The Mechanical Red Dragon

Everyone rushed to the cell door.

Jiang Aqi was still struggling, but the jailers were no pushovers. Four of them pinned the joints of his limbs, leaving him unable to get up.

"Looks like [Soul-Bewitching Gu]..."

Seeing his blood-red eyes, muddled mind, and single-minded determination to charge into the cell, Shen Xiang suspected a Gu had taken control of him.

"What happened?"

Cao Jinxing looked at Tian Jinghu.

Tian Jinghu hurriedly explained, "Just now, the two of us were standing guard outside when we suddenly heard a flute. I wasn't sure, so I asked Aqi whether he'd heard it too. Who would have thought his expression would change and his eyes would instantly turn red? He drew his sword and short saber and charged toward the Cold Cell. I couldn't react in time. All I managed was a shout for the jailers to stop him."

"A flute..."

Cao Jinxing remembered nothing of the sort, but the outer walls of the secret chamber contained Sound-Absorbing Stone, which was meant to guard against sonic techniques. He turned to the other jailers. "Did you hear it?"

"Yes."

"I think I did..."

None of them were quite sure they had heard it, but neither could they say for certain that they hadn't.

Tian Jinghu breathed a sigh of relief. With an incident like this, his words became testimony. If everyone denied hearing it, suspicion would immediately fall on him.

"Go to the second level."

Shen Xiang told one of the jailers, "Bring a Gu master."

The jailer turned to leave when a piercing flute note suddenly drifted in from outside. This time, everyone heard it!

Tian Jinghu cried, "That's it! Only it was much quieter before!"

At the sound of the flute, another change came over Jiang Aqi. He suddenly opened his mouth and let out an inhuman roar. His jaws stretched wide, and the head of a steel lizard emerged from deep within his throat!

Everyone blanched.

"A sixth-grade [Earth Gecko]..."

Shen Xiang's pupils contracted sharply. "It's a Mechanical Beast made from a modified exotic beast! Get back!"

The lizard opened its mouth and spat out a thick cloud of purple smoke. Jiang Aqi took the brunt of it. His face instantly turned blue-purple, and he died on the spot!

What potent poison!

As the purple poisonous smoke began to spread, the jailers scrambled backward in panic.

With a casual stroke of his sword, Cao Jinxing gathered the moisture in the air around the poisonous mist. Just before it could burst outward, he froze it solid!

Bang!

The moisture encased the poisonous smoke in a ball of ice that slammed onto the floor!

"..."

"..."

The jailers froze, staring blankly from the ice ball to Cao Jinxing. Sorcery?

Shen Xiang froze too.

So did Tian Jinghu, who had been running away amid the chaos.

The lizard likewise paused for a moment, then burst out of Jiang Aqi's mouth. With a flick of its long tail, it wrapped around the short saber and darted through the food hatch into the Cold Cell!

It moved so fast that it disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Cao Jinxing had reacted swiftly enough to strike before it moved, but he was still too late.

"No matter!"

Shen Xiang recovered, pointing his sword at an angle toward the iron door. He sneered. "You wanted to wipe us all out with that poisonous mist, then have the Mechanical Beast bring in a blade to free you... A lovely little scheme, but we're still alive! Xiang Qianli! Disappointed, aren't you?"

The cell was silent.

The man inside said nothing.

Cao Jinxing turned to Tian Jinghu, who had retreated even farther than they had, and said expressionlessly, "Explain yourself."

The jailers snapped out of their stupor and drew their sabers on Tian Jinghu.

Even Shen Xiang, the quickest to react, wasn't as fast as you!

The moment the flute sounded, you took advantage of everyone focusing on Jiang Aqi and ran for your life, as though you knew what was coming...

Who would believe you weren't involved?

Tian Jinghu's face flushed red.

With anxiety.

Already short and stout, he now broke into a cold sweat, his mouth dry as he desperately searched for an excuse:

"I..."

"Even if you don't talk, I can guess most of it."

