The entire place was silent.
Everyone was intently holding their breath, not even daring to take a deep breath, trying their best to keep their breathing slow. They were terrified of attracting the attention of the giant rooster.
Ti slowly passed, about a dozen breaths later.
The red rooster looked left and right, seemingly finding nothing to eat. Finally, it began to slowly retreat back into the darkness.
Whew...
The people present couldn’t help but secretly let out a sigh of relief. The head of the rooster was too huge... Such a large rooster, setting aside any special abilities it might possess, just its strength in pecking was already seemingly invincible.
Lin Xin also secretly let out a sigh of relief in his heart. They had only just descended into the cave and had already encountered such a colossal creature, to say it was fraught with danger was an understatent.
Just as the giant rooster was about to retreat back into the abyss.
Hiss.
Suddenly, Lin Xin caught a glimpse of a round object being thrown toward the abyss from the corner of his eye. He didn’t know who had thrown it.
"That’s... a signal flare!!!" He suddenly recognized it, and his face turned pale in an instant.
The rooster was probably attracted by the signal flare just now, and now soone was throwing signal flares again at this ti, with such a malicious intent, it was to kill everyone present!
Not just him, Xiao Lingling and Brother Guang also turned pale. They too recognized it was a signal flare.
Without ti to think further, Lin Xin quickly picked up a rock and threw it at the signal flare.
The rock squarely hit the signal flare in midair, sending it flying far away, its ultimate distance unknown.
Bang!
A burst of white light finally lit up in the darkness far away, thankfully about twenty ters from where everyone was.
Whew... A huge blast of air surged, and indeed, the rooster appeared again, moving its head toward the direction of the explosion of white light.
"Go!" Lin Xin shouted in a low voice, taking the lead in rushing toward the base of the rock wall, with Xiao Lingling and Brother Guang and the others quickly snapping to their senses and following. The horsen, however, were still shaken, trembling all over, afraid to move from their spot.
They all sprinted frantically, following the winding rock wall downward, running nonstop for several kiloters before gradually stopping to look back.
In the darkness, they could only faintly see a huge dark shadow slowly sinking deeper into the abyss, clearly that of the giant rooster.
"Keep running, further away, this place isn’t safe either!" Lin Xin made a decisive call, continuing to move downward along the path on the rock wall.
Xiao Lingling and the others also saw the dark shadow and hurriedly continued running.
A long run ensued, and they surprisingly didn’t encounter a single dark-haired horseman, until they reached an oval-shaped stone platform.
The platform was held up by waist-thick black chains, eight black chains suspending the entire stone platform in midair, directly next to a rock wall passage that andered down from above along the edge of the platform.
Lin Xin looked forward, seeing that the path led only to the platform, with no other paths visible.
The platform’s surface was flat and smooth, pitch black, its edges jagged with uneven stalagmites scattered around, resembling a ring of broken sawteeth, looking sowhat fierce from afar.
Lin Xin listened intently, and in the darkness, apart from their own footsteps and breathing sounds, and the crackling of torches burning, there was no sound of wind.
"Lin... Brother Lin. What should we do now?" At this point, Xiao Lingling and the others were sowhat admiring Lin Xin, who was the first to notice the rooster’s approach. It was also him who had wisely used a rock to throw the signal flare far away. If not for him, once the giant rooster had gone berserk, none of those present might have survived.
"This is the only way, we can only move forward," Lin Xin said without turning back, proceeding forward.
He vaguely noticed a series of footprints ahead, although dim under the torchlight, they were still barely discernible.
He followed the footprints slowly forward, with the others closely behind him, matching his steps, looking around cautiously, afraid of encountering another monster.
"The Sect would not send us to complete an impossible task," Lin Xin whispered, "so, that monstrous giant rooster is definitely not sothing we can resist. Since it’s impossible to fight against it, there must be so sort of pattern that allows us to remain unhard under the threat of that monster..."
As he walked and talked, the previously flustered Xiao Lingling also started to grasp what he ant.
"Brother Lin, you an... the giant rooster, as long as we et certain conditions, won’t attack us humans, but rather those horsen..."
Being a clever person herself, she started to get the hang of it.
"Exactly, those horsen shouldn’t be so fierce right from the start; if it’s so fierce at the beginning, wouldn’t it be even fiercer later on? So, they must have so weaknesses that we can exploit," Lin Xin nodded.
Xiao Lingling imdiately thought of the horsen’s behavior from earlier.
"Perhaps, we can recover quickly under the deterrence of the giant rooster, while those horsen cannot, so we can take advantage of this difference in ti. From this point of view, killing those Blood Beast horsen should be much simpler."
The others, hearing her analysis, imdiately felt there was so sense to it.
Lin Xin, of course, had thought of this already and didn’t say more, simply continuing forward.
Walking onto the black platform, there were no disturbances until they were almost securely across the platform. Only then did Lin Xin’s heart begin to relax slightly, and his feet touched the ground of another cave passage on the opposite side. He finally let out a slow breath of relief.
This platform, located between two rock walls, served as a link, connecting both sides of the deep cave abyss, perfectly situated at the narrowest terrain of the abyss.
Equivalent to a stone bridge.
