I forge immortality with a pagoda.

Upon hearing this, Shen Yu said, "Senior Sister has been protecting me here for quite some time, so consider this Dao Seed as payment."

As he spoke, he ignored Yue Ling's repeated attempts to stop him and forcibly stuffed the low-grade Dao Seed into her hand. Then he bestowed several mid-grade Dao Seeds upon Cui Youxin.

Seeing that he had made up his mind, Yue Ling stopped trying to stop him and put the Dao Seed into her storage bag.

"Things have changed, and we cannot stay here any longer. We should leave as soon as possible."

Yue Jianxin spoke, a hint of worry in his eyes.

"Master is right. Although we did not obtain that top-grade Dao Seed this time, we have still gained something, so the trip was not in vain. Let us now return along the same route."

Shen Yu nodded, saying he was unwilling to take any more risks here. The matter of the Dao Seed was not urgent, and there would be many more opportunities in the future.

The other two, being agreeable, naturally had no objections. The four of them then tidied up a bit and retreated outside the ruins.

Just then, a figure suddenly flew in from the distant horizon. It was a female cultivator dressed in simple clothes. Her beautiful face was covered with a layer of frost. She was using all her strength to fly away, and she would look back from time to time, as if she was avoiding something behind her.

As they got closer, Shen Yu realized that the woman looked quite familiar; she seemed to be the cultivator he had seen in Ganyu Mountain earlier.

The female cultivator looked around and spotted Shen Yu. She then pressed down her escape light and landed in front of the group.

She gave a curt bow, forced a smile, and said, "Fellow Daoist, we meet again."

"again?"

Yue Ling glanced at the woman, then turned to look at Shen Yu, blinking her long eyelashes incessantly.

Shen Yu remained calm, returned the greeting, and introduced, "Master, Senior Sister, this young lady is an old acquaintance I met in Ganyu Mountain, she is..."

He paused, looked at the woman, and cast an inquiring glance.

"Oh." The woman smoothed her messy hair and said, "I forgot to introduce myself earlier. I am Mu Wanrou from the Qingyao Sect of Zhongxuan Prefecture. I've met several fellow Daoists before."

"Greetings, Fellow Daoist Mu," Shen Yu greeted him, then turned to the group behind him and said, "Back in Ganyu Mountain, I was fortunate to have this fellow Daoist guide me; otherwise, I would never have discovered this suspended Daoist temple."

"I see." Yue Ling breathed a sigh of relief and stepped forward to express her gratitude. "Thank you for showing me the way, fairy, so that my junior brother could arrive in time to save my daughter."

Mu Wanrou waved her hand lightly, "It's nothing, just a matter of talking."

As she spoke, she seemed to suddenly remember something, and quickly glanced in the direction she had come from. Seeing only a hazy mist in the distance, she felt somewhat relieved and said, "Fellow Daoists, I have important matters to attend to and cannot say more. If you have the opportunity in the future, you can come to Qingyao Sect to find me."

"Farewell." She gave a hasty bow, not wanting to linger any longer, and was about to vanish into thin air.

As she left, she turned to look at everyone and said, "If you trust me, hurry up and leave the core ruins, leave this abyss. What is about to happen is something neither of us can bear."

With that, Mu Wanrou waved her sleeve, and countless green leaves emitting a soft glow flew out, surrounding her and flying towards the exit of the ruins, much faster than before.

"Fellow Daoist," Shen Yu stepped forward to stop her, wanting to ask for clarification, but Mu Wanrou had already disappeared from sight.

Shen Yu stopped, his brows furrowed. "Master, it seems we were right. This woman kept looking back; something unusual must have happened within the ruins. We should leave quickly!"

The other three all looked solemn; the things they had experienced were truly one after another.

Yue Jianxin nodded without hesitation and immediately told everyone to flee.

The group had only been inside the ruins for a short while, and were no more than a hundred miles from the entrance. They soon emerged from the ruins.

Not long after everyone left, a black cloud suddenly surged out from inside the ruins. At first, it was only about ten feet long, but in the blink of an eye, it covered the sky and sun, dyeing most of the sky a thick gray-black. Then, countless evil spirits and demons danced and roared wildly in the black cloud, which was extremely terrifying.

Among these ruins, a young scholar dressed in plain robes slowly emerged. Looking at the strange changes in the sky, he showed no panic whatsoever. Instead, the corners of his mouth slowly turned up, revealing a terrifying smile.

Darkness quickly engulfed all the buildings in the ruins, and swallowed the strange monk as well.

......

Shen Yu and his group left the core ruins without stopping, and the area around the suspended dojo was already in chaos.

All the cultivators hidden in the shadows rushed out. Some fled in panic, while others took advantage of the chaos to attack the weaker ones, trying to seize the opportunities they held.

The crazed cultivators began to launch indiscriminate attacks, and in just a short while, the group had been attacked by five or six groups of people.

"careful!!"

Shen Yu shouted, and saw a black arrow, shimmering with light, suddenly shoot out from the void, heading straight for Yue Ling's neck.

He had just unleashed a superior Daoist technique, and his true energy was still accumulating, so he couldn't possibly spare a hand to help.

But Yue Ling had anticipated this, and she had been on guard against those cultivators' underhanded tactics.

Suddenly, she saw that her two slender fingers had somehow caught a beautiful gilded bead. With a flick of her fingers, the bead shot out and crashed into the incoming talisman arrow. Although the talisman arrow was strange and difficult to defend against, it was much weaker and was pulverized by the gilded bead.

"The Dark Gold Soul-Capturing Bead..."

A few words flashed through Shen Yu's mind. He had seen this treasure when the two first met. It was a high-grade talisman with considerable power, even more powerful than his Spirit Cry Sword.

I underestimated you.

Shen Yu thought to himself, and in an instant, he focused his mind on the surrounding environment.

While Yue Jianxin was busy killing several Qi Refining cultivators, he also had to keep an eye on Cui Youxin, so he had no energy to attend to anything else.

Shen Yu and Yue Ling could only rely on themselves to face the endless attacks.

"These desperados are truly insane! What time is it? They should get out of here!"

Yue Ling gritted her teeth and said resentfully.

Obstructed by these cultivators, the four of them immediately slowed down, which made her feel vaguely uneasy.

Sure enough, within just a few breaths, black energy surged in overwhelmingly, instantly engulfing several cultivators who were located deep within the area.

Those present only heard a few abrupt exclamations, and then the cultivators fell silent.

"What the hell is this thing?!"

One of the cultivators shouted, took several blows from the opposing cultivator, and fled towards the edge of the dojo without looking back.

Even though he pushed his escape technique to its limit, he couldn't escape the speed of the surging black energy. Several bone hands reached out from the darkness and grabbed his ankles tightly.

Immediately afterwards, a hideous monster with two horns on its head stretched out its head, opened its blood-red maw, and tore off his entire arm in one bite.

"ah--!"

A scream rang out, and Shen Yu felt a chill run down his spine, causing him to shiver involuntarily.

"Run!!"

Yue Jianxin swung his sword, cutting the three cultivators blocking his way in half at the waist. He then leaped up and jumped into a gap in the ground.

......

......