by Tinalynge
Hearing the suggestion, everyone in the group was filled with excitement, at least all the guards and the ones sent from the Yang family. Sha Yun and Wang Ju Long looked at one another.
Although the two of them were not great friends, both of them were traumatized remembering the long days they had spent within those black tunnels back whlie waiting for the Dragon Corps.
Back then they had spent quite a large amount of time within the dangerous and black world, something which made them hunger to see the sun once more. It had indeed been beneficial to their cultivation bases, but the world was so grim that none of them would have chosen that option, if they had a choice.
But, sadly, they did not. Young master Yang Bai was completely taken aback by the offer and his eyes glittered with excitement, as he thought the black tunnels would be one of the most incredible things he would ever experience. During his studies he would have to enter the tunnels for practice, but to enter the inner tunnels now would give him a head start and something to brag about when he reached the academy. Especially if he managed to subdue a demon beast on the way.
Yang Bai was dreaming as he thought about subduing a demon beast when it came down to it though, he was not likely to partake in any of the actual battles, but for such a young boy dreaming was all he could do.
Seeing that the young master gave his agreement, the convoy picked a random path and slowly made their way. Hui Yue and Wang Ju Long both took out light stones. Having bought a large portion in town, they gave a light stone to each of the members of their team before they ever so slowly started making their way through the black tunnel system.
The first many hours went past quickly as the group made their way through the tunnels, no demon beasts obscured their way. The only thing they found was the humid walls and the marks of demon beasts here and there.
Finally, after moving through the black tunnels for a longer period of time, they found a small cave within the tunnels, a cave which was currently occupied by a large furry white monkey-like beast with red eyes and large fangs.
The beast was anything but happy about the humans who were ready to take over the cave which belonged to it, and the battle lasted for almost an entire hour as Hui Yue ordered the guards to deal with it. He and his friends needed to reserve their energy should Scarface, unlike Hui Yue’s expectations, still manage to follow them. If he did follow they would need their full energy to defeat him.
Of the twelve guards, two had gotten injured, yet none were serious injuries. As soon as the monkey-beast died, Hui Yue started dissecting it, cooking some of the meat while drying other parts. The hide was cured and cleaned and the bones all somehow ending up inside Hui Yue’s own storage stones.
Seeing the expertise with which Hui Yue took apart such a large animal all the guards and the Yang family members were deeply shocked. They finally started to understand just how much a difference there was between a mercenary and a family guard.
Spending the evening in the cave, Hui Yue and Xu Piao both took the night watch, neither of them needing sleep as both had opened specific meridians, but nothing came close to the campsite and the bonfire they had erected.
Feeling that they were somewhat safe, the white-haired boy could not help but wonder whether or not he was truly safe. If the lack of killing intent was intentional from Scarface who was following them, or if he still had not managed to catch up.
In the dark tunnels there was nothing like day or night, everything was as dark, and one would rest whenever one got the chance to do so. After a few hours, Hui Yue woke up the entire group.
Sha Yun sat down and merged with the Earth, her tail turned to stone, the stone continuing to take over her body until it reached her bosom, after which it settled seemingly content with only merging with two third of her body.
After what seemed like a short while, Sha Yun opened her eyes and her body once more became that of flesh and blood, her eyes shining as she relayed her findings to Hui Yue.
“Okay guys, if we continue walking this way we will be moving parallel with the road that is lit by the light stones. Let us start moving.”
Chapter 71 – Attack in the Tunnels
Moving within the dark tunnels, it did not take long before the party encountered demon beasts. Sometimes they would stumble upon the territory belonging to some beast hordes while other times it would be a wayward demon beast who stumbled upon them.
The way they dealt with these demon beasts was simple, Hui Yue ordered all his friends to stay back and he told all guards to go fight them.
He did this for multiple reasons, however, the main reason was for the sake of tempering the guards. These guards had never killed anything before not a human let alone a demon beast.
Everything they learned was from training within the caves and, therefore, their abilities were all suited to training rather than real life fighting.
As one day took another within the dark tunnels, the guards started to reek of blood their previous naïve thoughts about the tunnels changed and now they understood just how much hard work was needed to actually move through the unlit parts of the tunnels.
Had they chosen the lit parts, then it would obviously have been possible for the party to make it through the tunnel system much swifter, but by staying in the dark area everyone, even the young master, and his two servants, came to understand just how serious the world was. The strong survived while the weak did not.
While it was the guards who killed the demon beasts and they were also the ones splitting the demonic beast cores between each other, but everything else went to Hui Yue as he was the one providing them all with warm food once a day and as much dried meat as they could want.
