After the Immortal Disappeared

When the ambush was sprung, the Baling garrison in Wei City also threw open the gates and charged out, executing a pincer attack on the Great Wind Army.

The fighting in the dead of night was exceptionally fierce.

Captain Sunx, Xiao Maoliang, and the others were shaken. The number of Baling soldiers lying in ambush in the open wilderness was a staggering thirty thousand!

Counting the nearly ten thousand men sent to intercept General Nanke, the Baling people had somehow mobilized over forty thousand troops. Their determination to stake it all on this single battle was astonishingly resolute.

The Baling people had never employed such an aggressive and ferocious fighting style before.

’Was it all because they changed commanders?’

After a few exchanges, the Great Wind Army split into two forces, led by Captain Sunx and Captain Liu, and retreated south and north. The enemy’s numbers were too great, and Wei City was now Baling territory. If the Great Wind Army didn’t want to be trapped like fish in a barrel, they had to break away before being completely encircled.

This was where the quality of an army truly showed. Facing an ambush force six times their own size in a chaotic night battle, and with the retreat order coming so suddenly, the Great Wind Army remained orderly amidst the haste, moving swiftly without breaking formation. They managed to slip away through the opening they created.

Gazing at the massive banner with the character for "Red" whipping fiercely in the evening wind—a banner that drew all eyes and hatred—the Baling Army naturally had to pursue the fleeing foe with all their might. The Great Wind Army was Panlong City’s most Elite force. Though their reputation was widespread, their numbers were limited. If they could annihilate these five thousand-odd troops, Panlong City’s Primordial Qi would be greatly wounded.

Moreover, the Red General was here!

The Red General had risen to prominence, becoming a pillar of Panlong City alongside Zhong Shengguang thanks to their valiant battlefield achievements.

If they could defeat the Red General, how far off could the Baling Kingdom’s conquest of Panlong City be?

One army fled, the other pursued, and a great cloud of dust rolled eastward.

The battlefield fell silent. Amid the wreckage, only the groans of the wounded could be heard.

With the Great Wind Army having fled, the Baling garrison of Wei City had to hurry out and clear the battlefield.

These logistics units were known as the Dushan Camp and wore distinct uniforms. They were not responsible for fighting, and enemy forces rarely targeted them.

Once a battle concluded, their task was to gather prisoners of war and transport the wounded.

There were few prisoners from the Panlong people, only twenty or thirty. However, because the Great Wind Army had just unleashed two rapid volleys of arrows, more than four hundred soldiers in the Baling ambush force had been hit. Seventy to eighty of them had lost the ability to move, and over thirty were critically injured, not counting the dead.

All of them needed to be brought into the city for treatment as soon as possible.

Fortunately, Wei City was close at hand. The soldiers of the Dushan Camp made several trips with stretchers, managing to transport the majority of the wounded.

In addition to the original Hua Mucuo Army in Wei City, some logistics teams from the new commander’s Baling Army had also joined the Dushan Camp to temporarily bolster their numbers.

This resulted in the Dushan Camp being filled with unfamiliar faces, and many soldiers within the same unit did not know one another.

Just as a dozen or so logistics soldiers finished escorting the wounded and prisoners into the city, they suddenly whipped out Glazed Bottles from their robes and smashed them against the city wall!

Embedded in Wei City’s inner walls, a little over ten feet off the ground, were nine enormous Copper Talismans. This was a large-scale Defense Array, also known as a Battle Array, that the Baling people had specially set up after conquering the city.

It was common knowledge that Primordial Power could weaken or even nullify an opponent’s Divine Techniques, just as it could be used to strengthen one’s own. But if both sides in a battle used Primordial Power to enhance their Divine Techniques, the conflict would become convoluted and full of variables.

The battle having just concluded, these nine Copper Talismans were naturally infused with Primordial Power. They emitted a faint green glow as runes floated off their surfaces, slowly revolving around the Copper Plates. They ensured the city walls were tougher and more resilient, but they also had another marvelous function:

To broadcast the Purifying Heart Spell!

With the nine Talismans at its center, any Baling people within a three-li radius could maintain mental clarity, impervious to the bewitchment of Wangling.

The Red General had only burst onto the scene three years ago. The Baling Kingdom was still unaware of the wonders of the Grand Square Pot, nor could they see the Three Corpses Insects. They only knew their soldiers were suddenly going mad and turning on their allies on the battlefield, which meant they must have been struck by an enemy’s Mind-Bending Technique.

The Purifying Heart Spell was difficult enough to cast on its own. To fashion it into a large-area, long-duration Array Device required an enormous Talisman Plate to accommodate the intricate lines of the Array.

The Talisman Array Masters of the Baling Kingdom had taken great pains in their design. Though the nine Copper Talismans formed a single set, the Array could actually function even if two or three were missing—a fact unknown to outsiders. After all, anything could happen on a battlefield. If a few of the Copper Talismans were destroyed, the rest could still ward off the enemy.

But now, with a dozen or so logistics soldiers acting in perfect unison, at least six of the Talisman Arrays were struck.

The Glazed Bottles shattered, spattering a colorless liquid onto the Copper Talismans. The talismans instantly hissed, emitting a plume of green smoke. The delicate lines of the Array began to warp, as if they were wax melting in a flame.

The green light on the Copper Talismans instantly died. Nearby Baling soldiers were unfortunately splashed as well. They immediately clutched their faces, howling in agony as they writhed on the ground.

The logistics soldier nearest the gate silently scrambled up a scaling ladder. A Baling City Guard moved to intercept him but was somehow bypassed in a blur.

