A ghostly green light flickered in the shadows, then began to move towards the edge of the corridor. The pace was neither hurried nor slow; it wasn't an escape, nor a charge.
It's like someone who's been locked in the dark for too long, finally hearing the door open, not rushing in because they know their prey can't escape.
Feng Xiaotian lowered his stance, his right hand already forming a semi-transparent blade of Gale. He didn't turn around, his voice extremely low. "Scatter. Don't stand in the same area of light."
Five figures silently dispersed to both sides. Ji Ning's Hummingbird Martial Soul hovered at low altitude, its wings beating at a frequency too fast for the naked eye to detect, making him resemble a taut bowstring.
Lu Hanxiao slid into the shadows along the left side of the stone wall, the Snowy Owl Martial Soul's concealment ability making his figure almost completely melt away in the darkness.
Jiang Lin stood at the very back, Spirit Eyes pale silver light not focused on the green light—he was observing the entire upper structure, identifying which corridors were open, which corners were dead ends, and which locations were best for blocking off escape routes.
The red and blue light at Su Mei'er's fingertips lit up simultaneously, but she held it back, letting fire and ice alternate in her palms, able to switch to any element at any time.
Feng Lingtian did not land. His Peregrine Falcon falcon wings spread low in the air, and his toes lightly touched a protruding rock wall, maintaining an angle that allowed him to swoop down at any moment.
His gaze followed the moving green light, his lips barely moving as he reported the location in a voice only his teammates could hear, "Left corridor, veer to the right, not moving fast—he's circling."
"It's not going in circles." Feng Xiaotian's gaze swept across the upper corridor. "It's driving us away. He wants to force us into the middle."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a sharp metallic scraping sound rang out from the railing of the upper corridor—the chain had been dragged.
The thick chain that had been hanging on the railing seemed to be pulled tight by an invisible hand, breaking off the railing and sweeping across with the broken shackles, smashing into the crowd scattered on both sides.
Ji Ning's hummingbird Teleportation away, and the shackles grazed his afterimage as they slammed against the stone wall, scattering shards of rock.
Immediately afterwards, a second and third chain swung down from different directions. It wasn't a random, indiscriminate attack—each chain landed precisely to block the team members' path of movement.
Just as Ji Ning dodged the first chain, the second one blocked his escape route on the left. Lu Hanxiao emerged from the shadows, the chilling air from his wingtips condensing into an ice wall in front of him, and withstood a direct blow from the chain. As the ice wall shattered, the chain was frozen stiff and fell to the ground.
"He can control multiple chains simultaneously." Jiang Lin's voice came from the back row, his Spirit Eyes flashing rapidly. "It's not Soul Skill — the Soul Power attached to these chains and the green light on his body are the same thing. He's using his Soul Power to control them."
Feng Xiaotian's pupils contracted slightly. Releasing Soul Power —that's an ability only Soul King and above possess. This person's released Soul Power could simultaneously control at least three chains and maintain the green light covering his entire body.
His level was at least fifty. A Soul King of level fifty or higher, hiding in a stronghold of Evil Soul Master disguised as a bandit camp, imprisoning people in iron cages, dragging corpses with chains, and draining the Soul Power of at least thirty people—what was he cultivating?
The green light suddenly stopped.
The pale green light stopped in the center of the upper corridor and remained motionless. The hunched figure within the green light slowly straightened up—he had been hunched over the whole time, which was why he looked so small.
But when he stood up straight, his hands, which had been hanging down in front of him, reached below his knees. His ten fingers were withered and thin, with a ghostly green glow at the tips. This was not a change caused by the Martial Soul Possession, but a physical mutation resulting from long-term practice of some kind of evil art.
He slowly turned his head, revealing half of his face in the green light—his skin was grayish-white, his eye sockets were deep-set, his pupils were a cloudy, dark yellow, and a trace of sticky saliva clung to the corner of his mouth.
He looked down at the six people scattered below, as if identifying something, or perhaps counting them. Then he smiled, revealing a row of uneven, yellow teeth.
The laughter was very soft, like a mouthful of thick phlegm stuck in the throat, wet and sticky, with a creepy, tingling sensation. The laughter bounced back and forth several times in the empty mountainside, its direction indiscernible, as if it came from several directions at the same time.
"Six..." His voice was hoarse and dry, as if he hadn't drunk water in a long time. He raised a withered finger, first pointing at Feng Xiaotian, then slowly sweeping it over Feng Lingtian, Su Mei'er, Lu Hanxiao, Ji Ning, finally fixing it on Jiang Lin. He tilted his head, as if examining a piece of porcelain.
"More than the last one. And the quality... is better too." He pointed his finger at Jiang Lin, the eerie green glow at his fingertip gleaming slightly, as if he were measuring something. Then he grinned, revealing a smile—not the smile of seeing prey, but the smile of seeing raw material. "You have good eyesight. I'll take my time to collect them."
Jiang Lin neither retreated nor replied. He simply stood calmly in place, the pale silver light of his Spirit Eyes steadily sweeping across the entire upper space.
His fingertips twitched slightly as he rapidly collected data on the flow of Soul Power around the green-haired man's body, searching for an opening to attack.
Su Mei'er's fingertips lit up with red and blue light simultaneously, but she didn't use it. She turned her head slightly and said in a voice only her teammates could hear, "He's assessing us."
Feng Xiaotian didn't turn around, his voice low. "If he were confident, he wouldn't have used a puppet. Let's test his limits first."
Dull, resounding impacts echoed from deep within the mountainside, one after another. At the end of the upper corridor, an iron door that had previously been hidden in the darkness was smashed open.
Seven or eight figures emerged from behind the door, their movements stiff and unnatural, their joints twisted at impossible angles, each step accompanied by a cracking sound of dislocated bones. Black liquid, the same as that of the corpses on the ground, oozed from their mouths, and their pupils, though dilated, continued to move.
They were not living people, but corpses manipulated by evil magic after their Soul Power was drained. They were still wearing the clothes they wore when they were alive, but their skin had turned grayish-green, their fingernails had fallen off, and their fingertips were oozing a ghostly green fluorescence of the same origin as that of the Green Light Man.
The gaunt Soul Master who had escaped was among them—his neck was twisted to one side at an impossible angle, his chin resting against his collarbone, his eyes still moving, but his gaze was empty, devoid of any trace of life. His fingers were twitching unconsciously, and with each twitch, a wisp of green light seeped from his fingertips.
The green-haired man tilted his head, using his cloudy yellow eyes to survey the six people below. Then, he extended a withered finger and casually pointed in Feng Xiaotian's direction.
All the corpses stopped convulsing at the same time. Their eyes stopped moving in the same instant, then turned in unison to Feng Xiaotian. There were no growls, no howls, they simply silently vaulted over the railing and pounced downwards in unnatural postures.
The green-glowing figure retreated back into the shadows, the eerie green light flickering as if waiting with keen interest. He wanted to see how long these people could hold out against his puppets.