By the time they entered the tunnels, their group consisted of twelve guards and six mercenaries along with one noble young master and his two servants. By the time they were halfway through the tunnels, those guards had become fully fledged mercenaries, no longer hesitating to deal the final blow and no longer feeling nauseous at the sight of blood.
“I don’t think he followed us here.” Xu Piao said as he looked at the guards who were cleaning their weapons after battling against a group of Savage Blood Rats. Although they were called rats, they did not have much to do with their names. Unlike normal rats they were a meter long and half a meter tall, their teeth were pointy and razor sharp which made ripping apart anything which came into contact with them very easy. Their fur was black and smooth making them impossible to see in the black tunnels and their two meters long tail was often used to hold their target still.
Although the guards managed to defeat the whole pack, a few injuries were sustained and the caravan decided to make a stop to rest. By now everyone had completely lost all their bearing with which time of day it was and their rest was never more than a few hours at a time before they once more started moving forward in the black tunnels.
“Should I open up a pathway back to the lit roads?” Sha Yun asked curiously, as she looked at the guards who were busy wrapping their injuries and Wang Ju Long who was healing the ones with more than a few scratches.
Sha Yun knew Hui Yue. Not only had he chosen the road they were on now for the sake of not being found by Scarface, he picked this path for the sake of tempering the guards. Looking at the guards right now, no one would believe that they were the same people who had entered the tunnels with them, everything about them had changed. As such, Hui Yue’s goal had been achieved.
Hearing the question the young white-haired man shook his head. Although one of his goals was achieved, he still had found no way of dealing with Scarface. Due to this, he did not feel like he wanted to enter the lit tunnels. It was still too dangerous.
Hui Yue knew that if Scarface was traveling through the tunnels it was highly likely that he just took the easy way through and instead waited for them in the next cave. That was still better than meeting the cold-blooded murderer within this cave. It was far better.
What Hui Yue did not know was that the
tunnel system between the caves was being guarded by
the Dragon Corps. Just as they set up tables requesting an entrance fee from everyone who wished to enter and exit the tunnels, they also had guards patrolling the lit tunnel, ensuring peace, and killing the demon beasts who entered the lit up areas from time to time.
Unaware of the guards on the other side of the thick stone walls, Hui Yue kept leading his party towards the entrance, when suddenly an arrow darted through the air and buried itself in the head of one of the guards who had been laughing loudly only moments before.
Without as much as an order, silvery and golden light gushed out from every single member of the group. Protective barriers were formed around their bodies made from their spiritual energy, and as the rain of arrows descended from the air a metallic clicking sound could be heard as they landed upon the shields. A few of the arrows landing on the carriage, sinking into the wood.
Although the arrows sunk into the wood, the carriage walls were so thick that they could not go all the way through, and the young master was safe within his carriage.
“ATTACK!” Someone yelled from in front and Hui Yue sneered as he saw a large body of cultivators flood towards them, weapons raised high and faces filled with killing intent.
“Leave none alive!” Hui Yue replied, his blue eyes shining dangerously in the low light from their own light stones. While stomping heavily on the ground, the young man launched himself straight into the midst of the enemies, Black Blood in one hand and a red flame in the other. The flames flew from his hand, setting one man after another on fire and causing havoc as anyone close by had their throats slashed or hearts stabbed by the dagger.
The guards were all pale as they Hui Yue who had jumped in head first, their bodies refusing to respond as they stood back, shivering in fear.
Seeing Hui Yue jump into the battle, Wang Ju Long quickly followed in her hands the beautiful red staff appeared and with skilled movements she bashed her enemies heads, crushing their ribs, and blowing away anyone who got close to her. The staff seemed as though it was glowing and as soon as Wang Ju Long used her spiritual energy on it an overpowering aura drifted out, spreading to everyone close by. While the young woman was having some problems with the insane amount of enemies surrounding her, the aura took the shape of a red weasel.
The red weasel twisted itself around Wang Ju Long’s body and as soon as it touched her skin immeasurable strength filled her body. The staff in her hand danced around, beating one enemy after another, but that strength did not last for long as her spiritual energy quickly running out.
Having seen the strength Wang Ju Long used, everyone was deeply shocked, but also amazed by what seemed to be a hidden martial attack which existed within the staff.
Although Hui Yue was stunned he quickly regained his composure and with a loud voice he called out, “Wu, get Ju Long away. Yun stop standing there and start beating some of these idiots!”
Having called out, Hui Yue once more focused on the battle in front of him. At first he had assumed that the horde in front of him consisted of twenty men, at most thirty; however, now he single-handedly managed to take care of at least fifty, and Wang Ju Long had taken care of as many.
While the group at first attacked for the sake of stealing the valuables, it changed as all the men were heading towards Hui Yue their eyes red with anger from losing so many brothers, their voices booming into the air as they screamed out their emotional agony.
