Chapter 368

The woman on the centipede emitted a shrill sound. Her body flickered, and immediately the centipede's thousand feet moved rapidly on the mud wall, wanting to shake off those paper money, but it couldn't do so.

These paper money were formed from within her body, rapidly permeating and spreading across the entire body of the centipede, and it even looked like they were about to cover the woman's upper body as well.

Evil sounds constantly came from those paper money ghost faces, drifting in all directions.

"Are you full?"

The voices were dense, like countless people screaming shrilly.

A ferocious look appeared in the woman's eyes. After realizing she couldn't suppress the paper money, she controlled her body to dive abruptly into the mud wall. As the soil scattered, her figure dived in abruptly and disappeared.

It was also at this moment that the paper money on the faces of the corpses below also flew up one by one, drifting into the place where the centipede had gone.

The ghost faces on them carried laughter, one after another piercing through the mud wall and chasing toward the centipede.

It seemed that this was indeed a trap, but it wasn't aimed at Xu Qing, but... at that eerie centipede.

Or rather, the appearance of the centipede attracted those paper money, causing them to shift their target.

As for the truth, Xu Qing wasn't very clear either, he could only guess.

He looked at the place where the centipede had gone, his heart even more vigilant toward this place, because whether it was the paper money or the centipede, both gave him a feeling of extreme danger.

This feeling had nothing to do with cultivation base; it seemed that these existences themselves possessed mysterious power.

"Somewhat similar to the Red Moon... perhaps my Poison Prohibition Elixir can wipe them out, and the Purple Moon can too."

Xu Qing murmured, but he didn't want to expose himself here. At this moment, while on guard, he carefully approached the corpses below, took away the scattered fragments around, and also took away the storage bags on these corpses.

While continuing to sink, he opened these storage bags. There were indeed some fragments in each of them, totaling about a hundred or so.

After putting them away, Xu Qing sank deeper and deeper in this state of vigilance.

And at this depth, although the fishy stench was thicker, the singing was clearer, and the cold and foreign matter were heavier, some fragments appeared in the surroundings.

Xu Qing saw them and took them away rapidly.

Just like this, time passed slowly, and a day went by.

During this period, Xu Qing also saw several skeletons, rotting very severely, unable to tell if they were people who had come in together.

Beside these skeletons, there were often ghost shadows like wild dogs, gnawing on them.

And there were no storage bags on these skeletons.

This made Xu Qing even more cautious, and his sinking speed slowed down a bit.

At the same time, he also encountered many strange ghosts, such as a giant like a mountain of flesh, with a huge gash on its stomach, spitting and swallowing mud.

Or plants like eyes growing on the mud walls, staring at Xu Qing, revealing a grimness.

And some dancing girls with beautiful clothes, like fairies.

They drifted out from the mud walls, dancing while passing through the mud wall at the other end. They looked beautiful, but in reality, they had no faces.

If it were a timid person, they would surely be scared to the point of their legs going weak, wanting to leave this place.

After all, this place was pitch-black and claustrophobic, the stench was unbearable, and whether it was the strange ghosts that appeared or the singing that always existed, it made people's souls tremble and their hair stand on end instinctively.

But Xu Qing was fine; he had seen too much human misery, and there were things even more terrifying than this.

Until the second day was about to pass, Xu Qing, who had already sunk to a very deep level, had collected more than two hundred fragments, which was actually the limit.

And just as he was considering whether to continue sinking, suddenly the coffin transformed by the shadow behind him appeared on its own again, all the eyes opened in unison, looking at the wall on the other side.

At the same time, there was a violent, clear fluctuation transmitted to Xu Qing.

Xu Qing's mind stirred. When he looked up, the black iron skewer flew out abruptly, rushing straight toward the mud wall, instantly blasting open a large pit, revealing the dying centipede woman inside.

Her centipede body had now completely become paper money, shriveled up, as if all its inner essence had been devoured, leaving only a layer of paper skin.

The human body below the eyes was also like this, the whole person lying there, her eyes hollow, as if waiting to dissipate.

Xu Qing glanced at her, withdrew his gaze, and was about to leave, but the shadow behind him transmitted a pleading fluctuation.

"You want me to save her?" Xu Qing was surprised. This was the first time he had felt this kind of emotional fluctuation from the shadow.

"Aura... familiar... want..."

Xu Qing pondered, and after a long while, he nodded.

"I can only try; if it fails, she will still die."

The coffin transformed by the shadow shook immediately. Xu Qing glanced at it, already accustomed to the fact that the other party's cognition had been led astray by the Jin Gang Sect ancestor.

At this moment, he walked toward the large pit where the paper centipede was located.

With his arrival, the woman whose body below the eyes had turned into paper money had a slight ripple in her hollow eyes, but she couldn't speak.

Xu Qing walked calmly to the front, lowered his head to look, and the third Tiangong within his body suddenly vibrated. The Poison Prohibition power spread out along Xu Qing's body, spreading toward the centipede woman.

It invaded in an instant.

Terror immediately appeared in the woman's eyes, and the next instant, all the paper money on her body turned into ghost faces in unison, staring fixedly at Xu Qing, opening their mouths in unison.

But what came out was not an eerie sound, but a shrill scream.

Xu Qing's poison spread rapidly on the paper money. Wherever it passed, those paper money all turned pitch-black and melted directly. The whole process didn't last long, and all the paper money became black liquid, merging into the soil.

