Volume Three: The Tomb of the Fox Immortal - Chapter Forty-Four: The Five Elements Exorcism and Evil-Dispersing Array

At that very same moment, inside a spacious room furnished entirely with wooden pieces, a bed stood in a corner. Resting against the headboard was an enchantingly beautiful woman. She let out a light laugh and murmured, "Having been here for so many years, to think humans would actually wander in. How amusing. I hope you all manage to survive."

With that, the woman stretched lazily, lay back down on the bed, closed her eyes, and drifted off into a deep slumber. This was none other than the wicked immortal whom everyone feared so deeply.

Meanwhile, Xu Tian and the rest of us picked up our flashlights and slowly walked further inside. At that moment, Li Kun turned his head and said to me, "Old Liu, something feels a bit off here."

Hearing Li Kun's words, Xu Tian and I turned to look at him. We saw Li Kun staring with a stern expression straight ahead down the corridor, his hands tightly gripping the Type-87 rifle slung across his body, his eyes locked fixedly on the stone door not far away from us.

Seeing Li Kun like this, Xu Tian asked, "Old Liu, did you see something?"

Li Kun nodded and said in a deep voice, "The space ahead should be completely filled with corpse Qi, and it's exceptionally dense. There must be corpse ghouls on the other side of that door, and very likely more than one."

Hearing this, Xu Tian and I could not help but grow cautious. Whatever Li Kun saw through his blood-red eyes was bound to be accurate.

I nodded at Xu Tian and then took out the Soul-Suppressing Bell. After Xu Tian closed his eyes, I held the bell right in front of his face and chanted: "The mysteries of Yin and Yang are difficult to exhaust, the two solstices return to the single Nine Palaces. If one can fully comprehend the principles of Yin and Yang, heaven and earth reside in the palm of one's hand. Heavenly Eye, open."

As soon as I finished, Xu Tian opened his eyes. Once I had also opened my Heavenly Eye, I truly saw that the corridor was filled with an extraordinarily thick miasma of corpse Qi.

Seeing this, I said to the others around me, "It seems whatever lies behind that stone door is far from simple. Let us proceed with caution."

The others nodded, and we slowly closed in on the stone door.

Standing right in front of the stone door, I nodded at Li Kun. We both grabbed the bronze ring on the door and exerted a slight force with our arms, slowly pulling open the heavy stone door before us.

The moment the stone door parted, we raised our flashlights and shone them inside, revealing a tomb chamber of immense proportions.

The entire chamber was circular in shape. The stone walls bore no ornate carvings, but as we raised our gaze, we saw that the floor of the tomb chamber was densely covered with countless runes. The vaulted ceiling directly above our heads was likewise completely covered in dense runes. On both the left and right sides of the chamber, massive stone coffins rested quietly.

Even more horrifying was the sight right before our eyes: a pitch-black pillar of light shot straight up from the floor, connecting directly to the dome overhead.

At the sight of this, all of us swallowed hard. I then swept my flashlight across the runes on the floor of the chamber. While the chamber was circular and the runes on the ground were arranged in a circle, the engravings on the left and right halves were of two distinct shades—one side appeared black, and the other side also appeared black.

From where we stood, the runes on the floor formed the pattern of a Taiji Eight Trigrams diagram, though it lacked the two black and white dots typically found within a Taiji symbol. The stone coffins on either side were positioned precisely at the outer edges of the black and white halves.

Seeing this, I could not help but feel a jolt of shock, and I muttered aloud, "Heaven is Qian, earth is Kun; Qian, Kan, Gen, and Zhen are Yang, while Xun, Li, Kun, and Dui are Yin. The positions where the stone coffins are placed on either side correspond to the Qian and Kun positions. This is bad—this is the Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation."

Upon hearing my words, the others were momentarily stunned. Xu Tian asked, "Old Liu, what is the Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation?"

I continued, "Breaking the Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation is actually quite simple. You only need to destroy the six rune carvings within the grand array, and the formation will naturally dissipate. However, to completely dismantle it, all three arrays must be broken within a single hour."

Li Kun asked, "Are those six rune carvings difficult to destroy?"

I shook my head and replied, "Destroying the rune carvings is very easy, but you mustn't forget about the stone coffins on either side. The corpse Qi we sensed in the corridor originates from the things resting inside those coffins."

Xu Tian asked, "Could it be that breaking the formation is related to the corpse ghouls inside these stone coffins?"

Gritting my teeth, I pronounced each word clearly: "Formation broken, corpses rise."

