Chapter 286

The house was built with walls of earth and a few broken bricks and stones. Inside, there was only one room. In one corner sat a stove, and on the other side were two floor mats; one was for an adult to sleep on, and the other was smaller, presumably for a child.

Besides this, the room contained only a few scattered items: a few chipped bowls and dishes, and a cracked water vat.

On the stove sat a few stalks of dried vegetables; it was unknown how much time had passed, but they had long since turned into vegetable jerky.

From this room, one could tell the owner was exceptionally poor—the house was literally empty of everything. However, the items were arranged very neatly, and it was swept spotlessly clean. A small indentation was still pressed into the child's floor mat, as if one could see a child curled up inside, sleeping.

Yet the room was too clean; it was clearly swept often, completely different from the other rooms nearby.

Wei Yuan's spiritual sense swept through the entire house, and then he found a wooden comb and a wooden hairpin at the straw pillow where the adult slept. He said, "It looks like a woman lived here alone with her child; I don't see any items belonging to a man."

With this kind of family situation, living in this kind of environment, a single woman raising a child would be exceptionally difficult. However, this was also inside the palace; perhaps there were some variables.

Sun Yu walked into the earthen house, sniffed hard, and said, "There is quite a bit of lingering medicinal fragrance here; it stayed in this room for no short amount of time."

Sun Yu walked while sniffing, finally stopping beside the child's floor mat, and said with certainty, "It stayed on this."

Wei Yuan was somewhat puzzled. Even if a monster were looking for a nest, it shouldn't have chosen a child's floor mat. There were larger floor mats nearby, and other rooms even had beds and bedding, unlike this home, which only had dried grass and two hemp quilts full of holes.

After everyone had searched through it once with their spiritual sense, they still found nothing. However, Wei Yuan was still unwilling to give up. He squatted in front of the child's floor mat, pushed aside the straw, and saw a wooden doll. Half of the doll's head had been chopped off; judging by the marks, it had been chopped with a very dull knife, many times.

Ever since Wei Yuan obtained the Bodhi before the Buddha, his spiritual perception had become even sharper. At this moment, he faintly felt that the doll exuded a sense of bloodiness and damp gloom, as if karma were still entangled with it. Thus, he casually put the doll away.

The group left the earthen house, tracking the traces of medicinal fragrance and elixir fire left in the air. The monster circled several times, likely seeing that Wei Yuan had not followed, and headed straight out of the palace city.

The group was not in a hurry, maintaining vigilance at all times. The monster's speed was simply too fast; if they pursued at full speed, it would be easy to be ambushed by it.

Wei Yuan had just stepped out of the palace city when he suddenly felt a warning sign in his heart and immediately prepared to cast a protective spell. But the light of the Dao magic had just lit up when a thin shadow already lashed out at Wei Yuan!

Wei Yuan let out a muffled groan and stamped his foot, turning the ground into steel to temporarily trap the shadow. Immediately, the Demon-Suppressing Tower appeared and fell directly into the ground. At this moment, the Demon-Suppressing Tower turned from solid to ethereal, and the "stamping ground into steel" spell could not stop it.

Subsequently, a crimson immortal sword appeared in Wei Yuan's hand. He held the immortal sword with both hands and stabbed the entire sword into the ground, all the way to the hilt!

A scream came from underground, and two more streaks of black Qi shot out, lashing at Wei Yuan. Then, the monster fled rapidly underground and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Wei Yuan pulled up the immortal sword and saw that the tip was stained with an inch of black liquid, viscous and heavy, about to drip but not yet dripping. Seeing this black liquid, he felt a wave of resentment rush toward his face. In Wei Yuan's ears, it seemed he heard various roars and wails, and his vision became vaguely blurred.

At this time, the Demon-Suppressing Tower rose in front of Wei Yuan. The copper lamps adorned on the middle layer of the tower body lit up one by one. The lamp light fell on Wei Yuan, instantly illuminating streaks of black Qi.

The black Qi dissolved rapidly under the lamp light, and finally, the few wisps that could not be dissolved at all were sucked into the Demon-Suppressing Tower.

