Facing the Demon

The silent trek through the rock wall lasted roughly the time it took to drink half a cup of tea.

Yet to the group, that half-cup's worth of time felt as long as half a century.

Although talismans dispelled the intense heat, the narrow passage within the rock wall twisted and turned endlessly. The nearly stagnant, stifling air made it hard to breathe, while the pitch-black darkness, without a trace of light, left them deeply uneasy.

It was as if the rock wall might close in at any moment and swallow them forever; or as if some terrifying demon might leap from a dark corner at any time and drag them away.

Seagull and Fei Dao were especially nervous. Even though they were already in the very middle of the group, they still felt anxious and had to tread with extreme caution.

"Good heavens, this is terrifying," Fei Dao muttered. "And we're getting closer to that terrifying spider demon, right? Could it have made some kind of arrangement?"

"It won't, Daoist. Leaving aside the fact that this passage only recently appeared and it had no time to make any arrangements..." Xuan Yunzi's voice came from the very front of the group. "This place lies at the boundary of the talisman formation, where talismans are most abundant, and it was just covered by my new formation. With the old and new formations overlapping, even if it had once made any arrangements or left behind any contingencies here, the talismans would have detected and cleared them long ago."

"Don't forget, the purpose of this formation is to seal and imprison it. If it could escape so easily, what would be the point?"

The old Daoist Xuan Yunzi's explanation temporarily put Fei Dao at ease.

But before he could relax for long, the