"What are these things?"
The four had barely stepped into the Secret Seal when they ran straight into a black mass of bats.
The densely packed wings gave off a muffled fluttering.
Gu Tong instinctively started to form a hand seal to drive them away, then forcibly stopped himself. He said gravely, "Do not act rashly inside the Secret Seal."
Quan Yong and Qu Chengong had paid them little mind to begin with and showed no strong reaction.
Qu Chuling, however, had already been wound tight. At the sudden sight of the densely packed swarm rushing toward his face, his mind buzzed, and the longsword in his hand swung out instinctively.
A streak of sword light flashed past, striking one of the leading bats. It fell to the ground, twitched twice, and lay still.
By sheer coincidence, this was the very Bat King Li Fuchan had dosed.
Qu Chengong's expression shifted slightly, and he stepped forward to shield Qu Chuling.
He feared both that Qu Chuling might be hurt and that, in his panic, he might lash out wildly again, injuring more bats and thereby violating some taboo within the Secret Seal.
But what happened next left all of them stunned.
Once the Bat King died, the thousand-odd bats did not rise in fury to avenge him. Instead, they settled quietly onto the stone walls and ground. More than a dozen particularly large ones even spread their wings slightly and prostrated themselves before Qu Chuling like people, kowtowing again and again with indescribably tearful gratitude.
It was as though the slain Bat King had committed some utterly unforgivable crime.
Quan Yong frowned deeply at the sight. He raised a hand and drew the Bat King's corpse over, examined it, and could not help saying, "An aphrodisiac powder. Apparently one intended