Having finished speaking, the purple-haired woman channeled her magical power into the jade pendant in her hand. Instantly, that wisp of blood-red thread came alive, writhing and crawling across the pendant's surface.
"Excellent. If Fifth Sister has this secret technique to pinpoint that demon beast's location, we needn't fear being ambushed. That gives us a tremendous advantage," the yellow-haired giant said with visible delight upon hearing this.
He then stepped aside, allowing his "Fifth Sister" to take the lead.
The group had barely taken a few steps through the underground cavern before entering a man-made mine shaft.
Judging from the pockmarked hollows lining both sides of the tunnel, the nearby Fire Cloud Stones had clearly been mined out long ago. Even so, the scorching heat in this area was noticeably more intense than when they had first descended underground.
Had this mineral vein not been buried deep within the Illusory Roar Desert, they could have simply employed earth-escape techniques to burrow straight underground and hunt down the demon beast. As things stood, they had no choice but to follow the existing mine shafts deeper, inch by inch.
The network of tunnels in this mineral vein was densely packed, with several shafts intersecting at regular intervals to form something resembling a spider's web.
The longer tunnels stretched for a full li or more, while the shorter ones were only a dozen zhang across. Most of the Fire Cloud Stones within them had already been extracted, leaving behind only the occasional remnant hidden in some concealed corner.
But after passing through more than a dozen tunnels and arriving at an intersection where four or five shafts converged, Han Li suddenly narrowed his eyes.
Every one of the tunnels before him was agitated with flickering crimson light, their walls lined wall-to-wall with fist-sized red crystals.
What caught Han Li's gaze, however, was not these rare materials, but a headless half-skeleton slumped in the entrance of one of the passages.
The skeleton's skull had vanished entirely. The body, while otherwise intact, was desiccated and withered — as though all the flesh and blood had been drained away, leaving only a thin layer of skin clinging to the frame.
The purple-haired woman and the yellow-haired giant naturally spotted the remains as well. They exchanged a glance, both showing a flicker of surprise.
When the purple-haired woman's eyes fell upon a scrap of clothing caught near one corner of the skeleton, her expression darkened abruptly. She reached out with a slender jade hand and made a grabbing motion toward the remains.
With a soft "pfft," a small fragment of fabric lifted off the skeleton and flew into her hand, where she unfurled it with a flick.
Han Li glanced over and immediately noticed a faint silver character printed on the fabric — "Bai."
"One of our Bai family disciples, though which one is hard to say," the purple-haired woman said, furrowing her elegant brows.
The yellow-haired giant gave a cold snort and likewise raised his arm, beckoning toward the skeleton.
With a sharp "whoosh," a green leather pouch flew over to him. With a tap of his finger, it burst apart in midair, and a swarm of blood-red giant hornets materialized from the void.
Each one was the size of an adult's palm, their wings beating gently and ceaselessly.
"Blood Luo Hornets! If I'm not mistaken, those were Bai Yan's personal demon insects!" the yellow-haired giant said, his expression turning grim as he identified the crimson demon wasps.
"Reporting to the Patriarch — these are indeed Bai Yan's Blood Luo Hornets. I personally witnessed him use them in battle several times in the past. I'm certain I haven't mistaken them," replied a white-haired elder among the six Bai family disciples, stepping forward immediately. His tone carried a hint of sorrow, suggesting he had been fairly close to this "Bai Yan."
"Then this corpse really is Bai Yan. But he was one of the disciples left behind to guard the outpost — and the strongest among them at that. How could he have perished here in such a manner!" The purple-haired woman sighed softly, then raised her hand and launched a fireball that reduced the skeleton to ash before she spoke again.
The gruesome state of the remains did not particularly shock anyone in the group. In the Demon World, there were countless demonic arts that directly sucked the vital essence and blood from others. It was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Let's press on. We may yet discover something," the yellow-haired giant said after a moment's consideration.
No one objected, and the group continued advancing along the tunnel where the half-skeleton lay. Every one of them, however, grew noticeably more cautious.
After proceeding several hundred zhang along this shaft, they came upon five or six more headless skeletons in quick succession. When the Bai family members examined them, each and every one turned out to be another of the Bai family disciples who had been stationed at the outpost.
The yellow-haired giant's face turned as dark as iron.
After walking a stretch further, he suddenly halted and asked the purple-haired woman: "Fifth Sister. How far are we from that demon beast now? It won't have already sensed us in this area, will it?"