Chapter Ninety-Nine: Red Rock

Jiang Yan’s divine sense swept rapidly through the space within a dozen meters around his body. Worrying for Tang Wan, he pushed it to work at full speed; the pointed tip of that sense, sharp as an arrowhead, sliced through the air with a faint hiss.

There.

A surge of delight flashed through Jiang Yan’s heart as a familiar mark appeared in his perception. Yes, this was the place he had been searching for. Through it, he could enter an underground cavity directly. He could use that tunnel to lure his pursuers toward the lair of the King of the Carnivorous Flowers. Once they reached that place, there would be a way to shake off the pursuit of those Qi Refinement cultivators at the Great Perfection stage.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Shadows of swords filled the sky and crashed down from above, darkening the heavens as they bore down on the two of them. The sword-shadows were already close above their heads.

Buzzing.

The emerald-wood arrows controlled by Tang Wan gave off a faint hum. Looking up at the innumerable golden sword-shadows sweeping down like a storm, Tang Wan felt a touch of helplessness. There were simply too many of them; her seven emerald-wood arrows could not possibly withstand such an assault. She could only shield her senior brother.

The cold, cutting gleam of the golden sword-shadows tore through the sky and reached the top of their heads.

With a sudden flash, Jiang Yan finally moved. He turned, carrying Tang Wan on his back, and transformed into a streak of golden light that vanished once more into the thick fog.

Thud, thud, thud.

The place where Jiang Yan had stood was riddled with countless deep, black pits by the golden sword-shadows.

...

Carrying Tang Wan on his back, Jiang Yan moved slowly through the underground cavity. It was utterly dark inside. Though it was daytime outside, the haze at the entrance obscured the light, leaving the cavern still shrouded in blackness.

After escaping the pursuit of the disciples of the Golden Flame Sect, Jiang Yan had quickly slipped into this underground passage. It ran straight on, and the carnivorous flowers were evenly distributed, so the danger of fleeing through it was comparatively low. If those people from the Golden Flame Sect failed to discover this tunnel, the two of them could calmly make their way to the Azure Wood Grove and take the Azure Hookwood.

The passage was pitch-black, so dark that one could scarcely see one’s own hand before one’s face. Yet this posed no obstacle to Jiang Yan. The divine sense within his sea of consciousness surged outward from his body, darting through the dim tunnel and feeding him every detail of its layout without missing a thing.

The tunnel stood several zhang high and was several meters wide. Its walls and ceiling were all formed from red stone. Along both sides near the walls, two neat rows of towering carnivorous flowers were arranged in order. Each stood about as tall as a person, growing in perfect alignment, like soldiers waiting in formation to welcome a general.

Between those ranks of flowers, every few meters there was a patch of bare ground. The floor there was red stone, and every dozen steps or so, that same red rock would appear once more in Jiang Yan’s perception.

A grave silence filled the tunnel. Apart from the faint drip of water from somewhere unseen and the intermittent breathing of Jiang Yan and Tang Wan, there was no other sound.

A soft burst of light bloomed on Tang Wan’s fingertip.

A green flame flickered and swayed there, illuminating everything in the cavern.

Under the glow of that flame, Tang Wan could finally see the passage clearly. She struggled a little on Jiang Yan’s back, then said softly in his ear, “Senior Brother, let me down. You’ve already walked such a long way; you must be tired too.”

Jiang Yan tightened the arm that held her. The warmth beneath his palm was exquisitely soft, causing his heart to tremble for an instant. Yet the carnivorous flowers within his divine sense snapped him back to awareness. With pursuers behind them and deadly flowers at their sides, a single misstep here could cost them their lives.

“This place has strange terrain, and there are many carnivorous flowers. Using my divine sense to lead the way is not only faster, it also lets me detect danger in advance. If you walk by yourself, you won’t be able to keep up, and I’d be afraid something might happen to you,” Jiang Yan explained patiently.

Tang Wan rested against his back, his hand still around her waist. A deep blush spread across her face, hot as fire. With a soft murmur, she buried her head against Jiang Yan’s shoulder and fell silent.

The green flame still danced at her fingertip, tracing on the dark, deep cave wall the gentle silhouette of a man carrying a woman on his back.

Jiang Yan’s divine sense surged out of his sea of consciousness and wrapped around the rune map inside the sect master’s ring. He studied the tunnel’s layout carefully.

This underground passage was roughly ten kilometers long. At its end lay the high ground where the King of the Carnivorous Flowers dwelled. Beyond that rise was the Azure Wood Grove, where the Azure Hookwood grew. West of the grove was the location of the Demon-Hunting Gate, the route that would lead them back to the land under Linqing Prefecture.

Though the passage was not especially long, the distribution of monsters within it nearly startled Jiang Yan out of his wits. On the rune map, the entire tunnel was packed with red dots representing demon beasts. Those dots stretched from the very beginning of the passage all the way to its far end.

What shocked Jiang Yan even more was that the map showed not only the small red dots marking the white carnivorous flowers along both sides of the tunnel, but also larger crimson points representing yet another kind of beast.

