Mo Yan's Adam's apple bobbed violently, his gaze flickering with unease.
His fingers dug deep into the ground, knuckles turning white from the force.
"R… reporting to Master…" His voice trembled, like blood was caught in his throat. "This slave… this slave actually…"
Xie Zhaolin's heart clenched. The baleful qi surging at her fingertips exploded as she barked, "Speak!"
The roar carried the power of the slave contract, and Mo Yan's entire body convulsed. He curled up and let out a shrill scream.
"This slave… this slave doesn't know the exact location of the Rebirth Flower! I only… only know it's somewhere at the bottom of the cliff… I really don't know!"
She froze for a breath, then laughed coldly in fury. Her hand shot out, yanking Mo Yan's hair and forcing his bloodstained face upward. "You dared make me search for something when you don't even know where it is?"
His pupils contracted sharply. His lips trembled, but no words came out. At that moment, his aura suddenly withered, and his skin shriveled at a speed visible to the eye.
"M… Master…" His trembling hand clutched her boot. "Please… leave the cliff bottom quickly… this slave… this slave can't hold on…"
Her brows furrowed.
Logically, even with contract backlash, a Golden Core cultivator shouldn't have been reduced to this state.
"What's happening?"
Mo Yan's pupils unfocused, black blood spilling from his mouth. "There's… a restriction at the abyss… forcing entry… causes backlash…"
Her eyes flickered in surprise.
She had noticed something was wrong with his state, but she hadn't expected that to be the reason. Still, she had no intention of revealing the hidden path she knew.
"Lead the way," she said coldly. "We're leaving."
Relief washed over him. He staggered to his feet, stumbling forward. Each step was unsteady, his hand scraping the cliff walls for support. Demonic patterns surfaced faintly beneath his skin—he was already at his limit.
The five beast souls trailed close behind, on guard. Shuang Ling's silver tail stood upright, Xue Xiao spread its wings slightly, and Dian Diao released flickers of lightning that lit up the tunnel's darkness.
After a turn, the path suddenly widened.
A circular stone platform came into view, its surface carved with complex array patterns—it was another teleportation array.
Her eyes narrowed.
This one was smaller than the previous array but far better preserved.
What drew her attention most was the pile of bones surrounding it, all wearing robes from various sects. She glanced at Mo Yan. Clearly, these cultivators had died by his hand as well. But the array itself didn't seem to be formed by blood sacrifice. That stirred a trace of doubt in her mind.
The thought faded almost immediately.
This was the cultivation world. Who didn't have blood on their hands? Even she, as the Hehuan Sect's chief disciple, had slain countless cultivators.
White bones paving the path to immortality—that was the iron law of the cultivation world.
She stepped into the array. "You came down using this teleportation array before?"
Mo Yan shook his head weakly. "No… it was the broken one…"
He coughed up another mouthful of blood, his face twisting in pain. "This slave… this slave didn't know it was damaged… nearly lost my life during the transmission…"
Her gaze flickered. No wonder he had flown into a rage earlier.
"So you went straight after the giant lizard?"
His body shuddered, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Yes… this slave only planned to probe at first… after all, even I didn't know the Rebirth Flower's exact location…"
He swallowed more blood with difficulty. "I thought keeping the giant lizard alive was better… that way, even if others knew about the Rebirth Flower, they wouldn't get past it easily…"
That was indeed clever. Rather than kill the guardian beast, leaving it as a natural barrier was smarter.
As soon as he finished speaking, the array's light flared violently, swallowing both of them whole. Her vision blurred, the world twisted, and when it cleared, she was already standing in a damp, shadowy cavern.
Water droplets glistened on the cold stone walls.
Mo Yan collapsed, gasping hard. His skin slowly regained color, his breath gradually stabilizing.
She only cast a casual glance around. The slave contract forced him to scramble up, clear a spot in panic, and pull out a pristine white spirit fox pelt from his storage bag. He laid it out carefully.
"Master, please sit."
She sat cross-legged. The five beast souls immediately spread out, forming a vigilant guard around her.
She suddenly asked, "You know formations?"
The question wasn't random. The teleportation array they'd just seen wasn't something thrown together overnight. With his cultivation suppressed, simply reaching the cliff bottom was already difficult. Constructing such an intricate array under those conditions was nearly impossible.
Mo Yan trembled, sweat dripping down his forehead.
"Reporting to Master… this slave… this slave doesn't understand formations…"
His voice shook, terrified she'd take offense. He quickly added, "This slave… caught quite a few formation masters below the Foundation stage…"
Her brows lifted slightly as he continued.
"This slave threw them straight from the cliff top." He swallowed hard. "Those who survived… had the right to lay formations…"
"How many survived?"
A twisted smile tugged at his lips. "One in ten…"
His hoarse voice carried a trace of helplessness. "This slave didn't want to do it, but with cultivation suppressed, I couldn't bring them down personally. If I forced it, I'd be risking my own life too."
Her expression didn't change. So that explained the piles of bones around the arrays—they were the formation masters he had thrown down.
Still, such methods weren't rare in the cultivation world. To achieve one's goals, sacrificing low-level cultivators was nothing. In this world, strength was everything. If you walked the road to immortality, you had to be ready to die at any moment.
"And those who survived?" she asked.
A glimmer of pride flashed in his eyes. "Those who survived… this slave bound with restrictions." His fingers clawed at the ground unconsciously. "I made them lay down formations little by little whenever the giant lizard wasn't around."
His expression suddenly twisted with hatred. "But those damn formation masters… their cultivation was too weak! Whenever the giant lizard found them, they became its food!"
His voice turned savage. "Thirty years! Thirty whole years! And only two arrays were barely completed!"
She nodded thoughtfully.
So that was why he hated the giant lizard so much—thirty years of painstaking effort, countless formation masters sacrificed, only to have it all ruined.
"Enough," she said flatly.
"Now, tell me everything you know about the Rebirth Flower. And why you're so certain it exists here. No half-truths."