Yang stood quiet for a moment and slowly nodded his head. "I think there is something here," he said before looking around at the lack of walls around them, and then, as if they all reached the same conclusion at once, they all looked down at the floor together.
Everyone here already knew something was different about Yang. The events of today had simply confirmed it. He was the one who had helped Senior Brother Fan Xiao in restoring their senses; without him, they would have simply been sitting ducks in the dark, unable to use their qi or perceive a single thing around them.
True, some of those ducks could have remained sitting easily for thousands of years, given the longevity their cultivation afforded them even without access to their qi. But that hardly meant they would have enjoyed the process, not to mention the lovely creature that was previously occupying the chamber. Chances were they likely would have been forced to form much closer relations with it than they would have preferred.
But thankfully, true to the nature of a true White Cloud Sect member, they pretended ignorance and didn't bother prying. But when he said there was something down there, they definitely took it to heart.
Senior Brother Fan Xiao crouched down and produced a crystal vial from his storage ring. It looked identical to the blood bank one he had used for the formation channels above. He touched the lip of the vial to the congealed blood on the ground, and immediately the surrounding blood was drawn toward the opening, as though a small whirlpool had opened on the floor.
But contrary to Yang's impressed reaction, Senior Brother Fan Xiao watched it for a moment before frowning. "It is taking too long." He produced a dozen more vials from his storage ring, leaving Yang to wonder if he moonlights as a vampire in his spare time. He tossed the vials to all of them in pairs. "Arrange them across the chamber. Draw it all out."
Yang caught the two that came his way and turned them over in his palm. They were heavier and more solid than their delicate appearance would suggest.
Yang made a few steps, making sure not to go too close to another vial, and touched the lip of the first one to the blood. Immediately, the blood around it began being sucked toward the vial in the same manner, and he quickly found another spot that seemed to be a bit further away from any of the whirlpools and did the same with the second vial.
He looked over at the multiple whirlpools now spread across the floor, each one pulling the dried blood inward at great speed, but even then the ground had yet to make an appearance. One of them near the far wall was even drawing blood off the wall surface as well, and as it did, an inscription carved beneath appeared.
Senior Brothers Song Weilong and Fan Xiao moved to examine the newly revealed carvings. Yang looked questioningly at Senior Brother Qing An, who shook his head without waiting to be asked. "Same as the script above. We cannot read it."
Yang nodded. He had expected as much but couldn't help but hope otherwise.
He watched as the blood continued to recede. The floor was dropping visibly now, the level falling further and further as the vials drew out more and more of the blood that had accumulated over what must have been at least thousands of years, maybe even longer.
He noticed with a growing sense of unease as the ground kept falling, revealing that what they had thought was the ground had actually been layers of dried blood.
The spot that the bead had led Senior Brother Fan Xiao to was no longer flat ground. As the blood cleared around it, it revealed itself to be the top of a large flat-topped boulder. Senior Brother Fan Xiao's earlier intervention, when he had broken the node to restore their senses, had left it split in the middle with smaller cracks extending in multiple directions.
"Just how much blood did this place have?" Senior Brother Zhen Hao couldn't help but say in disgust as he looked over at the macabre scene.
The floor had lost around three feet of ground height, and the vials were still sucking out the blood strongly. Senior Brother had also tossed out another half a dozen bottles to speed up the cleaning.
"Considering how the walls, and I am assuming the floor and ceiling here as well, are carved, it was likely a large network, forming a great multilevel formation powered by blood," said Senior Brother Qing An.
"Could it not have been for simply feeding and worshipping that creature?" Yang asked.
Senior Brother Zhen Hao snorted. "Not with the strength it had."
"Don't be so arrogant; it took all of us to defeat it," Senior Brother Yuan Shen said, rolling his eyes, before turning to Yang. "But Zhen Hao isn't completely wrong. A grand temple of this size, a city devoted to its worship, and sacrifices that were occasional if not regular. A creature like the one we fought is unlikely to inspire any of that. After all, while it did take all of us to defeat it, it was with just our physical strength. If we had been able to use techniques, then dealing with it would have been a matter of minutes, if not seconds."
