After the battle, the members of the Imperial Blade team quickly recovered their strength within the life domain released by Qian Renyue.
Seeing that everyone had recovered, Qian Renyue instructed them: "We'll go in and investigate later. If there's any problem, retreat immediately. If you're unsure about the situation, mark it first. Don't act rashly. Remember, your safety is the most important thing."
"Understood. Don't worry, Your Highness," everyone replied.
"Rongrong, stay with me later, be very careful." After thinking it over, Qian Renyue decided to bring Ning Rongrong along. After all, she was a teammate, and she couldn't always use safety as an excuse to leave support characters out. What difference was there between that and Dai Mubai, who looked down on support characters?
"Don't worry, sister," Ning Rongrong nodded seriously. Ning Rongrong understood the importance of her own and everyone else's safety, and her usual playful demeanor disappeared.
"Now that everyone has recovered, let's set off," Qian Renyue said to everyone.
Qian Renyue and Hu Liena walked at the front, followed by Ning Rongrong and Xie Yue, with Dugu Yan behind them, and You Yan and Na'er bringing up the rear.
Entering the cave, they were immediately enveloped in a chilling aura. The smell of blood mingled with the stench of decay, utterly nauseating.
After walking for a while, the cave became empty. Their divine senses failed to detect anything.
Qian Renyue recalled a rare mineral she and Yue Guan had encountered a year ago that could block divine sense. She immediately said to Xie Yue, "Xie Yue, break this wall. The rest of you, be on guard."
Seeing everyone had released their martial spirits and were ready, Xie Yue unleashed his moon blade at the stone wall. As Qian Renyue had predicted, the stone wall collapsed with a crash.
"Everyone be careful!" Dugu Yan instantly rushed to the front, circulating her soul power to absorb the spreading poison into her body.
"Yan Yan, are you alright?" Qian Renyue quickly stepped forward and asked with concern.
Before Qian Renyue could speak, several more terrifying-looking soul beasts, clearly of high age but lacking sentience, leaped out from behind the stone wall.
"Yue'er, I'm fine. This poison, though dangerous, is much weaker than the Azure Serpent venom I currently possess. After absorbing it and condensing it within my poison pill, it will only nourish my growth," Dugu Yan explained with a smile, shaking her head.
With the others' help, the soul beasts were quickly dealt with. Strangely, the deaths of these soul beasts did not produce soul rings. This strange phenomenon was utterly perplexing.
"Strange, they were clearly ten-thousand-year-old soul beasts. Why did they lack sentience and even dare to attack Na'er? Let alone ten-thousand-year-old, even thousand-year-old or hundred-year-old soul beasts shouldn't dare attack Na'er and should possess some sentience," Qian Renyue observed the dead soul beasts curiously.
"Most importantly, they didn't produce soul rings after death," Hu Liena added.
"Perhaps." As soon as Na'er spoke, everyone's attention turned to her. "These soul beasts might have already died. They're just corpses manipulated by evil soul masters. If that's the case, then it makes sense."
Qian Renyue nodded in agreement. It wasn't impossible for evil soul masters to control soul beast corpses; they could even control human corpses, right? "If that's the case, then it makes sense. But if that's really the case, then it's troublesome."
"They shouldn't be that hard to control. Otherwise, there would definitely be unrest in the Soul Beast Forest, triggering a beast tide." Na'er comforted the worried Qian Renyue.
"Let's continue to check." Hu Liena lit a foxfire, illuminating the new passage.
"Let's go." The group maintained their original formation and continued exploring.
After a while, they arrived at a very open area. There were obvious signs of a hasty relocation. However, many things were still left behind, allowing everyone to see clearly what had happened here not long ago.
The spacious room was divided into three areas. On the left were the imprisoned humans—men, women, children, and even soul masters and ordinary people. There were no living people left. Most of the dead were in a terrible state, their skin completely mutilated. Some had intact, bluish-gray skin; despite their deathly appearance, they paced slowly in their cells, not attacking anyone.
"These are zombies?" Qian Renyue looked at these bluish-gray skinned people; they looked very much like the zombies she'd seen in movies in her past life. In her previous life, she loved listening to apocalyptic novels; she never expected that after transmigrating, she would actually encounter zombies.
Qian Renyue frowned. Her biggest worry was whether these zombies were as contagious as those in her past life's movies. Otherwise, it would be a catastrophe for the entire continent. "Nana, write this down. Go back and immediately have someone test whether these zombies are contagious. Keep one or two, and the rest, Yan, you're in charge of burning them all later. Take the ashes back to the mountain for burial."
"Yes, Your Highness." Hu Liena and Yan quickly agreed.
After making the arrangements, Qian Renyue and the others went to Na'er, who was observing on the right.
"Na'er, how is it?" Qian Renyue asked as she stepped forward.
Na'er's expression was not good. After calming herself down, she replied, "These soul beasts were probably captured alive. Most of them were tortured to death. Even after death, they were used. Some that were preserved intact were used to make the soul beasts we just encountered. Most of them were used for experiments while they were alive."
Hearing Na'er's words, Qian Renyue's expression also turned very ugly. The Holy Spirit Cult captured so many humans and soul masters for secret experiments. Once the soul beasts discovered this, they would launch a beast tide in retaliation against humans, and innocent humans would suffer. At that time, the Holy Spirit Cult could hide in a corner and reap the benefits.
"These rats hiding in the shadows, we must get rid of them as soon as possible," Qian Renyue said angrily.
"Your Highness, Na'er! Come to the center and see!" Hu Liena shouted.
Qian Renyue and Hu Liena exchanged a glance and hurried towards the center.
"Ugh!" Ning Rongrong couldn't help but run to the back and vomit after taking one look.
"He's alone, I'll go watch him," Xie Yue quickly followed, gently patting Ning Rongrong's back. But thinking of what had just happened, Ning Rongrong couldn't help but vomit again.
Dugu Yan and Hu Liena's faces were also very pale, but they held back, their eyes filled with anger.
Seeing the situation before them, Na'er gave an order and let out a roar. It even alerted Di Tian.
Qian Renyue turned to look at Di Tian, who had emerged from the black vortex, before she could even greet him. Na'er had completely changed; she was no longer the cute Na'er, but the aloof and ethereal Gu Yue Na.
Gu Yuena glanced indifferently at Di Tian, who had just arrived, and said calmly, "Di Tian, so many soul beasts have been treated like this, and you, as the ruler of all soul beasts, were completely unaware?"
Di Tian looked in the direction Gu Yuena was looking, his expression turning extremely ugly. He knelt on one knee and said, "My lord, please allow me to investigate this matter thoroughly and give all the soul beasts an explanation."
Hearing Gu Yuena's indifferent hum, Di Tian finally stood up from the ground, standing behind Gu Yuena with a very grim expression.
...
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(End of Chapter)