Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 129

Chapter 129 – By Force

After Gu Suihan said that, everyone exchanged glances but did not say anything.

Their logic was simple. If Wang Mingzhi were to die, who would Gu Suihan choose as bait among them?

“The weak have no right to argue back.”

After thinking through the situation, they quickly came to a common understanding. Their gazes just glanced past Xi Ran and refused to meet his eye. They had clearly chosen to be on Gu Suihan’s side.

“What if we join hands and make YOU the bait?” said Wan Xin with a sinister laugh as she looked straight at Gu Suihan. She spoke rather calmly, but her words were filled with malice.

“You and the rest here? Join hands?” Gu Suihan laughed sarcastically as if he had heard a joke. His expression grew sullen as he said in a contemptuous voice, “Did you think you were worthy of even doing such a thing? If I wanted to drag one or two of you down with me, I could, you know? I’m just not sure if the one dying along with me would be you, you, or…perhaps you?” He pointed at Xi Ran, then Wan Xin, then Fang Suyu, and the rest.

“He’s really nuts,” thought Li Xiaoyao as he sighed inwardly. It was impossible to threaten a madman unless one had invincible powers. Otherwise, someone like Gu Suihan would prove to be too unpredictable and would be more like a ticking time bomb. Wan Xin was being too simplistic in her thinking.

The rock platform continued to move downwards in silence. Random broken rocks would land on the protective forcefield around the platform and turn to nothing in an instant. The rock platform moved at a steady speed, and in the last 15 minutes that they spent talking, it had probably gone nearly 10 kilometers underground, but it didn’t seem like it was stopping anytime soon.

“We’re almost there,” said Gu Suihan with a pale face. He had used a secret technique to fly through the cultivators and get to the rock platform earlier, which had consumed nearly all of his energy, so he was feeling a little weak now.

Unfortunately for him, not a single person in the remaining group of survivors was easy to get along with. All of them were the best among cultivators at the same level of cultivation, and some of them were even the top senior of their sect. They had plenty of tricks up their sleeves.

The only one he could play around with was Wang Mingzhi since at least he could use this fellow to test for any traps later on. There was a glint in his eyes as he swallowed more blood-cleansing pills and frowned slightly.

Crack! There was a soft sound as the rock platform suddenly came to halt.

“Let’s go,” said Gu Suihan calmly as he grabbed Wang Mingzhi by the hair and dragged the poor barrel of a man on the floor as he hopped off the rock platform.

Nobody cared if Wang Mingzhi was going to die during this time, because even though cultivators weren’t entirely invincible, their bodies were much stronger than ordinary humans after all they had been refined by qi for a long enough time. The fact that the mess of wounds on Wang Mingzhi’s body was already healing up was an obvious example of this.

After what they had experienced earlier, everyone made sure they had their secret keys in their hands, in case anything suddenly happened along the way.

They stepped out of the light bubble around the rock platform and came to a dark and long corridor. It was six meters wide and nine meters high, and there were luminous stones that illuminated the corridor with an eerie green light, but it was impossible to see the other end of the corridor.

“This stunt again?” murmured Gu Suihan with a sneer on his lips. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the corridor was definitely filled with traps. But they couldn’t go back where they came, so they had to keep moving forward.

“This is the last thing I can use you for, so make your contribution worthwhile.” Gu Suihan glanced down at Wang Mingzhi, who had left a trail of blood on the floor as he got dragged along. The storage ring on Gu Suihan’s finger gleamed as he retrieved a magic spear from inside. He ignored Wang Mingzhi’s muffled screams as he used the spear to pick Wang Mingzhi up and throw him down the corridor.

“It’s only left with the few of us now. Didn’t the elders of our sects say that the exit would be activated after a certain number of people had died?” said Wang Aolin all of a sudden as he pulled out a reddish jade token from his pocket and clenched his teeth angrily.

“Don’t you know what sort of place you’re in?” Li Xiaoyao glanced at Wang Aolin, took his own jade token out, and smashed it. He said grimly, “This place was left behind by someone at Divine Soul. Did you think our elders who are only at Origin Core would be able to overwrite anything here?”

“Damn it! I shouldn’t have come in,” said Fang Suyu in a frustrated voice as he spat on the floor. He regretted stupidly coming in here just because he coveted that legendary legacy.

He wasn’t the only one. Everyone else felt the same way.

“Actually, if we were outside, we would probably be dead by now,” said Wan Xin after giving it some thought and remembering all those dead things outside. She gritted her teeth and said, “Those dead things have probably scoured the entire domain by now.”

Just when everyone was still talking, a muffled sound suddenly echoed in the corridor.

Lines appeared on the smooth walls and started turning to reveal tiny holes the size of an insect’s eye. A metallic gleam shone brightly as tiny needles shot out from the holes like rain.

