Zanxing

Chapter 56 - Tomb of the Dead (2)

"Martial Uncle, what is the weakness of the Tomb of the Dead?" asked Ziluo.

Li Danshu remained silent, looking at the figures in the Qingxin Mirror.

A red tongue shot out from the "mouth" of the giant face, and Yanxing jumped up to dodge. With a "thud," the tip of the tongue pierced through a tree in front of her.

Saliva-like juice began to flow from that mouth, and perhaps it was Yanxing's illusion, but the giant face beneath her feet seemed to display a cunning smile, sending chills down her spine.

Just as Yanxing was about to raise her staff, she suddenly felt her feet sink; a strong suction force was pulling her down into the ground.

The Tomb of the Dead would devour anything that passed over it; even a feather, if it landed on the soil, would be instantly absorbed as nourishment.

Yanxing jumped with all her might, grabbing onto a branch of a tree. As she steadied herself, she looked down to find her calf was bleeding profusely, with a layer of skin corroded away.

This Tomb of the Dead is terrifying!

The ground and the face were both shifting, meaning that as long as she stood on this land, she would not be able to contend against the Tomb of the Dead. And jumping onto a tree...

Yanxing felt the tree was slowly sinking, much like her current mood.

Even though she knew she wouldn't die, the feeling of being buried alive made all the hair on her body stand on end.

The giant face beneath her feet seemed impatient; its hollow eyes slowly rotated and fixed on Yanxing on the tree. Suddenly, the tree beneath her snapped with a "crack," and before Yanxing could react or find a place to escape, that red mouth opened wide and swallowed her whole.

In an instant, everything inside and outside the picture fell silent.

All of this happened too quickly for anyone to react. By the time Huayue realized that Yanxing had been consumed by the Tomb of the Dead, her figure was no longer visible on the ground.

"Damn it!" he shouted angrily.

Huayue's goal had always been the secret treasure hidden on Yanxing. But this unknown demonic land had unexpectedly swallowed the treasure along with her. Wouldn't this render all his efforts wasted?

Outside the Qingxin Mirror, Yueguang and his companions were also stunned.

Gu Baiying, who had been lazily reclining, couldn't help but sit up and frown, "Is that it?"

Although everyone knew that Yanxing was surely no match for the Tomb of the Dead, they hadn't expected her to be swallowed so decisively.

"With her current strength, she should be around a hundredth place, she won't be going any further," Li Danshu pondered, glancing at the names on the ranking stone, then froze. "Huh?"

"What's wrong?" Xuanling asked.

"Why hasn't her rank changed?" Li Danshu wondered.

Since Yanxing had been swallowed by the Tomb of the Dead, it meant she had been defeated and was about to be forced to leave the contest. For Yanxing, this assessment would thus end here; she wouldn't gain any more essence, and her rank should drop. But now, Yanxing's rank had not budged.

Cui Yufu also asked, "Why hasn't she left?"

Meng Ying's expression changed slightly as she looked at the figures in the Qingxin Mirror.

Huayue was hiding in the tree, watching the land that continued to writhe. After the Tomb of the Dead swallowed Yanxing, it gradually returned to calm. He silently drew his sword from his waist.

This demonic land was of an unknown origin, but since it was high-level, it essence would naturally be significant. Yanxing had already been eliminated, but if he killed this thing, the essence he would gain would surely raise his rank significantly on the ranking stone.

He, with his Golden Core cultivation, was certainly not as useless as Yanxing.

With this in mind, Huayue suddenly swung his sword towards the direction of the mouth of the Tomb of the Dead!

With a "bang," the scene of the Tomb of the Dead being sliced into pieces did not occur. The blood-red soil seemed to come alive, like a mass of wriggling insects, firmly gripping his sword and dragging it down into the earth. For a moment, Huayue couldn't pull it out.

He was startled, and before he could react, he felt the ground beneath his feet begin to bubble with steam as if the water on a stove was about to boil.

Next, the giant face displayed an expression of pain, its mouth opened wide, and from it spewed a viscous liquid, along with a familiar figure, who was thrown out.

Yanxing was tossed to the side, propping herself up, and coughed out a large mouthful of the sticky liquid, taking deep breaths, "I almost suffocated!"

"Yanxing?" Huayue exclaimed in shock, "How are you still alive?"

On the contest platform, Elder Yueguang suddenly stood up, his face filled with disbelief: "Impossible!"

Yueqin was also shocked: "Living things swallowed by the Tomb of the Dead cannot be spit out." Even though all the demonic cultivators within the Muxi Jiezi Scroll were merely imitations outlined by essence and were not as formidable as true ones, their external traits and weaknesses were indistinguishable from the real thing. Anyone swallowed by the Tomb of the Dead would quickly become nourishment, with no survivors. In the contest, once Yanxing fell into that land that had suffered an outbreak of plague, she would immediately leave the arena, ending her assessment.

Yet now, not only hadn't she left, but she had also been spat out by the magic tomb.

Mendong was standing obediently in place when he suddenly heard his young martial uncle's voice enter his mind. Gu Baiying's voice echoed coldly in his ears, asking, "Is it because the Qin Worm is on her that the Tomb of the Dead refuses to swallow Yanxing?"

Mendong was baffled and cautiously replied, "I don't know, Master Uncle. I've never heard of the Qin Worm having such an effect."

Everyone was either astonished or shocked, each with their own speculations. Meanwhile, Cui Yufu had been staring at the scene in the Qingxin Mirror for a while when he suddenly laughed, "I know."

The others turned to him in surprise.

"Third Senior Brother, what do you know?" Xuanling asked.

"I know why the Tomb of the Dead spat this girl out," Cui Yufu focused on the figure in the picture and slowly spoke.

"Why?" Zhao Maiyi asked eagerly.

"Incense ash," he said slowly, "because of incense ash."

In the Muxi Jiezi Scroll, Yanxing's hand brushed against the silk pouch in her chest pocket, and she suddenly realized, "So that's what it was—incense ash."

The Tomb of the Dead was originally a piece of land that became infused with magical intent because many citizens who had contracted a plague were buried alive there. It would devour any living thing that passed by, turning it into nourishment—essentially an indiscriminate killing machine, except for the dead.

The dead, for the Tomb of the Dead, are nourishment but also a part of it. Therefore, if it is a dead object, the Tomb of the Dead would not attack it.

The day before the assessment, Yanxing had gone with Tian Fangfang to pay respects to the Exam God, Saint Yushan. Besides offering some spiritual fruit and medicinal pills, they also burned two stacks of paper money. Although she wasn't sure if the currency of the immortal realm was paper, it was the thought that counted. After burning them, she took some incense ashes and stored them in a pouch to carry on her person, treating them as a protective talisman blessed by her ancestral masters.

Who would have thought that, inadvertently, the incense ashes meant for honoring the dead would cause the Tomb of the Dead to regard her as a "deceased person." Thus, after swallowing Yanxing, it spat her out.