Chapter 151: A trap in the tunnels

The group finally entered into the Lunar Marsh. This place was really eerie. One moment they were walking through a nice green plain with a soft wind caressing their faces, the next moment, they were in a dead swamp. Cao Yun remembered this place perfectly. And yet, he felt as though it was even more dead and eerie than before. Maybe it was just his perception of the place that had changed.

From what Cao Yun had read within the Wubei Sect, this place used to be an ordinary forest at the foot of the mountains. However, these mountains were also the northern frontiers of the Hongchen Kingdom. As such, they had known many battles until the time Ancestor Wu founded the Wubei Sect. Since this day, not a single demon dared attacking through these mountains. First of all, they were a difficult terrain to cross for weaker cultivators. But with the newly established Wubei Sect, trying to pass through here was suicide.

All the deaths that had happened around the mountains had caused the Qi of the dead to linger. Despite Ancestor Wu's efforts, it was impossible to get rid of it completely. Thus, he had the lingering Evil Qi pushed back. This way, the Heidai Peak was saved but the surroundings were plagued. Through the millenniums, the Evil Qi had slowly subsided but it had still seeped deep into the ground to the point that it had created this Lunar Marsh. In short, this really was a dead land. No wonder it was an extremely Yin place.

Cao Yun guided the group through the Lunar Marsh. In order to help him, Mei Hua and Sun Liao stayed focused on their surroundings. No matter how well Cao Yun was remembering everything, nature was always changing. The plants and beasts he had encountered could very well have migrated. However, they found nothing dangerous at all. In fact, they found it suspicious. During the day, they only had to fight one Mirror Back Ancient Alligator.

Once again, Ren Chao shocked everyone. With a single strike from his hammer, he felled the beast. The hardest part of a Mirror Back Ancient ALligator was obviously its back. In fact, it used its shining reflection to attract smaller beasts above the water and devour them. But with one strike, Ren Chao completely cracked the back of the beast. Blood splattered everywhere. In a desperate attempt, the Mirror Back Ancient Alligator tried to blow Ren Chao away with a whipping attack from its tail.

'Unbreakable Iron Bones'. The defense of Ren Chao was so strong that he did not budge at all. However, he still let out a small groan of pain.

The body of a 2-core demonic beast was highly profitable to middle Mortal Warriors. Hence, while Ren Chao boasted about his strength, Sun Liao took several minutes to activate the spatial pouch. Putting one spirit stone in the center of the Sleeping Tao Tie array formation, a blue light shined below the plate. Sun Liao threw the plate over the dead body of the beast and the light engulfed it completely. In an instant, the body turned into particles of light and got sucked into the plate.

Since he had felt so useless during the preparation of this journey, Ren Chao was extremely happy to show off his strength at every occasion.

-

As the group was walking by the places where the demonic cultivators used to cultivate the Embalming Lake Lotus Leaves, Cao Yun looked into the water. Apparently, there were no more lotuses. And there were no more corpses either. Seeing his intrigued face, Mei Hua answered his doubts.

"Spirit Master Xiao had the bodies retrieved to offer them a proper burial. This Lunar Marsh has enough Evil Qi. There's no need to add more to it."

"I see... I hope they'll have a better fate in their next life."

When they walked by, the group showed respect to the dead. Even though it wasn't rare for cultivators, especially vagrant cultivators, to die in the wild, imagining their bodies being used as fertilizer was even more unpleasant.

Finally, as the night was slowly falling, the group had to find a place to set up their camp. Using his compass, Sun Liao tried to find the perfect spot and lead the group not too far from the cave where Cao Yun had killed the demonic cultivators. If they tried to go there, they would arrive in the middle of the night and this wasn't such a good idea. Thus, they followed Sun Liao's advice and decided to set up camp in the spot he had found.

