The corridor was roughly three meters wide and five meters high, extending deep into the heart of the mountain without any visible end. Oil bowls rested in wall niches, their pea-sized flames burning quietly. Standing before the entrance, Xiahou Aotian twitched his nose and said, "Oxygen levels are high, the rancid stench is faint, and the oil lamps are still burning. That means the air circulation system inside the mountain is functioning normally. There shouldn't be any toxic gas or anything. We can go in."
He looked back at his teammates. "Which of you will go in as cannon fodder? I'm a Scholar, responsible for strategizing and orchestrating everything."
Xiao Yuan suddenly said, "Since this is a mechanist city, there will definitely be mechanisms and traps in the corridor. We need a Scout to conduct an on-site reconnaissance."
Everyone turned to look at Guan Ya. She was the only Scout present.
Guan Ya said coldly, "You could have just told me to take point."
Xiao Yuan gave a slight nod. "Then I'll trouble you."
"Heh~" Guan Ya scoffed.
While the two were speaking, Xiahou Aotian quietly passed earbud communicators to Sun Miaomiao and the others.
[Xiahou Aotian: Will these two women ruin things? I always see brain-dead characters like this in TV shows and novels—jealous, fighting for attention, and then tripping people up and causing disasters at critical moments. You have to remember this is an S-rank dungeon; there's no room for brain-dead supporting characters, let alone two.]
[Zhao Chenghuang: For them to become Saints, it's impossible for them to be brainless. Stop worrying about nothing. Still, since Yuanshi Tianzun brought his girlfriend, he shouldn't have brought a woman with whom he has an ambiguous relationship. It's truly unwise.]
[Sun Miaomiao: This fellow Yuanshi Tianzun is smart when he's smart, but incredibly brain-dead when he's brain-dead—especially when handling romantic issues.]
[World Returns to Fire: Probably lacks dating experience. Heh, no matter how clever a college student is, he's only been eating rice for twenty years. He can't possibly handle every detail flawlessly. He's far behind old hands.]
[Xiahou Aotian: Though he's young, he's got quite a few tricks. Yuanshi Tianzun looks like a scumbag at first glance, yet some girls just throw themselves at the flame like moths. Truly brain-damaged.]
[Sun Miaomiao: You've crossed the line with that. I don't like Yuanshi Tianzun at all, so don't be so sarcastic and weird.]
[Zhao Chenghuang: Miaomiao, he wasn't talking about you.]
Zhang Yuanqing dragged his exhausted body over, staring at their ears. "What are you all whispering behind my back?"
"Nothing!" Everyone took out their earbuds and pocketed them in tacit unison.
At this moment, Guan Ya stepped into the corridor first with her long legs, holding a Han octagonal bronze sword.
Fearing that something might go wrong with her, Zhang Yuanqing hurried in after her.
Why was Xiao Yuan's gunpowder scent so strong today? Catching up to Guan Ya, he whispered, "Wifey, don't be mad at her."
Guan Ya said flatly, "I'm not a Cancer; I don't get love-struck brain rot. Rest assured, I won't lower myself to argue with her. As for you, we'll settle accounts after we leave the dungeon."
With a cold face, she navigated between the piles of skeletal remains, kicking aside one corpse here and nudging another there before carefully examining the walls.
A few minutes later, Guan Ya looked back at the teammates who had followed them inside and said, "Most of the dead at the entrance are lying face down. They were killed while fleeing. Judging from the clean cuts on the bones and the sword marks on the walls, the enemies were swordsmen, numbering more than two.
"All these people died right at the mouth of the corridor, which indicates that once you enter the mechanist city, the stone doors shut. This corridor is a one-way path: either clear the dungeon, or die."
Either clear the dungeon, or die... Everyone frowned in unison, their moods turning heavy.
Xiahou Aotian said, "Don't be frightened by an S-rank dungeon. Before coming here, I read through the research papers in my clan's archives. The difficulty scaling of a dungeon has an upper limit. Among us, some are Level 4 and some are Level 5, but only Yuanshi Tianzun is Level 6.
"Theoretically speaking, the danger within the mechanist city will at most reach weak Dominator level, and that will definitely be the boss. Before we encounter the boss, Yuanshi Tianzun can handle most of the trials."
Hearing this, everyone felt somewhat reassured.
"No!" Sun Miaomiao said softly. "I just read everyone's physiognomy. Aside from Yuanshi Tianzun, every single person has a bloody catastrophe looming over them.
