At the entrance to Ancient Demon Mountain, while Li Xiaoya and his companions faced off against Sun Xing and the other Demonic Path cultivators, a dozen or so cultivators were sneaking about, concealed in a corner. Their cultivation was unremarkable: the weakest was only at early core condensation, and the strongest had only just reached the fourth level of the core condensation middle stage. They had survived only because the Mechanism Beasts in the Maze Passage had stopped moving. Afraid of being hunted down by the cultivators in the Slaughter Passage, however, they had remained hidden at the rear, waiting for an opportunity.
"Chirp, chirp!" Two birdcalls suddenly sounded in the distance. Had any other cultivators paid close attention, they would have realized there were no birds here at all. Where could those calls have come from?
"The code signal! It's safe!" a cultivator suddenly whispered. With that, he darted forward, taking the lead as he raced ahead. The other cultivators followed without a sound.
"Huh?" After running several hundred yards, they suddenly spotted a cultivator up ahead. He came racing toward them, making chirping sounds with his mouth.
"Eldest Brother!" The cultivator in the lead abruptly stopped and called softly from afar.
"Third Brother!" the other cultivator exclaimed in delight at his voice. "Fellow Daoists, show yourselves! There's nobody up ahead!"
"Huh?" The cultivators were taken aback, then dropped their concealment one after another.
"Eldest Brother, what's going on?" Third Brother asked curiously as he revealed himself.
"Hehe, I suppose we got lucky. That large group of Demonic Path cultivators got into a fight with the Righteous Path cultivators. Now they're facing off at the entrance to Ancient Demon Mountain. There's nobody up ahead, so let's take this chance to get out!" Eldest Brother said excitedly.
"Oh!" The other