After a night of slaughter, the vast underground cavern was filled with layer upon layer of Lizard corpses.
Without Sunlight, the bodies had not rotted. They lay in soft, slimy heaps. Only the area around Pan Long remained clear, swept clean by the surges of his True Qi. Beyond it, three to five paces away, the corpses rose in thick mounds like little hills.
Pan Long shook his head at the sight.
"That's disgusting!"
With a sigh, he channeled his Internal Power. Crimson True Qi swept out like flames, baking many of the corpses dry in an instant. The stench was enough to choke a man.
The smell was so foul that he had to stop.
"Better find some Fire Oil and burn them instead..."
He returned to the platform above and started up the tunnel. After a few steps, something struck him as strange—why was a strong wind blowing from behind him?
He looked back and realized that the mine shaft, cavern, and tunnel formed a zigzag chimney. Whenever something in the cavern gave off intense heat, the hot air rose and escaped through the tunnel, while the mine shaft drew in fresh air.
With air flowing in one end and out the other, the wind naturally howled.
He wondered whether the structure was a complete accident of nature or a deliberate design.
He followed the tunnel to the basement, then climbed the stairs. Unsurprisingly, the two people on watch were gone.
They had been down there killing all night. Unless those two were as oblivious as the impotent protagonist of a Japanese light novel, they were bound to notice something was wrong and run.
That had been part of Pan Long's plan all along. He had not even hurried after them.
The tracks they had left would not