"Even Yuanshi Tianzun is shrouded in dark clouds accompanied by an omen of bloodshed. This means we could die at any moment, while Yuanshi Tianzun might be severely injured or even die."
Asano Ryo clenched her fists, muttering a quiet line of Japanese under her breath as if cheering herself on.
Commandery Princess Yinyao raised her little megaphone: "We must not let down our guard. Yuanshi Tianzun is merely a Night Walker after all; his abilities are limited in variety. He might be able to endure many dangers, but he won't necessarily be able to save us."
Zhang Yuanqing led the way forward, while the others maintained a ten-meter distance from him.
After trekking through the gloomy corridor for over a dozen minutes, Zhang Yuanqing suddenly stopped in his tracks. Ahead stood two swordsmen wearing coir raincoats and bamboo conical hats.
They stood motionless like sculptures, facing the party with lowered heads, the brims of their hats concealing their faces.
"Yinyao, go test them," Zhang Yuanqing said.
Commandery Princess Yinyao immediately stepped forward. As she passed Guan Ya, she reached out, snatched the Han octagonal ancient sword from her hand, and said, "Borrowing your sword."
She walked unhurriedly toward the two swordsmen. A crackling sizzle of electrical current emanated from her waist pouch, followed by a crisp, resonant song echoing out:
"Feeding on frost and drinking the snow, forged a blade over ten long years; behold as I hold the pass alone, daring ten thousand men to turn pale with fear~"
Yinyao delivered a backhanded slap, and the Elvis speaker instantly behaved itself.
At that moment, the two conical-hat swordsmen snapped their heads up. Beneath the brims were two faces covered in black iron masks, along with two pairs of eyes gleaming with red light.
"Eyes of Bewitchment..." Commandery Princess Yinyao said, raising a hand to press her glabella.
Clang! The two swordsmen unsheathed their blades in unison. Shrill whistles pierced the air as streaks of sword qi sliced through the atmosphere.
Unrushed, Commandery Princess Yinyao raised the bronze sword and flourished a curtain of blade light. Clang! Clang! Clang! Sparks flew in all directions.
She swept her sword across, deflecting the attacks of both swordsmen, ducked low, entered the night walk, and noiselessly glided directly before them. Pressing both palms against their chests, she exerted tremendous force.
Bang!
The two swordsmen flew backward through the air.
"Come back!" Zhang Yuanqing called, looking back at his teammates. "Peak Level 4 standard. Who wants to go?"
At the dungeon's conclusion, rewards were settled based on individual contribution. Even in an S-rank dungeon, lying flat and being carried the whole way wouldn't yield much experience.
The moment his words fell, two fireballs shot forth simultaneously and exploded with a boom. Brother Red Chicken and World Returns to Fire were the first to charge out.
Immediately after, two gunshots rang out—Bang! Bang!—as Sun Miaomiao and Zhao Chenghuang provided ranged fire support. The corridor was too narrow to accommodate a melee brawl involving so many people.
Seeing this, Guan Ya unhurriedly drew her pistol and fired single targeted shots.
Working together, the five quickly dispatched the two swordsmen.
Xiahou Aotian rushed forward, stripping off the coir coats and conical hats to reveal badly damaged frames. The swordsmen's bodies were assembled from cast iron and wood.
These were two puppets.
Xiahou Aotian pried open the slightly indented iron plate on a puppet's chest, clicking his tongue in marvel. "Brilliant, truly brilliant! The manufacturing technique of these two puppets is rather ancient, yet they could maintain operational function for over a thousand years. The wisdom of the ancients is truly breathtaking! Yuanshi, collect them; I want to take them back and study them thoroughly."
Beyond the ancient craftsmanship, the materials on the puppets were of high value as well.
Zhang Yuanqing took out Little Red Riding Hood and stowed the puppet swordsmen away, reminding him, "Keeping operational for over a thousand years is probably magic granted by the Spirit Realm, not because the puppet's craftsmanship is so godlike. Besides, is this stuff even useful to you? You're a Fangshi, not an artificer."
Xiahou Aotian raised his handsome face and said disdainfully, "Ignorant, aren't you? Mechanist arts are an offshoot of artificing arts. One can learn them without needing to reach the Dominator stage. Since antiquity, mechanist arts have branched into two major schools: Mohist and Lu Ban.
