The luminous fungi cast weak, ghostly light across the ancient stone passages as five cultivators made their way backwards. Their quickened footsteps, though carefully placed, seemed to echo with growing tension.
Fan Wei's shoulders carried a weight heavier than physical exhaustion. His usually stoic expression had cracked, revealing signs of worry that made him look older than his twenty-two years. Each step seemed to deepen his frown as memories of his last conversation with Junior Brother Liu played in his mind.
"Senior Brother, I can still fight!" Liu had insisted, his young face full of determination despite the trembling in his limbs. "I can still at least help with support and—"
"Liu." Fan Wei's voice had been gentle but firm.
"You're only twelve. The second level of Qi Refining. This isn't about your effort or determination."
"But Senior Brother Wei!"
Liu grabbed Fan Wei's sleeve as the older disciple's expression darkened with anger. Just yesterday, he had caught other cultivators making Liu carry more equipment than he was tasked for as well as mocking his 'trash cultivation.'
"Even if... even if I'm only useful for errands, I want to help! I don't won't be a burden..."
"Liu," Fan Wei had nearly stepped in when he saw them pushing Liu around, but the boy had subtly shaken his head.
"Sometimes being brave means knowing when to step back," Fan Wei said softly, his heart aching at having to swallow such humiliation. Even now, he could hear those disciples laughing and even encouraging Liu to stay, so that Liu can continue to help carry equipment for them.
"You're not like me. Time will come, but for now..."
Zhao Lingfeng walked beside Fan Wei now, matching his pace. Their years of shared experiences as "trash disciples" had created an unspoken understanding between them and a bond close enough to be considered brothers.
"It wasn't wrong to send him back. We all agreed it was safer," Zhao Lingfeng said quietly.
Fan Wei bitterly laughed.
"Safer? I knew I should have volunteered to escort. Now Ming Hui lies unconscious, and the others..."
He couldn't finish the sentence.
"Juniors!" Lang Xiaoli's sharp voice cut through their conversation. "If you two keep dragging your feet like this, we might as well hand ourselves over to whatever attacked the escort group!"
The beautiful cultivator stood several paces ahead, her delicate features twisted with barely concealed disdain. Her spiritual energy rippled with barely contained impatience. It was the mark of someone who had reached the seventh level of Qi Refining and wasn't afraid to remind others of it. Out of the group of thirty, she was one of the only six seventh level Qi Refining cultivators.
"Sister Lang speaks truth," Pei Shunyuan added smoothly, his eyes lingering a moment too long on Lang Xiaoli's face. "And where is this famous bear we've heard so much about? Don't tell me our... experienced beast tamer left his only asset behind?"
The word 'experienced' dripped with sarcasm. Just hours ago, the same man had been full of fawning praise, calling Zhao Lingfeng 'Senior Brother' and offering to even help him negotiate with others for the Thunder Silk rights. Amazing what a revelation about cultivation level could do to one's personality.
"The bear needed rest. And its size would make stealth difficult," Zhao Lingfeng replied evenly, keeping his tone neutral despite the obvious mockery.
They had already gone over this back at the resting camp, but it was brought up again.
Lang Xiaoli laughed. "Stealth? Well you are right, but then what use is you being here? Low cultivation, a beast tamer with no beast? Haah. I hope you make sure to live up to Senior Brother Qin Yi's expectations."
"Enough."
Yue Jing's deep voice rumbled through the passage. The burly woman stepped between them, her broad frame a stark contrast to Lang Xiaoli.
"We're here to rescue our fellow disciples, not measure cultivation levels."
"Oh? And I suppose you think leadership should fall to someone who can barely channel spiritual energy?" Lang Xiaoli's eyes narrowed. "Your strength might equal mine, Sister Yue, but your judgment clearly needs work."
"Better judgment guided by compassion than strength wielded with arrogance," Yue Jing shot back.
The tension in the air thickened. Both seventh-level cultivators' spiritual energy began to leak out, creating subtle fluctuations that made the fungi's light flicker.
"Sisters," Pei Shunyuan stepped forward, his hands raised placatingly. "Maybe we should—
"Be quiet," both women snapped in unison, then glared at each other for sharing the same thought.
Fan Wei's hand had drifted to his sword hilt, his expression growing darker.
Zhao Lingfeng watched the situation deteriorating with growing concern. They were wasting precious time, and worse, the leaked spiritual energy could attract unwanted attention. He needed to defuse this quickly, but with his revealed cultivation level, simple authority wouldn't work.
He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could…
A distant scream echoed through the passages, silencing their argument.
All five cultivators froze.
Before Lang Xiaoli could make another cutting remark, Zhao Lingfeng's voice rang,
"Let's go. Now!"
Without waiting for everyone's response, he dashed off. Soon after, the rest followed.
They sprinted through the passages, their footsteps echoing off ancient stone as they traced their way back along their original path.
Despite having a head start, Zhao Lingfeng found himself falling behind, his legs burning with effort as he struggled to match the pace of those with higher cultivation. Each step reminded him of the vast gulf between the third and sixth levels of Qi Refining, let alone the seventh.
