"Wait, Red Soil?"
Fang Yuan's heart trembled.
He reached out, grabbed the stone wall beside him, exerted force, and pulled out a piece of red soil.
This red soil was soft and loose, emitting a faint red light. Fang Yuan lightly squeezed it, and it crumbled effortlessly.
"I see." He suddenly understood.
He remembered the first time he entered the stone crevice secret cave, he discovered that the entire cave was filled with this kind of red soil, emitting a faint light that required no other illumination.
He had found it strange back then, because the soil of Green Sprout Mountain was all dark greenish-black. He had originally thought it was the arrangement of Flower Wine Traveler (Huājiǔ Xíngzhě). But now, it seemed the source was this eerie Blood Lake.
Fang Yuan felt increasingly uneasy. Five hundred years of life experience from his previous life had settled into almost an intuition.
"This place isn't just strange; it's full of dangers. Time is tight right now. How do I get out of here?" Fang Yuan looked up at the cave walls. There were hundreds of holes in the ceiling leading to the spring rooms. Which one was it?
Fang Yuan hesitated.
Just because water can flow in doesn't mean the underground river is wide enough for a person to pass through.
"And..." Fang Yuan's expression turned serious as he tried to vibrate the wings on his back.
These Lightning Wings were no longer as responsive as before. The originally deep blue electric lightning was now mixed with faint, bizarre scarlet colors. It revealed a contradictory feeling of weakness and strength coexisting.
The state of the Lightning Wings Gu was very unreliable, and it was highly likely to fail mid-flight, causing Fang Yuan to fall from the sky.
Splash... A strange undercurrent surged in the Blood Lake.
The immense aura of a Rank Five Gu permeated out from the Blood Lake.
"That is..." Fang Yuan's pupils contracted sharply as a long black shadow gradually appeared in the blood water.
It was over forty meters long and over six meters in diameter.
This was a giant python, dwelling deep in the Blood Lake. Now, smelling the flesh and blood on Fang Yuan's body, it seemed ready to come out and hunt!
"Damn it..." Fang Yuan felt a sense of urgency in his heart.
At this moment, his long hair flowing and wearing a black robe, he was barely hanging on the soft red soil using the Serrated Golden Centipede to pierce the mountain wall. Compared to the vast blood sea, he was like a small black ant.
Hundreds of black dots also appeared from the bottom of the lake and rose up, swimming like a school of fish.
Swoosh swoosh...
They were faster than the giant python and flew out of the lake surface in an instant, revealing their forms.
They were not fish, but bats.
These dark red bats had long, pointed ears and two pairs of wings. A pair of larger main wings, and a pair of smaller secondary wings below them.
They had no claws, but the edges of their two pairs of wings were sharp, comparable to steel blades.
"Rank Three Saber-Winged Blood Bat Gu?" An answer immediately rose in Fang Yuan's heart.
Watching this group of saber-winged blood bats charge at him aggressively, the first thing that appeared in his mind was that recording.
In the recording of the Image Sound Recording Gu, Hua Jiu Xing Zhe (Flower Wine Traveler) was covered in blood, severely injured and dying.
The Moon Shadow Gu could never have caused injuries like that, but this group of saber-winged blood bats matched perfectly.
"Could it be that Hua Jiu Xing Zhe once came here? In fact, was he injured by the saber-winged blood bats here?" In an instant, Fang Yuan's thoughts raced.
The cause of Hua Jiu Xing Zhe's death had always been a mystery. But now, it seemed highly likely to be this.
"Saber-winged blood bats..." Fang Yuan murmured in his heart. He was actually not unfamiliar with this kind of Gu at all.
This Gu, although only Rank Three, was extremely easy to raise. It only needed blood.
In his previous life, he established the Blood Wing Demon Sect, using the saber-winged blood bat as its emblem. With the resources of the demon sect, he supported nearly ten thousand saber-winged blood bats, displaying immense power and spreading terror. To be more precise, he built his career on saber-winged blood bats.
In his past life, over four hundred years later, he stumbled upon a legacy of the Blood Sea Ancestor. Relying on his horde of saber-winged blood bats and his own Rank Five cultivation, he became a regional hegemon.
This Blood Sea Ancestor was a Rank Seven demonic path Gu Master, notorious for his atrocities, a mass murderer recorded in history, cursed for ten thousand years.
He was originally a mortal who, by chance, became a demonic path Gu Master. Climbing from the very bottom, it took him over eight hundred years to become a demonic great paragon.
His talent was not high, and the Primeval Essence in his aperture was limited. He had always had a fanatical research interest in combined Gu refinement.
Wild Gu possess a natural will and can absorb natural Primeval Essence from the air. However, when a wild Gu is refined by a Gu Master, and its body is dominated by a human will, it loses its ability to absorb surrounding vital energy and can only swallow the Primeval Essence from the Gu Master's aperture.