Chapter 242

The Blood-drinking Orchid was dark red all over, resembling layers of dried blood stains on its petals and roots. Ning Ning plucked one and took a careful sniff.

Surprisingly, what lingered at the tip of her nose was not a heavy, bloody smell but a light and sweet orchid fragrance.

“Strange,” Zhou Zhao frowned.

“First, we encounter a Bone Demon formed from death energy, and now there’s this cluster of blood-drinking orchids… Logically, a place with such things should be littered with corpses, a place of extreme danger, but why have we only seen endless snow?”

“Since the demons in the Demon Refining Tower are real, demons that could kill so many people should be rare, right?”

Xu Ye shivered.

“Just one Bone Demon was already terrifying. How horrifying must the culprit behind all this carnage be? Is this really just the 50th floor?”

Ning Ning placed the Blood-drinking Orchid into her storage pouch.

“The area we’ve explored is small. If we go further, we’re sure to find more. Have you noticed? The death energy and demonic energy are getting stronger.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Besides the increasingly dark and gloomy sky, the black mist around them was growing thicker.

The air was filled with the smell of decay, and the black smoke swirled with the cold wind, gathering and dispersing as if they were ghostly spirits hovering in the air.

At times, it even seemed to gain substance, weighing heavily on their chests, making it hard to breathe.

“Going further, the level of danger might far exceed our expectations,” He Zhizhou said seriously, lightly brushing a snowflake from the tip of his nose.

“I suggest we press on, but if it becomes too overwhelming, we can always leave this floor of the tower.”

As soon as Zhou Zhao heard the prospect of a fight, his previously dull eyes like rag doll immediately lit up. Gripping the hilt of his sword, he responded, “I agree! There’s no way I’m running. These little demons dare to be so arrogant here—we must beat it to pulp!”

——His chance to save face has finally come!!

Before Zhou Zhao had even finished speaking, Xu Ye suddenly shouted, “Look over there! What is that?”

Ning Ning also noticed something unusual and instinctively took up a defensive stance.

They were surrounded by a vast sea of snow, with sunlight hidden, mountains obscured, and towering peaks casting deep shadows. In the chaos of snowflakes, black mist, and shadows, where visibility was low, a few figures silently appeared.

Those “people” walked hunched over, as if they had no strength, dragging their legs forward like zombies from a horror movie.

As they drew closer, she finally saw them clearly.

They were soldiers in rotting armor, their clothes soaked in shocking amounts of blood, covered with knife wounds and burn marks.

And their bodies had no flesh left, only stark white bones. When they sensed the presence of the living, they suddenly lifted their heads.

Killing intent surged.

Ning Ning tightened her grip on her sword.

“They’re Bone Puppets!”

He Zhizhou who did not waste the room full of books he bought, was the first to shout in alarm.

“I’ve heard that when a human body is severely tainted by demonic energy, it turns into a monster that is neither human nor ghost… But to create something like this, the demon would have to be at least at the Soul Transformation stage!”

Soul Transformation stage.

A level on par with or even higher than the elders of major sects.

The Bone Puppets, upon sensing the presence of the living, suddenly halted their slow movements. After a brief moment of hesitation, thin black mist began to rise within their eye sockets.

Then, like puppets on strings, their joints moved sharply.

Xu Ye drew his sword from its sheath.

“They’re coming!”

The Bone Puppets were much faster than the Bone Demon.

In a flash, they closed the distance with astonishing speed.

Ning Ning dodged in time, but He Zhizhou was less fortunate. His hair was only lightly brushed by the Bone Puppet’s claws, but it was instantly sliced off in the gust of wind.

Their strength was far beyond what they had imagined. However, no matter how strong they were, the Bone Puppets were still originally ordinary mortals with only a thin amount of spiritual energy.

Even tainted by demonic energy, they couldn’t possibly reach the level of the Bone Demon or possess the power to overpower Golden Core cultivators.

