Martial Saint with Passives

In an instant, a large crater was smashed into the ground!

And beneath the crater was empty space!

Jiang Che’s heart leaped, and he continued to smash.

Soon, the hole grew larger and larger, finally revealing the passage below.

It was a passage formed by stone steps, leading straight to the lowest level.

However, it was too dark below to see anything clearly.

However, Jiang Che had come prepared.

He had brought a wooden stick with its tip coated in pine resin.

He lit it with the flint and steel he carried, and holding the torch, Jiang Che climbed into the opening.

After following the stone steps around several bends, Jiang Che finally arrived underground.

”This...”

Jiang Che’s pupils contracted.

Before him lay a massive underground dungeon.

Iron cages were everywhere.

The air was thick with an appalling stench of decay.

It seemed to be the smell of human feces mingled with the scent of decaying corpses.

Frowning, Jiang Che pressed onward.

Most of the cages were empty.

They were lined with hay and showed signs that people had been held captive in them for a long time.

A few of the cages contained some highly decomposed corpses, which looked as though they had been dead for some time.

Jiang Che wanted to get a clear look at the corpses’ faces, but found they were completely unrecognizable.

So he had to give up.

He reached the far end of the dungeon.

There stood an exceptionally large iron cage.

The cage door stood open, the inside completely bare.

On the cage floor lay numerous things that resembled human bones.

Beyond that, Jiang Che detected a familiar scent.

’It’s the Blood Sacrifice...’

Anger flared in Jiang Che’s heart at the thought of the Blood Spirit Sect capturing living people to feed the Blood Sacrifice.

He tightened his grip on the torch handle and continued to feel his way around, searching.

’Strange...’

Jiang Che suddenly realized that although there were many corpses here, the number didn’t match the intensity of the stench.

’There should be many more corpses!’

Jiang Che followed the scent to a corner.

He felt around and discovered a loose stone in the wall.

He pressed it, and suddenly, the wall in front of him began to slowly slide open!

However, behind the wall was yet another wall.

The difference was that this new wall had a circular disk on it that resembled an Eight Trigrams Array.

On this disk were numerous raised stone spheres.

Jiang Che touched one of the stone spheres and discovered it could be pushed in.

He pressed each one in turn, but the wall didn’t react.

Jiang Che observed it more closely and found some small characters at the edge of the wall.

It read:

”To count the past is to follow the flow; to know the future is to reverse it. Between flow and reversal, yin and yang connect.”

’There must be some kind of pattern.’

He stroked his chin, thinking hard.

Suddenly, realization dawned.

He raised his Kunji Saber and smashed it into the disk!

BAM!

A crack was smashed into the disk.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

...

Jiang Che struck it several dozen times, finally smashing the entire wall down.

’The Kunji Saber really is useful...’

He couldn’t help but remark to himself.

Behind the wall lay another passage.

The stench of corpses grew even stronger.

Jiang Che followed the passage until he finally reached a stone chamber.

He raised his torch to get a look.

It was a vast, circular stone chamber.

In the middle of the stone chamber lay the corpse of a humanoid monster with long arms and legs, its body covered in green hair.

Its entire chest seemed to have exploded from the inside out, and its organs were splattered everywhere.

’It’s a Blood Sacrifice...’

Jiang Che recognized it.

And surrounding the corpse of the Blood Sacrifice...

...were rings upon rings of corpses, their hands tied behind their backs, kneeling in neat rows facing the center!

There were hundreds of them—men and women, old and young.

Although they were already highly decomposed, their faces were still vaguely recognizable.

Every one of them wore a look of terror.

It seemed as though these people had all died instantly for some unknown reason.

’It seems their so-called ritual must have failed...’

According to what the Master of the Black Abyss had said before, there was no way these people from the Blood Spirit Sect could have succeeded.

Because the soul of a Blood Sacrifice is fragmented.

Jiang Che walked closer, the intense stench of the corpses nearly making him retch.

Strangely, however, these corpses were kneeling firmly on the ground, and not a single one had fallen over.

Jiang Che gently pushed one of the corpses, only to see it fall over rigidly, maintaining its kneeling posture as it hit the ground.

It was like a statue.

Jiang Che frowned.

He surmised that their muscles must have tensed before death and never relaxed. After being dead for so long, they had stiffened, thus preserving their kneeling posture.

Next, Jiang Che began to identify the corpses one by one.

Among the dead were elders who looked to be in their seventies, as well as young girls in their teens.

