Ashes Of Heaven Book 1 : Solar Calamity

The contents of the shout gave Han Xuhan a pause.

That was a very suspicious shout. Mu Ran's original intention was not to pee, but to bait the enemy stalking them into thinking that he was busy peeing. Feeling iffy about the whole thing, Han Xuhan decided to move carefully.

Instead of running toward the source of the shout like he had wanted to initially, Xuhan ran at a moderate pace. Shen Kai didn't seem to have understood the problematic situation and ran like the wind, only to realize that despite his companion's impressive stomping on the ground that made it seem like he was running as fast as possible, Han Xuhan was actually falling behind slowly.

But in the heat of the moment, Shen Kai didn't seem to care and kept running. Soon, he was dozens of meters behind Shen Kai in the middle of the woods.

While running, Han Xuhan turned around and threw a pouch from his pocket toward the place they had just left.

It was a sort of insurance for the future. Since he had no trump cards or killing moves to rely on, he had to create them himself!

A few moments later, Shen Kai's gasp came from ahead. Han Xuhan focused all of his concentration on grasping the details of what he was about to see.

In front of them was a tiny clearing, about a hundred square meters of an area that lacked the shrubs and trees commonly found in these dense woods. In the gleaming moonlight, Mu Ran stood at the edge of the clearing, his posture rather stiff.

"An underground entrance? Where?"

Shen Kai huffed as he stopped beside Mu Ran and peered closely at the clearing. Han Xuhan was more interested in defending himself than observing the newfound clue. Instead of jumping forward like Shen Kai, he stopped while maintaining a distance from both of them. He felt like a schizophrenic at this point, unable to trust anyone around him. Was he taking it a bit too far, perhaps?

"Look at the middle of the clearing, can you see it?" Mu Ran spoke in a hushed tone.

"...That's a squirrel," Shen kai answered.

"Exactly. What is it doing there?" Mu Ran asked back smugly.

"...I don't know. It's just sitting there," Shen Kai sounded even more confused.

"Exactly. Why is a squirrel sitting on the ground? And why is its fur wet?"

"Boss, I thought you came here to pee, not get drunk."

"Underling Xuhan, you really like to kill the fun in everything. Listen closely!

When I was trying to bait the enemy into attacking me while pretending to pee, I realized that I really needed to pee. So, I just stood at the edge of this clearing, set up a few traps, and then started peeing for real.

While I was peeing, I saw this squirrel staring at me from that low-hanging branch of that tree. I suddenly felt that this squirrel could be the enemy's scout.

To test my suspicion, I aimed my pee at the squirrel."

"You- is that why the fur of the squirrel is wet? Good heavens-"

"That's not the point, little Kai! The point is that when the squirrel tried to escape and I followed it with my ceaseless stream from here, it ran to the middle of the clearing to get away from being splashed and then it nearly sank inside a hole!"

"Boss, what do you have against squirrels? You're not a dog-"

"Shut up. That's not the point! You're focusing on the wrong thing here!

See, when I tried to aim further and hit the middle of the clearing too, I realized from the sound emitted by my pee that this clearing is actually hiding a deep tunnel!

It's a huge trap set to make people trip and fall down. What's scarier is that I can't gouge what is under the cover of the soil. Every time I send a bit of qi down there, the mental connection between me and my qi gets blocked as if it had gone to a whole another world. It's both fascinating and scary! This must be one of those legendary array formations made with the language of eternal laws!"

"How are you sending your qi down there?"

"Through my pee of course, but that's really not the point. While the squirrel was running, the splashes it got hit by were also imbued with my qi, which I used to penetrate its body and take control of its limbs. That's why it hasn't fallen down into the tunnel yet, hanging from a dead tree-branch on the camouflaged surface.

I plan to make it our scout since it doesn't seem to be affiliated to with any enemy. I have a suspicion that this underground entrance may lead to the demonic cultivator's den directly. "

"Poor squirrel," Xuhan muttered while exchanging a look with Shen Kai. The young man looked like he was as stupefied as the squirrel.

Despite Mu Ran's convoluted account, Han Xuhan had realized the oddity of the situation. He didn't quite fully believe the explanation. And he didn't hesitate to voice his doubts.

"Boss, are you sure this isn't a trap specifically set for us? I mean, look at how conspicuous it is. It's literally screaming- I am a trap! Come fall for me!"

"No, I'd only ever fall for women, not traps!"Mu Ran said indignantly.

"...." It took Han Xuhan a second to process the leap of logic there.

"Are you two going to keep wasting time here?" Shen Kai said in a frustrated tone.

"We've got a huge issue to solve, possibly many murderers to catch!"

Neither of the duo paid him any heed.

