Zhang Yuanqing instinctively pulled Guan Ya to his side, his tone grim. "Stay close to me!"
The tall, mixed-race mature beauty stumbled slightly from his tug. Through the hazy veil of mist, Guan Ya saw that Yuanshi's expression was grave and tense, like a child guarding a beloved toy. That cautious, anxious protectiveness was written plainly across his face.
His initial reaction had been pure, honest instinct. In a moment he would remember that she had an item set protecting her, and knowing Yuanshi's personality, he would definitely rush off to examine the poor girl's cause of death just to change the subject.
"Sister Guan Ya, be careful. I'm going to see what happened," Zhang Yuanqing said in a deep voice.
Just as expected, Guan Ya thought with an inward chuckle. *I saw right through you, kid.*
She followed Zhang Yuanqing over to the corpse. By now, the team members had gathered around the fallen girl, completed a preliminary "autopsy," and were grimly discussing the findings.
"Decapitated by a sharp weapon. Ai Ai didn't even have a chance to react," Peony Fairy said sorrowfully.
She seemed to know this girl named "Ai Ai."
"I was right next to her just now, but I didn't sense anything at all. No sound of a blade swinging, no sound of mist swirling—nothing," Niulanshan Little Fairy said with a furrowed brow, her hair styled in a bun.
No sign or sound at all. That was genuinely terrifying.
An unknown enemy was the most frightening kind. The Spirit Realm walkers silently braced their nerves and retrieved their respective items, preparing for any contingency.
World Returns to Fire squatted on the ground, examining the severed head and corpse. As he observed, he offered his analysis: "The attack likely came from the front—instant decapitation. Strange. The spacing between our members isn't large, so there wasn't enough room for the 'killer' to swing a blade. But judging by the cut, the 'killer' would have needed to swing through at least a semicircle to produce this effect."
"How can you tell the attack came from the front?" Jiang Jingwei asked, puzzled.
Guan Ya explained in an undertone, "If the attack came from behind, inertia from walking would cause the body to fall forward onto its stomach. But right now, the body fell backward onto its back. That indicates her throat was attacked, causing her to instinctively recoil."
Aside from the Fire Masters nodding repeatedly, the other Spirit Realm walkers were all captain-caliber; such basic forensic deduction required no explanation for them.
Jiang Jingwei understood and knitted her brows. "We were all standing so close together just now. If someone swung a blade from the front, wouldn't a whole bunch of us be hit? Why did only she die?"
World Returns to Fire exhaled slowly. "That's precisely what I can't figure out."
Unable to hear the enemy, not even knowing how the attack was delivered, yet capable of instantly slaying a Level 3 Wood Demon—that was chilling.
Zhang Yuanqing hesitated a moment. Dark energy surged within his eyes, and right before everyone, he summoned the residual spirit body from the corpse and swallowed it whole.
He intended to perform spirit questioning directly to see if there were any clues.
The official walkers watched quietly, none stepping in to stop him.
In a dungeon fraught with danger, survival came first. As long as a method worked, moral baselines could be flexible.
After a dozen seconds, Zhang Yuanqing opened his eyes and shook his head.
Ai Ai hadn't known how she died either; in an instant, her consciousness had vanished, and her life had ended.
"Even spirit questioning can't uncover the killer?" Asano Ryo's expression changed.
By this point, the dense fog was growing thicker and heavier. Visibility dropped steadily until even with torchlight, the people beside them became hazy silhouettes.
An invisible dread brewed in their hearts, and an argument broke out among the team.
"There's something wrong with this fog! The longer we stay, the more dangerous it gets. We need to leave immediately—we'll be safe once we get through it!"
"No, we have to figure out what's causing this and resolve the problem. The fog covers a wide area and severely hampers our exploration of the labyrinth. Besides, if more people die along the way, we'll lose even more of the memorized map!"
Both sides held to their views. Finally, someone shouted:
"Yuanshi Tianzun, where are you? Say something! You make the call!"
Zhang Yuanqing pondered briefly before speaking. "First, we don't know the frequency of these attacks. If the interval is short while the fog covers a vast area, more than half of us could die before we ever make it out.
"Burying our heads in the sand like ostriches won't solve anything. My suggestion is to deal with the threat before continuing forward."
At this moment, the value of his reputation shone through. Had anyone else spoken those words, the members might not have been convinced, but when Yuanshi Tianzun gave his verdict, everyone was willing to comply.
Seeing that no one objected, Zhang Yuanqing followed his senses and looked toward the girl of twenty-three or twenty-four with her hair in a bun. "Little Fairy, you were next to Ai Ai earlier. Did she do anything before she died?"
