rest while traveling.
Good times never lasted, however. Less than a day later, they entered the "deep waters."
The aberrant ghosts in this area were fewer in number, but nearly every one of them was at the third rank.
Once Xu Yuan realized this, he had Bai Muxi set him down immediately.
They were deep inside now, and aberrant ghosts comparable to the Origin Realm were very likely to appear.
Li Qingyan claimed she could handle it, but Xu Yuan insisted.
Creatures like aberrant ghosts couldn't be detected with an intent-soul; one could only use that special Source Qi sensing method Old Man Luo used.
However, when one was not proficient with it, maintaining that kind of Source Qi detection for long periods could easily cause an "overload."
Simply put, the speed of Source Qi detection couldn't keep up with their movement speed.
And more importantly:
While low-tier aberrant ghosts relied on mundane senses like sight and smell to distinguish their kind, high-tier aberrant ghosts could identify living beings entirely through fluctuations of Source Qi.
The Source Qi fluctuations of an Origin Realm traveling at full speed could be sensed by aberrant ghosts more than a dozen li away.
If they drew too many at once, all three of them would likely end up dead right here.
In silence, all three walked quietly forward along the tunnel.
Yet in the shadows unnoticed by any of them, a pair of pitch-black vertical pupils fixed intently on them like a predator, its massive form shifting soundlessly in the dark.
Seconds and minutes ticked past in the stillness.
Xu Yuan, who had been quietly absorbing Source Qi, suddenly asked, "How many days has it been since we entered the Blood Demon Cave?"
Without hesitation, Bai Muxi replied, "Answering the young master: in one shichen and three quarters, it will be the seventh day."
Hearing this, Li Qingyan gave Bai Muxi a slightly strange look. "That precise?"
Bai Muxi's lovely eyes smiled. "Your Highness, as the Chief Arbiter, Muxi oversaw timekeeping in the subterranean city and strictly regulated the common folk's schedule each day. I am naturally sensitive to time."
At this, Xu Yuan asked with interest, "I didn't ask before, but your subterranean city still uses surface units of time?"
Bai Muxi replied softly, "We have water clocks passed down from our ancestors, and there was never any need to change, so they have been used to this day."
"Heh."
Xu Yuan chuckled, then suddenly turned to Li Qingyan. "Qingyan, it's been nearly ten days since we entered this subterranean city. This Silent Crypt is a little too quiet."
Li Qingyan's willow-leaf brows knitted slightly. "The Barbarian King?"
"Right."
Xu Yuan nodded, his expression grave. "He's not like us. We can afford to stall, but he can't. Yet there hasn't been a peep from him all this time."
Li Qingyan pondered briefly. "You mean the Barbarian King might already be dead... No, transformed into an aberrant ghost?"
"Young Master..."
Bai Muxi suddenly chimed in. She seemed to possess an innate dread of aberrant ghosts, and her tranquil voice wavered slightly. "Do you mean we might have to face a Semi-Saint aberrant ghost?"
Xu Yuan glanced back at her. "An older friend of mine once told me that when powerful figures are transformed into aberrant ghosts, there's a transitional period. During that time, aberrant ghost instincts continuously erode their original consciousness, and their physical body gradually mutates. That period is when they are at their weakest."
"Changtian."
Li Qingyan cut him off, then suddenly drew the saber at her waist. "Even if the Barbarian King was gravely wounded, there's no way he'd be taken down by a pack of mindless aberrant ghosts—just as it's impossible for an Origin Realm aberrant ghost to wound me."
With those words,
Li Qingyan vanished from before Xu Yuan's eyes. At the exact same instant, Bai Muxi stepped in front of him, shielding him behind her.
"Hss-haah—!"
Amidst the flickering firelight, a shrill hiss erupted from the darkness at the end of the tunnel.
Yet catch people off guard as it might, the screech was abruptly cut short, as though someone had hit pause the very instant it began.
Bai Muxi stared toward the end of the tunnel, her pupils contracting sharply.
