Chapter 2083: Skeleton and Lava Lake

After saying this, the purple-haired woman activated a magic art on the jade pendant in her hand. Instantly, that wisp of blood-red thread seemed to come alive, winding and swimming endlessly on the surface of the pendant.

"Very good. If Fifth Sister can use this secret technique to pinpoint that demonic beast's location, we won't need to fear being ambushed. This gives us a huge advantage," the yellow-haired man replied with a look of joy upon hearing this.

Following this, he yielded his position at the front, letting this "Fifth Sister" of his walk in the lead.

The group walked only a few steps into this underground cavern before entering a man-made mining tunnel.

Judging by the pockmarked pits on both sides of the tunnel, the nearby Fire Cloud Stones had clearly been mined clean long ago. Even so, the temperature of the scorching heat here was significantly higher than when they had first entered the underground.

However, if this mine weren't deep within the Illusion Howl Desert, the group would have long since used Earth Escape techniques to dive directly underground to find that demonic beast. As it stood, they could only follow the existing mining tunnels and walk bit by bit toward the depths.

The tunnels of this mine were dense and crisscrossed, with several paths inevitably intersecting every short distance, forming something that resembled a spider web.

Some of these tunnels were as long as a mile, while others were merely a few dozen feet. Most of the Fire Cloud Stones inside had been mined clean, with only a few remaining in hidden corners.

However, when they had passed through more than a dozen tunnels and arrived at a junction where four or five paths converged, Han Li suddenly narrowed his eyes.

In the tunnels that appeared before them, dots of red light were flashing incessantly, and the four walls were covered in fist-sized crimson crystals.

But what Han Li was looking at was not these rare materials, but a headless, severed skeleton lying half-reclined at the entrance of one of the tunnels.

The skeleton's skull was nowhere to be found. Although the body was intact, the skin was withered and shriveled, as if all the flesh and blood had vanished, leaving only a layer of skin clinging to the frame.

The purple-haired woman and the yellow-haired man naturally saw the remains as well, and upon exchanging a glance, both revealed looks of surprise.

But after the purple-haired woman glanced at a corner of the clothing on the skeleton, her expression suddenly sank, and she reached out a slender jade hand to grab at the skeleton through the air.

With a "pfft" sound, a small piece of fabric flew up from the skeleton and was captured in the woman's hand, where she unfolded it.

Han Li glanced at it and immediately saw a pale silver character for "White" on the small piece of clothing.

"It's a disciple of our White Clan, though it's hard to say which one," the purple-haired woman said with a frown.

The yellow-haired man let out a cold snort and similarly raised his arm to beckon toward the skeleton.

With a "whoosh," a green leather pouch flew over. With a tap from the man, it burst open in mid-air, revealing a swarm of blood-red giant bees. Each was the size of an adult's palm, their wings fluttering incessantly.

"It's the Blood Luo Bees! If I recall correctly, these seem to be the personal demonic insects of that brat, Bai Yan," the yellow-haired man asked with an ugly expression upon seeing these blood-colored demonic bees.

"Reporting to the Ancestor, these are indeed Bai Yan's Blood Luo Bees. This nephew once saw him use them in battle several times; I would never recognize them wrong," an old man with snow-white hair among the six White Clan disciples immediately stepped forward to reply, though his expression carried a hint of sorrow, as if he had been quite close to this "Bai Yan."

"So, this corpse really is Bai Yan. But he was one of the disciples left to guard the outpost, and the one with the highest cultivation at that. How could he have died so miserably here!" The purple-haired woman sighed lightly, raised her hand to shoot out a fireball, and turned the skeleton into ashes before asking slowly.

As for the miserable state of the corpse, the group did not feel overly shocked.

After all, in the Demon World, there were countless demonic arts that directly absorbed the essence and blood of others; there was nothing too strange about it.

"Let's continue forward. Perhaps we will find something else," the yellow-haired man said after thinking for a moment.

The others had no objections and immediately continued forward along the tunnel where the severed skeleton had been. However, everyone felt a bit more cautious.

After traveling several hundred feet along this tunnel, they discovered five or six more headless skeletons along the way. After identification by the White Clan members, they were all confirmed to be the White Clan disciples who had originally guarded the outpost.

This made the yellow-haired man's face sink like water.

After walking a bit further, the man suddenly paused his steps and asked the purple-haired woman:

"Fifth Sister, how far are we from that demonic beast now? We won't be sensed by it here, will we?"

"Big Brother, rest assured. In this Illusion Howl Desert, our spiritual sense is already heavily suppressed. Coupled with the fact that we are currently in a Fire Cloud Stone mine with numerous fire energies interfering, our spiritual sense cannot be projected very far. Moreover, we are still five or six miles away from the beast; it absolutely cannot discover us from this distance. But if we get any closer, it's hard to say," the purple-haired woman replied solemnly after lowering her head to check the jade pendant in her hand.

