Chapter 34 - Pursuing the Fox Demon (2/2)
“Hey?” Puzzled, Lonemoon stepped forward and announced, “The fox demon is gone.”
Yi Qing, who was just as baffled, used his Divine Perception to probe around and did not find any trace of it either. “I was scanning the surrounding area just now and did not see it escaping, so it must still be here.”
Indeed, if the fox demon could slip away right under their eyes, it would not needed to have sacrificed its two tails to escape. The cultivation of a Blood Fox lay in its tails, so losing two tails at once was very damaging to its cultivation level.
“What’s that?” The two of them were planning to search again when Shen Ying suddenly asked them, her hand pointing to a particular spot.
Looking in the direction she was pointing to, Lonemoon saw a pile of gravel there which looked just the same as the rest; he could not spot anything special about it. But out of trust in Shen Ying, he walked over quickly and glanced at the pile of gravel. “Huh?”
“These stones are floating up.” Cats having the best night vision, the civet cat had spotted the discrepancy.
But because the stones did not float up much, they had not spotted it just now. Alarmed, Lonemoon immediately formed a hand seal to sweep away the surrounding gravel. A completely intact stone slate could be seen at the bottom. Despite Yi Qing’s battering, it had not suffered the slightest crack. And this stone slate…
“This is an array formation!” Lonemoon cried out loudly. The lines on the slate were clearly the imprints left by an array formation. He had not made the association earlier because his Spirit Qi was not activated.
“What is the use of this array formation?” asked Yi Qing. He and Shen Ying were laymen when it came to array formations.
Lonemoon looked at the array formation closely before replying, “It looks like an isolating array formation, but the Dharmic talisman on it is different from normal ones. This looks ancient.” Wrinkling his brows, he added, “But the fox demon is definitely hiding underneath it.”
After he finished activating his Spirit Qi, Lonemoon pressed his hands directly on the stone slate. As if being lit, the markings on the slate shone brightly, the lights spreading wider and wider until it covered the entire pile of gravel. Both big and small pieces of gravel floated up. The stone slate under Lonemoon’s feet shook and then began to move apart slowly.
“It’s opening!” warned Lonemoon, signaling everybody to move back.
Within moments, a huge pit had appeared in the ground. The pit was so deep that one could not see to the bottom and there was a pungent smell emanating from within.
“Demonic aura!” Yi Qing looked up at the other two. “It belongs to the fox demon.”
“It really is hiding underneath. After it!” cried Lonemoon, jumping in. This fox demon was so cunning. No wonder it had decided to hide in this cave; the darkness in the cave meant that there was no way they could have detected the array formation, so naturally they would not have been able to locate it as well. It was just that the fox demon had not counted on them dicing apart the cave.
The pit was so deep that they had to fly down for two minutes before they reached the ground. It was pitch black down there. Lonemoon raised his hands to summon a fire. Now they could see that there was nothing around. The whole place was silent. Although the demonic aura was still prominent, there was no sign of the fox demon.
“It’s so stinky here!” The civet cat had covered his nose as soon as he landed, reflexively hiding behind Shen Ying.
Looking around, Shen Ying reached out and touched the mountain wall. Her hand came back covered in a red gloop. “Huh. Is this mountain bleeding?”
Blood? Puzzled, Lonemoon immediately walked over and looked at the dripping mountain wall. He had attributed the redness to the soil here being reddish. But upon closer examination, he realized that the stuff covering the wall was not red soil at all—it was blood.
Could it be…
“Only this side of the mountain wall has blood stains.” Yi Qing informed them after having taken a sweep of the surroundings.
Lonemoon frowned, and a terrible suspicion formed in his mind. Pulling aside Shen Ying, he said, “Get back. There may be something behind this mountain wall.”
Lonemoon formed a hand seal and the jade flute in his hand at once transformed into a sword. Numerous beams of Sword Qi struck the stone wall. There was a huge bang, and the mountain wall in front collapsed instantly to reveal a wider area.
They were suddenly assailed by the pungent stench of blood. Blood was everywhere; the walls and the ground were all splattered with blood. There were even a few decaying limbs lying scattered on the ground. A square platform stood right in the middle of it all. A red light from an array formation lit up the platform brightly, making the whole place appear even redder.
Lonemoon blurted out, “Blood Sacrifice Array!” It had turned out as he had suspected.