Corpse Refining

As night deepened, a fine drizzle fell like silk.

Dozens of torches burned inside the stone cavern, their light revealing one hideous, vicious face after another.

There were forty-seven bandits in all, each armed with a steel saber.

In the wavering torchlight, their eyes were complicated, filled with both tension and unease.

"Second Master may well have been done in. The Hunting Falcon went inside just now and hasn't come back out."

"Could they really track us here? Brother Leopard, aren't you making a mountain out of a molehill?"

"If they really do come, and they were strong enough to take down Second Master, then the lot of us guarding this place probably won't be able to stop them either."...

The forty-seven bandits knew full well that they might meet their end tonight, yet not one dared flee without permission.

They feared Grand Master even more than the foes tracking them.

If they had to choose how to die, they would rather be hacked to death quickly than face Grand Master.

As the bandits whispered among themselves, tiny black specks appeared on the torchlit stone wall. They were Gu worms.

"They're here!" The Bald Bandit spotted the Gu worms first and bellowed a warning to the others.

The other bandits glanced over, but in the time it took them to turn their heads, the black specks had multiplied.

There were too many Gu worms to count at a glance. Seeing them, the bandits felt half their hearts sink.

Just then, a young man walked up to the cave entrance. After taking a look, he said, "They don't look like Walking Corpses."

Forty-seven pairs of eyes fixed on the young man. They hesitated over whether to charge him, but two more people appeared at the entrance.

"Fourth Junior Brother, they're yours."

"There are a few capable fighters among them. Leave a dozen alive to plant Gu in. We may need them later to find Eldest Senior Brother."

As the words rang out, the Gu worms on the stone wall multiplied several times over, forming a swarm.

A bluish-black poisonous fog thickened before their eyes, sealing the cavern entrance in the blink of an eye.

In an instant, the entrance was transformed: Gu worms swarmed, poisonous fog billowed, and the change had taken no more than a moment. All because three people had arrived.

"Second Master was killed by Gu Masters!"

All forty-seven faces turned deathly pale. They had heard the words "plant Gu" loud and clear.

Amid the churning poisonous fog, another figure darted in through the entrance.

The figure hung suspended in the air, supported by eight insect legs that carried him swiftly forward. He swept past the three men ahead.

"Pfft, pfft..."

The huge insect-like figure flashed by. Six bandits were still standing there, dazed, when insect legs sliced through their waists, opening a bloody path.

Two young men followed close behind. One was wrapped in dense Green Vine, while the other was as burly as an Ape Spirit in the mountains. They both swept past.

The remaining forty-one stared blankly at the six corpses on the ground. Only then did they realize the three men hadn't been after them—they had merely been passing through.

They slowly turned their heads toward the only young man left.

"He's all alone. Kill the brat!"...

The young man was, of course, Liu Feng. As the bandits charged at him, ready to fight to the death, he activated Mind Eye Technique. Every figure in his field of vision slowed to a crawl.

"Fourteen live ones will be enough to plant Gu in."

The swarm descended like a black net. Without changing expression, Liu Feng reached behind himself and grabbed Split-Tooth, the greatsword.

Deep within a winding passage, two people and a Medicine Slave arrived in a stone cavern.

The moment Shen Yushu and Zhu Li arrived, both pairs of eyes fixed on a small pool beneath the cavern wall.

The Blood Medicine in the pool was like mud, with wisps of bloody mist rising from it.

At that moment, the upper body of a white-haired old man emerged through the bloody mist. He slowly opened his eyes.

"Just as I thought—a Corpse Refiner who has grown powerful. Third Junior Brother, guide Li Si." Without the slightest hesitation, Shen Yushu spoke as Green Vine rapidly swallowed his figure.

Zhu Li took two steps back, holding a Nightmare Gu Larva in his palm. The Medicine Slave, Li Si, stood in front of him.

Their only target was the white-haired old man. As for the Hunting Falcon Spirit Monster hanging on the cavern wall, they ignored it completely.

"To think a second-realm martial artist was refined into this neither-man-nor-Gu state. Truly pitiful."

Amid the bloody mist, the white-haired old man made no move to rise. His blood-red eyes fixed on the two juniors.

His gaze shifted first to Shen Yushu, whose figure was swallowed by Green Vine.

He didn't need to look closely. From his instincts as a Corpse Refiner alone, he could tell that his second son's internal organs had been hollowed out by that junior's Vine Wood Spirit.

As for the Blood Crystals his second son had accumulated over the years... At that thought, the white-haired old man looked toward the burly figure that resembled a humanoid Spirit Monster.

"You're nothing but two First-Life Gu Masters. You truly don't know when to quit."

"Before I became a corpse, I'd already heard plenty of tales about Gu Masters. Fewer than one in ten survived, and every last one was greedy as a Gu worm. It seems the rumors were true."

By the time he finished speaking, the white-haired old man's voice had turned icy. If that Medicine Person weren't standing in front of him, he would have torn the two juniors to pieces.

"We don't know when to quit? What a boast!"

Shen Yushu's cold laugh came from within the mass of writhing Green Vine. Then a vine shot out, carrying two crimson Gu worms. In an instant, it sent them into the Medicine Slave, Li Si's mouth.

"My master gave me these treasures before I left. I'll try them out on you."

As Shen Yushu laughed excitedly, the already terrifying Medicine Slave, Li Si, grew even more bizarre.

After the two crimson Gu worms entered his body, blood vessels spread across his dazed eyes like red threads.

The insect armor on his back sprang open into two wings, shielding his chest like a black carapace. Eight spear-like insect legs jutted from his back.

"Go." Zhu Li gave the Nightmare Gu Larva in his hand a slight push forward.

Li Si moved as if sleepwalking, utterly incapable of fear. His figure vanished from in front of Zhu Li in an instant.

The moment he flashed into view, Li Si struck out with a palm in midair, aiming at the white-haired old man in the blood pool.

The white-haired old man's expression was cold. He braced one hand against the edge of the pool and slapped upward with the other.

"Boom!" A wave of air exploded above the blood pool.

The white-haired figure immediately leapt from the pool, and in the blink of an eye, he collided with Li Si, the insect-legged figure.

The two figures crossed paths. As fists and feet collided, the cavern rang with the clanging of iron.

Shen Yushu wasn't about to sit idle. He used the abundant vitality he had just gained to grow even more branches of Green Vine.

The densely packed vines spread like a horde of snakes, frantically filling the cavern. They were plainly building a cage, leaving the Medicine Person and the Corpse Refiner to fight inside.

On the cavern wall, the Hunting Falcon Spirit Monster saw Green Vine about to seal the Stone Chamber exit completely. It spread its wings and darted out.

Zhu Li, Nightmare Gu Larva in hand, pushed off the ground, about to leap into the air.

"There's no need to bother with it. It won't escape death." Shen Yushu continued to grow the Green Vine with a cold laugh, unconcerned as the Hunting Falcon slipped through a gap and flew away.

Green Vine filled more and more of the Stone Chamber. From outside, it was becoming impossible to make out what was happening inside.

In the passage, the Hunting Falcon Spirit Monster flapped its wings in terror as it made its way through the winding corridor.

Before long, firelight gleamed ahead.

Just as it thought it could escape with its life, the scene beneath the firelight plunged it into terror once more: a young man stood blocking the way.