Lu Chen was truly terrified.
Though his Dao Heart was steadfast and he had long cast life and death aside, witnessing such an undignified death with his own eyes still made his scalp tingle. He feared that he, too, would meet the same end.
"A warrior may be killed, but never humiliated! Fellow Daoist, please grant me a swift death. Do not use such methods..."
He forced himself to draw one last breath and struggled to look toward the source of the voice.
The sight nearly made that breath catch in his throat.
At the tunnel's vaulted ceiling, within a hand-carved rock niche, a verdigris-covered hanging coffin was embedded at an angle. Its lid had been violently pried open at one corner, and Shen Qiu's furtive head poked out from the gap.
Even stranger, his entire face was wrapped in layer after layer of white cloth, making him look like a mummy that had just crawled out of an ancient tomb.
Within this passage thick with baleful qi, paired with those darting, rolling eyes, he looked not only horrifying, but absurdly comical.
"Y-you're that fellow Daoist from earlier?"
Lu Chen's tongue tied itself in knots. Had he not recognized that utterly unreliable tone, he would have thought this fellow had been possessed by something filthy—otherwise, how could his appearance be so distinctive?
"Don't try to cozy up to me, kid."
Shen Qiu snorted and cut him off, speaking viciously. "Since you didn't kick me while I was down, tell me everything about the situation outside. Later, I'll give you a swift death."
As he spoke, he did not forget to activate his Divine Sense, sweeping all the spoils below into his black cauldron. He did not even spare the treasure robes on those dried corpses, stripping them clean to the