At the end of the second-floor corridor, a side path is hidden behind a protruding rock wall.
The entrance is only half a person high, with rough and uneven edges. It is completely different from the neatly carved passages outside, and looks more like a naturally formed karst cave fissure.
There was no gate, no railing, and no trace of human intervention at the fork in the road; no one had noticed it when they scanned the upper structure.
The green-clad figure hunched over and crawled inside. The green light from its abdomen left a brief fluorescent trail on the rock wall, like a startled snake darting back into the cave.
He disappeared into the depths of the side road, his movements practiced and without the slightest hesitation—clearly, he had traversed this path many times before.
"This guy chose this place as his base," Huo Xiao said, crouching down at the fork in the road and testing the wind at the cave entrance. "It's not just for concealment. He's got his eye on this natural cave system inside the mountain."
"The artificial passageway and bronze door outside are just the front entrance; his territory lies inside." He withdrew his hand, stood up, and glanced at the children behind him, instructing them, "Once we go in, there will be many more branching paths. Someone must stay and guard this entrance; we can't let him circle back after we go deeper."
Everyone nodded to indicate they understood. Feng Xiaotian quickly assigned manpower. Su Mei'er stayed at the fork in the road to guard the cave entrance—her Ultimate Fire and Ultimate Ice could simultaneously block multiple directions, making it more than enough for one person to guard one cave entrance.
The rest of the group split into four: he led Jiang Lin and Ji Ning in a frontal pursuit, with Senior Huo Xiao Bai Yu bringing up the rear; Lu Hanxiao, Lu Qing, and Bai Yu flanked from the left front; Shi Yan and Cheng Luo blocked the left rear; and Zhong Yue and Su Ran blocked the right rear. Feng Lingtian provided mobile support, shuttling between the groups to relay messages.
Feng Lingtian took out several Communication Stone and Resonance Stone from his Storage Soul Tool at his waist, distributing one set to each group. " Communication Stone are for daily communication, Resonance Stone are activated in emergencies—when a group is in danger, everyone will receive a vibration. I'm carrying an extra set; whichever direction the vibration rings first, that's where we'll head."
Everyone responded in unison and dispersed into the side paths.
The air inside the side passage was damp and cold, with a thin layer of water droplets seeping from the rock walls, carrying a pungent smell of rotting earth. The further you went in, the narrower the side passage became, with the narrowest parts requiring you to squeeze through sideways.
But after passing through each narrow opening, the space ahead suddenly opens up for a short while before branching again—some are natural caves, some are man-made, and many are a combination of both, with natural fissures being widened by human intervention, just enough for one person to pass through.
Ji Ning continued to lead the way. His Hummingbird Martial Soul was limited in this confined space, but its agility in short-distance sprints was more advantageous. At each fork in the road, he would quickly scout a section, return to report the direction, and then scout the next section, like a hummingbird exploring a maze.
Feng Lingtian followed behind him, carving a mark on the rock wall with his wind blade at each fork in the road. Jiang Lin walked in the middle of the group, his Spirit Eyes always locked on the aura of the green light ahead.
The green-clad man ran very fast, and traces of his green abdominal light could be seen on the rock walls along the way. But after chasing for about fifteen minutes, Jiang Lin suddenly stopped at a fork in the road.
His Spirit Eyes swept over the residual Soul Power at the two forks in the road, and his brows furrowed. "He's going in circles. He's already taken this fork in the road—the residual Soul Power here is fainter than the one on the right; it's not new, it's just been there recently. He's leading us in circles, trying to buy us time."
"He's stalling, which means he needs time." Feng Xiaotian walked to the fork in the road and compared the traces of the two paths—the left path had obvious green light scratches, while the right one did not, but there were no marks carved by Feng Lingtian on the rock wall of the left path. "Take the right path. The path he hasn't been to is the path he wants to hide on."
Feng Lingtian immediately transmitted this message to the other three groups and Su Mei'er, who was guarding the cave entrance, via the Communication Stone. Soon, the Communication Stone lit up one after another—each group had repositioned themselves according to the adjusted direction and was converging on the location of the green-haired man from different directions.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the fork in the road, the Green Man was huddled in a natural cave. He leaned against a wet stalagmite, and the green light in his abdomen no longer throbbed violently, but still flickered slightly, sometimes bright and sometimes dim.
He clutched his abdomen with one hand, the other resting on a stalagmite, his fingertips lightly tapping the rough stone surface. His cloudy, yellow eyes darted rapidly in the darkness, scanning the three cave walls—
There was a fork in the road on each cave wall, two in front and one on each side, for a total of four. The trajectory of his eyes corresponded exactly to the four forks in the road.
He was choosing, searching for a direction that wouldn't elicit Soul Power reaction.
But he didn't know that all directions were blocked.
From the fork in the road to the left, Lu Hanxiao, along with Lu Qing and Bai Yu, were silently cutting in. The night vision ability of the Snowy Owl Martial Soul allowed Lu Hanxiao to move faster than usual in this pitch-black environment, and his feet made no sound at all.
Lu Qing's twin Wind Scythe scythes were already hanging at his sides, with a thin layer of Bai Yu -like Wind Chime enhancement light attached to the blades, and the sound of the wind was suppressed to a minimum.
Bai Yu's Wind Chime tinkled softly twice in the silence. As the sound waves spread, she closed her eyes and listened to the echo, "Thirty steps ahead, a cave, four forks in the path—he's in the middle."
To the left rear, the Void Resonance Bell of the Shi Yan had blocked the way back. Pale golden spatial ripples spread through the narrow passage, altering the air density of the entire side passage.
Cheng Luo's Wind-Binding Vine emerged from the rock crevices, weaving into an irregular vine net, the mesh Xiaogang enough to hold an adult's shoulder.
To the right rear, Zhong Yue's Black Tortoise: Wind Armor was already at the forefront, forming a tight defensive formation. Su Ran squatted behind him, holding two Wind Grain Seed in her hand, one already in her mouth—not out of nervousness, but to be ready to replenish Zhong Yue's Soul Power at any moment while he was bearing the pressure head-on.
All four branch roads, in four directions, are completely blocked off.
The green-clad man surveyed the four forks in the road, the green light within his abdomen pulsating faster and brighter. His lips moved slightly, uttering a hoarse word. "Everyone wait for me. Very well."
Then he did something no one expected—he neither chose to force his way through in one direction nor stayed put to wait for a pincer attack.
He raised his head, staring at the cave ceiling with his constantly shifting yellow eyes, and slowly parted his lips into a smile. Then he raised his hands, all ten fingers pointing at the rock formation above him—the green light from his abdomen poured wildly upwards from his arms, wrists, and fingertips.
He wanted to break through the top layer of rock and escape upwards.