After crossing the platform, Lin Xin and the others had reached the cliff face on the other side of the abyss, where a dark cave was situated. They stood at the entrance of the cave, looking into a huge pitch-black plaza within.
The plaza was flat with collapsed and broken stone human statues scattered around. In the center of the ground stood a vine sculpture, clawing ferociously in the air, towering over ten ters high, exceptionally prominent.
Lin Xin scanned the area, the entire plaza was as large as a football field, but it was mostly covered with rocks and broken stones, scattered here and there, nearly blocking most of the view.
"There should be passageways leading to other areas from here. Our trial this ti is to hunt the Blood Beasts and obtain their skulls. The black-furred centaur we encountered earlier must be what they call a Blood Beast. With our strength, it’s best to lure the Blood Beasts one by one for a surrounding attack," Lin Xin turned back to look at the others, "You guys don’t mind, right?"
"No, we’ll follow Brother Lin’s lead," Xiao Lingling was the first to speak up, which visibly upset Brother Guang standing beside her.
"If it weren’t for Brother Lin just now, we might not have been able to save even our lives. Why is Brother Guang pulling such a face?" the others murmured discontentedly.
Everyone heard this, and Brother Guang’s expression grew even uglier as he glanced at Xiao Lingling.
Xiao Lingling, however, acted as if she had heard nothing at all.
"No objections? Then let’s spread out and search this plaza. Be careful, if you spot a centaur, don’t alarm it. et back at the center by the vines, and we will make our plan there," Lin Xin said in a low voice. He didn’t have ti to pay attention to such petty sches, as hunting the Blood Beast was more important.
"Understood."
Having acknowledged, they all walked towards the plaza below.
Descending the slope gently to the plaza, Lin Xin and the others each lit a torch and split up to search in different directions.
He didn’t dare let his guard down, even alone. The centaur from before, if there was only one, wouldn’t pose a big problem given his current strength at the Fourth Layer of the Innate realm. However, if there were two, it might be troubleso, and they couldn’t be dealt with quickly unless he used his trump cards: the Luminous Talisman Sword and the Luminous Talisman Stone, which might attract other troubleso monsters due to their loud noise.
Alone, Lin Xin headed right with the torch, groping as he advanced, walking around so broken statue limbs. After about a hundred ters, he looked back and saw only a faint trace of firelight in the distance; evidently, everyone else had also gone far.
The plaza was eerily quiet, with only the faint sound of wind howling.
Approaching a broken statue, he gently touched its jagged edge.
The ice-cold temperature spread from his fingers to his palm, and then along his arm to his torso.
Lin Xin quickly withdrew his hand, shivering slightly.
The edges were rugged and nearly cut his hand as he hastily pulled back after a brief touch.
He carefully examined the statue. It was entirely black, depicting a soldier wielding a spear, seemingly guarding the plaza.
The break started at the waist, the upper half lying beside it on the ground, while the lower half was crookedly sunken into the ground, not yet completely fallen.
"This statue..." Lin Xin frowned slightly, gazing at the break and pondered deeply.
"Brother Lin."
Just as he was deep in thought, Xiao Lingling’s voice ca from behind him.
He turned around and saw Xiao Lingling approaching without a torch, stealthily erging from behind a statue. Her complexion was sowhat pale, her normally seductive face now tinged with a hint of vulnerability.
"Brother Lin... I’m a bit scared," Xiao Lingling ca close, less than half a ter from Lin Xin. She was dressed in black, but the tight clothes highlighted her curvaceous figure, which was even more provocative than being undressed.
Lin Xin raised an eyebrow. "Junior Sister Xiao, have you finished scouting in your direction?"
"I... I’m too scared to go alone," Xiao Lingling shyly lowered her head. "With my strength, if I encounter that kind of monster again... it would be very dangerous even to run away."
Lin Xin felt sowhat helpless, but he recalled that Xiao Lingling’s strength wasn’t her cultivation, but her other scouting abilities.
He thought for a mont, just about to speak.
"Brother Lin!" Suddenly, Xiao Lingling cried out softly and threw herself into his arms.
Lin Xin was montarily stunned by the warm embrace.
"As long as you protect ... I... I’m willing to do anything!" Xiao Lingling pleaded softly, her voice sultry like a kitten’s ow.
Bang!!!
Lin Xin’s face suddenly turned grim, and he viciously kicked Xiao Lingling away.
Xiao Lingling was kicked into the air, flipped, and landed steadily on the ground.
Lin Xin looked down at his chest, where a clear hole had appeared in his shirt, and beneath it, a faint white scar was slightly visible on his skin.
"You’re not Xiao Lingling! Who are you really!?" Lin Xin said coldly, staring intently at the person in front of him. If it were the real Xiao Lingling, she certainly wouldn’t have been able to stand so steadily after such a kick.
"Brother Lin, why are you so cruel? I was honestly offering myself just now..." Xiao Lingling covered her mouth and giggled, but her eyes revealed a hint of wariness toward Lin Xin.
"Ah!"
Suddenly, a scream echoed from afar, and a torch went out.
Lin Xin was montarily distracted. When he looked back at ’Xiao Lingling,’ he could only see a shadow disappearing into the darkness.
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