The Blade-Wielding Legend

"Move out!"

Li Yan said in a deep voice, "Transport everything on the offering table back to the camp."

The group wrapped the stone statue in felt cloth, and the other fragments were packed into wooden boxes.

Before leaving, Li Yan looked back at the wooden cabin, always feeling something was watching from the shadows, but his Divine Sense found nothing.

About an hour after they left.

A hunched figure slowly emerged from the shadows behind a dead tree, it was the traitorous Great Elder, Hu Li.

But at this moment, he was a different person compared to his time at the Five Immortals Hall.

His head of white hair had turned mostly black, and the wrinkles on his face were much shallower, making him appear about forty years old.

However, this "youthful" appearance was eerie: two thumb-thick short horns protruded from his forehead, with the horn texture appearing bluish-black, and the exposed skin on the back of his hands was covered with fine-scale-like patterns, his nails curved like hooks; when he opened his mouth, his teeth were sharp and jagged.

Hu Li quickly entered the cabin, his gaze sweeping over the empty offering table, then crouched to examine the battle scars.

When he saw the corpses scorched by the Thunder Technique and hollowed by Gu Worms, the muscles on his face twitched for a moment, but he quickly turned it into a cold smile.

He pulled out a bone token from his bosom and placed it where the stone statue had stood. The twisted runes carved on the token glowed faintly, revealing extremely faint footprints on the ground—leading in the direction Li Yan and his people had left.

"As expected, they’ve come..." Hu Li muttered, his voice hoarse.

He put away the bone token, formed a peculiar hand seal with both hands, and black mist surged around him.

The black mist wrapped around him, sinking him into the ground as if a clay ox entering the sea.

This was not the Earth Escape Technique.

The black mist seemed to resonate with the earth, creating a passage as it passed, which quickly closed up again, leaving no trace.

Hu Li traveled within this underground "vein," moving quickly and with clear direction.

Always heading towards the southeast, that was the direction of the Goryeo Royal Capital!

About the time an incense stick burns, he saw a faint light ahead.

Hu Li emerged from beneath a ruined temple altar.

The temple was long abandoned, with most of its wooden structure collapsed, leaving only half a wall standing.

In front of the wall was a crude stone statue that resembled both a person and a beast, a Mortal God that the local Goryeo people worshiped as a "Mountain God" or "Land God."

At this moment, the statue trembled slightly, with two lines of black blood-like liquid oozing from its eye sockets.

Hu Li bowed to the statue, and suddenly thick black mist surged from the ground at the statue’s feet, wrapping around his legs like tentacles and dragging him downwards!

The whole person was instantly pulled under the ground.

This time, the descent was extremely deep.

The sound of soil and rock rubbing could be heard, occasionally accompanied by the trickle of underground water.

After an unknown period, the ground beneath suddenly opened, and Hu Li fell into a natural cave.

The cave was vast, with countless stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and the droplets from the stone tips created echoes in the water pool below.

Strangely, the cave walls were not entirely natural—some areas had been flattened and covered with murals.

The murals were related to rituals: ancestors slaughtering livestock and kneeling to invisible entities, distorted figures in bonfires, and numerous winding lines depicting "earth veins," all converging towards the cave’s depths.

Hu Li moved swiftly along the edge of the water pool, familiar with the route.

The deeper he went, the more apparent the man-made traces became.

Stone niches began to appear on both sides, containing various bizarre idols resembling multi-legged insects or stacks of tumors, none were typical deities in Central Plains or Goryeo. Each had an incense burner with burnt-out incense sticks, yet the residual smoke lingered, forming small puffs of gray mist in front of the niches.

Finally, he reached the end hall of the cave.

The hall was circular, with a dome about fifteen yards high, and in the center hung a large Luminous Pearl emitting a ghostly green light.

Below the pearl, a stone seat was placed, occupied by a person in green, with an ordinary face like a common scholar’s, but eyes as deep as abysses, it was Zhao Changsheng.

Hu Li knelt down with a thump, his forehead to the ground, "Master, Li Yan and his group found the wooden hut in Wild Wolf Valley."

"How many were killed?" Zhao Changsheng’s voice was calm.

"All twenty-seven disciples died. But they also severely injured three Mystical Sect Cultivators and took away the ’Nameless Statue.’"

Zhao Changsheng’s finger gently tapped the stone seat’s armrest, and he smiled lightly, "The Nameless Statue... huh!"

"How could they know that it was the earliest ’spirit’ birthed from the ancestral veins of Changbai Mountain. The ancestors worshiped it for three hundred years before it barely formed an outline. Later, when Central Plains Taoism arrived, they called it ’debauched rituals’ and burned the altar with a single fire.

The spirit, without incense, should have dissipated into the heavens and earth, yet it lingered, nourished by the earth vein with a trace of instinct remaining..."

"Instinctively wishing to be remembered, to be worshipped!"

While saying this, he looked towards the sides of the hall.

There were no seats, only clusters of floating black mist.

Amidst the rolling mist, vague forms could be seen: some with bone wings on their backs, some with multiple heads and arms, others were simply twisted masses of flesh.

The Qi they emitted was ancient and barbaric, carrying the dampness of the mountains and forests, the stench of wild beasts, and the peculiar sweetness of blood sacrifices.

"Many years ago, you all were the rulers of this land."

Zhao Changsheng slowly stood, his voice echoing within the cave, "Mountains had Mountain Spirits, waters had Water Spirits, every tree and stone could become a monster. Travelers had to offer sacrifices, villages and settlements had to consult you for their fate and fortunes."

The black mist rolled intensely, resonating with a low wailing sound.

"But ever since the Heavenly Court set the rules, severing the connection to the world, decreeing the iron law of ’not interfering with the mortal realm,’ you were left with only two paths."

Zhao Changsheng paced to the center of the hall, looking around with a mocking expression, "Either accept the worship of mortals, but also be driven by ants’ desires, fears, and greed, slowly becoming the image they conceived—the Hu Family must be kind and amiable, the Liu Family must heal and save. How ridiculous?"

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