Chapter 42 The Terrifying Corpse
Yang Qing shook her head. At this moment, her heart was filled with immensely complicated emotions—envy, jealousy, sadness...
Xuan Ningyue said with an icy expression, "You just mentioned Bai Ling. Have you seen him here within the Yuan Vein? Where is he right now?"
She fired off two consecutive questions, leaving Yang Qing experiencing a whirlwind of mixed feelings. She was utterly convinced that the woman in white before her had come specifically to search for Bai Ling.
At the same time, she felt an immense wave of confusion. Before entering the Yuan Vein, Bai Ling had come alone, yet this woman had also made her way inside. Why were the two of them not together?
Yang Qing remained silent, simply gazing quietly at Xuan Ningyue.
Xuan Ningyue wore a blank expression. As she looked into Yang Qing's eyes, a thought crossed her mind: *She has definitely seen Brother Ling, but why won't she tell me? Could it be that she and Brother Ling encountered something within this Yuan Vein? That dazed look she just had on her face was a bit like the way I used to look when I missed Bai Ling!*
The two of them stared at each other in silence for three full minutes.
Yang Qing gently raised her wrist, pointing downwards slightly, and said, "Bai Ling is deep underground. If you wish to find him, you can only move forward once more. As for his exact whereabouts, I do not know at this moment!"
Xuan Ningyue: "..."
Xuan Ningyue knitted her slender brows, thinking speechlessly to herself: *What you just said is no different from saying nothing at all!*
Xuan Ningyue gave her a deep look, hesitated no longer, shifted her feet, and turned to leave. In her heart at this moment, finding Bai Ling was paramount. As for what relationship this girl had with Bai Ling or what had transpired between them, none of that was of primary importance to her right now!
"Bai Ling, he has offended Ye Xie, the Ye family, and also the Li family—Li Che," Yang Qing called out faintly as she watched Xuan Ningyue steadily recede into the distance.
Hearing Yang Qing's words echo in her ears, Xuan Ningyue paused in her steps for a fraction of a second, before continuing her march forward through the tunnel...
***
Bai Ling exerted every ounce of strength in his body, running wildly through the tunnel. Looking back and seeing that the men in hemp garments were not immediately pursuing him, he came to a halt, pressing both hands against the wall as he gasped heavily for air.
His gaze sank, a look of lingering fear crossing his face as doubts churned within his mind:
Who on earth are they?
It is as if they have been searching for me all along.
Do they know me?
Why did they slaughter everyone in the Xiao family? Is there a feud?
No, that's not right. From the moment they appeared, a chillingly thick stench of blood drifted from afar. Could it be... they have already killed countless people?
What is their motive for killing? Where do they come from?
They are cultivators at the Spirit Origin Realm; how did they bypass Ji Kun and Zhi Ke's screenings to enter this Yuan Vein?
Bai Ling's thoughts were in utter chaos. Everything had happened too suddenly, leaving him without a single clue to grasp. Just at that moment, about a hundred meters behind him, several voices suddenly echoed fiercely through the tunnel:
"Humph, that brat can't escape! I've already caught his scent; he's right up ahead!"
"Hehe... That brat is someone the Lord specifically singled out to be captured. What a freak—in just a few dozen days, he's leaped across three minor realms, and the explosive speed he displayed even reached the Spirit Origin Realm!"
"What do you say? Should we capture him alive and drag him back, or kill him... and then bring him along?"
"Hehe... A puny brat at the Initial Origin Realm—I refuse to believe he has anywhere to hide. Even if he possesses Spirit Origin Realm strength, we have nothing to fear!"
"Shut your traps, all of you, and keep chasing! If we fail to find him, hmph, none of us will have a way to answer to the Lord when we return," the scarred man said in a deep, menacing voice.
Bai Ling's expression turned grim. The tunnel wound tortuously deeper into the earth. Standing just around a bend, he clearly caught every word of the five men's conversation. At that moment, he was certain that the sole purpose of these dozen-plus individuals inside the Yuan Vein was him.
