Zhang Ling's heart turned to ash. The green dagger was upon him in an instant, only inches away.
At that moment, his body was stiff, and he couldn't mobilize any of his spiritual power.
Was he going to die here?
Despair filled his heart!
But at that moment, a flash of green light appeared beside him, and a strong gust of wind suddenly swept him aside.
With a soft thud, Zhang Ling fell heavily to the ground.
His body trembled, and he instantly regained his ability to move. He jumped up from the ground and activated his cultivation technique, immediately raising a spiritual power shield around his body.
The green dagger that had attacked him was actually a strange insect.
It was a long, slender, emerald-green insect, only about an inch long, with a pair of translucent, emerald-green wings on its back.
It looked like a small snake. What was strange was that this insect had a large head, and it was shaped strangely, like a curved blade.
The insect's thin wings fluttered, and its body became semi-transparent. As soon as he saw this strange insect, he knew that it was the one that had attacked him earlier.
And the emerald-green dagger he had seen was the insect's head.
At that moment, the insect was surrounded by a ball of crimson flames, trapped in mid-air. The flames exploded, and the strange insect let out a mournful cry before turning into ashes.
Zhang Ling then realized that it was the woman in green who had saved him.
The woman in green was pale, and her upper body was covered in bright red, indicating that she had been seriously injured. With a wave of the jade pen in her hand, she shot out a large amount of cold mist.
Immediately, the passage behind them was sealed off by a thick layer of ice.
"Hmph, you still want to escape."
But then, a cold voice came from the entrance of the cave, and the old man appeared there as well.
With a loud bang!
The ice layer shattered, and the woman in green flashed and jumped into the cave. Seeing this, Zhang Ling jumped into the cave without thinking.
As he entered the cave, he saw the old man standing at the entrance. With a wave of his hand, a blood-red skull spat out a beam of spiritual light as thick as a bucket.
A loud rumbling sound shook people's eardrums.
Zhang Ling's figure fell rapidly, and in the blink of an eye, he had fallen thirty or forty feet. A yellow light flashed on his body, and the speed of his descent suddenly increased greatly.
He only heard the whistling of the wind in his ears. After dozens of breaths, Zhang Ling finally saw the bottom below. Below was a dark stream of water.
Seeing this, the spiritual light shield around Zhang Ling's body rose again, and then with a wave of his hand, a black, round shield was released.
Splash!
Zhang Ling stood on the water. At that moment, he was trembling all over. If the woman in green hadn't appeared earlier, he would have been killed by that strange insect.
Thinking of this, he looked up, but it was dark and he couldn't see the entrance of the cave above.
When he scanned with his divine sense, he saw the woman in green motionless, floating in the water with the current.
She seemed to have lost consciousness.
"Senior!"
Zhang Ling called out, but the woman didn't respond. He quickly came to her and scooped her up in his arms.
Because the woman was soaked all over, Zhang Ling's palms wrapped around her waist, and he placed her on his shoulder with one hand, immediately feeling the woman's warm, jade-like tenderness and smoothness.
He couldn't help but have some distracting thoughts. Zhang Ling bit the tip of his tongue, suppressed these thoughts, picked up the wet woman, and then quickly fled along the direction of a stream of water.
Now that this senior had lost consciousness, if the old man came after them, he was afraid that he would not be able to withstand a single blow.
This was an underground dark river, and the current was very rapid. He didn't know where it led to. This woman had saved his life earlier. He couldn't bear to leave her here.
Although Zhang Ling admitted that he was not a good person, he couldn't do anything ungrateful.
They disappeared into the darkness as they went forward.
...
"I didn't expect you to find the golden well here." The old man in linen robes looked at the wellhead at his feet with a gloomy expression, not chasing after them.
"Do you think you can escape?" The old man stared at the cave that Zhang Ling and the woman in green had entered, with a strange look on his face.
"Below is a Youquan River. Even a Golden Core cultivator who has been hit by my secret technique won't survive in it."
A black aura flashed on the old man, and he disappeared.
Outside, the young man with the red umbrella had already arrived at the white bone altar with the bronze coffin.
With a wave of his hand, the Ghost Seal flew into the air. A blood-red light was released, covering the entire white bone altar.
Dinglingling!
Yin energy and blood energy swirled around, and a series of copper bell sounds rang out. Then, the bronze coffin trembled, and a strange sound rang out from within.
Seeing this, the young man flashed and stood next to the coffin. With a wave of his hand, seven gray-white daggers flew out.
As soon as these magic weapons appeared, the young man looked solemnly at the Ghost Seal floating above his head and pointed heavily.
The Ghost Seal trembled, and a wailing yin wind rose, rushing out a seven- or eight-foot-long evil ghost.
This evil ghost was covered in red, and its gray-white hair moved without wind. Then, a black dagger flashed and passed through the evil ghost.
A shrill, strange laugh came, and then the evil ghost blurred and entered the dagger, immediately turning the dagger red.
In the midst of the copper bell sounds, one after another huge evil ghosts flew out of the Ghost Seal, and were absorbed by the daggers one by one.
These evil ghosts were not ordinary. There were red-haired ghosts with bull horns, green-faced, fanged, one-armed ghosts, and dark ghost shadows with long tongues.
A total of seven evil ghosts were absorbed by the daggers, and the daggers also turned into light blades of different colors.
"Third Grand Uncle, I'm ready."
When the young man saw that the seven daggers had been refined, his figure swayed and he sat cross-legged in the center of the altar.
"Little Ten, have you thought it over? Each of these refined fierce ghosts has the strength of a Golden Core. If you use this to refine a Heavenly Ghost Body, I'm afraid it will be a narrow escape from death."
"Uncle Ancestor, I have no choice. The one in the bronze coffin won't give me too much time. If I don't break through to the Nascent Soul realm within two hundred years, I'm afraid I won't even be able to keep my consciousness."
"This body of mine was originally prepared for that one. If Third Grand Uncle hadn't taken me away from the family, I would be dead now."
"Alas! If that's the case, I will protect you for a hundred years."
The old man in linen robes heard the young man's words and looked at the young man with a gentle gaze in his eyes.
"The way of heaven is impermanent, yin and yang are reversed, all ghosts descend into the world, reincarnation..."
The young man closed his eyes and sat cross-legged. The Ghost Seal above his head spun around, and a series of sacrificial prayers echoed throughout the space.
As the young man's voice rang out, the white bone altar beneath him trembled, and countless skeletons flew upside down. Gradually, the young man and the bronze coffin were wrapped in it.
Among the many white bones, the young man held a blood-red, thin dagger in one hand and inserted it into his shoulder, immediately turning his face red, and a phantom of an evil ghost appeared behind him.
"It's time to close the Longevity Hall."
In the original vast space, only the old man in linen robes was left. With a flip of his hand, he put on a bronze ghost mask.
Immediately, the aura on his body became even colder, and then spiritual light kept shooting out from his hand, turning into mysterious runes and flying towards all parts of the stone hall.
Soon after, the entire hall shook, and disappeared in a layer of gray-black light curtain.
...