Ning Ning’s sword moved swiftly, and when it struck the white skeleton, the surging sword energy spread like thunder, erupting with a deafening boom.

The white bones shattered instantly, turning to dust that merged into the snow.

The battle ended quickly.

He Zhizhou, still shaken, touched his severed hair and muttered, “That was close; how could this thing be biting at us like a mad dog?”

“This isn’t good,” Xu Ye said, his face contorted with worry as he squatted down and stared intently at the skeleton.

“What kind of demon is imprisoned on this level of the tower? Just the demonic energy it emits was enough to create such powerful Bone Puppets… Is this really the 50th level?”

He paused, then curiously asked, “Ning Ning, what are you doing?”

“The demons imprisoned here were all once suppressed by the major sects. This one was likely severely injured and greatly weakened, which is why it’s on the 50th level,” Ning Ning replied as she bent down, carefully searching through the clothing of the Bone Puppets.

She seemed to find nothing of use and looked somewhat disappointed.

“I wanted to see if there was anything on them that could prove their identity or the time they were from, to help determine what kind of demon it was.”

Just as she finished speaking, her arm suddenly stiffened, and a glimmer of light appeared in her eyes.

“Ah.”

Xu Ye’s curiosity grew stronger.

“Did you find something?”

He looked down and saw a token in the young woman’s white, jade-like hand.

The token was stained with blood, making it difficult to decipher the engraved characters.

Xu Ye squinted, focusing hard, and slowly read out the two blurry characters: “Jian… Sha?”

This time, He Zhizhou couldn’t stay calm.

“Jian Sha?!”

Zhou Zhao’s eye twitched.

“No way, Jian Sha? Then the one in this tower must be—”

Ning Ning, who knew little about the ancient history of the cultivation world, was puzzled.

“What’s Jian Sha?”

“Jian Sha was a military force formed during the great war between the immortals and demons,” He Zhizhou explained patiently, aware of her background.

His voice carried a complex emotion as he continued, “It was created specifically to deal with one of the Demon Lords, the Shadow Demon.”

Ning Ning nodded as he continued, “The Shadow Demon had profound cultivation and a love for slaughter, with many demon soldiers under its command. The most troublesome part was that it had no physical form, only a deep-seated demonic energy. Ordinary methods couldn’t defeat it.”

He Zhizhou scratched his head and sighed in frustration.

“Near the end of the war, both the immortal sects and the demon realm suffered heavy casualties. Due to the scarcity of cultivators, a military force was formed from mortals to resist the demon soldiers, and they were named ‘Jian Sha.'”

Xu Ye quietly added, “It was pretty much a suicide mission.”

“Thanks to Jian Sha holding off the demon tide, the elders were able to set up the Thousand Lights Returning Formation on Qiong Mountain—the Shadow Demon feared light, and it was said that only strong light could slightly weaken its power.”

He Zhizhou didn’t refute Xu Ye’s muttering and continued in a solemn tone, “The strength of mortals is limited, and after the war, Jian Sha was indeed… completely wiped out.”

So these demonized Bone Puppets were actually soldiers who fought against the demons back then.

“The Shadow Demon was imprisoned on the 50th level? This is too—” Zhou Zhao, who was always straightforward, angrily kicked a pile of snow.

“Isn’t this just screwing with us!”

“Don’t worry, its strength has greatly diminished, so it’s not as powerful as it was back then,” Ning Ning said as she placed the token into her storage pouch and looked out over the vast snowy plains.

So this place was called Qiong Mountain.

The snowflakes from the sky fell heavier and heavier, as if they would never stop, and the road ahead was swallowed by black mist, like the gaping maw of a giant beast, waiting for its prey to walk right in.

…But whether they were walking into a trap or not, no one could say until the very end.

Ning Ning softly said, “Shall we keep going?”

=====

This long, winding path was a gradual transition from day to night.

With each step forward, the surroundings grew darker, and the smell of blood became stronger.