Living Sacrifice!

"Clack, clack, clack!"

Having heard everything, Suisui's teeth began to chatter rhythmically. As a skeleton who had been raised by Xiao Yan and Li Nanzhu on sweet and delicious pills, it was clearly very repulsed by this particular type of pill.

Seeing Suisui like this, Li Nanzhu and Feng Qingping couldn't help but share a knowing smile.

A stick of incense later.

Inside the mine, the female cultivators of the Hehuan Sect were tidying one another's clothes. Ling Suxin helped a junior sister tie up her loose hair bun, and the girl smiled with crescent-shaped eyes. "Senior Sister, look, is my face still a bit soft?" she asked, poking her still-flushed cheek.

"Indeed," Ling Suxin said, unable to stifle a laugh as she pressed the girl's cheek with a fingertip. "Like a freshly steamed glutinous rice cake."

Li Nanzhu was taking this time to draw talismans and replenish her stock. Hearing this, she smiled. "The medicinal effects should have worn off completely by now..."

Before she could finish, Suisui suddenly leaped from her shoulder, its small claws clenching a lock of her hair. Almost simultaneously, Feng Weilan's scabbard slammed into the ground, scraping fine sparks against the stone slabs.

"Someone's coming."

His voice was extremely soft, but it caused all noise in the cave to come to a grinding halt.

Li Nanzhu felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A faint rustling sound drifted from outside the mine, like the sound of boot soles grinding against gravel, floating into everyone's ears in intermittent waves.

Feng Qingping pressed her finger onto the array disk and mouthed, "Five or more."

"Search in three directions!" a coarse male voice suddenly exploded at a nearby fork in the path. The sound of clashing chains made everyone's eardrums throb. "The superiors said I want them alive, or I want their corpses!"

An even rasper voice replied, "Those women couldn't have gone far! Be thorough!"

Li Nanzhu dug her nails into her palms.

The footsteps stopped at the fork. Li Nanzhu could clearly hear her own accelerating heartbeat. She instinctively looked at Feng Weilan—her Sixth Senior Brother maintained a stance ready to draw his blade, his breathing nearly suspended. Only the cold light flowing along the blade's edge betrayed his killing intent.

"This way!" a sudden shout rang out. The footsteps turned toward a different tunnel. The group waited in silence for another quarter-hour until the sound completely vanished before they relaxed slightly.

Qinghe slumped to the ground, her chest heaving violently. "How... how did they track us here so fast?"

"Even though the previous explosion was shielded by the array..." Feng Qingping put away the array disk, her brow furrowed. "The spiritual energy fluctuations produced when the spirit-siphoning iron was destroyed likely caught the attention of the evil cultivators."

Rong Yuying's expression also grew solemn. "We must relocate immediately." She scanned the pale faces of the group. "How is everyone's recovery? I can give you at most half an hour to regulate your breathing. After that, we must leave."

Hearing this, the Hehuan Sect disciples immediately stopped their joking and quickly began to absorb spiritual energy.

The following time felt exceptionally long.

Using the light of a night-luminescent pearl, Li Nanzhu carefully inspected her newly drawn talismans while Rong Yuying spread the previous map out before everyone.

Several points were marked on the map with cinnabar, including a circled area marked with a Hehuan flower.

"This is our current position," Rong Yuying said, pointing with a finger. "The second team should be in this region." She traced a winding route. "This is the fastest way through."

Feng Qingping studied the map closely. "We'll pass through three forks along the way. All of them are locations that are easy to defend but hard to attack."

Li Nanzhu suddenly noticed a blurry sword-shaped mark on the edge of the map. "What is this place?"

Ling Suxin leaned in to look. "It's the depths of an abandoned vein. It's said to have collapsed already."

"Fourth Senior Brother..." Li Nanzhu's heart tightened. "Could he be trapped in a place like that?"

The cave fell silent for a moment. Feng Weilan's finger paused on the map before he continued tracing the route.

"First, we rendezvous with the second team," Rong Yuying said, folding the map. "It's easier to find people when there are more of us."

The group quickly packed their gear. Feng Weilan and Feng Qingping led the way at the front, while Rong Yuying brought up the rear.

As they passed through the first tunnel, Suisui suddenly straightened its skull, the soul fire in its hollow eye sockets flickering violently.

"There's movement." Feng Qingping immediately signaled for everyone to stop.

Blurred voices drifted from the distance. "...Keep searching... don't let a single one escape..."

Li Nanzhu gripped the thunder-fire talisman in her hand. With these evil cultivators searching so ostentatiously, if her Fourth Senior Brother really was trapped somewhere in the mine...

Feng Weilan suddenly raised a hand in a gesture, signaling everyone to turn down another fork. This passage was narrower and damper, with the rock walls covered in moss.

"We'll circle around from here," he whispered. "I watched them just now; they're following fixed patrol routes. Based on the map, taking this path should allow us to avoid most of the search parties."

Ling Suxin raised her lotus lamp, its light casting swaying shadows on the damp walls. Li Nanzhu noticed that the hand holding the lamp was slightly pale.

"We're almost there," Rong Yuying nodded, her round fan pointing toward the tunnel ahead. "Just around that bend and—"

Boom—!

The ground shook violently. A shockwave from an explosion, carrying shattered rocks, surged out from the depths of the tunnel. Feng Qingping yanked Li Nanzhu behind her. Jagged stones grazed Li Nanzhu's cheek, striking the rock wall with a burst of sparks.

"An explosion talisman!" Ling Suxin's lotus lamp was suddenly extinguished. In the instant before total darkness fell, Li Nanzhu saw her deathly pale face. "That direction... it's the second team!"

Spiritual energy surged from Rong Yuying's fingertips, and golden patterns flowed across her round fan. "Go!"

The sound of falling rocks hadn't even stopped before Feng Weilan signaled for everyone to halt. He tilted his blade slightly, reflecting a sliver of cold light onto the scene around the corner.

The situation for the second team was worse than they had imagined. Seven or eight Hehuan Sect disciples were cornered in a dead end of the mine. Their pink defensive light barrier was already on the verge of collapsing. Two female cultivators were already lying motionless on the ground, and the rest were pale, their spiritual energy clearly nearing exhaustion.

Two black-robed Golden Core evil cultivators were continuously throwing bone nails that glowed with a green light. Each impact made the light barrier shudder violently. Five Foundation Establishment evil cultivators surrounded them in a fan shape, but they weren't helping with the attack. Instead, they were busy arranging something on the perimeter.

Rong Yuying's round fan came to a sudden halt, her eyes flashing with sharp insight. "We can't attack head-on."

Feng Qingping's fingertips unconsciously rubbed against her array disk. The actions of the Foundation Establishment evil cultivators made her uneasy. Although she couldn't see their intent, a formation master's intuition told her that they must not be allowed to complete that array!

Feng Weilan used the tip of his blade to draw several fine lines on the ground, signaling everyone to observe the positions of the evil cultivators.

Li Nanzhu squinted. With the help of the light from Suisui's soul fire, she finally saw that the Foundation Establishment evil cultivators were embedding a type of dark red crystal into the rock walls. Every time one was inserted, a viscous red mist seeped out from the cracks in the rock.

"It's blood-fiend crystals." The round fan in Rong Yuying's hand nearly slipped from her grasp. "They want to perform a living sacrifice on everyone in the second team!"