Ling Han entered the village.
It was like a graveyard, deathly silent; no movement could be heard.
"It's too quiet!" Qin Lian Yue said, and kept looking at the places where the moonlight failed to reach as if a monster would suddenly jump out from the dark and forbidding place.
"No breathing, and no heartbeat!" Zhu Xuan Er said seriously.
For experts like them, breathing and heartbeat could still be heard even across several hundred meters and several walls; it wasn't a problem at all. But now, there was none of these sounds, and there wasn't even a tiny bit of the barking of dogs and the clucking of chickens.
It was as if this village was already abandoned for countless years, but it could be clearly seen that hanging from some people's houses were corncobs and red peppers, which represented there were still people living in this village not long ago, maybe even the previous day.
"Strange!" Everyone discovered something was amiss.
Ye Rong also walked over, and couldn't help but sneer as he said, "It's only a mortal's village, what's there to make a fuss about?"
No one paid attention to him; on the contrary, everyone's curiosity was piqued.
Ling Han pushed open a door and walked in. The house's furniture was all there; several dishes were even placed on the table, but now, they were obviously cold; smelling them, they hadn't gone rancid yet.
What happened suddenly that led to the entire village's death? Even the livestock was no more!
After searching the room, Ling Han came to another room, but it was much more chaotic here, with obvious signs of battle; there was fresh blood on the walls and the floor, making for a ghastly sight.
"A conflict happened, but the scale wasn't large… should be just a dispute between mortals," Qin Lian Yue inferred.
"But what exactly happened that actually involved the entire village, and even livestock?"
This was puzzling. Even if two people fought, it would be impossible to involve the entire village, let alone making the chickens and dogs suffer.
Ling Han walked into the inner chambers, and suddenly, he halted in his steps.
Hong, a black shadow suddenly scuttled out and pounced on Ling Han. It spread its arms as if to hug him, but its mouth was open wide, revealing ghastly white teeth, directly aiming for Ling Han's throat.
"Hmph, a mere mortal even dares to assault people?" Ye Rong said in disdain. He flicked his finger on the right hand, and that figure instantly fell down backwards—traces of blood burst from its forehead.
"Hm!" Ling Han was astounded, and with a shake of the right hand, Origin Power turned into flames, lightning up the surroundings. That certainly was a villager with a bloody hole on its forehead, but the blood didn't splatter everywhere. It was just a bloody hole, oozing out traces of black-colored blood.
"What's there to look at?" Ye Rong said dissatisfied. The medicinal valley was nearby, so why waste time here?
"This is a Corpse Soldier!" Ling Han frowned. This person had already died for a long time, so the blood was all congealed; if Corpse Soldiers weren't tempered, they would be left with the most primitive instincts.
Slaughtering and devouring the flesh of living creatures.
Evidently, the village's livestock was all eaten by the villagers that turned into Corpse Soldiers, and most of them should have entered the mountains and forest to continue searching for food. This one remained in ambush in the room, and was just a corpse if it wasn't disturbed, but once it smelled the presence of living creatures, it began to move.
The mystery was solved, and everyone let out a sigh of relief. The unknown was the most terrifying, and now that they knew what they were going to face, they felt relieved.
"Strange, why are there Corpse Soldiers here… could it be Thousand Corpse Sect's doing?" Ling Han muttered. Some time ago, the Thousand Corpse Sect was quite high-profile, besieging Million Treasures City with the Fourth Killing Formation; if it were for Feng Po Yun's appearance, Million Treasures City would most likely have fallen into the hands of the Thosuand Corpse Sect.
He had a feeling that Thousand Corpse Sect, which acted low-key constantly, would rise entirely and abruptly in this lifetime.
This was both the best age and the worst age for it.
"Nothing more than low-level Corpse Soldiers." Ye Rong actually recognized Corpse Soldiers, and didn't just know how to be arrogant.
Ling Han searched the entire village. There was a total of five Corpse Soldiers, and what surprised him was that there were two that were much stronger than others—they probably devoured other Corpse Soldiers and obtained an increase in power.
At the Fallen Moon Gorge, Ling Han stopped the Thousand Corpse Sect's schemes once. They wanted to use medicinal pills to turn everyone in the desolate north into Corpse Soldiers, which would start devouring each other to foster a Corpse King.
Could the Thousand Corpse Sect act so reckless now even in the middle state?
In terms of population, the middle state had enough to foster many Corpse Kings, but the problem was that would Absolute Saber Sect, Heaven's Sword Sect, and other such super forces let the Thousand Corpse Sect act so recklessly?
This world was bound for turmoil.
They set out again and passed by several small villages, discovering that everyone there had turned into Corpse Soldiers. In this situation, not only was Ling Han shocked, even Qin Lian Yue and Ye Rong became solemn.
What was the Thousand Corpse Sect trying to do?
They didn't find people of the Thousand Corpse Sect; because they were already in the depths of the mountains and forests, they soon arrived at a valley under Qin Lian Yue's guidance. Extremely remote, the entrance was blocked by a firmament tree, and if one didn't climb up intentionally, one definitely couldn't possibly discover it.
After the entrance, there was a long valley path, very tight and narrow, but after walking over thirty meters, it became broader and broader.
Above their heads, layers of protruding rocks concealed them. Even if flying by, one would only think this was a solid mountainous region, so how could one possibly know that there was actually a hole underneath?
Rays of light shone down through a mysterious refraction, and although it wasn't very bright, it was enough for people to see things.
After walking a while, the mountain valley finally showed itself. As expected, at the valley's entrance was a seventh tier spirit tree. It was a peach tree that produced lots of glowing red fruits, each one the size of a bowl rim, and the alluring fragrance could be smelled form far away.
Everyone's fingers itched, wishing to immediately pluck off a fruit for a taste. Hu Niu's saliva almost dripped down onto the ground.
However, no one dared to act recklessly, because at the valley entrance was a crimson red mountain leopard, with a total of nine fist-sized vein-like patterns on its back.
Gray Patterned Leopard, a Spiritual Infant Tier beast; the vein-like patterns on its back represented which layer it was at.
Ninth layer Spiritual Infant Tier beasts were usually much stronger than normal ninth layer Spiritual Infant Tier martial artists because beasts were thick-skinned, and their claws and fangs were equivalent to rare metals of the same tier, surpassing same-level martial artists in both destructive power and defensive power,
"Why's it a ninth layer Spiritual Infant Tier beast!" Ye Rong frowned. Although he believed that it was hard to find opponents in the same tier, it was game over when he'd encountered a Spiritual Infant Tier opponent, let alone this ninth layer Spiritual Infant Tier beast.
Although the spirit fruits were before them, they could only look.
Ling Han was overjoyed. If this peach tree could be stored into the Black Tower, then there would be a steady flow of seventh-tier spirit peaches to eat!