*Run!*
Hesitating no longer, Bai Ling pressed deeper underground. Even with the power of his bloodline and the Wind Shadow Skill, he wasn't certain if he could trade blows with Spirit Origin Realm cultivators!
Moreover, there were currently five hemp-clad Spirit Origin Realm cultivators on his tail, pressing down on him with a crushing weight of pressure!
*Clatter!*
*Damn it!*
In his panic, Bai Ling accidentally kicked a massive boulder, sending a loud collision echoing through the space.
"He's right up ahead, about a hundred meters away! After him, don't let him escape!!"
Five sets of footsteps resounded through the tunnel, hurtling madly in Bai Ling's direction.
"Damn it!!"
Bai Ling let out a low roar and bolted forward without looking back.
A quarter of an hour later, the dim light in the tunnel gradually grew a fraction brighter. Bai Ling understood that this tunnel had reached its end.
*Boom!*
Stepping out of the tunnel, Bai Ling froze in his tracks, his brows lifting at the sight before him.
This place must be roughly four hundred meters beneath the surface!
Within his field of vision, another cavernous space appeared, roughly ten square meters in area—much smaller than the previous one!
Countless openings studded the surrounding walls, numbering around a hundred—far fewer than he had encountered previously, though these openings were noticeably larger.
They were three meters high and three meters wide, with each exit surging with a rich aura of primal energy...
And the stomach-churning stench of blood...
***
Bai Ling's mind raced at lightning speed. He selected a tunnel reeking the heaviest of blood and stepped right into it, vanishing from the cavern!
The scent of blood could help conceal his aura. If he chose a normal primal energy tunnel, the probability of being hunted down would skyrocket exponentially!
Bai Ling was gambling!
A few breaths later, the five hemp-clad men arrived at the exact spot Bai Ling had just occupied, staring fixedly at each of the openings.
A moment later, the scarred man declared, "These five tunnels are rich in primal energy. We'll take one each. Whoever encounters Bai Ling is to immediately trigger a Stellar Summoning Token!"
"Understood!" The other four vanished from the spot without looking back.
After striding several hundred meters into one of the tunnels, the scarred man abruptly halted. A sinister expression bloomed into a smile, rendering his grin even more ghastly as he instantly turned and hurried back to the ten-square-meter chamber.
He stared at one specific opening, from which an overwhelmingly thick stench of blood billowed out...
He let out a chilling chuckle, the scar across his face seeming to crawl to life, which, combined with his blood-stained hemp garments, made him look all the more bizarre...
Clutching his saber tightly, he stepped directly into the tunnel Bai Ling had taken!
Enduring the bile rising in his throat, Bai Ling pushed forward. He couldn't be certain whether the five hemp-clad men would happen to walk into this very tunnel.
Dim light filled his vision. Ten meters ahead of him, a corpse suddenly entered his sight, twisting his expression into a grimace. A moment later, he could no longer hold it back, leaning against the wall and vomiting violently for a long while.
This was the corpse of a man, likely dead for no more than a day.
That wasn't even the main point!
The crucial thing was that this male corpse had been dismembered and dissected. His eyes, heart, kidneys, and all other vital internal organs were completely gone!
Only some bones and scraps of flesh clinging to them remained behind, untouched and left behind!
The man lying before him probably never imagined that even his corpse would suffer such a miserable fate after death!
Covering his nose and mouth, Bai Ling pressed onward. With every single step he took, the air grew thick with the stench of blood mixed with a foul, putrid reek that threatened to induce dizziness and suffocation!
Right at that moment, Bai Ling sensed that a few hundred meters behind him, a stone had been kicked, producing the sound of a collision!
"Brat! Give up the struggle. If you keep going forward, you'll live to regret it, hehe..." The scarred man muttered with a low chuckle as he glanced down at the stone that had made the noise, then roared.