The Unruly Immortals

Winding down into the cave, everyone had stopped speaking. They had been walking for quite a while, yet they hadn't reached the bottom, it was possible that there was no bottom at all.

Fortunately, as they continued downward, the tunnel was becoming larger and no longer felt as oppressive as when they first entered.

"Wait, stop," Li Huowang called out. Kneeling on one knee, he examined the footprints on the ground with a slight frown.

"These aren't the footprints of a child, but those of a normal adult. It seems that someone has been here besides Sun Baolu when he was young."

"It's nothing, keep going," Li Huowang stood up and resumed his journey deeper into the cave. In fact, he was more wary of encountering people than evil spirits.

If someone could enter and exit a cave full of evil spirits freely, then it meant their strength was definitely extraordinary.

The cave began to twist and turn, but Sun Baolu stopped at the mouth of a bend, swallowing nervously before saying, "Just after turning this bend that year, one of my playmates suddenly disappeared,"

Sun Baolu's fear began to infect everyone else, causing all of them to be highly vigilant at this moment.

Li Huowang placed a hand on Sun Baolu's shoulder and pulled him back forcefully, taking the lead around the bend.

Holding onto the hilt of his sword, he scanned the surroundings. However, Li Huowang, who was prepared for anything, wasn't attacked.

"Are you sure it's here? There's nothing but two dead sheep on the ground," he said.

"Dead sheep?" Sun Baolu and the others approached carefully from behind Li Huowang, holding up the luminous stone high to look inside.

In front of them, shrouded in darkness, there really were only two dead sheep, nothing else.

Judging by their shriveled faces and dust-covered yet intact bodies, it seemed they had gotten lost in the cave and died trapped.

With a "crack," the two dried sheep carcasses on the ground were instantly split in half by Li Huowang's sword, and their black, coal-like dry innards tumbled out.

Li Huowang didn't let it go at that; he stepped on the split remains without hesitation.

He didn't plan on leaving the dry carcasses behind him; it was too dangerous, for if they were to suddenly get up and attack him, that would be hazardous.

Although this might have seemed overly cautious, Li Huowang felt that in such an environment, one could never be too careful.

After completely pulverizing the two sheep corpses, Li Huowang sheathed his sword and continued walking further into the cave.

The deeper into the cave they went, the more spacious it became, but Li Huowang couldn't see what lay in the pitch-black distance.

The darkness here seemed darker than elsewhere, and their handheld fluorescent lights could only illuminate the immediate area. Even with Li Huowang's vision, he couldn't see much further.

Not long after, they encountered more sheep carcasses on the ground. This time, Li Huowang couldn't chop them all up, as they were everywhere, too many to count—easily in the hundreds, if not a thousand.

"One or two could be said to be lost, but this many look deliberate, as if someone drove a whole flock of sheep here to die. Who would do such a thing?" Li Huowang pondered, looking at the sheep.

Moreover, the carcasses of these sheep were very intact, with no signs of biting or being devoured.

From this, one could infer that Black Taisui was probably not nearby; otherwise, the meat-eating Black Taisui wouldn't easily pass up on such food.

Li Huowang pondered for a moment before pulling out the dead skin of Black Taisui from his bosom and once again presenting it in front of Mantou.

"Mantou, sniff sniff, go see where this scent is coming from around here."

"Woo woo~" Mantou licked it and hesitantly began walking forward, lifting a paw.

With a gesture from Li Huowang, everyone quickly followed suit. "Stay close, don't get separated in this place, whatever you do."

"There's a short cut ahead, and after walking for the time it takes half an incense stick to burn, we'll reach the place where I encountered the brushes last time. That's the furthest I've ever been," Sun Baolu nervously reminded on the side.

The carcasses of dead sheep on the ground were still there, densely spread further inwards.

Finally, after walking for the duration of two cups of tea, it wasn't sheep anymore. There appeared a new object up ahead, a giant bronze cauldron as high as a building.

The giant bronze cauldron was entirely covered with green rust and dust, suggesting it had existed for a very long time.

"This… When I came here years ago, this wasn't here," Sun Baolu's words furrowed Li Huowang's brow.

He looked at the cauldron and then turned to look at the densely packed dead sheep behind them, feeling an unsettling connection. To his knowledge, cauldrons were important ritual vessels used for sacrifices to deities.

Li Huowang slowly circled the Giant Cauldron, and when he saw the white jade dishes placed behind it and the rotted carcasses with only bones remaining of the three animals, he realized he was right. Someone was indeed performing sacrifices here.

"Wasn't this place supposed to be the domain of Evil Spirits? Why is there such a solemn sacrificial ritual? Could it be the work of those Evil Spirits? If so, what were they worshipping?"

Li Huowang cautiously approached the Giant Cauldron, looking inside it. Other than some ashes, there was nothing else.

"Ah!!" A woman's piercing scream made Li Huowang's scalp tingle instantly. He swiftly turned around and saw the panicked Bai Lingmiao clinging desperately onto Second God, who was draped in a red veil.

"What happened! What did you see?" Li Huowang rushed over and asked urgently.

"Sheep! Sheep!" Bai Lingmiao, shivering, pointed towards the darkness on the left side. Her hands gripped Second God even tighter.

As Li Huowang warily approached, his Fluorescent Stone illuminated something in the darkness—some sheep corpses.

However, these sheep corpses were entirely different from the ones before; these mummies were all grotesque human-sheep hybrids!

An old man lay at Li Huowang's feet, with sheep horns spirally thrusting from his cheeks. In his final moments, he had desperately tried to touch his own face with those two cloven hooves, but he died in the last throes of his struggle.

Next to him lay another sheep carcass, or perhaps it was a human corpse, with the upper half as a small sheep stripped of its skin, and the lower half a contorted, deformed body with twisted knees—one stretching forward, one backward, like branches of a tree wildly extending.

And this was merely the beginning. As the fluorescence swept over, even more disgusting and horrifying bodies were everywhere. Given such a bizarre scene, it was no wonder Bai Lingmiao was so terrified earlier.

As the light revealed the half-human, half-sheep figures, Li Huowang inadvertently connected them to the sheep corpses he had seen earlier.

"No, that's wrong! Those weren't the bodies of sheep, those were people! They were transformed into sheep, they were all sacrificial victims!"

Li Huowang rushed to the front of the cauldron, eyes wide with shock, staring at the row upon row of sheep corpses.

Realizing that these sheep were transformed from people entirely changed the nature of the situation—someone had killed thousands of people here, seemingly as sacrifices to something!