While Li Dalong devoted himself fully to cultivation, order returned to normal in the Underground World, and cultivators obtained abundant cultivation resources there.
A new crisis arrived. One day, a party of low-level rogue cultivators, a standard ten-person team, was out exploring. Their captain was only in the early-stage Golden Immortal realm, their deputy captain was a mid-stage Heavenly Immortal, and the other members had Profound Immortal cultivation.
While they rested on a small hill deep within the Underground World, the ground suddenly collapsed, and one member fell with the collapsing earth into a bottomless black pit.
Faced with the unknown black pit, the captain in the early-stage Golden Immortal realm eventually went down himself to attempt a rescue. But after he descended, there was no word from him, nor even a sound, as though no one had ever gone down.
The team members waited a long time without receiving any news, and they all grew worried.
Finally unable to contain his anxiety, the deputy captain went down next to search for the captain and the member who had fallen.
Only two breaths after he descended, they heard the deputy captain let out a terrified scream, followed by silence.
This terrified the seven team members left on the hill. Their strongest members, the captain and deputy captain, had both mysteriously disappeared, and the deputy captain's final scream in particular shook those who remained.
After discussing it briefly, they dared not linger and decided to flee at once, so they turned and ran.
Their decision proved entirely correct. A quarter of an hour after they fled,
Thick black mist began pouring out of the Black Pit. Wherever it reached, all the plants unique to the Underground World were contaminated and demonized. The contaminated plants all became aggressive demonized plants.
When passing