Chapter 325

Wang Yu piloted his flying vessel in a few circles above the area, found nothing, then leapt straight down from the sky.

Thud.

His feet slammed onto a clear patch of rubble, splattering dirt and leaving a pit nearly a foot deep.

Wang Yu slapped his waist pouch, and two dark shadows—Big Green and Little White—leapt out.

"Go, check if there are any other beasts nearby," Wang Yu ordered. The two spirit beasts instantly understood and shot off in opposite directions, vanishing into the dense woods on either side of the ruins.

Wang Yu also formed a hand seal and released his vast spiritual sense, enveloping the entire village ruin in its reach, beginning his search.

After a moment, he frowned, sensing something amiss.

Given the scale of this charred ruin, it should have housed at least a hundred people—so why were there no corpses?

Suppressing his confusion, Wang Yu sent out four or five more spiritual probes, meticulously scanning every corner of the ruins for any other clues.

Suddenly, he uttered "Huh?" and walked toward a ruined house with only half a mud wall remaining; he took a deep breath and punched the air.

Boom.

As a pale golden fist shadow flashed and vanished, the ruined house exploded outward, sending chunks of earth and splintered wood flying in all directions, revealing the ground beneath.

There, on the ground, lay the half-severed corpse of a man, atop which crouched the corpse of a three-foot-long beast.

Wang Yu stepped closer, studied the human and beast corpses for a moment, then discerned the truth.

The beast had a pointed snout, long whiskers, a body covered in coarse black fur, and a slender tail—it resembled a giant rat, yet its upper skull was entirely devoid of flesh, exposing white, bony cranium; its mouth held two long, protruding fangs, deeply embedded in the man's throat.

The man was a sturdy forty-year-old; one arm clamped tightly around the beast's neck, all five fingers blackened and swollen, knuckles bulging—clearly he had fought with all his strength before death.

His other arm gripped a sharp short blade, almost entirely driven into the beast's abdomen, from which spilled a large pool of pitch-black blood.

Additionally, the severed portions of the man's body were riddled with countless bite marks, as if attacked by multiple giant rats.

Yet neither the beast nor the man showed any signs of decay, which puzzled Wang Yu.

After a moment's thought, he flipped his hand, producing a long silver needle; he plunged it into the corpse, then withdrew it—the puncture site had turned utterly black.

The mutilated corpse was saturated with deadly poison.

Wang Yu glanced at the beast's two fangs, deeply lodged in the man's throat, and knew at once the source of the poison.

Yet despite its grotesque appearance, the giant rat felt oddly familiar—as if he had seen it described in some scripture.

Wang Yu narrowed his eyes and murmured, "Overclock."

His senses rapidly amplified; his mind entered a supercharged state, swiftly sifting through stored scriptural data like a computer.

"Bone Rat—a subordinate beast of the Corpse Rat, a non-tiered beast, usually reaching only mid-stage First Tier, with short lifespan, maxing out at twenty years, surviving solely on the Corpse Rat's corpse qi. So, there's likely another Corpse Rat nearby."

Wang Yu quickly found the relevant information, murmured it aloud, his expression darkening as he searched further for details on the Corpse Rat.

Corpse Rat—a mutated undead beast born from the corpse of a demonic rat, typically at First Tier peak, occasionally advancing to Second Tier early stage; capable of creating subordinate "Bone Rats." Its power generally lags behind cultivators of the same tier, but beware its internal corpse poison and inherited innate abilities.

As Wang Yu pondered, he searched the corpses again but found nothing; he then raised his hand and launched a fireball, reducing both bodies to ash.

With his current terrifying spiritual sense, even without pre-forming the corresponding spiritual pattern in his mind-sea, he could cast First Tier spells with near-instantaneous speed.

In the following time, he overturned several other ruined houses and discovered two more incomplete corpses.

On the hems of their clothing, each bore the character "Tong"—undoubtedly members of the Tong family.

The Tong family was a minor cultivator clan; aside from these three buried, mutilated corpses, no other bodies were found, yet the ground bore numerous bloodstains and clear signs of violent struggle.

But when one of his spiritual probes swept over a courtyard at the ruin's center, his expression shifted—he walked directly toward it.

Compared to the other ruined houses, this courtyard remained largely intact, with several rooms clearly built more grandly than the rest.

Wang Yu did not enter the rooms; instead, he circled a seemingly ordinary well in the courtyard, bent down to peer inside, and faint glimmers of crystalline light flickered deep within his pupils.

"Interesting. A mere outer-disciple family managed to set up such a subtle barrier—had I not activated Overclock, I'd never have noticed."

After muttering to himself, Wang Yu flipped over and leapt straight into the deep well.

Plop.

The moment his body touched the water, the well liquid instantly transformed into a blinding white mist; after piercing through the thick fog, he appeared in a hundred-square-foot hall.

The walls and floor were made of gray-white stone, unnaturally sturdy; above, a layer of mist hung.

Wang Yu instinctively sniffed—the entire hall reeked of faint decay, yet his gaze snapped immediately to a massive iron cage at the center.

The cage stood over three zhang tall; the ground around it was etched with dense silver spiritual runes.

The bars were plastered with countless sealing talismans; inside lay two severed purple-gold chains, and the cage door stood wide open—empty.

Wang Yu examined the ground runes closely and noticed some were charred black, blurred, devoid of any spiritual energy—their seals had clearly been destroyed.

He stepped to the cage and plucked a strand of green fur from beside the door, sniffed it.

A stronger stench of rot surged forth; his face darkened with thoughtful expression.

Wang Yu scanned the hall again, then raised his hand and summoned several tightly bound, massive packages from a corner.

Each package was over a zhang in size.

With a flick of his fingers,

the packages split open, revealing row upon row of stiff, dried corpses.

The corpses varied in size and form, showing no signs of decay—but all were unmistakably demonic rat corpses.

Some had three eyes and two tails; others bore single horns and six claws—apparently different species of demonic rats.

Judging from the residual demonic aura they emitted, each had been at least First Tier peak in life; one particularly massive corpse radiated an aura nearly approaching Second Tier.