Wei Yuan's mind relaxed, and he stood up. Suddenly, he felt intense pain in his body. He looked down and discovered that three more wounds had appeared on his body; the flesh of the wounds was turned outward, already blue-black, and black water was constantly seeping out.

Ji Liuli handed over three more elixirs: one for replenishing Qi, one for regenerating flesh, and one for neutralizing poison. The elixir boxes for each were very ornate; they didn't look cheap.

Sun Yu treated Wei Yuan's wounds on the spot. However, what left people speechless was that as a high disciple of the Profound Brightness Hall, Sun Yu hadn't brought any wound medicine on this trip; his entire body was covered in all sorts of strange and bizarre poisons.

That monster's attack power was extremely strong. If these three strikes hadn't landed on Wei Yuan, they would have been enough to cut other cultivators into two pieces. Only Ji Liuli could withstand it with her physical body; Feng Tingyu was still a bit short.

After delaying for a moment, the group continued to track forward. This time, Wei Yuan had slashed and killed the monster, and he had already developed a mysterious connection to it, vaguely knowing its general direction.

The Crimson Night Immortal-Slaying Sword was crafted from the seven sword Qi from when the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree was first born; it was actually an extremely Yin and cold immortal sword. At this moment, a bit of sword intent was firmly attached to the monster, giving Wei Yuan the direction.

After leaving the palace city, they were only ten-odd miles from the edge of the cave-heaven fragment. The monster was wandering just ahead, with nowhere left to escape. However, Wei Yuan dared not be the least bit careless.

The monster was indeed ferocious. The scream from close range just now had shaken Wei Yuan's primordial spirit. If an ordinary Dao Foundation cultivator heard this scream, their Dao Foundation could be shattered.

Not long after moving forward, Wei Yuan suddenly shouted, "Careful!" In his perception, the monster was attacking at an astonishing speed!

Before Wei Yuan's shout had faded, it had already appeared above the group, letting out a shrill, piercing scream at them!

This scream instantly caused countless tiny resentful spirits to rise within a radius of several hundred feet. Although the cave-heaven was shattered, many tiny creatures still eked out an existence within it. Now, all the insects, ants, and small beasts had their souls shattered by this scream. Within a range of several miles, all life had been extinguished.

Wei Yuan and the others all felt intense pain in their primordial spirits, swaying unsteadily. The monster's scream also contained attacks directly targeting the soul. If one's mind was not firm and their will collapsed, the power of the roar would be amplified many times over.

The power of this scream was enough to destroy a Dharma Form; it was clearly the monster's killer move. But after the people from the Grand Tai Tai Chu Gong swayed a few times, not a single one fell.

Ji Liuli went without saying; the Nine-Fold Demon-Suppressing Tower was a primordial spirit treasure that combined offense and defense. Zhang Sheng had his own invincible heart, and his will was as firm as steel; the scream couldn't shake him at all. Feng Tingyu inherited the traditions of the King of Brightness Hall, and his head had a thick layer of muscle to protect his primordial spirit.

Sun Yu was slightly inferior, but he could research the Demon-Melting God-Destroying Incense, and his research on the primordial spirit was extremely deep. He didn't take fewer elixirs to strengthen his primordial spirit defense on a daily basis, so in terms of primordial spirit defense, he was already at the Dharma Form level.

Among the group, the one with the weakest primordial spirit defense was actually Wei Yuan. But although his defense wasn't good, his primordial spirit was simply too thick. The scream, which was enough to roar other cultivators to death several times over, only made him feel a bit dizzy when it landed on him.

The shadow monster missed its strike and wanted to flee again, but the Demon-Suppressing Tower had already emitted a circle of golden light, which clearly rippled when it swept over the monster. Feng Tingyu's blade and Sun Yu's elixir fire landed on the monster at the same time, giving it another heavy blow. Finally, wisps of fine rain fell from the sky, and the monster let out a shrill scream; it was clearly heavily wounded by Zhang Sheng's sword. It ignored everything and turned to flee. This time, the group no longer watched and pursued closely.

Several miles passed in the blink of an eye, and two graves, one large and one small, appeared before Wei Yuan's eyes. The shadow monster circled once and dove into the smaller grave.

