Xuan Ye's Invitation

The cavern was winding and rugged, filled with jagged, grotesque rocks. They had to remain constantly vigilant against dangers that might be lurking in the shadows, so the five of them moved at a cautious pace.

As they advanced, Song Wen felt a sudden jolt in his heart, and his brow furrowed slightly.

Yet within a split second, his brow smoothed over. He maintained an expressionless facade and continued forward, drawing no attention from the others.

Just moments ago, the Beetle Gu he had released had detected the presence of Walking Corpses roughly five hundred meters ahead.

Fortunately, according to the feedback from the Beetle Gu, there were only about a dozen of them.

Furthermore, their strength was mediocre-roughly equivalent to cultivators who had just stepped into the middle stage of Qi Condensation. Only the corpse poison they carried was somewhat troublesome, but to a corpse-path cultivator like Song Wen, such a minor toxin posed no threat at all.

Since entering the subterranean cavern, Song Wen had found that his Beetle Gu was exceptionally useful.

These insects were naturally adept at concealment, and within this pitch-black cave saturated with corpse Qi and ghost Qi, they were even more difficult to detect. The dense, ambient deathly energy perfectly masked the aura of the Beetle Gu.

In this environment, the Beetle Gu was like a dragon entering the ocean or a tiger returning to the mountains-entirely in its element.

The party advanced another four hundred meters before Xuan Ye, leading at the front, finally noticed the creatures.

"Careful. Walking Corpses ahead," Xuan Ye warned.

In truth, his warning was hardly necessary. Niu Ding and Zi Yi, both at the seventh layer of Qi Condensation, had already sensed their presence.

"Everyone, make it quick. Do not use wide-area techniques, lest we make too much noise and draw more Walking Corpses or wraiths."

As soon as Xuan Ye finished speaking, before he even appeared to move, a fierce ghost with strength comparable to the sixth layer of Qi Condensation materialized before him.

The wraith stood over two meters tall with a burly, imposing frame. It wore tattered armor and wielded a great blade, bearing the distinct appearance of a veteran general from a battlefield.

Lao Chun and Zi Yi each drew a broken blade, clearly intending to engage in close-quarters combat.

Niu Ding exhaled two heavy plumes of turbid air from his nose and mouth, his muscles visibly swelling by a couple of margins as he continued forward bare-handed. It was evident that Niu Ding, like Song Wen, was a rare body refinement cultivator.

Song Wen, meanwhile, pulled his corpse puppet closer, completely obscuring his figure behind its bulk. For safety's sake, he had summoned the corpse puppet immediately upon entering the subterranean chasm.

The general ghost was the first to charge into the pack of Walking Corpses.

The long blade in its hand seemed to carry solid form, cleanly cleaving a Walking Corpse down the middle. Black, unidentifiable fluid immediately spilled across the stone floor.

Niu Ding's methods were far more brutal. Closing the distance in an instant, he brought a palm the size of a woven fan slamming down on a Walking Corpse's head. The skull detonated like a ripe melon, splattering black fluid everywhere, and the headless torso collapsed to the ground, entirely motionless.

Lao Chun and Zi Yi clearly shared the same legacy. Both possessed incredibly agile movement techniques, choosing to fight at point-blank range. Like a pair of nimble leopards, they lunged into the fray. Their daggers struck like striking vipers-patiently biding their time before delivering a single, lethal thrust directly into the softest part of the Walking Corpses' skulls.

By the time Song Wen crept up from behind his corpse puppet, the battle was practically over.

Lest the other four think he was merely slacking off, Song Wen commanded his corpse puppet to charge at one of the few remaining stragglers.

The Walking Corpse was stiff-limbed and far weaker than his puppet, making it no match for a creature that excelled in both strength and agility.

The corpse puppet easily evaded the creature's frantic lunges and bites, then swung its left arm, effortlessly impaling the Walking Corpse through the chest.

Yet despite having its chest pierced completely through, the Walking Corpse did not lose its mobility. It seized the opportunity to grab the puppet's shoulders, snapping its jaws shut onto the puppet's face at point-blank range.

Not to be outdone, the corpse puppet snapped back, sinking its teeth into the Walking Corpse's neck.

