Secluded Valley Corpse Tide

The tearing sensation of space was like being caught in a violent deep-sea vortex! My internal organs felt like they were shifting wildly!

Cheng Xi desperately grabbed onto anything he could – Yan Lingji's arm! Yan Lingji instinctively grabbed him back, her other hand shielding the Green Jade Sword Sheath protectively against her chest!

In the chaos, he seemed to collide with something hard and cold – Ying Zheng! Ying Zheng had lunged into the carriage the moment space twisted!

BOOM!

After a brief moment of weightlessness and dizziness, came the sharp pain of crashing heavily onto a hard, cold ground!

Cheng Xi grunted, ignoring the feeling of his body falling apart, and quickly rolled over to sit up!

The sight before him made him gasp!

It was a dead, silent Secluded Valley. The sky was leaden gray, low and oppressive, with no sun, moon, or stars. The valley was filled with an unmoving gray-white mist, carrying a heavy stench of decay and sulfur. Surrounding them were steep, jagged black cliffs, like the monstrous fangs of a beast.

But the most horrifying thing was the ground!

Dense!

Countless incomplete, highly rotten skeletons covered the entire valley floor! There were human-shaped ones, beast-shaped ones, and even some with distorted, unidentifiable shapes and enormous skeletons! The bones were a bizarre black-gray, covered in a layer of sticky, oily sheen. The intense death qi and grudges were almost tangible, churning and wailing silently in the gray mist!

This place was simply a forgotten charnel house of bones!

"Cough, cough..." Ying Zheng's suppressed cough came from beside him. He quickly stood up, his Black Robes covered in bone dust and sticky black oil, his face so grim it looked like water could drip from it. He tightly gripped the bronze fragment with the Sun Totem burning on it. A faint golden-red halo flickered on the fragment's surface, repelling the gray mist that tried to coil around them.

Yan Lingji also struggled to stand, her face pale, her hand holding the Green Jade Sword Sheath trembling slightly. The sheath's cool radiance seemed dim under the corrosive assault of the dense death qi and grudges. She looked at the valley full of skeletons, her flame-like eyes filled with terror.

[Environment scan complete! Coordinates confirmed: East of Mount Xiao · Secluded Valley (Spatial Layer/Ancient Battlefield Remnants)... Energy Attributes: Yin Sha Death Qi (Concentration: Extremely High)/Chaotic Grudges (Intensity: Dangerous)... Spatial Stability: Fragile/Multiple spatial folds present...]

The System's notification was cold and cruel. A Spatial Layer! An ancient battlefield! They had been forcibly pulled into this dead land by the spatial coordinates on that Witch Script Wood Fragment!

"This place... is extremely ominous!" Ying Zheng's voice held an unprecedented gravity. He had fought on battlefields and seen mountains of corpses and seas of blood, but the density of death qi and the weight of grudges here were beyond anything earthly!

As if to confirm his words--

"Crick... crick..."

A bone-grinding sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard, rose like a tide from the piles of skeletons in all directions!

Under the horrified gaze of the three, the mountains of skeletons in the valley began to stir!

Skeletal frames, one after another, as if pulled by invisible strings, staggered to their feet! Empty eye sockets ignited with eerie green or pale white phosphorescent fire! They grabbed scattered, broken bone spurs, rotten weapons, or even broke off their own ribs to use as weapons, like an awakened army of the undead, dense and numerous, slowly closing in on the intruders!

Bones scraped, phosphorescent fires flickered, and the silent Secluded Valley was instantly filled with skin-crawling sounds!

"Z-zombie outbreak?!" Yan Lingji's voice trembled, and flames instinctively rose from her fingertips, but they flickered unstably under the oppressive, dense death qi.

"Hold your ground!" Ying Zheng roared, his long sword clanging out of its scabbard! The cold blade drew a sharp, desolate glint in the dim light! He stepped forward, shielding Cheng Xi and Yan Lingji behind him. His Black Robes billowed without wind, and a deep, restrained yet incredibly tenacious Imperial Dao Pressure erupted!

