Abyss Tunnel

After slipping beneath the tomb chamber, Li Hai immediately discovered that this was no second level, but a dark, straight tunnel that plunged downward with no end in sight.

At the same time, the pitch-black inner walls of this long tunnel were ringed with stone stairs, spiraling downward in overlapping, broken, or connected segments.

It felt as though it were leading straight into the netherworld.

For a normal person, facing a tunnel that resembled a bottomless abyss, it would be difficult to muster the courage to explore, let alone dare to walk down those stairs step by step.

But Li Hai was no normal person; no, at this point, he could hardly even be considered human.

Therefore, Li Hai didn't bother with the stairs at all; he simply went into freefall toward the darkness of the tunnel.

This was far faster than taking the stairs.

During his descent, Li Hai could clearly feel the surrounding evil energy growing increasingly dense, even surpassing the central area of the cursed land at Guo Family Fort.

From this, he boldly speculated that at the end of this tunnel-shaped cursed land, there likely existed a ghost of a higher rank than a Fierce Soul.

When Li Hai had fallen to a depth of nearly a hundred zhang, he suddenly noticed several human corpses lying on one of the stairs to his left.

He immediately halted his descent in mid-air and flashed over to that spot.

Li Hai then discovered that these corpses were all wearing rattan armor.

The armor was now tattered beyond recognition, and the bodies beneath were riddled with blood-filled holes of all sizes, as if they had been drilled into and torn apart by countless snakes and insects.

"These are men from the Ox-Horn Town Civilian Militia."

Standing on the stairs, Li Hai turned the corpses over to examine them thoroughly.

He found that the depth of the puncture wounds was even greater than he had imagined, nearly piercing through the entire body, and they were scattered everywhere from head to toe.

"Is this the work of some ghost capable of controlling snakes or insects?"

As he pondered, Li Hai felt the urge to revert to his living state to see what this long, narrow cursed land looked like in the world of the living.

However, after thinking it over, he decided against it.

Li Hai reasoned that if he were to exit Ghost Eye Vision and return to reality, and this place turned out to be nothing but solid, thick bedrock, he would be crushed to death instantly.

A hundred zhang of earth was not something one could withstand even in the Steel Sinew Iron Bone Realm.

With that, Li Hai stopped paying attention to the corpses and leaped from the stairs, plummeting back into the depths of the tunnel.

He continued to fall.

When he reached a depth of thirteen hundred zhang, Li Hai once again suspended himself in mid-air.

There was no other reason than the fact that he had discovered more corpses.

These bodies, also lying on the stairs and covered in puncture wounds, were all dressed in black, double-breasted leather uniforms and black boots, with a small character for "Slay" imprinted on their clothing.

"Are these Demon-Slaying Captains?"

Driven by curiosity, Li Hai flashed onto the stairs to study the bodies.

He focused primarily on the martial arts realm they had attained while alive.

Li Hai was very interested in this.

Generally speaking, martial arts is a craft for developing and enhancing the strength of one's own physique.

Therefore, even though these people were dead, he could still determine their martial arts realm by examining their remains.

After some study, Li Hai discovered that the realms of these individuals were all, without exception, at the Force-Body Circulation level.

That was the same level as Guo Huaijin.

"Could it be that Force-Body Circulation..."

Li Hai mused, "...is the baseline for the combat power of the Demon-Slaying Captains?"

After some thought, he concluded that this was indeed possible.

Even the weakest Dead Soul-level ghost, when within a cursed land, possessed the ability to kill and harm at the level of Guo Huaijin, and was even swifter in terms of speed.

Only after leaving the cursed land would the threat of a Dead Soul-level ghost be significantly weakened, at which point a martial artist of Guo Huaijin's level could truly defeat them.

Li Hai then left the stairs and continued his descent down the tunnel.

Throughout the remainder of his fall, he discovered more corpses of Demon-Slaying Captains at depths of fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, and two thousand zhang.

All of these corpses had died in the exact same way, riddled with blood-filled holes.

"The method of death is identical."

As he fell, Li Hai thought quietly, "It seems there is likely only one ghost in this tunnel."

Thus, Li Hai did not find any more remains during the rest of his descent.

It was only after falling a full thirty-six hundred zhang that he finally reached the bottom of the tunnel.

Converted to metric units, this depth was nearly twelve thousand meters, completely surpassing the Mariana Trench on Earth; to describe it as an abyssal hell would be no exaggeration.

Yet, in this profound depth, there existed a wide training ground and many rooms that were now in a state of total ruin.

At the same time, around the edges of this now-mottled and dilapidated training ground, there were large mechanical components resembling mine elevators.

Furthermore, these devices, along with many of the damaged objects on the training ground, were all imprinted with the small character for "Slay."

Li Hai understood immediately:

"So that's it. This training ground must be an underground facility of the Tea Hall, and those elevators are the mechanisms used to travel between the surface and the depths."

Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible for a station's underground facility to be built deeper than the Mariana Trench; even if it were meant to withstand nuclear bombardment, that would be absurd.

Therefore, there was only one possibility: this abruptly appearing evil domain had forcibly dragged the Tea Hall's underground training ground over ten thousand meters into the earth.

"There is the scent of a living person here."

Li Hai scanned his surroundings, "Although it is very faint, it definitely exists."

Following the scent, he began to search through the training ground.

Soon, Li Hai stopped outside a damaged room located at the edge of the training ground, which was now severely twisted and deformed.

In such a dangerous environment, he did not risk reverting to his living form, but instead passed his illusory figure directly through layers of obstacles to enter the room.

Then, in the pitch-black room, Li Hai saw an old man leaning against a broken wall, holding a snapped steel whip and hovering near death.

This old man was also wearing a set of double-breasted black martial attire and a pair of black boots, but there were no bloody holes in his body; instead, his abdomen was nearly severed in half, with blood and entrails spilling out.

Yet, even in this state, the man held on and refused to die, allowing Li Hai to clearly see all of the old man's personal interface information—

Name: Unknown

Rank: Orthodox Martial Arts → Steel Tendons and Iron Bones, Esoteric Arts → Focusing Spirit and Wandering

Skills: Warrior Elephant-Throwing Technique Angry Flood Dragon Whip Ghost and Monster Seeking Yin-Yang Eyes High-level Primordial Breath Yang Refining Method Life-Cutting Essence-Trimming Technique Heavenly Scorching Yang-Drawing Technique <Supreme Origin Spirit-Suppressing Talisman (Damaged)>

Traits: [Soul Strengthening Level 2] [Physical Strength Level 2] [Fury Level 2] [Spiritual Inspiration Level 2] [Yang Absorption Level 2] [Focusing Level 2] [Dharma Power Level 2]

Stronger Fragment: None

In a single thought, Li Hai learned all of this man's techniques.

And the moment he saw this Demon-Slaying Captain, the other party naturally saw him as well.

The old captain sighed weakly:

"How tragic. To think that in the end, the one to see me, Master Tea, off would be a ghost."

"Hello."

Li Hai, who had been mistaken for an evil ghost by the old man, walked up to him and asked gently, "May I ask if you are Master Tea?"

The old man stared coldly at Li Hai without saying a word, clearly unwilling to speak a single syllable to a ghost like him.

But at that moment, Li Hai actually pulled a letter that the old man found extremely familiar from his robes, and grinned:

"Believe it or not, Zhang Miaoji invited me to join your Demon-Slaying Division, saying he wanted me to... slay ghosts and eliminate demons, to benefit the common people."

Looking at the letter and hearing these words, the old man was stunned on the spot.