Chapter 114: What Is It This Time?

The sound rose from the bottom of the cliff. At first, it seemed distant, but it drew nearer and nearer with every passing moment.

The man stood frozen, trembling uncontrollably; his legs felt as if they had been shackled, unable to take a single step forward.

Then he saw it—a dark, swarming shape crawling up the cliff face. It had a raised tail and was about the size of a human palm.

He recognized it instantly.

A scorpion.

In a heartbeat, the creature lunged toward him. Only then did he scramble to flee, but after a single step, a wave of paralysis surged through his body, and he collapsed face-first onto the ground. Moments later, an endless tide of scorpions poured up from the abyss. In the blink of an eye, the man was devoured, leaving nothing behind but bleached bones.

***

Ji Yin noticed that the cliff walls were dotted with circular holes, each about the thickness of an arm. Some of the others, driven by curiosity, had reached inside, but they felt nothing; the holes seemed to descend deep into the rock.

"Do you smell that?"

"I smell it. It’s like the scent of medicine."

"No, that’s not quite right. It smells more like gunpowder."

"There’s a stench of rot, too."

Beside Ji Yin was one such hole, and it seemed the odor was emanating directly from within.

Suddenly, a dark shape appeared at the edge of the opening, its stinger arched high. It poked its head out for a fleeting second before retreating back into the darkness, unnoticed by anyone else. The area was pitch black, illuminated only by the flickering glow of torches. Visibility was poor, and the creature was so dark that even if it had crawled right in front of them, it would have been nearly impossible to discern.

Ji Yin felt a creeping sense of unease. Sometimes, a silence so profound was far more terrifying than any commotion.

"Ah!" A sudden cry pierced the air.

Everyone turned to look. The man was pressed against the wall, his face rapidly turning black, his body rigid and stiff. To keep him from falling, someone grabbed him firmly and frantically stuffed medicine into his mouth.

A silent, invisible fear began to spread through the group.

What was happening?

If the enemy were human, Ji Yun might have had a way to protect them all, but in this situation, he was utterly helpless.

Ji Yin suddenly sensed a disturbance in the hole beside her.

She glanced over, and a dark, wretched thing lunged out toward her!

She dodged instantly, and the creature scuttled along the stone wall, heading straight for Mo Chuan.

Ji Yin formed a talisman in her hand and unleashed a burst of flames at the dark shape.

"It’s a scorpion!"

The scorpion was set ablaze, its body writhing as it fell onto the stone stairs. The fire melted the creature into a liquid like caustic acid, which ate a hole right through the stone.

"Its venom is incredibly potent."

Ji Yin kept her fire talisman active, channeling her soul power to send it hovering into the air. Countless fireballs rained down like a downpour, plunging into the holes in the cliff walls. Such piercing power was sure to penetrate deep into the tunnels.

Chu Yu watched Ji Yin, a flicker of envy crossing his eyes. If it weren't for the fact that Ji Yin had been accepted into Kunlun and personally mentored by Xuan Yuanji, there was no way such a good-for-nothing girl could possess such formidable strength!

If only he had been the one to enter Kunlun—he would surely be a hundred times stronger than her!

Suddenly, a strange, rustling sound began to rise from the bottom of the cliff.

In the glow of the fire talisman Ji Yin had cast, they could see a sea of scorpions swarming toward them. It was a suffocating, black tide that made one’s scalp crawl.

"It’s over! It’s all over! We’re all going to die here today!"