The logistics soldier dashed to the side of an intact Copper Talisman without slowing. The City Guards, however, seemed to freeze in place before either collapsing limply or tumbling off the ladder.

Those who witnessed this gasped, thinking they had just seen a ghost.

The logistics soldier drew his saber and slashed the Talisman—all in one fluid motion.

By the time he sheathed his blade, a massive "X" was carved into the Copper Talisman.

The Talisman Array inscribed upon it was utterly ruined.

The two torches beside the Copper Talisman were also slashed, plunging the area into darkness.

Simultaneously, his companions fired two signal arrows into the sky. The pitch-black night was suddenly lit by two dazzling bursts of light: one green, one red.

It all happened so suddenly that before the Baling garrison could react, someone on the inner street was already shouting, "Close the gates! Quickly, close the gates!"

To allow the logistics teams easy access, the gates of Wei City had been left wide open.

The Baling garrison scrambled to close the gates, but the dozen-odd logistics soldiers and the Panlong City prisoners charged back to stop them. One man pulled a bow from his back and felled four Baling soldiers with a three-shot Continuous Arrow.

One arrow struck two men.

Torchlight illuminated his face—it was none other than Hee Lingchuan’s old acquaintance, Hu Min!

The logistics soldier by the Copper Talisman took out a small blue pot and uncapped it.

The pot was exquisitely crafted with two handles and a ruby embedded in its center.

Invisible to all, hundreds of Three Corpses Insects swarmed from the pot, pouncing on the nearest Baling people!

***

Hee Lingchuan leaped into the chasm and was immediately sent flying by a spiderweb.

The sensation was just like being on a trampoline.

He used the momentum to tumble down, layer by layer, taking care not to let his face touch the webs.

Though the world was a dizzying blur, he could still make out the discordant shapes on the silken strands—hulking Spider Demons in relentless pursuit.

If he hadn’t been tumbling so fast, they would have caught him long ago.

The moment he entered, Hee Lingchuan realized the space inside the nest was terrifyingly vast.

He tumbled to the second-to-last layer of webbing and managed to brake his momentum, but nearly all the mud caked on his hands had been scraped off in the process.

He looked around. Giant stalactites had grown over countless eons, connecting the ceiling and floor to form stone pillars that seemed capable of supporting the entire underworld.

There were dozens of these pillars, some long, some short, some perhaps still growing. They followed no discernible pattern but possessed a breathtaking, otherworldly beauty that gave the cavern immense depth.

The space supported by these pillars resembled the inside of a honeycomb, with interconnected, semi-open stone chambers of various sizes. Dense clusters of stalactites hung from their ceilings, while the ground was covered in a thick layer of black humus, piled high with withered branches and dead leaves.

Moss-like plants, some green, some purple, grew in dense, tight patches on the soil, carpeting the stone chambers.

In short, he was facing a gigantic, three-dimensional, magnificent, subterranean labyrinth of at least thirty or forty stories!

Even without spiders nipping at his heels, Hee Lingchuan doubted he could ever navigate this maze.

Of course, the cave walls and stone chambers were dotted with glowing spores, brightly illuminating the vast nest of the Spider Queen.

Which was how Hee Lingchuan could see so clearly that directly below him—and *only* directly below him—was a terrifying abyss.

The very center of this vast cavern was empty.

Spores glowed even at the bottom of the abyss, looking as distant as stars in the night sky. Hee Lingchuan roughly estimated the distance to the bottom to be... fifty or seventy zhang? ’That’s between 160 and 200 meters...’

’A fall like that would definitely turn me into a meat paste, wouldn’t it?’

This was clearly one of the Spider Queen’s defenses, meant to stop intruders from easily penetrating her labyrinth—especially with Spider Guards rushing in from all directions.

From the moment he began his descent, Hee Lingchuan had been caught in the Spider Guards’ encirclement.

They had arrived so quickly, likely because they had already been provoked by Sunx Jiayuan.

Hee Lingchuan spotted a severed arm on the web beneath him. Judging from the tattered cloth, it must be the remains of Sunx Jiayuan. ’He must have fallen to this spot, too,’ he thought. ’He was probably pinned by the swarm before he even had a chance to draw his bow.’

Hee Lingchuan glanced around and saw blood-stained fragments of remains scattered all over the webs. Clearly, the earlier explosion had been quite powerful.

Worst of all, more Spider Guards were coming.

In this world of webs, there was no way Hee Lingchuan could be more agile than a spider. By the time he steadied himself in a low crouch, the strands leading to the rock walls were already swarming with Spider Guards.

He was cut off.

In ten breaths, at most, the Spider Guards would be upon him.

He could never withstand the wrath of a hundred Elite Demons. Any normal person would be scared witless by such a tide of eight-legged horrors.

’Second Madam Zhu’s nest is a death trap!’

Hee Lingchuan had no time for complaints. He drew his bow, nocked his arrows, aimed at several of the largest and nearest stone chambers, and unleashed a four-shot Continuous Arrow!

The cavern was spacious, but the air was unpleasant and musty.

More accurately, it smelled of fermentation.

At a time like this, Hee Lingchuan welcomed any and all accelerants.

All four Command Arrows struck their targets.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Four explosions roared as flames shot to the ceiling!

This quiet, orderly, and climate-controlled space was thrown into chaos for the very first time.

The stone chambers contained both plants and dead leaves—all highly flammable. When the gunpowder on the Command Arrows detonated, sparks flew in every direction, igniting fires wherever they landed.

Four Command Arrows, yet they had managed to set a dozen or so stone chambers ablaze!

There were spiders guarding the chambers, too. They were terrified, now scurrying about like headless chickens.