Carrying Tang Wan on his back, Jiang Yan walked to one of the empty spaces between the rows of carnivorous flowers. Looking down at the red stone beneath his feet, he muttered in puzzlement, “Could this stone itself be a demon beast?”

A booming explosion sounded at the entrance to the tunnel.

The blast was so fierce that the entire passage shook. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling.

“Senior Brother, they’re coming after us,” Tang Wan said gently, giving Jiang Yan a light push as he stared at the red stone in a daze. Her voice was soft with warning.

Jiang Yan turned in surprise. When he saw the billowing smoke and dust in the distance, he immediately came to his senses. The people from the Golden Flame Sect had caught up.

His gaze dropped again to the red stone on the ground, and his heart was filled with astonishment. The stone itself seemed perfectly ordinary, yet when he had looked at it just now, a brilliant and strangely captivating radiance had suddenly blossomed across its surface, drawing his attention with such force that he nearly lost himself in it. Had Tang Wan not called out in time, he might already have been robbed of his composure by that red rock.

Boom.

Another tremendous blast rang out in the distance. Along with it, a vast cloud of dust came pouring down from the ceiling. Amid the dust, a great golden sword flashed with dazzling light as it stabbed down from above with terrible force, striking the bottom of the tunnel.

“Haha, found them.”

Senior Brother Bai’s exaggerated laughter drifted in from outside the cave.

“Senior Brother Bai is incredible,” Lu Tiannan’s obsequious voice followed from the entrance.

“You lot, track them along the road all the way to the Demon-Hunting Gate and rendezvous there. I’ll take Lu Tiannan and search through the tunnel. We must find Jiang Yan of Mount Hua and kill him here.”

Senior Brother Bai’s fierce voice came in from outside, though there was a strange note of arrogance and distortion in it now.

Jiang Yan tightened his hold on Tang Wan’s back, touched his toes to the ground, and shot forward at full speed. The disciples of the Golden Flame Sect had split into two groups. If either one caught up to him, it would mean death for both him and his junior sister. At this point, the only option was to reach the tunnel’s other exit as quickly as possible. According to the markings on the rune map, he would have to pass through the high ground where the King of the Carnivorous Flowers was, then use the power of that king to hold back the Golden Flame Sect’s party.

Whoosh.

Jiang Yan’s movement technique was swift and fierce as he raced toward the other exit marked on the rune map.

Within Jiang Yan’s perception, aside from the carnivorous flowers and the red stone, the most numerous things along both sides of the tunnel were all manner of spiritual herbs: three-leaf clover, dragon-claw locust, western windfall and more. As more and more medicinal plants appeared in his divine sense, Jiang Yan felt his heart ache so sharply it was almost like bleeding. These were all top-grade spiritual herbs. Once refined into Foundation Establishment Pills, they would become countless spirit stones for the sect in the future.

“I see them!” Lu Tiannan’s voice suddenly came from behind.

Having jumped down into the tunnel, he immediately spotted the siblings racing away in the distance. The little green flame on Tang Wan’s fingertip allowed Lu Tiannan to notice them at a glance.

Tang Wan frowned and turned her head to glance at Lu Tiannan in the distance. Then she pushed the green flame at her fingertip gently aside, and it drifted lightly onto a nearby carnivorous flower.

Boom.

The moment the green flame landed on the flower, it erupted violently. In an instant, the entire carnivorous flower was burned to ashes and collapsed to the ground.

With its spiritual power source gone, the green flame that had fallen to the ground gradually dimmed and vanished, and the tunnel returned to complete darkness.

Lu Tiannan’s expression tightened sharply.

After leaving the girl’s fingertip, that green flame had still burned for quite a while. In Lu Tiannan’s memory, only the fire arts of alchemists from the Treasure Hall seemed to possess such terrifying power. Could this young woman be an alchemist?

Crash.

Senior Brother Bai, together with a heap of earth, dropped from the mouth of the tunnel. Clods of soil and chunks of rock scattered across the floor in an instant. Outside light poured through the newly broken opening and into the tunnel. In the slanting daylight, the dust and debris could be seen swirling wildly through the air.

“Where are they?” Senior Brother Bai’s first words after landing were to ask Lu Tiannan for Jiang Yan’s whereabouts, and from his tone he gave no sign of placing the sect master of this faction in his eyes at all.

“Over there.”

Though anger filled Lu Tiannan’s heart, he still answered Senior Brother Bai’s question. Outwardly he remained respectful, but inwardly he had already cursed Senior Brother Bai’s ancestors for eight generations and was even viciously praying that the man would be eaten by the carnivorous flowers.

With the light in the tunnel too dim, the great golden sword behind Senior Brother Bai soared into the air. Its blade shed a faint golden radiance that illuminated everything within the passage.

“Move.”

Without the slightest courtesy, Senior Brother Bai issued an order to Lu Tiannan.

P.S. Today this work has been placed on the featured recommendation list. I will shamelessly ask for votes here. I will not ask for today’s votes, only tomorrow’s recommendations. If tomorrow at noon the recommendation count exceeds five hundred, I will add a third chapter in gratitude.