Outside the battlefield.
Sun Bo'an, who had broken away from the main army long ago, was currently leading seven or eight Xie Family elites as they groped their way toward a narrow path behind the fortress.
This narrow path was extremely secluded, and unless one was extremely familiar with the terrain of this fortress, it would have been quite impossible to discover.
Sun Bo'an had remained in the Xie Family for more than thirty years, having once followed the head of the Xie Family here several times in his early years.
He happened to know of this narrow path.
The group held their breath and concentrated, treading carefully as they walked forward, soon slipping in front of a stone wall crawling with moss.
The surface of this stone wall was uneven, looking no different from ordinary mountain rock.
Sun Bo'an with practiced ease pushed aside a clump of waist-high wild grass, and an opening a meter wide abruptly revealed itself at the bottom, just wide enough to let a single person pass through.
When the Xie Family built this fortress back then, they had deliberately left behind a covert passage to prepare for contingencies.
It was now coming in handy.
"Keep up."
Sun Bo'an gestured to the people behind him and was the first to bend down and crawl inside.
The interior of the cave was pitch black, narrow and cramped, with a damp odor permeating the air.
Sun Bo'an held his breath, feeling his way forward step by step based on memory, with the seven or eight elites behind him following in succession.
After walking for roughly the time it took to burn an incense stick, a faint trace of light filtered in from ahead.
Sun Bo'an stopped in his tracks, listening intently for a moment to confirm there