Chapter 1000

“What’s happened? Why are you all so alarmed?” Gan Laomo exclaimed. The white shadow, which had just assumed an attacking posture, flickered back to its original position and suddenly spun nearly halfway around, adopting a defensive stance.

The cultivators who had just flown out from behind the light barrier were all battered and disheveled, yet none were below the Nascent Soul realm. Even if Gan Laomo were the most arrogant, he would never dare to treat them lightly. Moreover, the explosive sound that had just come from the light barrier had given him a faint sense of foreboding.

“Brother Gan, your abilities are truly astonishing—you arrived here even before us. Oh, isn’t this Elder Fu of the Nine You Sect? And these two are…?” These cultivators were unmistakably the Four Elders of the Poison Saint Sect and five other Nascent Soul cultivators; the True Person San San was also lurking among them. But when Hua Tianqi saw Han Li and the other two, he first reacted with shock and suspicion.

“Ah, it’s Brother Hua—what a coincidence. But what exactly caused that explosion just now?” The elderly Fu man, preoccupied with the matter beyond the barrier, had no time to explain and hurriedly asked.

“Hmph! We’re the ones who should be asking you. Since you arrived here before us, the illusionary array outside must have been set up by you. The recent explosion that sealed the passage again—surely that was your doing.” One of the Nascent Soul cultivators, a burly man, sneered.

Hearing this, the others’ expressions darkened slightly as they fixed their gazes on Han Li and his companions, their faces turning hostile. “You mustn’t misunderstand. Fu and I, along with our two companions, arrived here to find other cultivators already present. The illusionary array you speak of has nothing to do with us three. You’ve suffered a loss—do you intend to take out your anger on Fu?” The elderly Fu man’s face darkened instantly, speaking without any courtesy.

In such a complex situation, one must never show weakness, or risk being seen as vulnerable and targeted by a mob.

“There are others here?” This startled not only the Four Elders of the Poison Saint Sect, but even Gan Laomo.

“Hmph. The three of us were accidentally transported here by an ancient legal array. At the time, we heard sounds of breaking seals coming from the mountain, but we were later trapped by a barrier for several days and couldn’t reach those people in time. The illusionary array you mentioned must be connected to them.” The elderly Fu man was no ordinary cultivator—he quickly explained the situation in a few sentences.

“Is that truly so?” The burly man hesitated. The other cultivators grew skeptical. “Elder Fu is a Law Enforcement Elder of the Nine You Sect—he wouldn’t lie about something so obvious. Moreover, if the Nine You Sect had truly broken the seal, their Elder Gu wouldn’t have failed to come here personally to oversee it.” Hua Tianqi’s expression softened slightly, as if fully convinced by the old man’s words.

“That does make sense,” the burly man mused, nodding in agreement.

“Still, when you flew in just now, you and Brother Gan seemed tense with each other. Did Elder Fu somehow offend Brother Gan?” Hua Tianqi’s eyes flickered slightly as he suddenly brought this up. After all, the hostile tension between Han Li’s group and the old devil had been clearly visible to all present.

“This matter…” The old man’s face showed hesitation.

Just as the elderly Fu man was pondering how to answer, high up on Mount Kunwu, in a vast hall, the giant-headed monster held a golden hammer and swung it down—immediately, a silver-white lightning arc shot forth, shattering a stone tiger golem that had drawn near.

Behind him, the Ye family cultivators each activated their magic treasures, unleashing furious assaults upon the various stone golems before them.

These golems all took the forms of beasts and flying creatures—extremely hardy, capable of spitting out simple spells, and truly ferocious. They surged endlessly from the four corridors surrounding the hall.

Yet the Ye family cultivators remained calm, silently pushing their magic treasures forward, as if each held complete confidence.

After a moment, a thunderous crash echoed from a distant side. The corridor there collapsed entirely, halting the flow of golems from that direction.

Upon hearing the sound, the Ye family cultivators each showed a flicker of relief.

Soon after, the other three corridors also collapsed one by one amid roaring crashes. With no new golems emerging, the remaining ones in the hall were swiftly wiped out by the Ye family’s coordinated attacks.

“What are these things? They don’t seem like any golems we’ve seen before.”

Only now did the Ye family cultivators relax. They pulled out spirit stones and sat cross-legged on the spot. Though the battle had seemed low-risk, their prolonged full-power use of magic treasures had drained considerable magic power.

