Chapter Thirty-Nine: Destroy Them

Su Li was suddenly overwhelmed with disgust, feeling a tingling sensation from head to toe. Unable to help herself, she burrowed into the young man's arms, clutching at his clothes.

Tiger Soul asked in confusion, "Sister Tuan, what's wrong?"

Su Li replied with distaste, "Don't you think these things are hideous? All clustered together like this, they're absolutely revolting."

Tiger Soul: ...
How terrifying, to judge by appearances alone!

After hearing her say this, Tiger Soul also began to find these creatures truly grotesque, a shame to the very name of spirit beasts.

Su Li sighed, "If only the silly bird were here, it would burn them all to ashes with a single flame!"

Tiger Soul nodded in agreement. It, too, missed that foolish bird a little—without it around to chat and stir up trouble, life had become unbearably dull.

Watching as Shen Luo struggled to fend off the swarm of insects, Su Li quietly released a faint pulse of pressure. The third-tier Bloodthirsty Bugs, upon drawing near, immediately sensed the dangerous aura and scattered in all directions.

This took a great deal of pressure off Shen Luo, who pressed his lips together and did his best to appear focused on defense, blending in with the rest of the group.

Fortunately, everyone's attention was in chaos, and the aura of that high-level spirit beast was concealed so well that no one noticed a thing.

Wave after wave of Bloodthirsty Bugs came, as if their numbers were endless and impossible to defeat.

"Ah Luo, where's your demonic flower?" Shen Hao asked suddenly, panting for breath.

At these words, everyone's eyes lit up and turned to him in unison.

That demonic flower usually loved violence and bloodshed, always drawing enmity, but now it was as quiet as a mouse—utterly out of character!

Shen Luo replied, "Ever since we entered the cave, Ah Hua has, for some reason, fallen into a deep sleep."

The group: ...
Letting them down at such a critical moment—damn it, they'd love nothing more than to strangle that little wretch!

Fighting as they fled, they soon broke away from the main group and burst into another grand hall.

Shen Luo stepped on something unknown, and with a crisp "crack," everyone's hearts leapt into their throats.

Su Li, however, simply flicked her tail with composure.

Ever since witnessing the protagonist's freakish luck, she no longer worried about such things.

Sure enough, a series of "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" sounds echoed from all around as the torches on the stone walls lit themselves, illuminating the hall with a gloomy brightness. For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of burning torches.

The group exchanged uneasy glances, scarcely able to believe it. They waited patiently for a while, and, seeing that no mechanisms had been triggered, finally relaxed and began to survey their surroundings.

Only then did they realize they were standing amidst a heap of corpses and skeletons—a veritable slaughterhouse, the air thick with a chilling, eerie atmosphere. What was even stranger was that the corpses were all incomplete, some missing an arm, others a leg.

Gu Hongshang nearly screamed, hurriedly covering her mouth.

Looking ahead, they saw in the center of the hall a massive altar, covered in all manner of strange symbols, with a dozen or so bottles filled with liquids of various colors.

But what drew the eye most was the corpse, still wet with blood. The body was naked, its right leg apparently severed and then crudely stitched back together. Most horrifying of all, a gaping wound was torn open at the dantian, the face frozen in terror and agony, as if something had been ripped from it while still alive.

Even Su Li felt a wave of nausea at the ghastly sight.

"So it's the Shaluo Array," said Shen Sinan. "Also known as the Living Sacrifice. They cut out the golden core from a living person and, using secret techniques, draw the spiritual energy for themselves. Until now, I'd only ever seen this in ancient texts—never thought I'd witness it in reality."

Unless one consented, a cultivator's spiritual energy couldn't be forcefully extracted, let alone the pure power within a golden core.

Everyone's expressions grew grave.

Tiger Soul gave a disdainful snort. "Nothing but heretical tricks—nothing worth believing."

Su Li asked, "How so?"

Tiger Soul replied, "Once separated from the body, the golden core becomes nothing but a dead pellet. This whole thing was just a scam concocted by that fellow to deceive the world. Who would have thought, after all these millennia, someone would be foolish enough to try it?"

"That fellow?"

"Oh, the founder of the demonic path, You Xuan." Tiger Soul paused, then sent a message to Shen Luo as well. "Back when I was still a spirit beast, there appeared a cultivator of unparalleled prowess. He rebelled against convention, made countless enemies, but his talent was unmatched. Later, after blending various techniques and creating his own cultivation method, the 'Demonic Arts,' he ascended to the great transcendence. Then, one day, he suddenly declared he would found a sect and spread his teachings, sending the cultivation world into a frenzy."

Su Li was a little surprised. "So the founder of the demonic path was such an eccentric character."

Tiger Soul nodded. "That's right. At the time, the demon race was rampant, committing all sorts of bloody atrocities in the cultivation world. You Xuan's enemies united to frame him. But You Xuan was ever arrogant and never bothered to defend himself—instead, he fabricated a set of 'Demonic Secret Arts,' and the Shaluo Array was one of them. After he ascended, somehow the manual leaked out." Its tone turned gleeful. "I wonder what his expression would be if he saw what the demonic cultivators have become."

The truth was so absurd as to defy belief—the legendary ancient secret arts worshipped by demonic cultivators were nothing more than the founder's casual inventions!

Su Li was astonished, yet somehow it all made sense. The more sinister something seemed, the more people were eager to believe—desire knows no bounds.

Shen Luo pondered for a moment and said, "'The Demonic Secret Arts' have caused endless harm. As the saying goes, 'I do not kill Boren, but Boren dies because of me.' Though it was unintentional, it is still a heavy guilt to bear."

None of them had any desire to remain in the hall. They pressed on, but found that every chamber was much the same, the furnishings and arrangements eerily similar.

Everyone's faces grew darker by the minute. This vast palace was clearly the stronghold of the demonic cultivators. That meant the secret realm, opened once every ten years, where the children of great sects and noble families fought tooth and nail for the prizes, was nothing but a trap—a free delivery of sacrifices.

How utterly ironic!

Soon, they passed through the final chamber and reached the end.

It was a cliff edge, with fierce gales howling so violently it was almost impossible to keep one's eyes open.

They spread out their spiritual senses to probe below, but no matter how hard they tried, they could not find the bottom—not even Shen Fengling, who had reached the Nascent Soul stage.

Shen Sinan asked, "Nineteenth Elder, shall we go down?"

Shen Fengling's face was set in grim resolve.

At that moment, Shen Luo accidentally kicked a small stone, which tumbled into the abyss, only to be swept back up by the wind and hurled onto the eaves of the temple behind them. There, a toad perched atop the eaves stirred, and suddenly the ground shook violently.

A crack split open before their eyes with a resounding "crack," and the ledge beneath their feet collapsed, dropping them all into the chasm.

They circulated their spiritual energy to resist the savage wind, but were still tossed about by the rapidly swirling currents.

Just then, a Lei Peng bird appeared out of nowhere, catching them securely on its back. Shen Fengling quickly unleashed a wave of spiritual energy to shield them from the fierce winds.

Slowly, the group began to descend.

By the light of the Night Pearl, Su Li's sharp eyes caught sight of carvings on the stone wall. She tugged on Shen Luo's sleeve with her little paw, indicating for him to look.

The bas-reliefs depicted scene after scene, and from their meaning, it appeared to be the history of a sect's founding. Su Li and Shen Luo both recalled Tiger Soul's words, and the more they looked, the more they felt the images matched exactly those from the tales of You Xuan's founding of his sect.