By then, the sky was completely dark, and a bright moon hung overhead.
Chen Jing greedily drew in the mountain air, once more feeling how precious open sky and freedom were.
He instinctively looked toward Su Lingyi.
As it happened, Su Lingyi looked over too.
Clearly, she also remembered their last wretched struggle to survive underground.
Suddenly, Chen Jing caught a pungent scent of blood.
Looking closely, he saw bodies strewn every which way across the dark valley.
Most wore uniform fighting clothes in different colors and appeared to belong to the Five Great Lineages of the Great Desert.
Su Lingyi spoke.
"It was Granny Gu-Heart."
"Before we entered the cavern, Blood River had Granny Gu-Heart keep the Gu-Puppets outside. If anyone tried to flee with the treasure, she was to intercept them in the valley."
Chen Jing gave a soft "Oh." Then why were Gu-Puppets lying dead everywhere?
His ears twitched, and he shot forward.
With a rush of wind, he landed atop a distant slab of bluestone.
He bent to look down.
Two Black-Armored Elite Cavalrymen were hiding behind it.
Chen Jing was carrying several hundred pounds.
But his Qinggong had reached Transformation Mastery. His sudden appearance right in their faces caught them utterly off guard.
The two elite cavalrymen saw Chen Jing appear above their heads and dropped onto their backsides in fright.
Chen Jing had now opened his Ancestral Aperture, and his spirit had taken on substance.
One hard stare from him could break an ordinary martial artist's nerve.
"What happened here?"
His voice struck like a sharp blow to the head. The two cavalrymen were so terrified they answered everything he asked.
It turned out the Underworld Mansion was not the only one with a contingency plan. Grand Commandant Zhang had one too: he had