Wang Mingzhi, who had been struggling and rolling about on the floor all this time, didn’t even get a chance to react. He became nothing but a pool of blood in seconds.

“There’s more up there,” said Gu Suihan calmly as observed the frightened looks on the others’ faces and pointed to the top of the corridor.

A small white light gathered around his fingertip and he gently released a milky white ball of light. It floated upwards and illuminated a sight that made all of their hair stand on end.

There were many sharp-tipped rock spikes on the ceiling of the corridor, densely covered by bats the size of a palm that had turned into rocks.

Perhaps they had been agitated by the ball of light created by a spiritual light spell. The rocky pieces on their bodies slowly fell off. They opened their bloodthirsty eyes which were the size of small beans and glared viciously at the group.

In that instant, the entire ceiling of the long corridor was covered in a red glow. Their eyes flickered slightly like the stars in the night sky, covering the greenish glow from the luminous stones along the wall, replacing it with a hair-raising bloody red color.

“These…these are blood bats. Why are there so many of them?” exclaimed Wan Xin. The goosebumps on her skin could be seen even through her chiffon clothing, while her gaze was filled with some fear, disgust, and horror.

“There’s more on the floor.” Gu Suihan seemed eager to scare them as he drew a line of sword qi in the air that measured several meters long and thrust it toward the corridor floor.

Bumps began to show on the previously flat floor when it sensed the sword qi coming its way and ear-piercing screeches could be heard from the floor. The floor tiles that looked like they were cut from rock started moving as though it was merely mud, rising up from the floor and turning into creatures that kept wriggling about.

“An azure bloodsucking worm?” It was Fang Suyu’s turn to exclaim in disbelief.

“They don’t dare to come any closer to us.” Li Xiaoyao observed the floor carefully and noticed an obvious black line separating them from the worms.

“We can’t get over there either,” responded Wan Xin in an annoyed voice as she glared at Li Xiaoyao.

Gu Suihan narrowed his eyes, then looked like he got it all figured out as he calmly said, “That’s not necessarily true.”

“Oh?” The rest couldn’t help but look curiously at Gu Suihan when they saw how confident he looked.

“This Divine Soul fellow’s aim is to choose an heir, so no matter how dangerous the journey might be, he would not have done anything that would prove fatal to every single person who comes by,” said Gu Suihan with a faint smile, revealing his pearly whites. That intelligent smile on his face seemed strangely charming. “Otherwise, nobody would be left standing.”

“I take it that you’ve found a way to get across this place?” Li Xiaoyao raised an eyebrow. His expression did not lighten up and he looked even more troubled than before. He knew what Gu Suihan was talking about, but that presented him with another problem. He might be able to get through, but what about Shuang’er?

“By force,” was all Gu Suihan said before keeping silent again.

A short while later, while everyone was still trying to think of how to get across this corridor, Gu Suihan suddenly made his move. He thrust his sword out like a venomous snake lying in wait, stabbing it toward Wang Aolin silently.

“How dare you!”

Wang Aolin still didn’t realize what was going on yet, but the two other disciples, who were actually housing the souls of two Peak Leaders, immediately reacted and slammed a palm toward Gu Suihan’s sword with an angry shout.

“And why not?” snorted Gu Suihan as he instantly disappeared.

Before they could locate him again, a shadow as dark as ink appeared behind Wang Aolin. It took only one tap on Wang Aolin’s spiritual root located on his spine to send him howling in pain and flying like a kite with a broken string from sheer force. He crashed into the wall and slid down again weakly.

“I’ll take your blood to nourish my soul!” Gu Suihan was like a leech as he kept a firm grip on Wang Aolin’s chest. His face had turned an unnatural red color, while Wang Aolin’s face was pale and contorted. He couldn’t stop trembling and his healthy body was slowly drying up.

“You…I…even when I become a ghost…”

“When did you become a ghost?” Gu Suihan snorted even as Wang Aolin glared at him in indignation. He ignored the glaring, grabbed Wang Aolin by the head, and pulled the man’s unwilling soul out before stuffing it into his own mouth. “Did you think you could even become a ghost?”

That happened so quickly. Life and death were decided in a second.

Wang Aolin had been murdered in the blink of an eye.

He didn’t even get the chance to fight back at all.

“How dare you! Prepare to die!” The two Peak Leaders were so angry that their eyes were bloodshot as they yelled furiously at him, sending a huge wave of qi toward Gu Suihan.

“Till we meet again! If we ever do!” Gu Suihan kept his sword away and thrust his palm out to meet with the huge wave of qi coming his way, using the force from the qi to fly through the corridor. His body burst with so much murderous qi, it was almost solid. A thick layer of bloodied mist enveloped him like he was a demon of old rising from the victims of a massacre.

As he passed through the corridor, all the blood bats and bloodsucking worms immediately squirreled away as though they were faced with a natural enemy. Their squeaks were filled with terror as they echoed down the corridor.