The group huddled around the edge of the hole, the light of the night-luminescent pearls completely swallowed by the pitch-black abyss. The vertical walls of the cavern shimmered faintly with damp moisture, and looking down, one could only see a thick, clotted darkness.
"This depth..." Duan Xianxing picked up a piece of rubble and tossed it down, listening intently for a long while. "I didn't hear it hit the bottom."
A cluster of spirit fire ignited at Liu Qingyang's fingertips, the flame suddenly pressed nearly flat against his palm by an updraft surging from below. "There's wind, which means it's not a dead end." He narrowed his eyes. "But the wind speed is erratic; it’s likely a complex system of caves down there."
The group fell into a brief silence. Behind them, the rustling of the approaching insect swarm grew louder and closer.
"Are we jumping or not?" Duan Xianxing suddenly broke the silence. "I’m stating for the record, I’d rather be flattened into a meat patty than be gnawed into a skeleton by those bugs."
"But down there..." Liu Qingyang's throat tightened, his voice nearly choking. "What if we fall to our deaths?"
Li Nanzhu rubbed her forehead. "I say," she sighed, "don't forget we are cultivators. You and Second Senior Brother can both fly on your swords. Can't we just fly down?"
The three of them froze. Right, weren't they cultivators? Running around inside the cave dwelling had made them forget they could fly, and they hadn't seen any signs forbidding it.
"Then I'll go first to scout the way," Zhu Yinxi decided immediately. "Seventh Junior Brother, you take the Little Junior Sister and Liu Qingyang. Any problem?"
"No problem!" Duan Xianxing slapped his chest. "I guarantee I'll get them down safely!"
"Wait, isn't Brother Zhu a music cultivator?" Liu Qingyang hadn't even finished speaking when he watched the jade flute in Zhu Yinxi's hand transform directly into a long sword.
"Dual music and sword cultivation?!" Liu Qingyang's eyes widened. Before he could say anything else, Zhu Yinxi had stepped onto his sword and dove into the hole.
"I'm going down to scout first," Zhu Yinxi said before jumping without hesitation.
The group leaned over the edge and waited for a long time, but they didn't hear a single sound.
"Is this hole really that deep?" Liu Qingyang spoke up hesitantly.
"...Second Senior Brother didn't fall to his death, did he?" As soon as the words left Duan Xianxing's mouth, he was rewarded with a sharp flick to the forehead from Li Nanzhu.
Liu Qingyang stroked his chin. "According to the books..."
Crack!
A sudden sound of cracking stone came from behind. The ironclad beetles were about to swarm them, their shells clacking together—they were clearly starving.
"What are you looking at books for!" Duan Xianxing grabbed Liu Qingyang's sleeve. "Run!"
"Wait!" Liu Qingyang grabbed his sleeve back. "I... I'm afraid of heights..."
Li Nanzhu was truly speechless. "How can a cultivator be afraid of heights?"
"Can't a cultivator be afraid of heights!" Liu Qingyang's voice went up an octave. "I fell off a flying sword when I was a kid!"
"There's no time!" Li Nanzhu watched the insect swarm surge toward them like a tide. She grabbed the collars of both men, and Suisui nimbly hooked itself onto Li Nanzhu's own collar. "Jump!"
"Wait, I'm not ready—"
The three people and one skeleton tumbled into the hole in an extremely pathetic fashion. Duan Xianxing scrambled to control Wait a Moment, but the moment the sword appeared, it was grabbed in a death grip by Liu Qingyang. "Oh my god, we're going to die! We're going to die!"
"Let go! That's my darling!" Duan Xianxing desperately tried to pry Liu Qingyang's hands off.
Li Nanzhu was death-gripping Duan Xianxing's belt. "Don't let go! I'm falling!"
"My pants are coming off!"
The three of them spun in mid-air in a bizarre formation—Duan Xianxing was holding up his pants with one hand while trying to control the flying sword with the other; Liu Qingyang was clinging to the sword like a koala; Li Nanzhu was dangling in the air by Duan Xianxing's belt, with the skeleton Suisui hanging off her collar.
"Can you guys just—" Duan Xianxing didn't finish his sentence before he felt his body grow heavy.
"A flight restriction!" Liu Qingyang shrieked.
The flying sword instantly lost its control and plummeted downward with a whistle.
The three of them entered a total free fall.
"AAAHHHHH!!!!"
The sensation of weightlessness seized their hearts. Li Nanzhu's ears were filled with the whistling wind as cold, damp air scraped past her cheeks. Duan Xianxing's belt snapped with a rip, and Liu Qingyang's scream caught in his throat, turning into a faint gasp.
Even Suisui was flung away during the free fall.
Thud!
"Who is it?!"
"My waist!"
A muffled sound accompanied by a familiar cry of pain. Li Nanzhu felt herself crash heavily onto something soft, only to be bounced off and hit the hard ground.
She groaned, propping herself up dizzily, only to find she was pressing down on someone.
"Seventh Senior Brother?" She struggled to get up, but when she looked down, she froze.
The person she had hit wasn't Duan Xianxing, but an acquaintance. Currently, the other party was clutching his chest, glaring at her with a face turned green.
"You—" the person started through gritted teeth, but before he could finish, another gust of wind came from above.
"Move!"
Thud!
Liu Qingyang and Duan Xianxing crashed down one after another. One landed on the white-robed cultivator again, while the other crashed directly into the crowd nearby.
"Ah!"