When they reached this point, they found the traces of a previous camp. It was very spartan, with a couple of tents. These tents were torn apart. All around the camp, there were traces of blood and fights. Some rocks and trees were still marked by lacerations and various signs of violent fights. However, there was no body at all. Clearly, some vagrant cultivators had come here to hunt, but they had been hunted instead.

Before this scene, the group stayed quiet a while. Then, Ren Chao was the first to break the silence.

"Brother Sun, are you sure this is a good spot to set up camp?"

"Indeed. These vagrant cultivators just didn't know how to set up an array formation. This place is perfect for a few defensive array formations that I know. This will only take the time to drink a cup of tea."

As Sun Liao was using his compass to determine where he should set up his flags, the group looked through the camp. There was nothing of value left. Four weapons were still here, but they were 3-star Earth weapons.

"Why did such weak cultivators come in this place? This was suicide for them!"

"Brother Sun, you were born a noble so you can't understand the life of commoners. Hunters know they can die at any moment, but hunting is their only way to make enough money and find the right ingredients to advance their cultivation. Even with the 'Universal Law of Immortality', the cultivation path is difficult for us commoners."

As he was born in a family of blacksmiths, Ren Chao had seen many hunters come by his father's shop. Most of them had no other way to advance in their cultivation. Without external help, unless they were particularly talented, most would not be able to reach the Mortal Warrior realm before they turned 100. And then, they would probably never reach the Spirit Warrior realm. The 'Universal Law of Immortality' had been created by Emperor Nuwa during the Founding Era. But during the Forsaken Dao Era, cultivating it without help became increasingly difficult.

Even the most talented among the humans, with all the help they could get, were not able to reach the Sage realm anymore. So vagrant cultivators were in a really tight spot.

"And with Fulao's destruction, this must have become even harder for hunters. This city was a sort of hub for hunters to gather and form hunting parties. Right now, they probably still haven't found a new way to organize themselves. Only four hunters in this place seems like a very small number. They probably couldn't find enough hunters to join them and still decided to come anyway."

Cao Yun's analysis was spot-on.

Anyway, Sun Liao sent several flags according to his compass. After around fifty of them were in the ground, a gigantic circle of green light flashed for an instant all around this place.

"This is the Towering Tree Fort array formation. Even a 3-core demonic beast would find it difficult to pierce through this 5-star Earth array formation in less than an incense stick. I'll also add the Twelve Unearthing Vines array formation to it. That way, any beast that touches the Towering Tree Fort array formation will be faced with an onslaught of earth vines. We won't even need to stand guard. If something attacks, we'll be woken up by the noise."

Just as he had said, Sun Liao spent a little less than an hour to set up both of these array formations. Combining two of them was more difficult than just placing a single one. During his process, Cao Yun watched him and Sun Liao ended up explaining his reasoning while he was setting up the array formations. For a while, Ren Chao tried to follow along but he understood none of it.

Thus, he decided to help Mei Hua set up the camp. She wanted to refine a few more pills, just in case. The night was uneventful, but when they woke up, the group found the corpses of a few 1-core demonic beasts. Among them were Venomous Hydra Plums, Feral Lunar Rabbits, Spotted Tiger Wasp and some other small vermin. Apparently, the array formations had been greatly effective. Of course, the group would have been able to kill these beasts without any problem. But this spared them the effort. While hunting in this place, it was better to keep all their strength for the really dangerous beasts.

"This is very strange... Even in the middle of the night, we were not attacked by 2-core or even 3-core demonic beasts. This Lunar Marsh should be fraught with danger in the nighttime..."

"I concur. Sister Mei is absolutely right. There's something very strange happening around here..."

-

When the group arrived in the cave, they waited until the sun was almost all the way up in the sky. This was the most Yang moment in the entire day. As such, the Evil Qi was way thinner than usual. To explore a dangerous cave inside the Lunar Marsh, this was the perfect opportunity.

Cao Yun lead the group through the cave all the way to the place where he had lost control and killed everyone. Of course, after Xiao Xuefeng's coming, there was nothing here at all. Still determined to find any clue possible, Cao Yun used all of his perception. There was absolutely nothing to find in the cave. However, there was a new tunnel dug deeper in the cave. Cao Yun was sure that this tunnel did not exist when he had first come here.

