Black Viper

The next day, at the Hour of the Dragon.

The underground caverns of the ancient battlefield remained locked in pitch darkness.

Having calculated the hours precisely, Song Wen and Xuan Ye were already fully prepared to set out.

Xuan Ye continued to lead the way. The subterranean path they traversed was riddled with intersecting tunnels, and only he knew which fork to take.

After they had walked for over two hours, Song Wen suddenly came to a halt.

"Fellow Daoist Xuan Ye, is the snake lair not far ahead?"

Xuan Ye looked back, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "Why do you ask, Brother Guo Tao? Could it be that you have been here before and know the path? It is indeed not far now-only a few li remain."

Song Wen shook his head. "I have never set foot in the ancient battlefield. However, roughly three hundred meters ahead, a swarm of snakes is crawling along, dragging six Walking Corpses with them."

Song Wen had previously revealed that his mental strength far surpassed that of an ordinary cultivator. Thus, Xuan Ye did not doubt his ability to perceive a scene three hundred meters away.

Instead, he pressed further, "What do these snakes look like?"

"Their bodies are pitch black, though they vary in size. The smaller ones are only as thick as a thumb, while the larger ones are the size of an arm," Song Wen replied.

Xuan Ye nodded. "Then there is no mistake. Those are the Black Vipers from the lair. They are currently out hunting."

"Hunting?" Song Wen was somewhat astonished.

This was the first time he had ever heard of such peculiar creatures feeding upon Walking Corpses.

"Food is scarce within these deep caverns," Xuan Ye explained with a nod. "It is hardly unusual for Demon Beasts and Walking Corpses to prey upon one another. We should avoid alerting the hunting Black Vipers for now. Let them carry their provender back to the lair."

Xuan Ye paused for a moment before continuing, "Our subsequent plan to harvest the Snake Scale Fruits will depend heavily on you, Brother Guo Tao."

Song Wen nodded. "Naturally. That was our prior agreement. However, shouldn't you finally explain the details of this plan, Fellow Daoist?"

Xuan Ye had mentioned before that his scheme required the assistance of a Body Refinement cultivator, which was why he had invited Song Wen and Niu Ding to accompany him. Yet, he had kept the specifics entirely to himself until now.

"The Black Vipers have thrived underground beneath the ancient battlefield for generations, sustaining themselves on Walking Corpses," Xuan Ye said. "Consequently, they are exceedingly fond of darkness and Yin energy, while they dread fire and the pure Yang Qi of Heaven and Earth."

"To ensure we can seize the Snake Scale Fruits successfully, I spent a vast sum of Spirit Stones to commission the refinement of a Prairie Fire Array. This formation utilizes eight formation banners. Once they are planted in their designated coordinates and I activate the formation plate, the entire area will be transformed into a sea of raging flames."

"The temperature within the array will be intensely high, carrying a trace of the Yang Qi of Heaven and Earth. Once this formation is deployed across the floor of the lair, the inherent nature of the Black Vipers will force them to retreat and remain suppressed deep within their tunnels. At that point, gathering the Snake Scale Fruits will be simple."

Hearing this, Song Wen knit his brows tightly.

Xuan Ye's strategy sounded viable on paper, but the actual execution would hardly be as seamless as he claimed. For instance, successfully planting the eight formation banners presented a major obstacle. The Black Vipers would not simply watch a human cultivator intrude upon their territory and plant flags without reacting.

Nevertheless, Song Wen refrained from raising an immediate objection, choosing instead to say, "Let us examine the layout of the snake lair first before deciding on our course of action."

"That is the most sensible course," Xuan Ye agreed.

The two of them moved forward cautiously, tailing the slow-moving vipers. It took a full two quarters of an hour for the serpents to cover the remaining few li.

Eventually, Xuan Ye and Song Wen concealed themselves within the deep shadows of a tunnel bend, roughly three hundred meters away from the lair. To avoid alerting the creatures, Xuan Ye had long since pocketed his fluorescent illumination stones, plunging their immediate surroundings into total blackness.

Through his Beetle Gu, Song Wen was able to perceive the general layout of the cavern.

The subterranean vault housing the lair rose dozens of meters high. A steep stone incline stretched continuously from the cavern floor all the way to the ceiling, riddled with a dense, honeycomb-like network of holes. The largest openings were roughly two inches wide, while the smallest were no larger than a thumb.

Hundreds of Black Vipers were slithering across the rocky slope, while even more coiled within the openings, leaving only half of their tails exposed. Their dimensions varied wildly; the massive ones were as thick as a large bowl, whereas the smallest resembled mere chopsticks.

Halfway up the incline grew a solitary, two-meter-tall tree. Deprived of sunlight since its inception, the small tree was entirely grayish-white, from its trunk to its pale leaves.

At the very crest of the tree hung three fiery-red fruits, each the size of a fist. They pulsed with rich Spiritual Qi, wafting a dense, enticing fragrance into the cavern. A multitude of small vipers slithered restlessly beneath the branches, their eyes locked greedily onto the trio of Snake Scale Fruits, yet not a single one dared to ascend the trunk and claim them.

Staring into the absolute darkness, Song Wen murmured, "Fellow Daoist Xuan Ye, how do we proceed?"

"When the time comes, I will dispatch a fierce ghost to draw the attention of the swarm while casting a Fireball Spell to illuminate the area," Xuan Ye whispered back.

"Brother Guo Tao, your task will be to utilize that brief flash of firelight to swiftly hurl the eight formation banners into their exact positions."

As he spoke, a formation banner materialized in Xuan Ye's hand. It was roughly two feet long, featuring a fiery-red flag attached to a dark shaft that tapered into an exceedingly sharp point-clearly designed to pierce deep into solid stone. Exquisite cloud patterns were inscribed across both the cloth and the rod, within which faint traces of flame seemed to ripple, lending it a highly extraordinary aura.

"Each banner weighs approximately one hundred jin," Xuan Ye noted. "You will need to rely on sheer physical strength to hurl them accurately onto the formation bases. Can you manage it?"

With Xuan Ye's cultivation at the seventh layer of Qi Condensation, his Divine Sense could only span a little over a hundred meters. Beyond that threshold, his mental control over a Magical Artifact would fail, leaving the item to fly forward blindly on mere inertia. Without precise control, he had no way of accurately planting the banners from this distance.

Thus, he had been forced to seek out a Body Refinement cultivator whose immense physical power could accurately hurl the heavy implements into their designated spots from afar.

Song Wen took the banner and hefted it to gauge the weight. "The weight is no issue. However, relying solely on brute force to throw them one by one is far too cumbersome and time-consuming. The Black Vipers will easily spot the disturbance, which could cause the formation setup to fail entirely."

Xuan Ye raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do you have a better alternative?"

"My mental strength can just barely encompass the entire snake lair," Song Wen stated calmly. "If you allow me to briefly refine these formation banners, I can use my Divine Sense to manipulate all eight of them simultaneously, driving them into the formation bases in a single breath."

Over the past two years of nurturing the Beetle Gu, Song Wen had gradually uncovered several novel applications for them. Aside from extending the reach of his perception, the beetles allowed him to exert basic control over Magical Artifacts within that extended domain.

While he could not wield an artifact to execute complex combat maneuvers at such a distance, simply guiding eight stationary banners into the ground was well within his capabilities.

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