Sha Yun, having heard his words harrumphed before she merged with Earth, her body partly
turning to stone. With closed eyes a massive array of Earthen Spears shot out from the ground, followed by blood-curdling screams as many men were skewered.
“Oi you damned snake-woman, watch out!” Hui Yue’s voice suddenly rang through the ground and the words caused both Deng Wu and the exhausted Wang Ju Long to look for the young man. It was very rare that he would talk to Sha Yun in such a way, however, as soon as their eyes landed on him, they instantly understood why.
Hui Yue was standing on the ground in front of the carriage. The ground was littered with corpses and body parts, but looking at him, he was not uninjured. His robe was utterly destroyed, it seemed as if someone had slashed his chest, a small shallow cut visible. His arm was the same, however, the wound on the arm was far more serious as white bone was visible within the red bleeding flesh.
Looking at him, Deng Wu and Wang Ju Long felt somewhat sorry for him since these injuries had not occurred due to the men he was fighting but rather caused by the Earthen Spear ability which Sha Yun used.
Seeing that their opponent got injured, the bandits were cheering and all of them rushing towards Hui Yue, only to be stopped by one Fire Orb after another.
Sighing, Deng Wu stepped forward and slowly made his way to Hui Yue, spending the time walking on finding the specific scrolls he had been looking for and by the time he reached the side of the white-haired young man, seven Black Wolves Beastly Soul Shadows were by his side. All of them roared, but oddly no sounds were heard, it sending tremors through the ground and walls and the force they expressed was enough to cause the bandits to pale in worry. They turned around, trying their best to flee as one after another fell to the corrosion coming from these dreadful wolves.
Deng Wu was a lazy person and he felt no need to hunt down the bandit group which had appeared, instead, he resealed his beastly soul shadows within the scrolls and supported Hui Yue back to Wang Ju Long.
Sha Yun had long since left her merger with Earth and had an incredibly guilty expression on her face, tears leaking from her eyes. Seeing that, there was no way that Hue Yue could be mad at her, nor blame her as he knew she was aiming for the enemies and not him. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hui Yue patted her head before he sunk down to the ground, leaning against the tunnel wall. Using his hand he managed to find a medicinal pill from within one of his storage stones and he threw it towards Wang Ju Long.
As she caught it, she saw that it was a pill for replenishing energy and she gratefully ate it after which she sat down and started meditating.
While Wang Ju Long was meditating, Xie Lan went towards Hui Yue and with a gentle hand, green energy flooded out from her warm hands, quickly numbing the pain. Slowly the wound on his arm started to heal itself, the muscles and tendons reattached themselves before eventually even the skin healed, leaving behind no signs of the injury.
Smiling happily, Hui Yue nodded towards Xie Lan. He was very grateful for her help with the wound and he was also very happy that she took on the job as Wang Ju Long’s teacher. Sighing, Hui Yue realized that he had a lot to be grateful about.
Chapter 72 – Golden Lion’s Cave
Seated on the ground and leaning against the cave, Hui Yue popped a medicinal pill into his mouth much like the one he gave Wang Ju Long and after only few moments he was standing up once more.
Just as he rose the door to the carriage opened, but the young white-haired man rushed towards them and closed it, “I’m sorry young master this is not a sight you want to see,” He said with a genuinely apologetic voice.
The view really was not one for the young master. Corpses were littered all over the ground some were whole while others weren’t. A few of the bandits were still alive, holding on by sheer willpower while wailing in agony.
The ground was no longer dry and dusty, instead, small streams of blood flowed from the corpses, and the stench was really overwhelming.
“You guys can deal with cleaning up,” He said as he spoke to the guards and pointed at the corpses. “You need to get used to corpses eventually anyway.” He continued before he stretched his body, enjoying the feeling of his strength returning to him.
“Stack the corpses on one side of the road. Leave the people who are still alive amongst the corpses. The other bandits will return for them later.”
Hearing the order the majority of their faces instantly paled while one even puked, his face
more green than pale.
Sighing deeply, Hui Yue showed that he was somewhat disappointed. He then went to start stacking the corpses to make space for the carriage to travel through the blood soaked ground, so they could move on to their destination.
He was not the only one who was working to moving the corpses his friends helped out as well, and quickly each of them was covered in blood. The only positive thoughts they had was meeting so many humans like this meant they were likely to be near the exit of the tunnels.
Being able to leave the tunnels meant that they would be able to find somewhere to wash, something which everyone was dreaming about while stacking corpses.
When they finally finished, all of them had to change their clothes and with some bottled water they finally manage to clean themselves a little and remove the red coagulated blood on their skin; however, the stench was impossible to get rid of before they could take a bath.