Both graves were exceptionally simple, merely two mounds of earth hidden among shrubs and rubble. If not for the two wooden tombstones, one wouldn't be able to tell they were graves at all.

Once the shadow monster reached this place, it stopped fleeing and simply hid underground, as if this were its final nest.

At this moment, no one knew what was hidden in the underground tomb, and none were willing to go underground to fight a monster that could move freely through the earth. Thus, Ji Liuli and Zhang Sheng discussed it and decided to kill it with a formation.

Ji Liuli immediately suspended the Demon-Suppressing Tower above the grave to block the monster's path of escape, then quickly set up a formation together with Zhang Sheng. Sun Yu and Feng Tingyu were placed in the two formation eyes of Yin and Yang, becoming part of the formation.

This formation was quite complex; Wei Yuan looked at it for a long time before barely recognizing it as the Northern Star-Dou Soul-Refining Formation.

After the formation was set up, Sun Yu spat out a ball of ink-green elixir fire, which was caught in Ji Liuli's hand. Wei Yuan vaguely remembered that when he first entered the Grand Tai Tai Chu Gong, Sun Yu's elixir fire was still a bright blue-white, but now it had turned into a gloomy and heavy ink-green.

Ji Liuli placed the elixir fire in the center of the formation and activated the great formation. The central part of the formation instantly became deep and unfathomable, and a brilliant great star appeared above, its starlight shining into the gloom.

The monster underground let out a shrill howl and rushed out from the center of the formation, only to collide head-on with the elixir fire, instantly igniting its entire body and finally revealing its true form.

!.

A crimson sword light appeared in Wei Yuan's hand, cutting toward the monster like a streak of light. But at the last moment, Wei Yuan's hand suddenly trembled, but the sword light was too fast and had already swept through the monster's body in an instant.

At the four corners of the formation, four immortal swords were already suspended there. Before the monster could break out of the formation, they were already falling; by the time it poked its head out of the formation, the four swords fell in sequence.

With each sword that fell, the monster's life force dropped by a large chunk. In the blink of an eye, the four swords fell together, and its life force also dropped step by step, finally drying up.

The monster fell to the ground; it was actually a little girl who looked to be only six or seven years old. She was wearing a white dress, tattered and covered in bloodstains.

After falling to the ground, she seemed to crawl toward the larger grave beside her by instinct, murmuring, "... I'm back, don't drive me away again, I... am afraid..."

The little girl's life force had long since vanished; after crawling two steps, she stopped moving, one small hand clutching deeply into the soil.

Silence for a moment.

A moment later, Wei Yuan finally said, "What is going on here?"

Ji Liuli's expression was solemn as she said, "She died long ago; I just don't know why she turned into a monster."

Sun Yu stepped forward to examine the girl's corpse and said, "It's not a corpse demon; the physical body is still very fresh, as if she only died a month ago."

Wei Yuan's first reaction was that it was impossible; the cave-heaven had been shattered for several years, and the oldest traces of fighting and killing in the main hall were already two or three years old.

Sun Yu pondered for a moment and said, "Either there is some secret treasure beneath this that can ensure the physical body does not rot, or another possibility is that she was always possessed by a powerful Yin spirit, which is why the body did not rot. However, look."

Sun Yu lifted the girl's arm and rolled up the sleeve; this tiny arm actually had several places where it was bent and deformed, like a twisted tree branch.

Sun Yu said in a deep voice, "This arm has been broken more than once. After the bones broke, they weren't treated, but left to grow on their own, and after they healed, they were broken again."

Wei Yuan felt somewhat depressed in his heart, so he walked to the two graves and looked at the tombstones.

The tombstone of the large grave was engraved with "Tomb of Xu Seventeen," while the small grave was inscribed with "Tomb of Beloved Daughter Shu Xinyi."

At this time, Ji Liuli had finished surveying the surrounding terrain and said, "There is very likely a place of absolute Yin beneath this, which is why it could breed an Yin spirit of this degree."

"How could there be a place of absolute Yin in the cave-heaven?" Sun Yu said.

Ji Liuli said, "Someone made it."

Wei Yuan immediately said, "Dig! Dig it out and see exactly what kind of place of absolute Yin it is."

(End of chapter)