"Since that's the case, everyone, start casting spells to conceal your presence," the yellow-haired man said after considering it.

"We're starting now? This will consume quite a bit of magic power. Oh well, it's better than being discovered by the monster ahead of time." Qin Long Tianjun rubbed his plump chin and muttered reluctantly, but the next moment, he opened his mouth and spat out a black token. It grew in the wind, turning into a mass of black mist that shrouded his figure, and then both the mist and the figure hidden within became blurred, eventually turning into nearly invisible phantoms.

Seeing this, Han Li smiled slightly. He simply pinched a spell with one hand, and as a black light swirled around his body, he also turned into a faint black shadow.

As for Han Qizi, he simply shook his sleeve violently, and after a burst of crystal light swirled out, his entire person became crystal clear, turning into a transparent existence resembling an ice sculpture.

Bai Yunxin and the others each revealed a silver banner. After throwing them out simultaneously, they formed a silver light array in the air. As it descended, the six of them instantly vanished from sight.

Seeing that the others had finished casting their spells, the yellow-haired man and the purple-haired woman also had black energy erupt from their bodies or threw out a brocade handkerchief, similarly concealing their figures in a flash.

The group continued forward once more.

The length of this mining tunnel far exceeded the imagination of Han Li and the others. After walking for quite a while, they still hadn't reached the other end.

Fortunately, after walking for the time it takes to eat a meal, the originally straight tunnel suddenly became winding and tortuous, and the surrounding stone walls became rough and blackened, as they had entered another natural underground fissure.

At this time, other fissures of varying sizes began to appear all around, some only a foot wide, while others were several feet across, from which scorching hot wind blew out from time to time, faintly carrying a burnt and sulfurous smell.

Half an hour later, when the group finally flew out from an inconspicuous fissure, a giant underground lava lake appeared beneath them.

This lake covered an area of a thousand acres, its surface filled with red lava that bubbled with gas from time to time. The surrounding edges were a stretch of scorched black rock, but embedded in these rocks were purple-red crystals several feet long, flashing with eerie red light under the reflection of the lava.

Seeing this, Han Li couldn't help but narrow his eyes.

The appearance of these purple-red crystals was the ultimate expression of fire energy being compressed to the extreme. In other words, these crystals of not-insignificant size were actually top-grade Fire Cloud Stones, which were extremely rare on the outside.

With just a rough scan, he discovered that the number of these crystals was in the tens of thousands. Whether converted into Demon Stones or Spirit Stones, it was an astronomical figure, enough to make an ordinary Demon Venerable go crazy.

This explained why the White Clan was willing to pay such a huge price rather than give up this place.

But what made Han Li's expression uncertain was that although the underground cavern where this giant lava lake was located was huge, its structure was clear at a glance. A single sweep of his eyes revealed not a trace of the demonic beast.

The yellow-haired man scanned the area below carefully, then moved his lips slightly to transmit his voice to the purple-haired woman:

"Fifth Sister, you didn't find the wrong place, did you? Is that demonic beast really here?"

"It can't be wrong. That wisp of its essence blood definitely points here," the purple-haired woman replied without hesitation, holding the jade pendant in one hand.

"Since that's the case, the demonic beast is most likely hiding in the lava below. Very good. It seems it really hasn't discovered our arrival. Yunxin, you all immediately set up the array. Han Brother, Qin Long, Han Daoist, I'll have to trouble you to stand guard first," the yellow-haired man said solemnly to the others after a flash of his eyes toward the lava below.

The six White Clan disciples immediately agreed and scattered around the lava lake, taking out stacks of array flags and array disks to begin setting up a giant array that looked quite extraordinary.

As for Qin Long Tianjun and Han Qizi, they dropped their figures toward the lava below without a word, and at a height of a dozen feet from the lava, they hovered in the void, motionless.

At this time, although the two still used secret techniques to conceal their figures, they carefully took out their protective demonic artifacts.

Qin Long Tianjun opened his mouth and spat out a blue-glittering round bowl, its entire body emitting a deep blue cold light.

Han Qizi simply waved his sleeves, and twelve crystal-clear banners flew out. Under the activation of his magic art, they turned into twelve masses of cold light, circling and dancing around his body.

Han Li simply stepped lightly into the void with one foot. Instantly, five-colored light flames surged beneath his feet, transforming into a five-colored lotus flower that carried his body as it drifted slowly toward the depths below.

The surface of this five-colored lotus was exceptionally gorgeous, but as the five-colored light flashed, wisps of strange cold energy radiated from it. It was precisely the Five-Colored Extreme Flame transformed into form. To be continued.

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