Chapter 433

Several tenacious, rotting corpses, their bodies burning with flames, wandered aimlessly through the large cavern, forming a horrifying and eerie scene.

Apart from them, the only things moving in the large cavern were four people and one tiger.

The crazy woman had disappeared.

Perhaps she had succumbed to madness and fled into the darkness, or perhaps she had been dragged away by a malevolent entity to serve as a meal; in any case, their teammate was one short.

Yet, Wu Xian felt a sense of relief.

There were too many mysteries surrounding the crazy woman, and she was likely a liability; if she had truly died at the hands of a malevolent entity, it was actually a good thing for them.

Moreover, Wu Xian could not afford to waste too much energy at this moment pondering her departure.

The withdrawal of the malevolent entities did not mean they could rest easy.

If they could not recover their condition quickly and regroup, they would still die.

Wu Xian first picked up the giant snail shell and released the Fox-Fire Lamp; the lamp floated lightly, darting around Wu Xian as if it had been greatly aggrieved by being imprisoned for a while.

Then, Wu Xian began to feel a sharp pain in his arm.

Many people have had such an experience: when suffering a relatively serious injury, one does not feel pain at first because the body enters a stress state, secreting adrenaline and endorphins to enhance reaction speed and suppress the onset of pain.

But once the effect of the hormones fades, the suffering that must be endured is not reduced in the slightest.

A chunk of flesh had been torn from Wu Xian's arm by the Snail-Fear Malevolent, and blood was continuously welling out; if this continued, he would bleed to death.

But in the large cavern, there was no clean cloth left that could be used for bandaging.

Furthermore, everyone had too many wounds, and stripping off clothes to use as bandages was not enough; besides, the temperature in the large cavern was very low, and if they continued to strip, the cold could also cost them their lives.

After pondering for a while, Wu Xian picked up a small, unlit wooden stick from the ground.

"Ah..."

"I've only seen this done in movies; I hope it works."

Wu Xian bit down on the wooden stick, then picked up the Saw-Blade Knife, activated the effect of the Melt character, and burned the blade red; the muscles on his face twitched a few times, and he steeled his heart and pressed the knife against his own arm.

Sss! Sss-sss!

Where the knife touched the flesh, white smoke rose, emitting the smell of charred meat.

"Woo-woo, ah-ah..."

The sharp pain caused Wu Xian's body to twitch, struggling like a shrimp out of water; he bit down until his teeth bled, his pupils felt as if they were about to split from the pain, his mind was almost blank—this kind of pain was truly heart-wrenching.

But after the pain.

The bleeding stopped!

After resting for a while, Wu Xian climbed up from the ground and used the same method to stop the bleeding for Gong Xiujuan, Fatty, and Xiong Gang; during this time, Fu Ji'an also regained consciousness and helped treat the others' wounds.

They struggled for quite a while before finally finishing the bandaging, and the effect of the Melt character on the Saw-Blade Knife was consumed during the treatment, turning it into a piece of rusted scrap iron.

Wu Xian threw away the Saw-Blade Knife and staggered to Fatty's side to rest.

The human body is not a machine that can be repaired and reused wherever it breaks; having suffered such injuries and experienced such intense pain and burns, an ordinary person might be bedridden for days, or worse, die directly from infection and high fever.

But Wu Xian had increased his cultivation three times; although his strength and speed were still within the realm of an ordinary person, his vitality was far stronger than that of a normal person, and he felt that as long as he rested for a while, he could perform basic movements.

While resting, Wu Xian patted Fatty's head; it lay on the ground, letting out a whimpering sound of grievance.

"I don't know what you will become after I leave the Fudi."

"But at least before that, I will no longer treat you as a tool, but as a comrade-in-arms."

Wu Xian knew that Fatty was merely a product of a divine ability, and that saving him was just an effect of that ability, but when he saw Fatty injured for his sake, he still felt a sense of bitterness and being moved. During the rest, the previously lit wood piles and the malevolent entities began to extinguish one after another, but with the Fox-Fire Lamp, there was no need to worry about lighting for the time being.

There was still malevolent incense appearing where some corpses lay; high risk meant high reward, and after this wave of attacks, Wu Xian could again offer to the gods to improve his strength.

Wu Xian was pondering what to do once he could move freely.

Suddenly, he heard a shrill scream.

"Ah!"

"No, I don't want to!"

This was a woman's scream, coming from the crazy woman who had just disappeared, and the place where the sound came from was...

The shrine on one side of the large cavern!

Wu Xian's expression changed abruptly.

If the crazy woman died, that would be a good thing.

But if she hadn't died and had instead entered the shrine, things were likely to go wrong! Thinking carefully, the palace lantern had suddenly gone out, and the malevolent entities had gathered together to launch a simultaneous attack, starting from the moment Wu Xian felt murderous intent and approached the crazy woman while holding the knife handle!

That attack was not meant to kill them, but to take the crazy woman away from them, as they already harbored murderous intent!

If that was the case, the appearance of the Snail-Fear Malevolent, which possessed the ability to extinguish a single fire source, might not have been a coincidence; its appearance was to ensure the creation of an opportunity for darkness, thereby taking the crazy woman away.

Wu Xian felt a chill in his body.

Setting aside why the malevolent entities wanted to take the crazy woman, just consider the timing the malevolent entities chose to take her.

At that time, Wu Xian hadn't even made a move, only secretly gripping the knife handle; the crazy woman couldn't have sensed his murderous intent, nor did she have the power to issue orders to the malevolent entities...

Who was it? Various pieces of information flowed into Wu Xian's mind, and a conjecture gradually took shape.

It could control malevolent entities, extinguish palace lanterns, communicate with people, and monitor them from all angles without blind spots; this cavern was alive...

"Our enemy is this underground labyrinth itself!"

During Wu Xian's contemplation.

The crazy woman's screams became even more miserable; there was no meaning in the cries, only painful wailing, until her throat became hoarse and swollen, and there was no sound at all.

The blood in the cavern was also accelerating toward the shrine.

When the crazy woman's screams stopped, the blood flowing from the closed passages also dried up completely.

And then.

The curtain of the shrine fell.

The shrine had always had a curtain before because the statue of the Black Hei Hei Tian Zhu was there; the statues of righteous gods are never hidden, but the Fierce Hei Tian Zhu did not want others to see its appearance easily.

But now the statue of the Black Hei Hei Tian Zhu had disappeared; the clicking sound just now was the sound of the statue shattering.

There were no longer any invisible deities in the shrine, so the curtain naturally fell down.

Sitting right where the statue had been was the crazy woman.

The crazy woman's posture was dignified, and she wore a set of thin black gauze; her lower abdomen was slightly distended, and her whole person radiated the brilliance of motherhood, but a closer look revealed that beneath the black gauze, she was nailed to the divine seat by long nails, covered in filthy blood, with tear tracks on her cheeks washed out by tears.

She looked at Wu Xian and the others with pleading eyes and tried to say in a hoarse voice.

"Please, please, save me and get me out..."

(End of chapter)