He wanted to know whether Ai Ai's death was pure misfortune or if she had inadvertently triggered some sort of mechanism.
Niulanshan Little Fairy frowned, thought for a moment, and shook her head. "Probably not. I wasn't watching her closely."
Zhang Yuanqing nodded, then looked at World Returns to Fire, Jiang Jingwei, and the other Fire Masters. "Try causing an explosion to see if it can disperse the fog."
Hearing this, the Fire Masters displayed exceptional efficiency, each conjuring a fireball in both hands and hurling them into the distance.
*Boom!*
A sequence of explosions detonated. Shockwaves swept crimson flames across the surroundings, churning the thick fog like roiled water.
Yet visibility did not improve. The fog here was simply too dense; the shockwaves of the explosions merely turned the sluggishly drifting mist into a chaotic swirl.
To truly disperse the fog, fresh air had to be introduced.
*I remember Rain Masters can summon wind and rain. If we had that ability, we could blow away the fog... No, if I had a Rain Master's abilities, I wouldn't need to fear strange fog in the first place.* Zhang Yuanqing tried a few other methods, but none could disperse the mountain mist.
"Yuanshi, the fog is getting thicker. We can't stay here any longer,"
Guan Ya looked around, finding that the fog had grown so heavy that she could barely see the people right next to her.
Zhang Yuanqing nodded silently and called out loudly, "Everyone, hold hands as we advance! From now on, keep calling out numbers continuously to ensure no one gets separated or dies... Who was behind Ai Ai? Report your route."
The group acted swiftly, holding hands, with Zhang Yuanqing taking the lead.
As the team advanced along the route, they called out their numbers in turn.
"One, two, three... thirteen, fourteen."
After one casualty, the total team size was fourteen.
The second round of roll calls began:
"One, two, three... twelve, thirteen..."
The count abruptly halted. Number fourteen did not follow.
Everyone's heart sank. Immediately afterward, a trembling voice came from the rear of the line:
"I... I'm number fourteen. I was attacked..."
The speaker was Rain Girl Has No Melon, a young man in his early thirties and a Level 3 Water Ghost.
The group quickly converged on him. Several Fire Masters raised their torches, gathering the light as much as possible to improve visibility.
Zhang Yuanqing pressed, "What happened?"
Rain Girl Has No Melon looked panic-stricken. "Just now, I was suddenly attacked. Something slashed across my neck and triggered my passive!"
A Water Ghost's passive allowed them to ignore physical attacks.
Without that passive, Rain Girl Has No Melon would already be dead.
"Did you see the attacker? What was the attack like?" the others hurriedly asked.
Rain Girl Has No Melon touched his neck, recalling, "I didn't see the attacker at all, nor did I sense anything unusual. Just a sudden pain in my neck, and then I realized my passive skill had activated... However, I felt a foreign object penetrate my flesh, and after my head liquefied into water, its trajectory pulled upward as it withdrew."
*Upward?*
The official walkers raised their heads at once, but all they saw was thick, suffocating mist.
Zhang Yuanqing shook open the Yinyang Robe, draped it over his shoulders, and projected his spirit body out of his flesh, floating toward the canopy.
As he neared the canopy, he was blocked once again, unable to ascend further.
Pressing against the barrier, Zhang Yuanqing drifted back and forth beneath the treetops, searching for any danger hidden among the lush foliage.
Rain Girl Has No Melon's experience proved that a fleshless spirit body would likewise be immune to the attacker's physical damage.
After a rapid sweep of the area, Zhang Yuanqing found nothing unusual. He immediately lowered his spirit body back into his physical form.
"Nothing found!"
His answer left everyone profoundly disappointed, and on the verge of despair.
An unseen enemy like this was far more troublesome than facing the Tree King; at least the latter was visible and tangible, with danger laid out plainly before their eyes.
"This won't do. We don't have a Water Ghost's passive. If any of us get targeted, we're dead for sure," Long Live the White Tiger said with a tight scowl.
World Returns to Fire pondered aloud, "I timed it. From Ai Ai's death to the attack on Rain Girl Has No Melon, exactly five minutes passed. If that's the attack frequency, the next strike will happen in five minutes."
The official walkers fell silent. Like lambs awaiting slaughter, they could only wait in quiet dread for death to arrive.
The next victim could very well be themselves.
Only official walkers with their high caliber and strict discipline could keep their composure. Had they been unaffiliated walkers, bickering and internal friction would have already paralyzed them.