Cao Jinxing said leisurely, "You simply used your position to collude with the Bright Sect and harm Jiang Aqi, planting a Gu in him to control his mind and feeding him a Mechanical Beast to hide poison inside his body! Once the time was right, you would coordinate your efforts from within and without, poison us, and rescue the prisoner. With the witnesses dead, there would naturally be nothing to implicate you... You might even earn a promotion for fighting valiantly... Am I right?"

"..."

Tian Jinghu gaped, then paled in horror and hurriedly denied it. "No, that's not-"

"Forget it."

Cao Jinxing couldn't be bothered to listen. With a casual point of his finger, Formless Sword Qi struck Tian Jinghu's Shanzhong Acupoint, immobilizing him:

"Once this is over, we'll interrogate you properly. We'll have no trouble uncovering your accomplices..."

Cao Jinxing's words carried a pointed implication.

The anxiety in Tian Jinghu's eyes turned to terror.

No one knew the Imperial Prison's methods better than they did!

His heart clenched!

Just then, a third flute note abruptly rang out. With a wet tearing sound, Tian Jinghu suddenly felt an agonizing pain rip through his abdomen!

He looked down.

A small mechanical claw had burst out of his body!

A second [Earth Gecko] crawled out of his belly...

Everyone recoiled in shock.

Another one?

No one was more shocked than Tian Jinghu himself.

"How could..."

He stared in disbelief at the wound in his abdomen, blood pouring out of it.

He had never imagined that, without his knowing, someone had done exactly the same thing to him as to Jiang Aqi!

A Gu planted in his head to influence his mind...

A Mechanical Beast hidden in his belly...

Dead men told no tales... Suddenly, realization flashed through his mind, and he understood why they had done it. High office and generous pay, gold and silver-all of it had been a lie!

"The Zhao Family..."

Hatred surged through him. He spat out a mouthful of blood and pitched forward, dying with his eyes still open.

The Earth Gecko sprang out of his body. This time, it headed straight for the secret chamber!

Compared with the first one, it was smaller and faster, moving like lightning. Its surface gleamed with a crimson metallic sheen, and the mechanical armor covering it was clearly of a higher quality.

"Trying the same trick again!"

Cao Jinxing slashed, bringing Snow Soul down hard on the little creature's back.

Then something unexpected happened: the fifth-grade Snow Soul sword failed to cut through it!

Sparks sprayed from the impact. The Earth Gecko was hurled away by the force, but the moment it landed, it swiftly slipped through the gap around the stone door and into the secret chamber.

"Not good!"

Shen Xiang's expression shifted. "Red armor and a slender body, indestructible, shaped like a dragon and swift as thunder... That's [Red Dragon], one of the Five Sacred Beasts painstakingly crafted by Kuai Xiang! They mean to use it to delay the mechanisms from activating!"

Kuai Xiang's mastery of mechanisms was unrivaled.

To breach the Imperial Prison, which he had built in his later years with painstaking effort and a lifetime's knowledge, they had to use his own creations-turning his spear against his shield!

And [Red Dragon] was precisely a mechanism killer!

Even if it couldn't destroy the secret chamber, it could burrow into the central mechanism and hold it up for a while!

The "Five Sacred Beasts"-qilin, phoenix, tortoise, dragon, and tiger-were the supreme treasures of the Lu Ban Divine Axe Sect.

But two had been lost years ago, and [Red Dragon] was one of them. To think it had fallen into the Bright Sect's hands!

"Exactly! Hahahaha..."

An elusive laugh drifted from afar. "How do you like this gift?" When he spoke the first word, he was still far outside the prison. By the last, he had already reached the third level.

His lightness skill and speed were beyond belief.

"Old Xiang, I've come to get you."

The man emerged into view, his hair a dazzling gold, a long staff in his hand and a flute at his waist. He was Tie Xiongshi, the "Ape King," one of the Bright Cult's four great Dharma Kings: Dragon, Phoenix, Ape, and Fox.