The dwarf tunneled downward while twitching his nose, sometimes going left, sometimes right, sometimes diving down, sometimes rising up, as though there truly were a path beneath the layers of earth.
The dwarf's Earth Derivation Techniques differed from Xiao Hua's Art of Earth Evasion. No radiance protected his body; as long as his hands and feet moved, his body moved along with them, exactly like an ordinary person walking on the ground.
Yet after traveling underground for a long while, the dwarf slowed again. Rather than alarmed, he was delighted. This showed that the earth here differed from elsewhere—it was precisely what he sought. Sure enough, after another short while, the soil beneath his feet became incomparably hard, and he could no longer advance even half a step. Looking around, the dwarf followed this hardened layer of earth and tunneled deeper toward the Quanjin Mountain Range.
Inside Quanjin Mountain, within a palace-like cavern, in a secluded spot, Tu Hong and Lan Qin sat expressionlessly in two chairs. Before them stood a square mirror about a zhang wide, its surface filled with an earthy yellow haze. Amid that murky yellow, a crimson streak like a thread of blood lay strikingly across the lower half of the mirror!
Not far from that blood-red thread, more than a dozen tiny black dots were slowly moving, closing in on it.
"Great General!" Seeing the dots draw ever closer, Lan Qin could not help but show alarm. He said in a low voice, "Where did those sword cultivators find such experts? They sent more than a dozen at once! They... actually know the Five Elements Evasion Technique!!!"
Yet Tu Hong seemed not to have heard him. His face remained calm as he coldly watched the black dots approach the blood-red thread.
Seeing that Tu Hong