In the darkness at the far end,
the saber trailed orange-red fire in a dazzling arc, cleanly bisecting the massive, hairless cat demon lurking in the shadows!
And just as it attempted to regenerate, an eerie ripple spread along the smooth, clean cut.
Almost simultaneously, erupting flames instantly consumed the cat demon aberrant ghost's massive body down to nothing...
Dao Charm.
Xu Yuan looked at Bai Muxi's expression and asked softly, "What is it?"
Bai Muxi's voice carried a hint of disbelief. "The Origin Realm aberrant ghost... seems to have been killed in a single strike by Her Highness."
"Oh."
Hearing the news, Xu Yuan was mildly surprised, but not overly shocked.
Aberrant ghosts ten thousand years ago had been terrifying because not only did they possess sentience and the ability to wield powerful cultivator arts, they also boasted nearly limitless immortal regeneration.
Without sentience, more than half their strength was stripped away; fighting purely on instinct, an aberrant ghost stood no chance against a cultivator of equal rank.
Li Qingyan's cultivation art combined with the amplification of the black death armor made instantly killing an Origin Realm aberrant ghost far from difficult.
As he reflected, Xu Yuan noticed Bai Muxi beside him looking somewhat dazed. After a moment's thought, he smiled. "Muxi, are you feeling disheartened?"
Snapping back to herself, Bai Muxi said softly, "Muxi knows her talents are limited. It is only natural that I cannot compare to Her Highness."
Xu Yuan raised a hand and patted her head, saying gently, "It's not your fault. The cultivation arts in your crypt are far too shallow, and your application of Dao Charm is equally crude. Once we return to the Prime Minister's residence, I'll find you a Semi-Saint mentor—"
"Changtian, promises that cannot be kept become shackles."
Li Qingyan's voice drifted from deep within the tunnel, interrupting Xu Yuan's empty promises. "Stop making pie-in-the-sky pledges over there. There's something here you might want to take a look at."
"......" Xu Yuan.
With an indignant sigh, Xu Yuan patted Little Bai's slender, soft waist to reassure her, then called back loudly, "Coming right over! I'd like to see what could possibly baffle our Princess to the point that she can't make a decision herself."
After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea,
the three stood in silence before a mangled mush of flesh and blood. They could feel the mass of flesh squirming sluggishly.
Li Qingyan pointed at the heap on the ground and asked, "This second-rank Origin Realm aberrant ghost seems a bit different from the previous ones. It can't be completely killed. Changtian, do you have any ideas?"
Xu Yuan rubbed his chin. The thing he feared most had happened after all.
In Cangyuan, these level-eighty-plus aberrant ghost mobs possessed resurrection mechanics.
Taking a deep breath, Xu Yuan sighed. "I do, but for us, it's as good as having none."
Li Qingyan raised an eyebrow. "Humor me. Tell me first."
Spreading his hands, Xu Yuan said candidly, "Clear away all the black death creep in the entire Silent Crypt, or move this heap of flesh over to the karst caverns. Without the creep, it won't be able to survive."
"......"
Li Qingyan froze. She looked at the surrounding black death creep, then at Xu Yuan, and finally back at the surrounding black death creep, her gaze turning increasingly bizarre.
*Are you kidding me?*
Xu Yuan sighed and ignored her, stepping right past the pile on the ground to head deeper in. "Stop staring. If you want to camp the corpse and kill it again, you're welcome to wait here a while."
Li Qingyan fell silent for a moment, then called out to stop him. "Don't go ahead. The path is blocked."
"Haven't paths been blocked before?" Xu Yuan said as if it were obvious. "If it's blocked, we just blast it open, right?"
Due to the activity of aberrant ghosts, many of the paths in Bai Muxi's memory had collapsed and been sealed off.
Li Qingyan exhaled and asked with a laugh, "A collapse several li long—how are you going to blast through that?"
Xu Yuan's steps halted slightly. "What?"
Li Qingyan glanced at the darkness ahead in the tunnel and said in a low voice, "The passageway ahead is likely where the Barbarian King and that Transcendent Realm aberrant ghost clashed earlier."
Chapter 288