Chapter 175: Abandoned Castle

"How about we map the perimeter?" Yu Lingluo suggested."You mean... measure how far this place extends?" Yu Xuan asked.

She nodded. "Yes. We can use the trees as cover while circling the edges. If this is a closed area, the plains ahead can serve as a buffer zone."

Yu Xuan frowned. "But what if all the enemies converge on us at once? We’d have nowhere to run."

"Then it comes down to a choice," Lingluo replied evenly. "Do we confront the unknown head-on, or carefully circle the perimeter? I’d rather not fight blindly. Mapping gives us an advantage."

He hesitated, then nodded. Lingluo didn’t press him; she knew he might act foolish at times, but when it mattered, he was dependable.

"...Alright. We’ll circle the perimeter. Luckily, our space rings mean we won’t have to worry about food."

So they set off, moving along the treeline. Yu Xuan quietly etched a mental map, marking distinct trees as they traveled. For twelve hours straight they walked, keeping mostly to a straight line. As the sun dipped below the horizon, a massive blood-red moon began to rise, staining the forest in its glow.

"Let’s stop here," Yu Xuan said at last. The silence was unsettling—no enemies, no insects, not even the rustle of ordinary beasts. The stillness pressed against them like a weight.

They settled beneath a massive tree. Yu Xuan drew out some pills from his storage ring and handed them over.

Lingluo wrinkled her nose but took them anyway, swallowing them without complaint. A campfire would only invite unwanted eyes; for now, discretion was survival.

"If you’re tired, you can sleep," she said.

"It’s fine. We’ll meditate instead," Yu Xuan replied. His gaze flicked to the shadows. "But keep your senses sharp. Sit back-to-back with me."

They did so, shoulders aligned, each facing half the darkness.

Above them, the blood-colored moon glowed ominously, its light falling like a curse over the forest.

***

In a abandoned castle that stood in the center of the trial ground a voice was heard, "My lady, those people are travelling the boundary"

Just then a sweet yet dangerous voice was heard, "Ho they didn’t run here immediatelly after seeing the smoke, anyways that is good too, whether they come here or not they will die, are they near the nodes."

The voice replied, "Yes my lady their location is near the nodes."

"Then send the hunters on their way, tell them their duty is to kill the them, and if they can’t they must die there."

The void replied, "Yes my lady." and then a sillatouse vanished from the castle.

In the castle on the throne sat a figure, A pair of deep blood red eyes opened and then it talked to itself.

"Either way, in some time my seal will be undone, then ha ha HAHAH HAHAHAHA" a voice filled with madness was heard laughing inside the castle.

***

Yu Xuan and Lingluo sat back to back in a meditative pose, their bodies calm but their minds razor sharp, eyes closed yet senses stretched taut.

To an outsider, they might have seemed at ease beneath the towering tree, but in truth, both siblings were more alert than ever.

Yu Xuan had already expanded his spirit sense, a invisible net of perception spreading outward in all directions. Thirty meters — this was his current limit.

Not much in the grand scheme of cultivation, but enough to give him a precious warning if something tried to creep close. He didn’t trust the ground either.

The way those earlier monsters crawled even without limbs still lingered in his mind. So he forced his spirit sense downward as well, probing for the faintest tremor in the soil.

Spirit sense itself was a marvel. To know everything in one’s surroundings without opening one’s eyes, to feel each leaf’s rustle, every shift in the wind, each breath of life within the perimeter — it was quite an experience. Yet Yu Xuan did not rely on that alone.

Behind his closed lids, he activated [Immortal’s Gaze]. It had a ability after he merger the this skill with [Heat Vision], one he still didn’t fully understand the principles of, yet.

When he focused, it was as if his sight drilled through obstacles. A tree, a rock, even the flow of grass — obstructions dissolved, leaving a clear line of vision as though the world itself had no secrets before him. It felt unnatural, but it also gave him an edge that few cultivators could dream of.

’Impossible mission or not, we will complete it in first run,’ Yu Xuan thought, tightening his grip around his determination.

Lingluo, on the other hand, relied less on mystical abilities and more on her own sharpened instincts.

Though her spirit sense was not nearly as expansive as Yu Xuan’s, her other senses were frighteningly acute.

She could catch sounds that should have been impossible for a Foundation Establishment cultivator — like faint heartbeats far off in the distance, the echo of a branch swaying in the wind, the distant rustle of creatures beyond sight.

Whether it was her bloodline or her physique awakening, Yu Lingluo wasn’t sure. But she had grown used to her strange advantage.

Every so often, Lingluo cracked open her eyes and stared into the darkness, pupils narrowing, her whole body tensing like a predator catching a scent.

Then it came. A sound — so faint that most would dismiss it as a trick of the night. But she stiffened. It wasn’t in her direction. It was in Yu Xuan’s.

"Xuan’er," she whispered, her voice barely audible, yet carrying the weight of certainty. "Did you hear it?"

Yu Xuan did not open his eyes. Through he had heard the faint voice, then he spoke, calm but firm.

"Northeast, right?"

Lingluo’s breath caught. She pictured herself seated where he was, checked the directions carefully — east, west, north, south. Finally, she nodded, though he couldn’t see it.

"Yes," she replied softly, her tone edged with tension.

Somewhere in the northeast, something had moved.

And it was moving closer.