Zhang Yuanqing leaned close to Guan Ya and whispered into her ear, "Is Rain Girl Has No Melon telling the truth?"
Guan Ya's earlobe warmed at his closeness. She furrowed her brows. "Judging by his tone, it seems genuine, but I can't see his facial expressions clearly through the mist to verify."
At that moment, Peony Fairy took a deep breath. "Yuanshi Tianzun, what do we do now? Whatever you say, I'll follow your lead."
Everyone looked silently toward the captain, who was now just a vague silhouette in the fog.
While the dungeon didn't explicitly designate a captain, Yuanshi Tianzun was universally acknowledged as their leader.
*They're placing their lives in my hands?* Feeling immense pressure, Zhang Yuanqing glanced around. "Keep moving forward!"
*Keep moving forward...* Everyone sighed inwardly. Keeping on meant doing nothing different. It seemed even Yuanshi Tianzun was out of ideas.
With heavy, cautious footsteps, the team navigated through the labyrinth forest. The thick fog obscured their vision, blinding them to the trail and the intersections ahead. To avoid taking a wrong turn, Zhang Yuanqing placed their Earth Monster colleagues at the front of the line.
They could effectively discern how many paths split off at any intersection.
"Two minutes have passed," someone in the group suddenly said.
*Three minutes left...* Zhang Yuanqing murmured to himself, frantically racking his brain for a countermeasure.
After Ai Ai died, Zhang Yuanqing had initially assumed the danger originated from the dungeon itself. But when several investigations yielded nothing, his suspicion shifted toward a traitor from Dark Night Rose.
Could the dense fog simply be an environmental hazard meant to blind them and raise the labyrinth's difficulty, while a traitor used the dungeon as cover to murder people in secret?
That was why he had proposed holding hands and calling out numbers—both measures designed to constrain any potential mole.
Yet now, the likelihood of a traitor being responsible seemed low.
"Three minutes," another voice called out.
Zhang Yuanqing's thoughts raced.
*Right now, the only concrete fact is that the attacker strikes every five minutes. To deduce more patterns, we would have to keep observing, but every observation costs a human life. We can't afford to burn through lives like that...*
*The threat comes from the canopy, but I found nothing out of the ordinary. Nor can we verify if Rain Girl Has No Melon lied, since the fog is too thick for Guan Ya to read his micro-expressions...*
*How exactly is the attacker concealing itself? Its method of attack is also unknown. But one thing is certain: it's tied to this strange fog. A danger originating from mist...*
At that thought, a face suddenly sprang to Zhang Yuanqing's mind.
—Li Xianzong!
The dense fog at this moment triggered an unpleasant memory. Back in his aunt's hospital, he had been trapped in dense fog, suffering a brutal beating that nearly broke his spirit.
It was almost a trauma response.
*Wait!* A flash of inspiration hit Zhang Yuanqing. He abruptly realized what this dense fog in the labyrinth forest was!
The side quest description mentioned that an evil cultivator's power had permeated the forest, and that the path to the summit was fraught with perils.
Mountain God was the advanced class title for an Earth Monster. So what class was that evil cultivator?
A Bewitching Demon!
Because the first advancement for a Bewitching Demon—their Saint stage class—was called Mist Lord!
"Four minutes..." The timekeeper's voice grew grim.
The team's mood sank in tandem. Muscles tensed throughout their bodies as everyone braced themselves on high alert.
One minute remained before the hidden assailant would strike.
Yet Zhang Yuanqing felt a surge of exhilaration.
Once he grasped the true nature of the threat, conceiving a countermeasure became infinitely simpler.
*I remember fighting Li Xianzong at the hospital. He tracked my position based on the flow of the mist. This attacker must be doing the exact same thing!*
*In that case, if we stay completely still, can we avoid being targeted?*
*Worth a try...* Zhang Yuanqing came to an abrupt halt and called out loudly, "Halt! Everyone stop!"
The team halted in their tracks.
Without giving them a chance to ask questions, Zhang Yuanqing said, "From this moment on, do not move. Slow your breathing—in fact, hold your breath if you can. Do not make a single sound. Don't ask why; if you trust me, just do as I say!"
If someone still died under these conditions, the killer had nothing to do with the dungeon and was indeed a traitor. If that happened, he would use Guan Ya's lie-detecting mask to root them out.
As expected, the team members asked no questions. They held their breath and stood motionless as statues.
Silently counting the seconds, every single tick of time felt like an agonizing torment.
Finally, the five-minute mark arrived.
The team remained completely still. After half a minute, they heard Yuanshi Tianzun speak:
"Begin roll call!"