Yang nodded. It made sense. Something of this scale ought to be for more than that human caterpillar.
After what may have been almost half an hour, the ground, now clean of the dried blood, was gradually appearing, and it was clear that the assumption of it being inscribed along the walls was accurate.
Senior Brother Song Weilong broke the quiet that had fallen over the group. "Back to reading unreadable inscriptions then," he said, with a defeated sigh.
"No." Senior Brother Fan Xiao was already walking toward the point Yang had indicated. "Chen Yang identified a specific area. We should start there."
They all walked back to that point and looked down. "Will we have to break the formation here as well?" Yang asked, looking at Senior Brother Fan Xiao.
"Likely," he replied and, without ceremony, drew his sword from the scabbard at his waist in a single smooth motion, raised it above his head, and drove it point-first into the ground.
Nothing happened for a moment.
Then a crack appeared in the stone and began to spread outward in every direction from the impact point.
Senior Brother Qing An hurriedly turned to Yang. "Carpet."
Yang immediately took out his flying carpet. Due to the restriction, it fell on the floor instead of levitating, but he still jumped on it, only to regret it immediately as half a second later he was plowed down by all his Senior Brothers jumping on it, or rather on him.
Just as the floor cracked and crumbled away, giving way to a drop, they all tumbled down in an undignified pile, but before long, the carpet seemed to come alive, and the sudden shift in speed of the drop almost crushed Yang, who had been first on and ended up at the bottom of the heap.
Apparently, Yang thought as he let out a choked sound. Enhanced cultivators' bodies weren't much use when the one doing the crushing was also a cultivator several realms higher than you.
"Help him up," someone said. "Senior Brother Xiao Zhan would boil us alive if we got him killed on his first trip outside."
Yang really had to appreciate the terror Senior Brother Xiao Zhan inspired in his Junior Brothers. It apparently transcended being trapped in an unknown world with no way home. Yang could sympathize completely. Senior Brother Xiao Zhan had given him nightmares too, though looking back now those early interactions seemed to be in the process of being repaid by Senior Brother Xiao Zhan being extra protective and gentle with Yang.
He was eventually dragged upright once Senior Brother Zhen Hao moved his ass off his head. Yang shot him a look, which he returned with a smirk and a completely insincere apology.
"Sorry for sitting on your head, Junior Brother."
Before Yang could respond, his attention was drawn to Senior Brother Yuan Shen. "No," he announced. "I am going back up."
Yang followed his gaze to see they had landed in a cavern, though thankfully this one seemed to have multiple passages leading somewhere; Yang could see three right away from his current position. But it was not the passages that were giving Senior Brother Yuan Shen the urge to return. Rather, it was the bodies.
Mummies. And not the well-prepared ones that the Egyptians were famous for. These were desiccated in whatever position they had died in.
Yang took a few steps closer. “Be careful.” Senior Brother Song Weilong warned.
Yang nodded and held back, allowing his Senior Brothers to go ahead of him.
He watched from a few steps behind as they came closer and examined the grotesque bodies frozen with twisted expressions of agony.
He saw Senior Brother Qing An place a hand on its head and draw it back in a couple of seconds. He noticed Senior Brothers Fan Xiao, Qing An, and Song Weilong sharing a look with each other as they all stepped back.
“Senior Brother. What is it? It can’t be too dangerous if you touched it,” Senior Brother Zhen Hao said impatiently.
“It's a cultivator.” Senior Brother Song Weilong said calmly.
“What’s so special about a cultivator's body?” Senior Brother Yuan Shen said as he looked at it with a casual disinterest. “We’ve seen plenty in far worse shape.”
“Not a body.” Senior Brother Fan Xiao corrected coldly.
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