Watching this unfold from behind, Song Wen was left utterly dumbfounded.

Born from the same root, why such urgency to destroy one another?

They were both dead flesh-strictly speaking, both variants of zombies. Why must a corpse make life so difficult for another corpse?

Song Wen kept his gaze sweeping across their surroundings, ensuring no other entities attempted a sneak attack.

The others dispatched their targets with immense speed. Before Song Wen's puppet could finish its struggle, there were already no other Walking Corpses left standing in the area.

Just as Song Wen assumed the skirmish was safely concluded, he suddenly felt the soil beneath his feet loosen, as though something was about to burst from the earth.

Under Song Wen's startled gaze, a Walking Corpse erupted from the dirt, flipping through the air as it lunged upward from the ground.

Song Wen had noticed this particular body earlier but had assumed it was merely an ordinary corpse, given that half of it was buried in the mud. Furthermore, the cavern was choked with a chaotic blend of turbid worldly energies like corpse Qi and ghost Qi; when a Walking Corpse lay perfectly still, telling it apart from a normal cadaver was genuinely difficult.

The other four, having finished off their respective targets, also noticed the sudden anomaly on Song Wen's end.

Their reactions varied wildly.

Xuan Ye remained cold and indifferent, standing in place with an attitude of an aloof bystander.

Niu Ding, being good-natured, instinctively moved to assist, but his heavy frame made his reaction a step too slow.

Lao Chun cocked his arm to hurl his dagger and eliminate the creature, but a freezing glare from Zi Yi stayed his hand.

Yet, faced with the suddenly erupting Walking Corpse, Song Wen remained entirely composed.

He sank his weight and dropped his hips, easily ducking beneath the sharp-clawed swipe aimed at his face.

Then, bringing his right hand up in a vicious uppercut, he slammed his fist squarely into the Walking Corpse's jaw.

The creature's head instantly imploded like a fragile watermelon, its contents splattering across the floor.

Seeing Song Wen handle the threat so effortlessly, the others showed little reaction, save for Zi Yi, who curled her lips in a flash of visible displeasure.

"Let's move. Keep going,"

As they pushed deeper, they encountered two more waves of Walking Corpses and a swarm of wandering spirits. Fortunately, none of these entities were particularly strong or numerous, and the group dispatched them with ease.

It was worth noting that the cavern branches were incredibly labyrinthine. Song Wen realized that without Xuan Ye leading the way, he would have easily taken a wrong turn, even with the crude map he had purchased from the underground ghost market.

Suddenly, Xuan Ye, who had been leading the march, dropped back to walk alongside Song Wen.

"Brother Guo Tao, there is a fork in the path just ahead. Niu Ding and I need to take the left passage to reach the snake cave, while the Empty Cicada Wood and Forsythia Yellow are located in the right passage."

Song Wen looked at Xuan Ye, offering no reply.

Xuan Ye continued, "I would like to invite Brother Guo Tao to join Niu Ding and me first to secure the Snake Scale Fruit. Once that is done, I will personally accompany you to retrieve your Empty Cicada Wood."

"Why me?" Song Wen asked suspiciously. He was only at the sixth layer of Qi Condensation. If Xuan Ye needed an ally, logic dictated he should have approached Zi Yi's duo instead.

"If I am not mistaken, Brother Guo Tao is a body cultivator. I have already formulated a plan to seize the Snake Scale Fruit, but it requires the coordination of body cultivators. Originally, with Brother Niu Ding alone, I had a sixty percent certainty of success. If Brother Guo Tao is willing to join us, that certainty rises to eighty percent."

Seeing that Song Wen neither immediately accepted nor refused, Xuan Ye abruptly switched to a secret voice transmission.

"Brother Guo Tao should consider this carefully. If you insist on heading toward the Empty Cicada Wood right now, you will be forced to travel entirely alone with Zi Yi and her companion."

As he spoke, Xuan Ye cast a deliberate, fleeting glance toward Zi Yi.

His implication was unmistakable: there was bad blood between Song Wen and Zi Yi, and Song Wen's cultivation was the lowest among the five. Without the deterrent presence of Niu Ding and Xuan Ye, there was no guarantee Zi Yi wouldn't seize the opportunity to eliminate him.

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