"One, two, three... thirteen, fourteen."
In this round, no one died.
***
The Spirit Realm walkers of the orthodox faction had split into three groups, each heading up a different mountain trail.
The team led by Zhao Chenghuang numbered twenty-three people. They were silently navigating through the dark, dense forest.
The trails underfoot crisscrossed in every direction. Taking a wrong turn at any single fork would leave this mixed group of official and unaffiliated walkers hopelessly trapped inside the labyrinth forest.
They had adopted the same method as Zhang Yuanqing's group: each person memorized a portion of the route, combining twenty-three brains to hold the labyrinth map in collective memory.
Because of their greater numbers, some people's memorized sections overlapped, which effectively prevented route loss if someone unexpectedly perished.
Scattered footsteps echoed through the quiet forest. Occasionally, a night breeze rustled the canopy overhead, producing a soft *shhh-shhh* sound.
It only accentuated the eerie stillness.
Several Fire Masters held high their "torches," generously providing light for the rest.
As they walked, Sun Miaomiao's brows knit together. She whispered, "The Yin energy around here is thickening."
Zhao Chenghuang let out an acknowledgment. "Looks like there are other dangers in the labyrinth. If it's just vengeful spirits, that'll be simple enough."
There were eight Night Walkers present; even against a vengeful spirit at the Saint stage, they had enough power to scatter its soul into oblivion.
Just as Sun Miaomiao was about to speak, she spotted a dark figure hanging from a branch ahead.
Focusing her gaze, she saw it was a hanged corpse clad in dingy, dusty mountaineering gear, dangling straight in midair, long dead.
The corpse's face was mottled with livor mortis, its flesh an ashen gray-blue, its eyes closed—a thoroughly ghastly sight.
"Huh, looks like there's a corpse up ahead."
The orthodox walkers behind them spotted the hanging specter illuminated by the torchlight.
"Looks like a hiker... Er, I saw a hiker in the outer ring earlier. Didn't expect there to be one in the labyrinth too."
"Be careful. Hikers don't belong to our Mountain God faction."
The group approached cautiously and slowly.
Suddenly, the dangling corpse snapped its eyes open.
A pair of blood-red pupils stared back, stamped with twisted, bizarre runes.
Sun Miaomiao's mind went *boom*, as if struck squarely over the head with a club, and her consciousness instantly dissolved.
In the next instant, the light returned to her unfocused pupils, and she tore herself free from the daze.
At the critical moment, she had transferred the entirety of the negative effect to her spirit servant.
*The Eye of Bewitchment? Was this corpse corrupted by the evil cultivator's power?* As Sun Miaomiao's thoughts whirled, she heard heavy, ragged breathing from beside and behind her.
A chill ran through her. She whipped around to look.
The orthodox walkers behind her had contorted expressions and labored breathing, their bloodshot eyes gleaming with a manic craving for slaughter.
Beside her, aside from Maoshan Daoist, Yuan Ting, and Zhao Chenghuang—who had pulled off the same clutch maneuver of letting spirit servants take the brunt—the remaining Night Walkers had all fallen prey to the spell.
"These guys have been bewitched."
Crossing-River Pawn stepped forward with a grim face. Aside from Sun Miaomiao and the other three, he was the only one who remained completely lucid.
As a Little Qingyang specializing in Insight, no one could ambush him under his nose—not even a corpse.
"What do we do?" Maoshan Daoist asked.
Zhao Chenghuang's expression was icy. "Try to subdue them. Avoid killing them if possible."
"Just the five of us?" Maoshan Daoist glared.
Zhao Chenghuang shot him a glance. "You don't have a choice."
***
*Huh? Fourteen people?*
Having heard the roll call conclude, the members of Zhang Yuanqing's team barely dared believe it.
They had fully braced themselves for another colleague to fall, never expecting such a calm, uneventful "silent night."
A surge of excitement rippled through the group. The oppressive gloom vanished, replaced by radiant joy on their faces.
"No... nobody died! No one died this time!"
Peony Fairy personally counted heads, confirming there were fourteen people—confirming everyone was still alive.
Asano Ryo counted along as well.
The Japanese schoolgirl and the young matron Peony were flushed with pleasant surprise. "How did you know standing still would prevent attacks?"
Guan Ya and World Returns to Fire looked on thoughtfully.
The official walkers turned their gazes to Yuanshi Tianzun in unison, their eyes filled with unspoken reverence and anticipation.
Yuanshi Tianzun had surely cracked the puzzle of this fog hazard. In that case, no one else would have to die.
Chapter 254