Hearing this, both of them felt a chill tighten around their hearts. Xu Tian asked, "Old Liu, does that mean the moment we break the formation, the corpse ghouls in the coffins will rise? If that's the case, we're in serious trouble. That implies we have to break eighteen rune carvings within one hour, and on top of that, wipe out six corpse ghouls. One hour is simply not enough time."

Li Kun cursed under his breath, "Damn it, that wicked immortal is truly vicious. Old Liu, is there any other way?"

I shook my head and said, "I do have one method, but it requires the three of us to work together seamlessly."

The two of them quickly stepped closer to me. I explained, "First, we must locate the positions of all three Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formations. Then, both of you must know which six rune carvings need to be destroyed. Finally, the three of us must shatter our respective rune carvings simultaneously, one by one."

Xu Tian asked, "What if we fail to destroy the rune carvings at the exact same time?"

With a solemn expression, I answered, "Then the corpse ghouls within all three arrays will rise simultaneously. By that time, we are utterly doomed."

Hearing this, the two exchanged glances, both seeing the grave seriousness in each other's eyes. Li Kun said, "Old Liu, isn't this method far too risky? Why don't we just break the formations one by one? Although it would be a bit more troublesome, with my blood-red eyes and your Soul-Slicing Blade, we might still stand a chance against these corpse ghouls."

I shook my head and said, "The corpse ghouls trapped in this Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation all possess skin of copper and bones of iron. Their strength is preternaturally immense, and they feel no pain whatsoever. As long as their souls remain undying, they will keep fighting endlessly. Even if I were to hack off both their hands and feet, they wouldn't die. Even if only their teeth remained, they would still tear us to shreds.

Nothing in this world is more troublesome to deal with than them. Because they have spent nearly a thousand years absorbing the malevolent Qi within the Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation, they are practically immortal. It seems the wicked immortal specifically left them behind to guard the formations."

Hearing my explanation, the two grew even tenser. Xu Tian remarked, "It looks like this trip of ours was never any sightseeing tour. If we let our guard down for even a second, we'll lose our lives."

Li Kun also gritted his teeth and said, "Since there are no other good options left, this method is our only way out. Just a moment ago, I was confident I could take down these corpse ghouls, but after hearing what Old Liu said, that confidence is entirely gone. If I gouged out my own eyeballs and managed to take down even a single corpse ghoul, it would already be a blessing from the heavens."

At a loss, Xu Tian turned his head to look at me and asked, "Old Liu, what do we do now?"

I glanced back at the tomb chamber we were currently in. There were three massive stone doors in this chamber: the one behind us was the entrance through which we had just come, and there were two more stone doors on the left and right sides ahead of us.

Seeing this, I pointed at the two stone doors and said, "It seems these two stone doors lead to the tomb chambers housing the other two Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formations."

Hearing my words, both of them turned to look at the two stone doors. I instructed, "Let's go check out the stone door on the left first and see if it houses the second of the three formations."

The others nodded and followed closely behind me as I walked toward the stone door.

Standing before the stone door, Li Kun and I pushed it open to reveal another long corridor. We stepped inside and walked down the passageway, but this corridor was twice as long as the one we had just traversed, and it took us quite a while to finally reach the next stone door.

Once Li Kun and I pushed that stone door open, we saw that this tomb chamber was virtually identical to the one we had just left—even the layout, the runes, and the stone coffins were in the exact same positions.

However, this chamber possessed only that single stone door, indicating that we had reached the dead end of this Fox Immortal Tomb.

With this observation, my suspicions were confirmed, and the few of us retraced our steps.

Returning to the original tomb chamber, we went to inspect the remaining tomb chamber. It shared the identical layout, as though everything had been perfectly replicated.

Standing inside that tomb chamber, Xu Tian asked, "Old Liu, what now?"

At that moment, I walked straight into the pillar of black light in the center of the chamber, and the others quickly followed my lead.

Upon entering the black light, we saw that the floor was densely covered with countless runes. Every single rune carving was entirely distinct; they were not written characters, but rather symbols resembling small mountains, towering trees, boulders, or even small animals.

Spotting these runes, Xu Tian squatted down to examine them closely, saying, "These runes look like pictographs, only they're somewhat chaotic."

I nodded and said, "The runes within this grand array are all specific symbols. You can also think of them as spell talismans."

Li Kun chimed in, "With so many runes on the ground, which six are the ones we need to find?"

I explained, "The Five Elements Departure-Slaying Formation is recorded in the *Twenty-Four Mountains Feng Shui Techniques*. Every single rune in the array is an indispensable part of the whole, but to break the formation, we only need to shatter six specific runes. Old Li, Old Xu, stay close to me now, and I will show you which six runes to target."