"Who's attacking?!"
The white-robed cultivator who had been hit a second time let out a howl and passed out completely.
In the chaos, Li Nanzhu finally saw her surroundings—they had fallen into a wide corridor where over a dozen people had already gathered. Three of them were very familiar—the ones from the Sword Heart Sect—while the rest were rogue cultivators and disciples from unknown sects.
Wait... three?
Only then did Li Nanzhu remember the person she had crashed into and looked over stiffly.
The one who had passed out was none other than Le Changxi.
And Second Senior Brother, who had fallen first, was nearby, frantically casting dust-cleansing techniques on himself. Next to him, another person lay on the ground, clearly the unlucky soul who had served as his landing pad.
Li Nanzhu inwardly lamented her luck. What kind of situation was this? Of all the people to crash into, it had to be someone from the Sword Heart Sect.
On the other side, Liu Qingyang was about to stand up when he felt something moving under his backside.
He looked down and found a mud-covered rogue cultivator glaring at him in rage.
"Get... get off..." the cultivator said through gritted teeth. "You're sitting on my face..."
"Sorry, sorry!" Liu Qingyang scrambled to get up, but he stepped on the man's sash and tripped over again.
The cultivator tremblingly raised a hand. "Are you... doing this on purpose!"
At that moment, everyone’s eyes were fixed on them, their gazes unfriendly.
"..." Li Nanzhu swallowed silently and slowly raised her hands. "Uh... this was an accident."
"An accident?!" A female cultivator sneered, her long sword clearing its scabbard with a shing. "Did you forget how to use a teleportation array? Or are you hitting us on purpose?"
"We were forced into this!" Duan Xianxing climbed up from the ground, rubbing his aching waist and grimacing. "There was a swarm of iron-devouring beetles chasing us. If we didn't jump, we would've been gnawed into skeletons!"
"Iron-devouring beetles?" A rogue cultivator's expression changed. "Why would those things be here?"
Before Li Nanzhu or the others could say more, a familiar female voice interrupted.
"Fourth Senior Brother!" Cang Dongqing shrieked, violently pushing aside the newly risen Li Nanzhu to throw herself onto Le Changxi.
With tears in the corners of her eyes and trembling fingers, she stroked Le Changxi's pale face, then turned to cast a malicious look at Li Nanzhu.
"Fellow Daoist Li," she choked out, though her hand secretly pinched Le Changxi’s acupoint with great force, "how could you do this..."
Seeing this, Liu Qingyang immediately frowned. "It was clearly an accident, you..."
"Fellow Daoist Liu..." Cang Dongqing suddenly changed her expression, turning toward Liu Qingyang with a tearful face and reaching out to grab his sleeve. "Please come look at my senior brother..."
"Don't touch me." Liu Qingyang jumped back three steps, his face full of revulsion. "I don't know you well."
Duan Xianxing also stood up dizzily and spoke subconsciously. "Brother Liu is neither a pill cultivator nor a healer. Even if you ask him to look, your senior brother won't get any better, right?"
Cang Dongqing’s hand froze in mid-air, a flash of sinister light crossing her eyes before she quickly replaced it with a victimized expression. "You all... how can you be like this... I just..."
"Just what?" Li Nanzhu sneered, patting the dust off her clothes. "That push you just gave me was quite strong, wasn't it?"
At this point, Qu Chen also approached with an unfriendly expression, pointing at the unconscious Le Changxi. "You've knocked my Fourth Junior Brother unconscious, and you're not even going to offer an explanation!"
Suddenly, a commotion broke out among the rogue cultivators in the back. Everyone turned to look and saw several rogue cultivators frozen in the corner with their swords drawn. The unluckiest was a tall man who currently had Suisui sitting on his shoulder—the little skeleton had its skull tilted, its bony claws still in the middle of pulling off the man's headband.
"What is that thing!" Qu Chen ignored Le Changxi and looked at Suisui with a grim expression. "An evil entity?!"
Seeing the situation was turning sour, Zhu Yinxi quickly stepped forward and pulled Suisui down. The headband, embroidered with sword patterns, tore in half with a rip.
"It is not an evil entity." Zhu Yinxi’s brow furrowed slightly as he reflexively hid Suisui behind Li Nanzhu.
Qu Chen’s sword unsheathed fully, the tip pointing directly at Suisui. "That skeleton has ghost fire burning in its sockets! If it's not a bone puppet refined by an evil cultivator, then what is it?"
Suisui trembled, its bony claws tightly clutching Li Nanzhu's clothes. The blue fire in its eye sockets flickered violently, and the bell on its tailbone emitted faint tinkling sounds.
"Fellow Daoist Qu, watch your words." Zhu Yinxi stood impassively in front, his jade flute held horizontally across his chest. "Though Suisui is a skeleton, it has never harmed anyone."
Cang Dongqing suddenly pointed at Suisui and screamed, "Look at the markings on its bones!" Her voice trembled. "Those are clearly incantations for a blood sacrifice!"
Everyone was shocked upon hearing this, and several rogue cultivators silently retreated a few paces. Li Nanzhu looked down—Suisui's frame was indeed covered in dense silver patterns, which were the gifts it had received from the spiritual plants in the herb garden.
"This isn't..." Li Nanzhu started to explain, but Qu Chen interrupted her sharply.
"You lot are actually consorting with an evil cultivator! If you don't hand over this evil thing today, don't blame us for being impolite!"
Rate on N.U.