"The Lu Ban mechanist arts later integrated the curse techniques of Spirit Mediums and the spirit talismans of Night Walkers, coming to be known by later generations as yasheng arts. Meanwhile, Mohist mechanist arts gradually died out over the course of history.
"By the time ancient cultivators went extinct, the yasheng arts were lost as well. A few years ago, the official faction and the three Scholar clans joined hands to create a 'Promoting Ancient Arts' fund, but in the end, it fizzled out."
Sun Miaomiao asked with great interest, "Why?"
"Time is one factor. Any craft depends on accumulation. Mechanist arts have long been lost. Without a master's instruction, studying on one's own takes over a decade just to grasp the basics. The history of Spirit Realm Walkers is a mere century, and it has only been about fifty years since Spirit Realm clans grew into considerable scale," Xiahou Aotian sighed. "On the other hand, mechanist arts are merely a branch of artificing. For a Dominator, with that kind of materials and time, wouldn't it be better to directly refine items? That's why mechanist arts have never flourished to this day. Within the three Scholar clans, a small fraction of people obsessed with the craft still study it, and they've indeed built quite a few good things, but it's far too niche."
World Returns to Fire pondered briefly and said, "There might be mechanist secret manuals here. When the time comes, the manual goes to you, and you supply the guild with mechanist weapons."
"As long as you pay, anything goes." Xiahou Aotian's wallet had always been tight.
The group continued forward, encountering along the way poison dart traps, rolling stone spheres, toxic smoke attacks, and assaults by wraiths. Through shock and hazard, they pushed through the manifold obstacles unscathed.
Finally, they exited the drawn-out corridor and emerged into an immense stone grotto.
At the grotto's entrance stood a stone stele engraved with four characters: "Clarifying Ghosts" and "Frugal Expenditures."
The entire grotto covered about sixty square meters, possessing only two passages: the entrance they had arrived through, and an exit directly across from them.
The grotto floor bore a massive Eight Trigrams diagram. At the exit stood a three-meter-tall statue of an evil ghost with a green face and protruding fangs.
The straight-line distance between the two passages was merely sixty meters. For them, it could be crossed in the blink of an eye.
However, the floor carved with the Eight Trigrams was carpeted with skeletal remains and bone fragments, signaling that every step within the grotto held lethal peril.
"What do 'Clarifying Ghosts' and 'Frugal Expenditures' mean?" Brother Red Chicken asked.
"'Frugal Expenditures' means being thrifty. No idea about 'Clarifying Ghosts,'" Sun Miaomiao said, looking somewhat uneducated on the matter.
As the most erudite person present, Xiahou Aotian explained, "'Clarifying Ghosts' and 'Frugal Expenditures' are Mohist doctrines. 'Frugal Expenditures' opposes extravagance and waste, advocating for moderating expenses to boost productivity. As for 'Clarifying Ghosts,' there's greater debate, but the most widely accepted interpretation is: one must believe in ghosts and spirits. Ghosts and spirits clearly distinguish good from evil, so one must maintain reverence and refrain from doing evil."
World Returns to Fire listened quietly. Inspecting the conditions inside the grotto, he said, "More people died here than outside; it's very dangerous. Old rules: use a yin corpse to scout the way."
Zhao Chenghuang immediately took out his bronze box, using a spirit servant to drive a Soldier Puppet into the grotto.
Thump!
The instant the Soldier Puppet stepped into the grotto, the yin-yang fish at the center of the Eight Trigrams diagram began slowly turning. Meanwhile, the evil ghost with green skin and fangs at the exit turned its head, glaring balefully at the Soldier Puppet.
Thump! Thump!
Just as the Soldier Puppet took its third step, the yin-yang fish completed one full rotation.
The next second, two beams of white light erupted from the pupils of the fanged evil ghost.
Bang!
The Soldier Puppet blew apart into fragments in an instant, scattering across the ground with a loud clatter.
The pulverized pieces of stone quivered slightly and swiftly converged, reconstituting the Soldier Puppet.
Zhang Yuanqing suddenly said, "Take a step forward!"
Zhao Chenghuang's spirit servant reconnected with the Soldier Puppet and maneuvered it forward by one step.
The yin-yang fish at the center of the Eight Trigrams diagram rotated once more. When it completed a full turn, two beams of white light burst from the fierce pupils of the green-faced, fanged ghost.
The Soldier Puppet exploded into pieces once again.