The bronze fragment in his hand glowed brighter, its golden-red halo like a small sun, forcibly pushing back the encroaching gray mist and death qi by several feet!

However, the number of skeletons was too great! They poured out from every corner of the valley like a white tide! They had no fear, no pain, only an instinctive hatred for the scent of the living and a desire to devour!

"We can't fight them head-on!" Cheng Xi's mind raced! He looked sharply at the Green Jade Sword Sheath in Yan Lingji's hand! The sheath contained the essence of sword intent and was also a carrier of spatial coordinates!

"Yan Lingji! Activate the sword sheath! Infuse it with your flames!" Cheng Xi shouted hoarsely! At the same time, he poured all his mental energy frantically into the System!

[Energy Overload Initiated! Target: Analyze Spatial Coordinates! Activate Sword Sheath Spatial Anchor! Combine with Witch Fire characteristics! Deduce Optimal Path!...]

Yan Lingji didn't understand, but at this moment of life and death, she chose to trust Cheng Xi! She gritted her teeth and poured all her remaining pure white Witch Fire into the Green Jade Sword Sheath without reservation!

Buzz!

The Green Jade Sword Sheath suddenly erupted with unprecedented brilliance! The cool green light and the pure white Witch Fire did not conflict; instead, they strangely merged and spun within the sheath! Forming a pillar of light interwoven with green and white, it shot towards the sky!

Wherever the light pillar passed, the thick gray mist was forcibly dispersed! Space groaned under the unbearable strain!

[Coordinates Locked! Path Generated! Spatial Tunnel Forcibly Opened! Duration: Three Breaths!]

The System's light screen flashed blood red!

"Go!" Cheng Xi grabbed Yan Lingji with one hand and shoved Ying Zheng's back with the other!

Ying Zheng reacted with lightning speed, without hesitation. Using Cheng Xi's push, he moved like lightning, closely following the green and white light pillar, charging towards the violently twisting spatial node at the top of the pillar!

Cheng Xi pulled Yan Lingji, following right behind!

Countless skeletons let out silent roars, their rotten bone claws almost grabbing at their ankles! The dense death qi was like a cold tide, trying to drag them back into the abyss!

A hair's breadth from disaster!

The three figures plunged into the twisting spatial vortex at the top of the light pillar!

Just as the vortex was about to close!

Cheng Xi's peripheral vision caught sight of, at the very back of the skeleton army, at the base of the steep black cliff, where the gray mist was thickest, what seemed to be a... broken altar built from enormous beast bones!

Upon the altar, a colossal skeleton clad in tattered bronze armor, far larger than any normal being, slowly... raised its empty head, two balls of azure soul fire burning within its eye sockets!

A cold, decaying, yet ancient and wild oppressive will, like a waking behemoth, instantly locked onto the spatial tunnel that was about to disappear!

Boom!

The spatial vortex completely closed!

The three were flung out as if by a giant force, crashing heavily onto hard ground!

Fresh air rushed into their lungs, carrying the scent of grass and earth.

Sunlight! Blinding sunlight!

They were out! Back at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain!

However, Cheng Xi's heart sank. That last glance... the giant bronze skeleton on the altar... the locked will...

He struggled to sit up and looked at the Witch Script Wood Fragment in his hand that had triggered the spatial teleportation. At this moment, the silver spatial Witch Script on the fragment had completely extinguished its light, and even a faint crack had appeared.

What made his pupils contract even further was--

Yan Lingji was sitting beside him, still shaken. And Ying Zheng was slowly standing up from the ground, his Black Robes covered in dirt and grass.

As Ying Zheng stood up, a ring-shaped jade pendant, half the size of his palm, smooth and warm like mutton-fat jade, carved with intricate coiled dragon patterns, slipped out from the hidden pocket inside his Black Robes. With a "clatter," it fell onto the grass by Cheng Xi's feet.

In the center of the jade pendant, an ancient seal script was clearly engraved – "Xia"!

Empress Dowager Xia! Zhao Ji's backer! The core of the Zhao faction's influence!

Cheng Xi's gaze was fixed on the "Xia" jade pendant with the coiled dragon pattern, as if he had been bitten by a venomous snake!