It was the size of an elephant and went down into the ground.

Mei Hua was the first to examine the hole. Pondering over it, she passed her delicate hands over the edge of the hole. As no one wanted to distract her, they all stayed behind in silence. In the meantime, Sun Liao was still looking for traps with his compass, just in case.

"I'm not too sure, but I think I know which beast dug this tunnel. We should move forward a bit to confirm. Follow me."

Just like that, the group went after her. Ren Chao and Cao Yun stayed as close as possible while Sun Liao was way behind with his compass and his bow. In such a tunnel, his bow would be way less effective and he didn't like it. Thus, he focused mainly on his compass to detect any possible trap.

After several minutes, Mei Hua completely stopped. Kneeling down, she retrieved a bit of dirt. When she showed it to her friends, they understood. There were traces of blood in the dirt. It was clearly human blood. Most likely, this was the blood from some of the hunters who had been attacked in their camp. More determined than ever, Ren Chao gripped his hammer.

"We should avenge these poor souls if we can."

"Brother, stay calm. This may not be as easy as you think. If I'm not mistaken..."

Suddenly, she stopped talking. In a flash, she sent two palms against Ren Chao and Cao Yun. Surprised, both of them were thrown several meters away, just behind Sun Liao.

"Stop breathing!"

Hearing Mei Hua's warning, they understood that something was up. The girl staggered and fell down. Watching the scene, they knew that something had poisoned her. As the best alchemist within the Mortals of the Hongchen Kingdom, she had surely felt it. Yet, she had been affected so fast. All three of the young men had stopped breathing. Even with their cultivation, they couldn't hold their breath for more than several minutes. As they saw Mei Hua, if they were to breathe for even an instant, they could get affected.

The more she would breathe, the faster the poison would operate and she knew it. However, she couldn't just do nothing. No matter what happened to her, she had to do something or all of them would be dead. Hearing a faint crawling sound behind her, she knew she had been right about these tunnels. With one look, she met Sun Liao's eyes. In an instant, they understood each other. They had to retreat at once.

Watching his two friends getting up, Sun Liao knew he had no way to convince them to leave unless they could take Mei Hua with them.

Locking their eyes together, Sun Liao and Mei Hua shared a strange bond in these tunnels. As she could feel the poison spreading through her veins, Mei Hua felt her strength leaving her. However, as it was more active, she was now able to identify the poison without any doubts. Feeling her conscious fade away, she now knew what she had to do. As he was an alchemist, Cao Yun would know what to do.

Just as she was gathering every last ounce of strength, the crawling sounds were getting closer and closer. She had to act faster. Unable to speak, she took out her rope dart.

'Digging Roots Dive Toward Heavens'. Mei Hua threw the blade very close to the ground and with a powerful move of her wrist, it suddenly darted upward. As he was almost ready to rush forward, Ren Chao was the closest to her. This allowed him to grab the rope.

From behind Mei Hua, the crawling noises were now so loud that everyone could hear them as well. Using all of his strength, Ren Chao pulled on the rope. On the other extremity, Mei Hua gathered all the strength she had left to grab on tight. However, as soon as she began to rise into the air, strange stalks erupted from the ground. All of a sudden, a large portion of the tunnels was obstructed by these stalks.

Surprised, Mei Hua collided with the stalks and let go of the rope. The strength with which Ren Chao had pulled made some of the stalks break but more of them rose in their stead.

"Leave!"

Even behind these stalks and as her voice was getting weaker, all three of the young men heard her clearly. Despite her cry, Ren Chao and even Cao Yun were ready to rush toward her. Once more, Sun Liao locked eyes with Mei Hua. Just like his friends, he was almost ready to go help her, but he was way more hesitant than them. That was precisely the moment when he clearly saw the beasts arriving behind her.