Free Web NovelBlack Wind Mountain, halfway up the slope.
The area shrouded by that sinister formation was no longer an impenetrable iron wall in Su Ming's eyes.
The azure water line moved like a living spirit snake, silently gliding through the gaps between the dark blood-colored formation lines. As Su Ming's mind stirred slightly, that water line precisely coiled around an extremely concealed energy reflux node within the formation, his spiritual energy frequency completing hundreds of subtle synchronization oscillations in an instant.
"Hum..."
A faint sound, almost inaudible.
The seemingly normal space ahead rippled like a calm lake struck by a pebble, sending out an invisible ring of ripples. Following that, a narrow gap barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways silently opened beneath the dense tree shadows.
Beyond the gap lay another world.
A thick, nearly tangible stench of blood mixed with the rotting odor of soil rushed toward him, churning his stomach violently.
But he did not enter immediately.
The first principle of the "Way of Survival" was never to place oneself in a dangerous situation with incomplete information. A cultivator capable of setting up such a sinister killing formation would surely have laid deadly traps at every step within his cave dwelling. freewebnovel.cσ๓
Su Ming slowly sat cross-legged outside that hair-thin gap in the formation.
The night wind brushed past his somewhat thin shoulders, rustling his robes, but he seemed oblivious. His mind sank into a stillness as deep as an ancient well.
From his storage pouch at his waist, he unhurriedly took out three blank formation plates, each the size of a walnut with surfaces smooth as mirrors. These were scraps he had personally polished during his time in the Repair Hall—small, unremarkable, but extremely portable.
Liquid spiritual energy from the Foundation Establishment stage surged out from the Shaoshang point at his fingertip, forming an azure engraving knife thinner than an embroidery needle.
His eyes were half-closed, but his divine sense was intensely focused. In his mind, the two hundred and seventeen runes from The True Meaning of Basic Rune Deconstruction, which he had already memorized to perfection, lit up one by one like stars in the night sky.
He did not choose any offensive runes. Instead, he selected three of the most basic auxiliary runes that high-level cultivators would most likely overlook—"Probe," "Return," and "Minute."
"Probe" was used to sense spiritual energy fluctuations; "Return" transmitted the perceived information back; and "Minute" was his own unique variation. Its sole purpose was to compress the spiritual energy fluctuations generated by the first two runes during operation to the extreme, making them as faint as a firefly in summer night—utterly inconspicuous before the blazing sun of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's divine sense.
The spiritual energy engraving knife moved across the smooth formation plate with fluid precision, without any hesitation. Complex rune structures became the simplest strokes under his hands, and one azure line after another was precisely carved into the plate's interior, eventually interweaving into a miniature, exquisite, yet perfectly closed-loop detection array.
In the time it takes to burn an incense stick, three "Miniature Detection Arrays" were completed.
Su Ming opened his eyes, a glint of satisfaction flashing within them. He did not rush to toss the plates inside but instead fumbled in his storage pouch for a moment, pulling out three ordinary mountain stones of different sizes and shapes.
He used a wisp of extremely faint spiritual energy, like glue, to stick the three formation plates to the undersides of the stones. Then he stood up and walked to the gap in the formation.
Taking a deep breath, he flicked his wrist gently.
The first stone, with the formation plate attached, was sent flying along an arc with a skillful force, lightly tossed to the left side of the cave entrance. It landed silently, like a withered leaf blown by the wind.
The second flew to the right side.
The third was angled with an extremely tricky trajectory into a crevice in the rocks directly above the cave mouth.
After doing all this, Su Ming sat cross-legged again. He closed his eyes, formed a strange hand seal, and instantly established an invisible link between his divine sense and the three distant formation plates.
The next moment, a silent "map" composed of pure spiritual energy slowly unfolded in his mind.
It was a massive cave located within the mountain's interior.
The three detection plates, like three loyal scouts, continuously fed back all spiritual energy reactions within the cave from three different angles.
In his "spiritual energy map," at the cave's entrance, the spiritual energy fluctuations were stable and faint, no different from the surrounding mountain rocks.
But as his divine sense delved deeper, on the left side, about thirty zhang into the cave, he "saw" an extremely yin-cold spiritual energy source, carrying a heavy aura of death. There... were at least a hundred stiffened corpses piled up!
On the right side was a churning blood pool. Floating above the pool was a black mass of qi, the size of a human head, formed from countless tangled resentful souls, radiating a sinister fluctuation that made one's heart tremble.
Su Ming's heart sank, little by little.
But what truly made his scalp tingle was the information fed back by the plate he had tossed into the rock crevice at the very deepest part.
At the cave's deepest point, a massive, violent, and highly unstable spiritual energy source was fluctuating violently. The intensity of that power far exceeded his own, a cultivator who had just reached Foundation Establishment. There was no doubt—it was at least the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage, or even... the middle stage!
Around that massive spiritual energy source, hundreds of extremely faint but rhythmically breathing spiritual energy fluctuation points were gathered.
Su Ming immediately understood what they were.
Those... were formation flags being simultaneously refined by the black-robed man! Hundreds of formation flags! Each one was connected to his divine sense and spiritual energy.
Su Ming's pupils, in the darkness, abruptly contracted into the most dangerous needle-point shape. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"The black-robed man is at the peak of early Foundation Establishment... head-on, I'd be... I'd better play it safe."
He made the calmest judgment in an instant.
But retreat just like that?
In Su Ming's mind flashed the image of Xu Qing's helpless face in the court, and the wanted poster from the Yongchang Marquis Manor that had hung for five years without being taken down.
No way!
This was his only chance, and Xu Qing's only chance as well.