"Boss, I'm pretty sure that the demonic cultivators wouldn't be dumb enough to leave such an 'entrance to their lair' which anyone can find easily. Nobody found this trap even though this place has been searched recently. This has to be a temporary trap made for investigators, especially cultivators. This also indicates that the demonic cultivators were aware that we would visit."

Xuhan's concerns were not unfounded. But Mu Ran simply smirked as if he had figured all of these out, even though Xuhan was pretty sure his boss wasn't the sort of person who thought things so far ahead so fast.

"I understand. However, this is also the easiest way to confront the demonic cultivators. At least one trace has been found, right?"

"There is no way in hell I'm going down that trap. You can't make me," Xuhan growled.

"But what about the victims? We can't abandon them to their fate just because we are scared of a trap," Shen Kai snapped at him suddenly.

"Moreover, did you forget, underling? When the sect experts saw evaluated this mission, they marked the danger level at around the seventh layer of the physique transformation realm. They wouldn't be so dumb as to falsify the danger level of a mission just because they're lazy, would they? They're all veterans, they know what they're doing." Mu Ran's rebuttal was even more firm, stomping on any other objections Xuhan could raise.

It wasn't that Xuhan couldn't think of other solutions. They could always call the rest of the townsfolk here while guarding the trap and then explore it together.

But that would put a certain level of danger on the lives of the mortal townsfolk, as well as reducing their performance evaluation when they returned to the sect. It could also make their targets escape without a confrontation, which would just be as bad an outcome.

Perhaps, in a world of cultivation, taking risks was the only way for a shrimp like him to advance fast.

"...Fine. We will check out what's on the other side of the trap. Who will go first? I vote...not me." Xuhan finally said in a resigned manner and raised a very important question.

"The squirrel of course!" Mu Ran declared.

". . . "

". . ."

Both Xuhan and Shen Kai found themselves struck speechless by Mu Ran's innovation. Inquisitively, Shen Kai decided to volunteer.

"How about this? I'll go down first and check it out after the squirrel. This is my town. I have a responsibility here."

"Shen Kai, your cultivation level is basically trash. How can I let you take on such a risky task? I'll be the first one to go!" Mu Ran laughed him off. Shen Kai looked like he didn't know whether to feel insulted or relieved.

Han Xuhan felt that things were advancing at a pace too fast for him to follow. All of his backup plans would be reduced to meaningless labor at this rate. The appearance of the trap had changed everything and upended the entire situation.

These criminals sure were insidious!

Meanwhile, Mu Ran proceeded to control the squirrel with his qi and made it approach the edge of the trap, which had very obvious signs of human activities around it even in the dim moonlight.

The squirrel stiffly stood for a second at the edge of a pile of fallen leaves and then jumped forward.

A strange scene took place. The moment the squirrel's body touched the leaves, they blurred like a ripple in a pond, following which, the squirrel's body disappeared. No sound, no contact with the leaves or the ground...it was as if the squirrel had simply passed through air before disappearing.

Mu Ran, whose concentration was placed on the squirrel, suddenly jerked back and almost lost his balance.

"What happened?"

"You alright, boss?"

"I'm fine. This array formation is too profound for me to crack with small tricks. The mental connection to my qi was severed again despite hiding the qi inside the squirrel's body. But it doesn't matter, I'll be going in anyway. I must accomplish this mission at all costs."

Han Xuhan's eyes narrowed at the last sentence uttered by Mu Ran. This guy was definitely hiding something from the rest of the team. There was no way his boss could be so selfless as to sacrifice his life for a mission that barely meant anything to him. Did he sense something on the other side of the trap? He had been acting like a madman since he had discovered the trap. Why was he unwilling to tell the rest of his companions about it?

Xuhan's nerves tingled at the implications. But his thoughts couldn't reach any solid conclusion. Mu Ran was already ready to jump in. Shen Kai followed his tracks and stood a few feet away from the trap's edge as well.

Resigned to his fate, Xuhan walked into the clearing as Mu Ran jumped gracefully inside the trap. The leaves blurred for a second before Mu Ran's body vanished behind them.

After a few seconds of silence, Xuhan moved ahead and stood beside Shen Kai, who was so nervous that sweat covered his face.

"Well, after you, brother Shen."

Nodding vigorously, Shen Kai took a step back and prepared to jump in, his body bending slightly in a stable posture.

Then like a spring tightened to the limit, Shen Kai soared forward swiftly, his speed unnaturally fast for anyone at the fourth layer of the physique transformation realm.

Han Xuhan never managed to move a muscle as Shen Kai's right hand, gripping a dagger, plunged down on Xuhan's unprotected back as he closed in on him with that inhumanely swift leap.

From the beginning, Shen Kai had never planned to leap into the 'trap'.