"Junior Sister Liu, you and Senior Brother Chu go ahead first, I'll catch up later."
After recovering slightly, Lu Li said with a flickering gaze to Liu Xinyu and the other person.
Liu Xinyu understood his meaning, nodded, and looked at Chu Qingfeng, who wore a hard-to-accept expression. "Senior Brother Chu, let's go."
Chu Qingfeng nodded woodenly and followed Liu Xinyu forward.
Only after the two had left did Lu Li summon the Blood Soul Banner and thrust it straight into a corpse's chest. Instantly, the body began to shrivel. Thread-like blood Qi slowly seeped into the banner pole, while gray-white Qi merged into the banner surface.
About half a quarter-hour later, all three corpses had shriveled into desiccated husks. Lu Li retrieved the Blood Soul Banner and discovered that several more bodiless evil spirits had appeared on the banner surface. Some possessed green faces and fangs, while others had faces covered in pus sores, each with distinct features as they chased one another.
It was as if they were trying to devour each other.
Lu Li withdrew his Divine Sense and opened the three Storage Bags. Inside, he found six thousand contribution cards along with various miscellaneous items. Rummaging through them, Lu Li was suddenly drawn to a gray ancient book.
Great Evolution Forbidden Arts
Looking at the bold characters on the cover, Lu Li frowned slightly and slowly opened it.
Forbidden arts take the eight directions of heaven and earth as their foundation, drawing upon the power of all living things in the world. They can attack, defend, absorb, and restrict...
After casually flipping through a few pages, Lu Li realized this seemed to be a manual on forbidden formations and techniques. However, the contents were far too profound; a brief glance left Lu Li feeling dizzy and lightheaded.
"Should be a treasure."
This location was unsuitable for study, so Lu Li stowed the Great Evolution Forbidden Arts into his space palace and pressed forward.
That Chu Qingfeng was far too soft-hearted. Who knew if he would end up ruining things?
As he walked, Lu Li's gaze flickered with hesitation. He feared Chu Qingfeng would crack under Sect interrogation and spill everything, yet he had no desire to kill him either, leaving him caught in a difficult dilemma.
After all, the man had never once harbored malicious intent toward him, and his character was genuinely honorable-calling him chivalrous and righteous would be no exaggeration.
Before long.
Lu Li finally emerged from the winding forest path. Ahead lay a fenced stone terrace, and beyond it stretched a cliff path with stone steps over a zhang wide. At the peak of the steps stood a cave dwelling lacking any door, with three large characters carved above the entrance: "Qingyang Mansion."
At this moment, Liu Xinyu and Chu Qingfeng were standing about a zhang away from the base of the steps, examining something.
Lu Li stepped forward and realized it was a corpse.
Covered in wounds and scorched burn marks, the body looked thoroughly wretched.
"Brother Lu," Liu Xinyu turned around to greet him.
Chu Qingfeng kept a gloomy face and said nothing.
Lu Li nodded. "Isn't this one of those fellows? How did he end up dead here?"
"We have no idea. He was already dead when we arrived," Liu Xinyu replied.
At that, Lu Li squatted down and patted the corpse's remains, discovering the Storage Bag was already gone. He quickly pieced together what had happened and shook his head. "Those three must have killed him."
"Those three?"
"Mm."
Without further explanation, Lu Li turned his gaze to the stone steps leading up the mountain. "Shall we go up and take a look?"
"Alright." Liu Xinyu nodded and followed Lu Li onto the steps.
Chu Qingfeng hesitated for a brief moment before following as well.
Aside from each step being noticeably taller than ordinary stone steps, nothing seemed particularly unusual at first.
However, when Lu Li reached the tenth step, he suddenly felt a faint weight press down upon his shoulders. Though very light, he definitely felt it.
Liu Xinyu, following right behind, reacted even more noticeably. Her body shivered slightly as she frowned and said, "There seems to be something strange about this place."
"Is there?"
Lu Li sensed carefully, found nothing out of the ordinary, and continued upward.
When he reached the twentieth step, the pressure returned, feeling as though a second brick had been added to the one he was already carrying.
"Strange."
Lu Li shook his head and pressed on.
At the thirtieth step, the burden increased by another notch. By now, Liu Xinyu was already sweating at the brow. "Brother Lu, there's likely a gravity forbidden formation here."
"A gravity forbidden formation?" Lu Li asked, puzzled.
"Mm. I've read about them in my family's records. Certain powerful figures can utilize the local terrain to set up forbidden formations-gravity formations among them, which can also be treated as Formations. Anyone who enters will experience gravity far exceeding the outside world, slowing their movements. If the formation is powerful enough, it can literally crush a person to death."
"Such a thing actually exists?"
Lu Li frowned and looked up at the remaining stone steps overhead. There appeared to be another seventy or eighty steps left. He hesitated for a moment. "Forget it. Since we've already come this far, it would be a waste not to try."
With that, he continued upward.
The reason he dared to proceed had to do with the fat deacon from the Hundred Treasures Pavilion. Since that fellow had specifically mentioned a blue stone inside Qingyang Mansion, it proved someone had either reached the place before or knew it could be done.
If others could make it, could a body cultivation practitioner like him truly be stopped by a mere gravity formation?
Before he knew it, Lu Li had reached the seventieth step.
At this point, the burden felt comparable to an ordinary person carrying a bucket of water. Though weighty, it was hardly enough to stump him.
Liu Xinyu, on the other hand, was hunched over with labored breathing, struggling heavily.
"Junior Sister, perhaps... you shouldn't go any further?" Lu Li thought to himself that her dropping out would be ideal-should there be any treasure inside, he wouldn't have to split it.
Liu Xinyu wiped the sweat from her brow, glanced at the remaining steps, and gritted her teeth. "I-I think I can still manage."
"Very well." Lu Li curled his lips and kept moving.
To his surprise, Chu Qingfeng, who had remained silent the entire time, looked even more relaxed than Liu Xinyu, eventually overtaking her altogether.
When they reached the ninetieth step, the gravity surged abruptly. Caught off guard, Lu Li's frame shuddered under the sudden increase, equivalent to trading a bucket of water for a sack of cement.
Yet, after a brief moment of adjustment, he stabilized.
Only nine steps remained, and the gravity ceased increasing further. It seemed this was the limit.
So-called gravity forbidden formations were apparently nothing special.
If anything, Lu Li felt a twinge of disappointment. With such trivial pressure, it likely wouldn't stop the two behind him either, meaning the treasure would still have to be split three ways. Unless he took matters into his own hands and drove them back, which didn't quite sit right with his conscience.
Sighing all the way, Lu Li finally reached the summit of the stone steps.
As he stepped onto the topmost platform, the heavy pressure vanished entirely. Before him lay a massive cave entrance, two zhang high and three zhang wide.
Looking inside, the floor was pitch black. At the deepest end sat a stone table, atop which rested a blue pebble the size of a palm. However, Lu Li's attention was not on the pebble.
Instead, it was drawn to a pile of scattered skeletal remains resting on a meditation cushion before the stone table. The skeleton was draped in an ink-green robe that gleamed with a faint black light, looking extraordinary at a glance.
Lu Li took a liking to it immediately.
Yet a lingering doubt remained in his mind: if this gravity formation wasn't particularly strong, why hadn't those four individuals entered the cave?
And what about the fat deacon who had commissioned him to retrieve the back-then...