And after losing the paper money, the exposed centipede body was also invaded by Xu Qing's poison.

The woman's body below the eyes was rotting, and when her eyes became even more hollow, the third Tiangong within Xu Qing's body shook.

Immediately, all the poison that had spread outward, including the poison that existed within the centipede woman's body, rolled back and poured into Xu Qing's Tiangong.

After doing this, the centipede woman's body trembled. She weakly raised her head, glanced at Xu Qing, then turned and flickered, instantly piercing through the soil and moving away.

Xu Qing didn't pay attention. Standing at the edge of the large pit, he pondered for a moment. To ensure he could be in the top ten, he felt it was better to collect more fragments.

So his body leaped and continued to sink. Just like this, another half a day passed, and the fragments Xu Qing collected reached two hundred and forty-three.

At this moment, only half a day remained until the time limit for obtaining the qualification this time. Xu Qing didn't intend to continue and prepared to leave.

But just as he took away the last fragment, his pupils contracted abruptly.

He saw a living person.

This was the first living person he had seen here since he had gone deeper over the past day and a half.

It was the Taisi Daoist Sect Daoist!

This person was further down in the deep pit.

There were several caves around that area. At this moment, the Taisi Daoist was constantly flying back and forth at the entrances of these caves, fighting with a strange ghost.

Their speed was extremely fast, and as they crossed each other, low sounds occasionally echoed, but because of the special nature of the surroundings, these sounds didn't spread very far.

And the strange ghost fighting the Taisi Daoist was extremely powerful, and its appearance was ferocious.

Its figure was human-shaped, but it had no skin, and its whole body was cracked, like a corpse burned alive in a large fire.

But its movements were extremely flexible, and its speed was fast, causing the Taisi Daoist to fail to escape many times under its attacks.

Every attack of that burning corpse stirred up black fire, burning the surroundings, and at the same time, the aura emanating from its body was the strongest Xu Qing had seen along the way.

It reached the level of the Six Palaces.

Especially the black fire it emitted—it didn't emit high temperature, but ice-cold.

This was Nether Fire, which had an extremely strong burning effect and threat to the soul.

All of this made the Taisi Daoist's expression somewhat ugly. He had been targeted by this burning corpse for a long time. Although he had used secret techniques many times to shatter it, the opponent would reform in the next instant, unscathed, which was extremely difficult to deal with.

Even if he used some trump cards to destroy souls, it was useless. This burning corpse seemed immortal, especially the strange power that erupted every once in a while, which made him feel terrified.

"Damn it, just one step away, and I could reach that place. How did this Five-Element Corpse break free? Could it be that the Grandmaster calculated wrong and there was a change below?"

The Taisi Daoist's expression was gloomy. In fact, the reason he refused the direct recruitment qualification given by his Grandmaster was to enter this ghost cave by participating in the qualification trial.

He had long known that the location for this qualification trial was set in the ghost cave, and his Grandmaster had also emphasized that there were items he needed in the upper area of the ghost cave, and whether he could get them depended entirely on his fortune.

Even some of the arrangements for this place were told to him clearly, so after entering this place, he unfolded his full speed and rushed straight here.

But in the end, he was blocked by this burning corpse and couldn't continue to go deeper. This burning corpse was persistent toward him, and he couldn't shake it off. Forcing his way out would often stimulate the corpse, causing it to erupt with even more astonishing methods.

And he was also very clear that the terrifying corpse in front of him was not an ordinary object, and he also knew its origin.

"This can't go on..." The Taisi Daoist's expression was gloomy. While analyzing in his mind how to shake it off, his body retreated abruptly, avoiding the burning corpse in front, and watched as the burning corpse pounced again.

A fierce light flashed in his eyes, and just as he was about to strike, the next instant he saw Xu Qing who had just arrived.

Between the two, there was a distance of more than two hundred zhang at this moment.

Although it was dim, they could still see each other clearly. At the moment their eyes met, Xu Qing raised his eyebrows, looked at the abyss below, and then his body retreated.

He intended to leave this place and didn't want to get involved.

"It's you!" But the moment Xu Qing retreated, the Taisi Daoist, two hundred zhang away, had a strange light appear in his expression.

He didn't hesitate at all. Even though the burning corpse beside him was pouncing rapidly, he didn't pay attention to it, but instead rapidly pinched seals with both hands.

Immediately, the void outside his body twisted, and spatial fluctuations appeared. Then he raised his right hand and patted his forehead. In an instant, a crack split open on his forehead, and a black goat the size of a palm actually stretched its head out from the crack in his brow and bleated toward Xu Qing.

Baa!

After the sound, Xu Qing's mind was uneasy as he retreated. He only felt a cracking sound coming from the void around him, as if space had shattered into countless pieces, two of which were picked up and swapped, then reassembled.

After a bout of dizziness, when everything became clear, Xu Qing discovered with a gloomy expression that he was actually in the position where the Taisi Daoist had been just now.

And the other party had appeared in his previous position. They had actually swapped spaces in this instant, forcibly exchanging positions!

At the same time, the burning corpse also approached abruptly and pounced toward Xu Qing!

The Taisi Daoist stood in Xu Qing's previous position, chuckled, and taking advantage of Xu Qing attracting the burning corpse, his speed exploded, rushing straight toward the bottom of the deep pit, and disappeared in an instant.

Xu Qing looked at the departing Taisi Daoist, his gaze incomparably cold.