’Not them... not them either...’

Jiang Che examined all of them but found no one who resembled his parents.

This allowed him to breathe a small sigh of relief.

But then, another thought occurred to him.

Perhaps they had long ago become one of the skeletons outside, gnawed clean of all flesh.

His mood sank once more.

Looking at the horrific and bizarre scene, Jiang Che couldn’t help but sigh.

Hundreds of people had died such a meaningless death.

All to summon the so-called ”Master of the Black Abyss.”

”Damn them all...” Jiang Che gritted his teeth.

His hatred for the madmen of the Blood Spirit Sect intensified.

Finding no other clues, Jiang Che left.

...

The secret of the basement beneath Li Yuanwai’s Mansion was finally made public by the Government Office.

However, the Government Office claimed that the cracking of the Blood Spirit Sect case was the result of their own tireless investigation.

The news shocked the entirety of Hengsha City.

Word of the event even spread to other nearby cities.

The name of the Blood Spirit Sect became widely known.

People discovered that the various unsolved disappearances from before, as well as the legends of evil spirits, had all been the work of the Blood Spirit Sect.

Over the next few days, the Government Office organized for relatives to identify the bodies and compiled a list of the deceased.

Jiang Che blended in with the crowd of grieving relatives to take part in the identification.

Although he felt that his parents were most likely dead, as long as there was no confirmation, he was unwilling to give up hope.

Suddenly, in the crowd, Jiang Che saw a woman in her fifties.

He recognized her. She was a neighbor who used to live near his family’s old house!

Her husband was also a carpenter and had come to Li Yuanwai’s Mansion along with Jiang Che’s parents.

”Aunt Li!” Jiang Che called out, coming to her side.

Seeing Jiang Che, the woman looked somewhat confused and fearful.

She wondered why this man, who looked like a Martial Artist of high standing, would know her.

”Sir, you know me?” she asked cautiously.

”Aunt Li, it’s me, Jiang Che! Carpenter Jiang’s son!” said Jiang Che.

”You’re Jiang Che?! But you...” Aunt Li’s eyes widened in disbelief.

”I became a Martial Artist and moved away,” Jiang Che explained.

”Really! A Martial Artist, that’s wonderful! It seems you’ve really made something of yourself!” Aunt Li marveled.

After that, Jiang Che began asking about the identification of the bodies.

”So, you’re saying that not a single one of the carpenters from that group was found here?” Jiang Che asked, skeptical.

”That’s right. The guard even said that our group of carpenters isn’t on the city entry log for that day at all! He said something probably happened to them outside the city, and that it has nothing to do with this Blood Spirit Sect!” Aunt Li said, shaking her head.

”This...” Jiang Che suddenly recalled that Liu Hai had told him the same thing.

But he had been so sure there was something wrong with Li Yuanwai’s Mansion that he’d firmly believed his parents were captured by its occupants.

’Could it be that they really did go missing before they even made it to Hengsha City?’

A flicker of hope suddenly kindled in Jiang Che’s heart.

Although the chances of surviving after disappearing outside the city were still slim, as long as he hadn’t seen their bodies, anything was possible!

’No, I have to find a way to confirm whether this information is true!’

Jiang Che didn’t readily believe the Government Office’s official statement.

That day, he secretly followed one of the guards and tracked him to his home.

Seeing that no one was around, Jiang Che quietly activated his Five Poison Technique, using his Qi Blood to force out a hallucinogenic toxin that formed a faint mist.

Having recently gathered another batch of poisonous mushrooms, Jiang Che had been able to resume his Cultivation of the Five Poison Technique for some time.

The toxin he had expended fighting the Jin Level Black Beast was now fully replenished.

This hallucinogenic poison could make a person see illusions and lower their defenses.

When questioned under its influence, a person was essentially incapable of lying.

After the guard inhaled the hallucinogenic mist, his expression immediately went vacant.

Jiang Che then began to question him about the carpenters entering the city.

However, it seemed this man had not been on duty that day.

After finding out who had been on duty, Jiang Che tracked that person to their residence and repeated the process.

Although this man’s memory was hazy, he stated that the entry logs were accurate and had not been tampered with.

Jiang Che questioned several others who had been on duty that day, and their stories were all consistent.

And so, Jiang Che finally believed it: his parents had never actually made it to Hengsha City!

’But where in the vast wilderness could they have gone?’

’Could they have run into a Black Beast and been eaten?’

’Or perhaps... they ran into Horse Bandits and were captured?’