Bones as the Path, Immortal Herbs as the Gate

The deeper you go, the less the ground under your feet feels like soil.

The soft, slightly sinking feel gradually changed, becoming harder, but not the hardness of stone; rather, it was a brittle hardness that would crumble under pressure.

With each step, a faint cracking sound came from underfoot. At first, it was only an occasional sound, but it gradually became more frequent, as if walking on a path paved with dead branches.

But it's not a withered branch.

The moment Xu Xiaoyan stopped, her expression changed twice in a very short time.

Tang Wulin noticed that she had stopped and looked in the direction she was looking.

Ye Xinglan was standing on a bone.

It was white and slender, with one end cracked by his foot, revealing honeycomb-like gaps at the crack.

Those are not human bones.

Human bones are not that thin, nor do they have this slight curvature.

Around it, more skeletons emerged from the damp soil, some half-buried under fallen leaves, with only their arched tops showing, while others were completely exposed on the surface, piled up in stark white.

The skeletons were all small, the largest being no more than half a person's height, but there were a great many of them; there were seven or eight that could be seen within the field of vision alone.

Tang Wulin squatted down and used his foot to brush aside a fallen leaf.

There's more below.

There were more than seven or eight skeletons; beneath the fallen leaves lay countless more, layer upon layer, some so decayed they would crumble at the slightest touch, clearly indicating they had been dead for a long time.

Their skeletal structures are very similar, with slender limbs, short and pointed skulls, and flexible and long spines.

"Wind Baboon".

Ye Xinglan's voice wasn't loud, but it could be clearly heard in the deathly silence of the poisonous miasma. "A small, social Soul Beast, very fast, with excellent teeth."

"These things usually come out in groups of dozens, which is very troublesome."

She glanced at the distribution of the skeletons on the ground. "This group of wind baboons died in a very concentrated area."

"Poisoned?" Xie Xie removed his foot from the bone, much more gently than usual.

Ye Xinglan did not answer.

She walked to the nearest skeleton and gently turned the ribcage of the skeleton with her foot.

The bone is intact, without any breaks or tooth marks.

The ribs were neatly arranged, maintaining the posture they had when they were alive, as if the baboon hadn't had time to react at the moment of its death.

"I can't tell," she said, "But it certainly wasn't hunted."

Yuanen Yehui had been standing guard on the perimeter of the group. After his gaze swept over the pile of bones, his brows furrowed.

She raised her finger and pointed forward.

"Not just here, there are more ahead."

At the entrance to the valley, bones were piled up like mountains.

The skeletons were piled up from the ground all the way to the rock wall at the mouth of the valley, layer upon layer, densely packed, with almost no gaps between the bones.

The enormous skeleton of a thousand-year-old or ten- Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast lay at the bottom, topped with the remains of medium-sized Soul Beast, and then smaller ones.

Layer upon layer, like some kind of cruel geological sedimentation.

The topmost skeleton was still very fresh, with dried fascia and fragments of fur still remaining on the bone surface.

Xie Xie swallowed hard.

His voice was much lower than usual, as if he were speaking in a church, "These Soul Beast... are they all here to break into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well?"

"The poisonous miasma is shrinking its territory," Gu Yue's voice came from the back of the group.

She pointed to the plants on the side.

"These are the only living plants we've encountered along the way; they're all poisonous."

Tang Wulin's gaze swept over the skeletons and stopped at the rock walls on either side of the valley entrance. "Those are..."

The rock face was covered with a dense layer of vines.

Each of these vines is as thick as an adult's arm, and its entire body is a strange emerald green. The leaves grow in groups of seven at the top of the vines, and the surface of the leaves shimmers with iridescent colors.

The luster was beautiful, like gems embedded in the rock face in the sunlight, but Tang Wulin felt a strong sense of unease the moment he saw them.

It wasn't fear, but a deeper, ingrained vigilance.

"The Jade Phosphor Seven-Extremes Flower," Gu Yue said softly.

"Is it because of them?" Xu Xiaoyan asked.

"Not entirely. All the poisonous plants here are emitting poisonous gas, and this seven-colored poisonous miasma... is a mixture of poisons." Yuanen Yehui stepped forward and walked to Xie Xie's side.

"Then how do we get in?"

Xie Xie looked at the Jade Phosphor Seven-Extremes Flower covering the rock face, and then at the mountain of Soul Beast skeletons piled up at the valley entrance. The tension in his mind was already at its highest.

Tang Wulin attempted to lift the Ice-Fire Seal.

The red and blue light arrows on the Ice-Fire Seal suddenly flashed violently at the valley entrance, then shone brightly, with red and blue light gushing out from the seal surface, intertwining to form a beam of light that shone straight towards the center of the valley entrance.

Where the beam of light passed, the vines of the Jade Phosphor Seven-Extremes Flower receded to both sides like a tide, revealing a narrow passage that could only accommodate one person at a time.

At the end of the passage, a layer of transparent, water-like barrier could be faintly seen rippling gently.

"Go. Don't touch the vines on either side, not even a single leaf."

The six people crossed the passage at top speed.

The moment they passed through the transparent barrier, Gu Yue glanced back. The vines of the Jade Phosphor Seven-Extremes Flower had already closed up behind them, sealing the passage completely.

The flowers and leaves swayed gently in the breeze, so beautiful that one could forget they were the deadliest killers in this valley.

The valley is oval-shaped and not very large; the entire valley is only about the size of two football fields combined.

In the very center of the valley is a spring, not large, only a dozen feet in circumference. The spring water is divided into two distinct halves: one half is fiery red, steaming with heat, and the other half is icy blue, radiating a bone-chilling cold.

The ground around the spring is covered with all sorts of Immortal Herb.

Tang Wulin recognized several of them.

The Infernal Delicate Apricot, their entire bodies a blazing red, each petal radiating visible heat waves, the air around the petals distorted into concentric ripples by the intense heat.

In contrast to it is the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, which exudes an extremely cold aura completely opposite to that of the Infernal Delicate Apricot. A thin layer of frost has condensed on its ice-blue leaves, which is the air that has been directly frozen into powder by the low temperature.

The Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew leaned against an energy crystal. Its leaves were translucent, and a very pale silver liquid flowed through its veins, resembling dewdrops about to fall from the grass in the early morning.

The flower head of the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum is as big as a washbasin, with petals unfolding layer upon layer. Each petal is covered with fine golden patterns, and in the sunlight, it looks as if it is coated with a layer of gold dust.

The fragrance of the Eight-Petal Immortal Orchid wafted over on the breeze, and just one sniff made me feel a sense of comfort throughout my body.

The fragrance of Aromatic Silk Beauty mingled with the delicate scent of Eight-Petal Immortal Orchid, drifting over slowly and gracefully, carrying an indescribable air of elegance and nobility.

Scattered around these Immortal Herb were many other herbs that Tang Wulin couldn't name, each radiating its own unique luster and aura, decorating the entire valley like a fairyland garden that didn't belong to the mortal world.

Compared to the mountains of bones piled up outside the valley entrance, the difference between them was like heaven and earth, separated only by a single gate.

"Don't just look."

A face emerged from a huge pale pink tulip, its voice mature and steady.

"It is fate that you have come here. Each of you can choose one of the most suitable Immortal Herb for yourself."