At that moment, a streak of light shot out from the last collapsed corridor, arriving before them in an instant. The glow faded, revealing the white-robed Confucian scholar.

“Elder Han, you were right—each corridor’s end led to a side hall. These golems emerged from within. Following your method, I broke the seals and destroyed the control cores of all the side halls.” The scholar smiled at one of them.

“Nothing special. I once read about this golem array in ancient texts, so I knew how to handle it. Otherwise, merely holding our ground and enduring would have exhausted even the most powerful cultivator to death.” The reply came from the unmoving, expressionless Ancient Devil.

“Haha! It seems I was right to bring Elder Han here—he’s proven invaluable. I’ll surely need your help again in the future.” The scholar spoke warmly.

“Grand Elder is too kind. Even without saying so, Han Mou would give his utmost.” The Ancient Devil’s lips curled slightly as he uttered a polite phrase, causing the scholar to nod, deeply satisfied.

At that moment, the giant-headed monster suddenly chuckled.

“By now, the hidden measures we planted in the illusionary array should have triggered. If we’re lucky, we might gain a little more time for the Ye family.”

“Indeed. Someone should have entered the array by now. Once anyone steps in, it will trigger the hidden mechanism, causing the illusionary array to self-destruct in moments. But this obstruction will vanish in five or six days at most—the entrance will reopen. Even without this, the seal will begin loosening in time.” The scholar’s expression grew serious.

“The seal’s weakening to full collapse is still far off—plenty of time for us to retrieve the treasures. But where exactly are we now on Mount Kunwu? Are we close to the main structure?” The giant-headed monster asked.

“Hmm. Probably. But the increasing frequency of seals we’ve encountered suggests we’ve reached the mountain’s vital core.” The scholar pondered, then spoke slowly.

“Good. But there’s another problem—very troublesome. That silver-winged Night Fork, the old yin spirit, keeps trailing us. What does it want? Does it plan to ambush us when we’re vulnerable?” The giant-headed monster finished speaking and turned to glance at the entrance at the far end of the hall, a hint of concern on his face.

The others, hearing this, instinctively looked the same way. But the area was empty—nothing there at all.

Yet the Ye family cultivators all knew: somewhere out there, the silver-winged Night Fork was almost certainly hiding, watching them from afar.

This left the cultivators deeply unsettled.

Had they not been accompanied by two Nascent Soul late-stage cultivators, ordinary cultivators would have scattered in panic under such a high-level monster’s gaze.

“This flying corpse is indeed troublesome. If time permitted, with my ability and Uncle Qi’s, we could devise a plan to severely wound or even destroy it. But we’re pressed for time—we must race against the clock. In this situation, acting rashly to drive it away might only enrage it. All we can do now is see if, ahead, we can lure it into a trap using some existing seal.”

The others, hearing this, largely agreed, nodding in assent. After all, given the Night Fork’s astonishingly refined evasion techniques, it was nearly impossible for them to shake it off by their own strength.

After slightly restoring their magic power, the group immediately exited the stone hall, emerging at the exit.

But before the Ye family cultivators, the scene suddenly brightened. After a brief glance at the distant landscape, they all froze, dumbstruck.

Before them stretched a vast expanse of over a dozen uneven stone staircases, each leading to different parts of the mountain. Yet at the far end of every staircase, the same white mist swirled endlessly—utterly obscuring where each path ended. How could this not leave the Ye family bewildered?

“What do we do now? Even if we each took one path, we couldn’t possibly explore them all.” An elder sighed, turning to the scholar with a wry smile.

“Don’t panic. This means we’ve entered the core of Mount Kunwu—hence the branching paths. This is actually a good sign. Splitting up is impossible; too few people means no self-defense. Let’s first go to the platform where all staircases converge and see if there are any markers.”

The scholar, true to his role as Grand Elder of the Ye family, quickly regained composure and devised a plan. The platform he referred to was a vast white jade square where all staircases met—only a few miles away, enormous in size.

Hearing this, the others had no better alternative and agreed to head to the square first.

They immediately activated their light trails and shot toward it. But the moment all of them took to the air, they all “thudded” and “thudded” down to the ground.

“Anti-flight seal? This place has such a seal?” The giant-headed monster exclaimed.

Fortunately, the Ye family cultivators hadn’t flown high. Though they fell awkwardly, none were injured—but all were startled and exhilarated.

Though the anti-flight seal greatly slowed their progress, it confirmed they had truly entered a vital region of Mount Kunwu.

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