The Front is Hell

Tonight's hunting operation was not very successful.

It wasn't that they couldn't find people, but that there were too many people around.

Tie Ruonan searched up and down the mountain for a long time before finally catching someone alone.

However, she had already spent enough time tonight. When she returned to the formation site, she found that the time she spent was actually considered short.

Hardly anyone had returned to the formation site.

Even when they waited at the edge of the formation until the time limit, not all team members returned. Tie Ruonan finally counted the numbers and found that tonight's losses were heavy, with four team members missing.

And even among those who returned, several were seriously injured, especially one who was covered in sword wounds, bleeding profusely.

Of course, she felt no emotional response to this situation. After all, doing this kind of work, they deserved to die, and it was easy to die.

If not tonight, then tomorrow night. They were prepared for this, knowing they would become food for that thing, just like their prey.

Tie Ruonan remained silent as she walked towards the formation.

But just as she turned, she suddenly felt that the corpse carried on the shoulder of the heavily wounded team member looked somewhat familiar. She turned back for a closer look and was surprised, because she recognized it as the Young Master of Evil Shark Island, the sworn enemy of Dragon Whale Island.

She looked at that team member and couldn't help but ask, "Did you kill him yourself?"

The team member lowered his head and replied in a hoarse voice, "Yes!"

Tie Ruonan nodded approvingly and said, "Very good."

Then she turned and walked into the formation.

Following Tie Ruonan, Qin Ran blended into this team of night walkers and entered the formation together.

His spiritual sense detected that the identity token with the giant whale imprint on his body had automatically reacted, interacting with the surrounding formation to create a protective layer around him, preventing him from getting trapped in the formation and allowing him to walk through it as if walking normally.

"This is indeed a token for entering and exiting the formation..." he thought, feeling relieved yet frowning at the same time.

He frowned because he hadn't been able to detect the formation runes on the giant whale identity token.

At the same time, as the identity token interacted with the formation, he quietly observed the surrounding formation, trying to deduce its basic structure from its displayed effects.

But soon, he discovered that while this formation's identity token was more advanced than the Lingnan Region's, the formation itself was not as good.

This formation itself seemed to be in a state of confusion and crudeness. He couldn't find traces of the basic formation, and the fundamental array patterns had no specific category, still in a chaotic state.

Of course, for now, this chaotic state of the formation was better. Because Qin Ran couldn't figure out how to break this formation in a short time, like at a glance.

The group of night walkers passed through the formation and arrived at the entrance of a cave.

Qin Ran observed discreetly and found that this was an earthen cave, man-made, quite old, with the cave walls showing signs of age.

Despite its age, the cave was still quite rough. Its walls were very crude, just rough earth surfaces with only some spirit energy patterns used to stabilize the walls.

...The reason for not calling them formation runes was because those patterns were also very crude, even cruder than the formation arranged outside.

From this point of view, the formation of this cave predated the formation outside.

The cave extended forward, with a visible slope to the naked eye, ultimately winding downwards.

Obviously, there were no lighting tools on the cave walls, and with the wet, muddy ground underfoot, the group truly became night walkers, advancing into the depths of the cave in the darkness with the sound of "plop plop" footsteps.

Darkness, humidity, the smell of blood, footsteps, plus going downward, all made Qin Ran feel like hell was ahead.

After walking for a long time in silence, light suddenly appeared ahead.

Light should normally bring brightness and hope, but the light ahead, combined with the smell of blood and the aura of death in the air, gave Qin Ran a sense of deathly stillness.

Ahead was extremely dangerous, probably truly hell.

At this moment, Qin Ran finally had the thought of running away.

And when he had this thought, he realized that he hadn't left himself an escape route. He hadn't made enough preparations and had rushed here headlong.

"No wonder the main body makes so many preparations before taking action... No wonder the main body sent me here to scout first." It wasn't until this moment that Qin Ran understood the importance of having escape methods. "A person only has one life. And I'm just a clone. Is this the reason?"

But having come this far, he no longer had the chance to retreat. He could only steel himself and move forward.

"I abandoned the main body's timidity and cowardice, but also lost his steadiness and caution." He shouldn't have just casually blended in like this, entering the enemy's lair.

Regardless of what feeling that light gave Qin Ran, when they actually walked to this place, there was still a sense of "suddenly opening up."

Because this place was so vast.

Looking from this end to the other, the people on the opposite side seemed truly tiny.

And this place only had light, but the light was not bright, appearing dim.

A crude, dim, very large cave - this was Qin Ran's first impression.

Tie Ruonan continued walking forward, the shadowy visual misdirection on her body disappearing, revealing her true appearance. The others around did the same. Qin Ran secretly controlled the black clothes on his body, following suit to reveal his face... of course, it was the face of the original owner of these black clothes.

As they walked towards the opposite side of the cave, a man in a red robe came to meet them from that direction.

Seeing that the night walkers had few prey today, and even four people were missing, he looked at Tie Ruonan and said coldly, "What happened today?"

"There were too many people today," Tie Ruonan replied expressionlessly.

The man in red robe sneered, "At your progress today, who knows when you'll be able to contaminate the seal. I hear Evil Shark Island is close to success."

"Evil Shark Island?" Tie Ruonan gave him a cold glance, then pointed back at Qin Ran and said, "The Young Master of Evil Shark Island is right here."

The man in red robe frowned, "Why did you kill him?"

"We killed him, what's the big deal?" Tie Ruonan said indifferently.

She no longer spoke with the man in red robe and led the group of night walkers past him to the innermost part of the cave.

At the very back of the cave was a very tall, broad, and thick wall, also in its primitive earthen state. And at the foot of this wall was a huge pit.

Tie Ruonan led the night walkers to throw all the corpses into this huge pit.

There were already corpses in the huge pit, some intact, some incomplete. Qin Ran glanced and recognized the qi cultivator that Tie Ruonan didn't kill last night; it was an intact corpse.

Some people were incomplete, some were not. Those who were not incomplete were qi cultivators, probably because they were still alive when thrown in.

Qin Ran casually threw the so-called "Young Master of Evil Shark Island" into the pit, and then inadvertently observed this huge pit and the wall behind.

The huge pit was obviously part of some formation. Across from it, a group of cultivators sat cross-legged at the edge of the pit, casting spells that had some connection with the huge pit.

This was not much different from what Qin Ran had guessed last night. It was used to collect things like spirit energy, magical power, and blood essence from the cultivators' bodies. Cultivators were like spirit stones or food, and this huge pit was the stomach. The pit digested the cultivators, and the useful parts were transported to other parts of the formation to be stored or undergo further changes.

Qin Ran didn't look much at this pit, nor did he look much at the people across from it.

He didn't know how long this huge pit had existed... and thus didn't know how many cultivators had died in this huge pit.

He casually looked up, observing the wall behind.

Then he realized that this cave being dug to this point was not by chance...

Because there was an extremely terrifying sealing power on the wall.

Without guessing, he knew directly that this was the seal left by the Divine Essence Old Demon, spread throughout the entire Divine Essence Mountain.

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