After it reformed once more, Zhang Yuanqing said, "Back out!"
The Soldier Puppet retreated, and this time, it suffered no attack.
Zhang Yuanqing looked toward his Scout girlfriend. "What do you think?"
Guan Ya had already discerned the pattern. "As long as anything enters the grotto, it triggers an attack from the ghost statue. Before the yin-yang fish finishes one rotation, one must cross the grotto and reach the exit."
Brother Red Chicken immediately chimed in, "That's easy. I can just cross it with Fire Traveling."
"It's not that simple." Guan Ya looked at the broken bones across the cavern. "The Mohist Sect was an immortal sect. For the Jin to dare come here, they must have gathered a considerable number of ancient cultivators. Among them, could there really have been no Fire Masters? Movement arts definitely won't work. Yuanshi, try using a spirit servant?"
Zhang Yuanqing exhaled a breath of yin qi. A spirit servant in the form of a disemboweled youth whizzed forward, darting toward the exit at extreme speed.
The taiji fish at the center of the Eight Trigrams diagram completed a full circle in an instant. Two pitch-black beams shot from the ghost statue's eyes, striking the spirit servant.
The spirit servant let out a piercing, soundless shriek and dissolved into a puff of black smoke.
"Its soul was annihilated," Zhang Yuanqing said, frowning.
Guan Ya nodded. "White light targets physical objects, while black light targets yin entities. The faster one moves, the faster the yin-yang fish rotates. Movement arts won't work either..."
She suddenly drew a large-caliber handgun and pulled the trigger at the ghost statue.
Bang!
The moment the bullet left the barrel, the taiji fish completed a rotation at a speed virtually imperceptible to the naked eye. Immediately after, a flash of white light erupted, blasting the bullet into fine dust.
"Anything attempting to pass through the grotto, regardless of what it is, will suffer a devastating attack," Guan Ya said, shaking her head.
"The attack strength is enough to directly obliterate Level 5s. My Soldier Puppet has strong defenses, something not even Level 4 Saints could easily shatter," Zhao Chenghuang said gravely.
Brother Red Chicken's eyes widened. "Doesn't that make it unsolvable?"
"Not necessarily," World Returns to Fire said. "Look at how the skeletons are distributed. Several corpses drew close to the exit, which means they weathered multiple attacks from the evil ghost and were just one step away from succeeding. How did they pull that off?"
Sun Miaomiao's mind clicked. "Human-wave tactics."
World Returns to Fire nodded. "Precisely. We use yin corpses and Soldier Puppets as cannon fodder while we rush across."
He thought for a moment, then added, "Zhao Chenghuang's Soldier Puppets have a 'self-healing' capability. Let's not waste yin corpses first."
With that, he looked at Zhao Chenghuang.
Understanding his meaning, the latter had his spirit servant extend pitch-black threads from its ten fingers, plunging them into the bronze box.
One pitch-black Soldier Puppet after another climbed out—twelve in total.
These Soldier Puppets were all retrofitted from the terracotta warriors originally acquired from the underground palace. Though Zhao Chenghuang didn't possess that many yin corpses, these Soldier Puppets were stronger than ordinary Level 4 yin corpses.
Thump, thump, thump!
The twelve Soldier Puppets charged into the grotto in synchronized strides.
The taiji fish spun wildly, and beam after beam shot from the ghost statue's eyeballs as fast as lasers.
World Returns to Fire condensed a fireball and hurled it forward with all his might.
Sun Miaomiao activated her Star Escape.
Flames surged across World Returns to Fire's body, while starlight enveloped Sun Miaomiao.
The flames died down, and the starlight dissipated. Both remained frozen in their original spots without moving an inch.
And before the starlight and fire had even enveloped them, the Soldier Puppets in the grotto had already been decimated by the 'lasers.'
"We can't use skills..." World Returns to Fire's expression changed slightly. As if recalling something, he snapped his gaze toward the stone stele. "'Frugal Expenditures'... Skills cannot be used inside the grotto."
"Twelve yin corpses lasted less than two seconds," Zhao Chenghuang said with unprecedented gravity in his voice.
The team fell into dead silence.
Yet an even worse development occurred. Brother Red Chicken pointed back toward the corridor behind them and shouted, "There's poison mist!"
Everyone turned around to see a massive surge of yellowish-green smoke rolling toward them like dense fog.
In an instant, the squad was caught between enemies on both fronts.
Chapter 532