Red light illuminated the Stone Chamber, and an incredibly thick mass of blood energy gathered into a crimson mist, drifting above the Blood Crystal.
The tiny diamond-shaped Blood Crystal was only half the size of a fingernail.
Yet its astonishing pulse of vitality was even more terrifying than that of the entire Corpse Refiner Blood Crystal.
The Vine Wood Spirit was a Spirit Monster born of grass and trees, but at that moment it reached out with its own vines like a frenzied beast, trying to seize the tiny diamond-shaped Blood Crystal.
"Get back here." Green light flickered in Shen Yushu's eyes as he promptly recalled the frenzied Vine Wood Spirit.
Zhu Li also came to his senses, but he could not hide his shock.
Inside the Stone Chamber, the white-haired Corpse Refiner's heart had been shattered and the Blood Crystal ripped out. The golden patches on his body rapidly faded.
"You brat, you..." He struggled to turn around, his blood-red eyes fixed on Liu Feng outside the Stone Chamber.
Before he could say anything more, Medicine Slave Li Si shattered his internal organs with both palms, then slammed a hand down on the crown of his head.
Once the dust had settled, Shen Yushu looked at the diamond-shaped Blood Crystal and said gravely, "This isn't something we can keep. We need to trade it to some fools as soon as possible."
His meaning was clear: get the greatest value out of it by trading it for benefits, while conveniently redirecting the trouble elsewhere.
Zhu Li and Liu Feng exchanged a glance and nodded in unison.
They lacked experience, but anyone could see that this wasn't something they should keep.
They had cleaned out a mature Walking Corpse at the manor and tracked down its accomplices. They had assumed the accomplices could be no stronger than the second realm, at most.
And they hadn't been wrong. But how could they have known things would develop like this?
It seemed that a powerful figure was definitely backing this Corpse Refiner!
"Li Si." The Nightmare Gu Larva in Liu Feng's palm stirred slightly.
Medicine Slave Li Si grabbed the Blood Crystal. With a flicker, he appeared in front of Liu Feng and held it out to him.
Liu Feng barely glanced at it before reaching out to put the Blood Crystal away.
But as his hand drew near, his vision suddenly blurred, and the scene seemed to be ripped away by an invisible hand.
"This is... Fate Eye Insight!"
He had experienced this once before in Insect Valley.
The Buddha Light attached to his spine silently split off a wisp, which scattered like golden sand.
As that wisp of Buddha Light vanished completely, a shifting scene appeared before his eyes:
By the riverbank, three figures raced toward them, evidently hoping to escape by taking advantage of the swift current.
Two of the three were Zhu Li and Shen Yushu.
The last was Liu Feng himself, though he looked somewhat different in the vision. In addition to his Twenty-Two Eyes, crimson Gu Fire roiled around his body.
As the three in the vision drew near the great river, Shen Yushu suddenly struck from behind. Green Vine surged like a giant serpent, sweeping toward the two beside him.
In the next instant, rolling blood clouds surged over. The two sent flying backward were swallowed by the blood clouds...
"Fourth Junior Brother." Zhu Li's voice sounded from outside the Stone Chamber.
Liu Feng came to his senses. His hand had stopped above the Blood Crystal, and Zhu Li and Shen Yushu were looking at him in confusion.
"You're certainly cautious, Junior Brother. I'll take it." Shen Yushu furrowed his brows and coaxed a vine out.
He thought Liu Feng was being cautious and didn't dare touch the dark-red Blood Crystal without care.
Liu Feng didn't refuse Shen Yushu's offer. But when he looked at him, his gaze had turned somewhat dark.
Shen Yushu didn't notice the change in Liu Feng's expression. He sealed the diamond-shaped Blood Crystal inside a vine, then put the Corpse Refiner Blood Crystal into a wooden box.
"When does Senior Brother plan to sell it?" Liu Feng asked, setting aside the image of Shen Yushu using him as a shield.
In the vision, the blood cloud had pursued them to their deaths. There was no need to think twice: it had to be related to the diamond-shaped Blood Crystal before them. They had to get rid of it quickly.
"We can enter Danhe Prefecture tomorrow. If we travel for another day and a half, we'll reach the prefectural city, where we'll get the best price."
"We should sell it in the nearest county town. We can't stay here long."
"Let's do as Fourth Junior Brother says. Better safe than sorry. We should leave at once." As the three spoke, they had already started moving.
Before leaving, they took all the valuables from the place, along with the corpse of the Falcon Spirit Monster.
Compared to when they had arrived, fourteen bandits who had been reduced to slaves now followed behind them on the way back.
Outside Lunan County, Danhe Prefecture.
In the forest thirty miles from the county town, more than two hundred figures scattered and fled in all directions.
The fugitives were men and women, old and young alike. Cloaked in hoods, they ran like wild beasts in the mountains, nimble and swift.
They were indeed fleeing fast enough, but their pursuers were faster.
A hundred or so figures in light armor raced after them, repeatedly loosing arrows from their bows.
"Whoosh, whoosh-whoosh..." Steel arrows whistled through the air.
Every so often, someone was pinned to a tree trunk by a steel arrow. Once they stopped running for their lives, they all met the same fate.
A broad saber swept through, and a head hit the ground.
Among the many faces that died with their eyes wide open, quite a few still looked like children, no more than eleven or twelve.
Yet these faces, young and old, male and female, were all unlike ordinary people. Fangs protruded from their mouths, and their pupils were blood-red instead of black.
"Soldiers, please, spare us!" An old man stopped where he was, tears streaming from his blood-red eyes.
A young soldier behind him darted forward. The only answer he gave the old man was a flash of steel.
Another head rolled away. The young soldier didn't pause for even a moment. He circulated his true energy throughout his body and continued hunting down the other cloaked fugitives.
Everywhere in the vast forest, the pursuit unfolded. It had already lasted a full day and night.
The more than two hundred people who had fled into the forest were merely the survivors of the previous night. But how many of them would survive now?
Another hour passed before the few surviving cloaked figures finally fled into the distance.
Only then did the hundred or so soldiers sheathe their sabers and gather together to call out their numbers and count the heads they had taken.
After tallying everything, a black-faced soldier stepped forward and reported, "Five hundred and sixty-two Red Moon Cult fiends. Five hundred and ten beheaded."
"Then fifty-two have escaped! Keep chasing!" The order came from a middle-aged captain.
"Understood." The black-faced soldier retreated after receiving his orders.
In the blink of an eye, the hundred or so soldiers split into five squads.
One of the squads chased the fugitives onto the main road leading to the county town.
Beneath the dusk sky, a squad of twenty soldiers surrounded a large area. Inside the circle, seventeen cloaked figures knelt and begged for mercy.
Most of the cloaked fugitives who had made it to the road were young boys and girls. The others had abandoned them, and in their panic they had fled blindly onto the main road.
"Soldiers, we only joined the Red Moon Cult to get a meal. How could we have known we'd end up half-demons?"
"My brother and I have never done anything wicked. We only want to live."
"My mother is still waiting for me at home. I can't die..."
As they wept and pleaded, three carriages came rumbling down the road in a cloud of dust.
The driver of the first carriage was a grandfather and grandson who worked as hunters. They seemed normal enough.
But something was off about the drivers of the next two carriages. They were thick-necked and heavily jowled, nothing like honest coachmen.
The carriages behind them were crammed full of burly men, each holding a steel saber, their faces brimming with menace.
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