Strange Tales of Laoshan! Ghosts die and become vengeful spirits; there's something in this fog!
The scream pierced their ears, causing Su Qingwu's body to stiffen.
She looked in the direction of the sound.
Not far away on the ground, several things lay scattered haphazardly.
They could no longer be called corpses.
They were the rogue cultivators who had rushed to the front earlier.
The flesh and blood on their bodies were being corroded by an invisible force, dissolving at a speed visible to the naked eye, revealing the stark white bones beneath.
The passage forcefully opened by the 'Wind Calming Plate' had long been swallowed by the re-closed poisonous fog.
One of them was not completely dead, writhing in agony on the ground, with pools of yellow fluid flowing from him, emitting a nauseating stench.
"It's... it's that bald guy who tried to touch my butt earlier..."
Su Qingling covered her mouth, her stomach cramping, barely managing not to vomit.
Zhou Ran's expression remained unchanged as he stepped over the pool of bloody water.
His leather boots crunched on the rotting dead leaves.
He stopped, glanced at the patch of rotting flesh still wriggling on the ground, and a cold arc pulled at the corner of his lips.
"This place is a bit more interesting than I imagined."
Zhou Ran looked up, his gaze piercing through layers of mist, staring directly into the unfathomable depths of the valley.
"The legend of Mount Ailao has come true."
The deeper they went, the darker it became.
Outside, the sun was blazing, but within the Myriad Medicine Valley, it was dim and lightless, like eternal night.
The thick mist was no longer green but turned grayish-white, layered densely like the sealing earth of a tomb, tightly enveloping everything around them.
"The compass is broken."
Su Qingwu looked at the dial with its wildly spinning needle, her face grim.
All electronic devices had malfunctioned here; the phone screens only showed static.
Silence reigned all around.
This silence wasn't the absence of sound, but rather that all sounds had been devoured by the heavy fog.
Occasionally, strange noises would drift from the distance.
"Woo—Awooo—"
The sound sometimes resembled an old bear's roar, and sometimes the suppressed weeping of a woman at the bottom of a well. In this environment with visibility less than five meters, every sound hammered directly onto their skulls.
"Sister, why do I feel like... something is watching us?"
Su Qingling clutched Su Qingwu's arm, her fingernails digging into her flesh.
Her cheeks were flushed with an unnatural red, and her breathing was rapid.
The Tidal Sacred Body, in this extremely Yin andevil spirits (baleful) environment, was like fresh meat thrown into boiling oil, attracting the attention of some kind of entity.
"Stop looking around, focus your mind and calm your breath!"
Su Qingwu hissed in a low voice, but her own voice sounded unsteady.
She discovered that the spiritual power within her body was beginning to surge uncontrollably; an invisible thread was pulling at their origins, dragging them toward the depths of the mist.
Several figures appeared ahead.
They were disciples from the White Bone Cave.
These people usually enjoyed playing with corpses and possessed extremely heavy Yin energy.
But now, they stood motionless beneath a dead, old tree, as if they had lost their souls.
"Hey! Which way is the path ahead?"
Just as Su Qingwu was about to speak and ask, Zhou Ran raised his hand to stop her.
"Don't speak."
"Watch closely."
Just as the two sisters were confused, a terrifying scene unfolded.
A White Bone Cave disciple who was complaining to his companion, his mouth still open mid-sentence...
In the next second, his facial features began to flow.
His nose, eyes, and mouth all melted, converging into a smooth, pale white mask of skin.
Then came the body.
The person didn't even let out a single scream; his entire being was violently wiped away by an invisible force!
His clothes fell to the ground.
Inside, there was nothing left but a puddle of clear water.
Even the soul had been completely erased.
"What... what kind of sorcery is this?!"
Su Qingwu's pupils constricted, and her heart skipped a beat.
Even the cruelest Corpse Dissolving Water in the Cultivation World would leave a trace, and even the Demonic Path's Soul Extraction and Spirit Refining would elicit a couple of screams.
But this silent 'disappearance' completely shattered her understanding.
"It's not sorcery."
Purple light flowed in Zhou Ran's eyes, and two faint flames flickered deep within his pupils.
In his vision, this grayish-white mist was not mist at all.
It was countless dense, translucent, black humanoid creatures.
They hung upside down from dead tree branches, crawled in the grass, and even floated above everyone's heads.
They had no facial features, only a bottomless maw, greedily sucking the life force from every living person.
"When a person dies, they become a ghost; when a ghost dies, it becomes 'Nì'."
Zhou Ran stood with his hands behind his back, calmly explaining.
"The Yin energy has settled here for a thousand years; it's a natural corpse-nurturing ground.
These people weren't melted; they were eaten by 'Nì'.
This thing has no physical form, so physical attacks are ineffective. It specializes in consuming living souls and can also block the five senses of the living."
"In their eyes, cultivators like you are like uncracked eggs; crack them open just a little, and they can suck everything inside clean."
Before the words could fall,
A gust of cold wind struck from the side.
"Ah!"
Su Qingling let out a short, sharp cry.
A black humanoid creature hanging from a tree branch swooped down like a shadow.
Its faceless front pressed directly against Su Qingling's protective spiritual light—that spiritual shield capable of blocking bullets was as thin as a cicada's wing before it.
The black shadow pierced through the blue light, and an icy touch was about to touch Su Qingling's forehead.
She was so frightened her legs went weak, and she fell to the ground, only fear remaining in her mind, forgetting to react in any way.
"Scram."
A cold snort.
Zhou Ran didn't turn his head; he raised his right hand, lightly rubbing his index finger and thumb together.
Snap.
A cluster of purple-gold flames leaped out from his fingertip.
This tiny spark was insignificant in the gray mist, but when Zhou Ran flicked his finger, the flame touched the body of that 'Nì'.
"Jii—!!!"
A piercing shriek that tore at the eardrums exploded!
The formless, intangible monster ignited. The purple-gold Demonic Fire clung to its essence, instantly burning it into nothingness.
Several dark shadows lurking nearby were frightened by the terrifying high temperature and scattered in panic, letting out frightened chirps.
"Can you get up?"
Zhou Ran lowered his gaze, looking at the little girl still trembling on the ground.
Su Qingling stared at him blankly.
Just now, the shadow cast by this man's back was like a towering mountain, and that domineering aura that looked down on everything was far more soul-stirring than the multitude of ghosts on the mountain.
"I... I can..."
She shakily got up, her legs still trembling.
Zhou Ran withdrew his gaze and looked toward the small path leading to the valley floor, a cold laugh escaping his lips.
He had to admit, Ye Futian Ye Futian's cultivation technique was truly domineering.
These things that were formless and intangible to other cultivators could not hide from his eyes.
As long as it wasn't the Xi possessing Feng Lili, he could handle them completely.
Suddenly, Zhou Ran's ear twitched slightly, and a faint golden light flashed and disappeared ahead.
"If you don't want to become feed, stick close.
There's an old acquaintance ahead who can't hold on much longer."