Even with the Stat points he gained, it clearly was nowhere near enough.
Damn this weak body, he cursed silently, but kept his focus on the path ahead.
When he finally caught up, he found the others standing still, their faces frozen in varying expressions of horror. Following their gaze downward, he understood why.
A cultivator lay sprawled on the cold stone floor, robes soaked crimson. Black sludge oozed from his wounds, bubbling in a way that seemed to writhe in the fungi's dim light. His chest still rose and fell with shallow breaths, but his body was completely paralyzed.
And he wasn't alone.
As they pressed forward, they found more. Each body positioned as if they'd been carefully arranged like a grotesque gallery of fallen cultivators. Some bore defensive wounds, others looked as if they'd never had a chance to fight back. All shared the same black sludge seeping from their injuries.
At the end of this bloody trail, they found one still clinging to consciousness. Wang Chen, a sixth-level cultivator known for his steady personality and skill with a sword. Now he lay trembling, his skin pale as paper where it wasn't stained by that horrific black substance. His mouth worked desperately, trying to form words that wouldn't come.
"Brother Wang!" Fan Wei knelt beside him, hands hovering uncertainly over the black sludge coating Wang Chen's wounds. "We need to—"
"Careful," Yue Jing warned, her usual boisterous demeanor replaced by grim focus. "Whatever that black thing is, it's definitely not good."
Zhao Lingfeng's hand instinctively moved toward his inventory, where healing elixirs waited. But one look at Wang Chen's condition made him hesitate. The wounds were too severe, and there was too much of that black sludge.
Fan Wei and Yue Jing worked carefully, using strips torn from their robes to try and clean away the sludge without direct contact. Each touch made Wang Chen's body convulse with fresh agony.
"Stop wasting time," Lang Xiaoli's cold voice cut through their efforts. "He's already dead— his body just hasn't accepted it yet." She produced a jade bottle from her robes. "This detoxification pill will give him enough clarity to tell us what happened. That's the best use of our time now."
Her words were cruel, but not wrong.
Even as she spoke, by touching his vital points, one could sense his life force steadily withering away.
While the others argued over Lang Xiaoli's suggestion, Zhao Lingfeng kept watch down the passage they'd come from.
This was a dead end.
The perfect place for an ambush.
Yet nothing moved in the gloom. He glanced back, troubled by the absolute stillness. They'd already moved the unconscious cultivators to a more defensible position, but something still felt wrong.
That's when he noticed Wang Chen's eyes.
Everyone had assumed his frantic eye movements were just symptoms of the paralysis and pain. But there was purpose in those desperate glances upward. Again and again, even though he couldn't move his neck, his eyes kept rolling toward the ceiling.
Zhao Lingfeng's own eyes followed that terrified gaze up into the darkness above.
There was nothing but darkness.
But as he stared intently at the darkness, the System had recognized Zhao Lingfeng's actions and what followed was a familiar display.
His blood ran cold.
"GET AWAY!"
His shout carried such urgency that the others leapt or tumbled backward on pure instinct. Even Lang Xiaoli flinched at the sudden command, but she had been kneeling closest to Wang Chen, and her momentary startlement cost her precious fractions of a second.
Zhao Lingfeng didn't think.
His body moved on its own, crossing the space between them in a desperate lunge.
*KAK*
His arms wrapped around Lang Xiaoli as something descended from above with an eerie clicking sound. They hit the ground rolling as wet sounds of tearing flesh filled the air where she had been kneeling moments before.
Lang Xiaoli's mouth opened, likely to voice outrage at being handled so roughly by someone of inferior cultivation.
But the words died in her throat as she saw Zhao Lingfeng's expression.
No, what caused the words to be lost was what she saw behind Zhao Lingfeng.
In the dim light of the luminous fungi…
[[ABNORMAL] Mutated Shadowspike Crawler Level 16]
A massive, segmented body clung to the ceiling, its pale exoskeleton seeming to drink in what little light reached it. Each segment bore countless blade-like legs that clicked softly against stone as it moved. When they met their gazes with the creature's head... they felt their heartbeats stop: a creepy bone-grey skull-like visage with hollow sockets.
The beast's body stretched long, hovering down from the ceiling like a grotesque serpent. Its jaw, if it could be called that, had opened to reveal row upon row of needle-like teeth, now buried deep in Wang Chen's flesh. Black sludge dripped from its maw, hissing softly where it struck stone.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Even Lang Xiaoli, still pressed against Zhao Lingfeng from his rescue, remained perfectly still. Her usual pride and disdain had vanished, replaced by the instinctive terror of prey in the presence of a terrifying beast.
Then, with a smooth movement that contrasted its segmented nature, the creature retreated back into the darkness above.
One moment it was there, horrifically visible in all its alien grace.
The next… gone.
As if it had never existed at all.
Only the soft patter of Wang Chen's ruined body hitting the floor proved it hadn't been a shared hallucination.
Zhao Lingfeng stared at the space where Wang Chen's body lay.
The nameplate that should have floated above him, indicating his cultivation level and identity, had vanished completely.