The starting point is auspicious; the fiancée will not call off the engagement.

Ye Ninghan led the team forward for seventy miles and encountered more than a dozen waves of monsters.

"The quantity is incorrect." Ye Ninghan sheathed her sword.

She glanced up at the dense forest around her, her brows furrowing slightly. "Normally, I wouldn't encounter this many monsters even after traveling two hundred miles."

The male disciple leaned his broadsword on the ground, catching his breath. "Could it be because the area targeted in this cleanup was so large that the demonic beasts were driven over from elsewhere?"

"Even so many demonic beasts wouldn't have been driven here," Ye Ninghan withdrew her divine sense. "There are at least thirteen groups within the range of my divine sense, and their distribution is very abnormal."

The male disciple took out a jade slip from his waist, and with a flash of inspiration, he jotted down a few notes.

"Senior sister, if we keep going forward we'll reach the boundary of our team."

Ye Ninghan turned to Fang Zhou, who was standing two steps behind her. He wasn't covered in blood, and his clothes weren't even wrinkled.

Ye Ninghan's gaze lingered on him for a moment before shifting away. "Is your spiritual power sufficient?"

"It's alright." Fang Zhou thought for a moment. "I'll be fine."

Fang Zhou didn't make many moves along the way, mainly because Ye Ninghan protected him too well. Occasionally, a few monsters would slip through his fingers and be instantly killed, without even being able to touch the hem of his clothes.

Seeing the disheveled state of the other two, Fang Zhou felt a little embarrassed.

Ye Ninghan's fingers unconsciously touched the disciple token at her waist, her fingertips rubbing back and forth along the edge of the token a couple of times.

She felt reassured; her master had given her a trump card to save her life, and there wouldn't be any problems.

"Probe a little further ahead, confirm the situation, and then retreat."

The three continued to move forward.

The woods grew quieter and quieter.

The birdsong had disappeared sometime ago, and even the sound of the wind seemed to be suppressed by something.

The air became thick and viscous, carrying a faint, sweet, fishy smell.

Ye Ninghan stopped in her tracks. She didn't speak, but simply raised her hand.

The male disciple immediately unsheathed the broadsword from his back and held it in his hand; the crimson aura on the sword silently brightened a little.

Fang Zhou stood behind Ye Ninghan, his gaze passing over her shoulder and looking towards the dense forest ahead.

His divine sense had already probed the area, and while something seemed amiss ahead, there was no danger, so he didn't offer any warnings.

Ye Ninghan silently spread her divine sense, which passed through layers of dense forest and touched a chaotic mass of spiritual energy residue three miles ahead.

"The spiritual energy ahead is very chaotic." She withdrew her divine sense, her voice very low.

The three of them crept over quietly.

After passing through a patch of low bushes, the view suddenly opened up before me.

A clearing in the woods that had been brutally flattened was now barren, the soil an unnatural black.

Fang Zhou stepped on it, and felt a sticky sensation on the sole.

Broken tree trunks were scattered along the edge of the clearing, while in the very center, the corpses of dozens of demonic beasts were piled up into a small mountain.

The stench of blood mixed with the smell of decay filled the air, and the strong odor made Fang Zhou feel nauseous.

Ye Ninghan covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, her gaze sweeping back and forth across the pile of corpses twice before she went around to the side and squatted down.

"These demonic beasts were not killed by cultivators."

The male disciple squatted down next to her and used the tip of his sword to pry open the outermost layer of a demon wolf's corpse.

A huge gash was torn open in the wolf's abdomen, the edges of the wound jagged, the marks left by biting.

"They kill each other," the male disciple said.

Ye Ninghan remained silent.

She examined several more bodies, each bearing wounds from bites, claw marks, and impacts.

Dozens of monsters attacked each other here until the last one fell.

Suddenly, Ye Ninghan paused, as if she had discovered something.

Her sword tip pried open the forelimb of a demonic beast, revealing what was underneath.

A small, black cauldron, no bigger than the palm of your hand, lies upside down in the scorched earth.

The body of the cauldron was covered with dense, dark red patterns, and most of it was broken, with only the base remaining relatively intact.

As Ye Ninghan's sword tip approached, the remaining patterns glowed slightly.

"What is this?" The male disciple pointed to the small cauldron.

Ye Ninghan didn't reach out to touch it. She used the tip of her sword to turn the small cauldron over. A strange symbol was engraved on the bottom of the cauldron, emitting an unsettling aura.

"This should be a beast-summoning formation set up by some cult." Ye Ninghan stood up and scanned the area. "This is man-made."

Fang Zhou raised an eyebrow. Interesting. There really is a villain. Hopefully, he won't be too weak.

After confirming several times that the small cauldron posed no danger, Ye Ninghan carefully wrapped it in some kind of cloth and put it into her storage ring.

After noting the location, the three of them bypassed the pile of corpses and continued to explore.

Less than ten miles away, a second clearing appeared. The same scorched earth, the same piles of demonic beast carcasses, and the same shattered black cauldron. This time, the pile of corpses was even larger; judging from the size and number of the demonic beasts, at least a hundred had died here.

"The two array plates are ten miles apart." Ye Ninghan unfolded the map she carried with her and pointed to two locations on it with her fingertip.

The male disciple leaned closer for a look, and his Adam's apple bobbed.

"Let's go further." Ye Ninghan folded up the map and put away the small cauldron.

The third open space. The ground was not only piled with the corpses of demonic beasts, but also with the bodies of several rogue cultivators. Their robes were torn to shreds, their faces were blurred, and broken weapons and shattered storage bags were scattered around them.

The male disciple walked to the corpse of a rogue cultivator and used the tip of his sword to pry open the fragments of the storage bag at his waist. The fragments were covered with dried blood, but a mark could still be vaguely seen.

"I've seen this person before." The male disciple leaned his broadsword on the ground. "He registered at the affairs hall last month."

In the very center of this pile of corpses, there was also an upside-down, broken black cauldron.

Fang Zhou stood at the edge of the open space, his gaze fixed on the small cauldron.

Interesting. Fang Zhou remained outwardly calm, but he had already fully understood the purpose of this thing: to gather demonic beasts, trap them in the formation, and unleash their ferocity, forcing them to kill each other.

It has been confirmed that it was indeed done by human hands, so why would anyone do that?

Fang Zhou scanned the area but found nothing missing. So, it wasn't about collecting something, but rather about needing the result itself?

Fang Zhou fell into deep thought.

"Report to the sect." Ye Ninghan stood up, put away the jade slip, and wrote, "There are three beast gathering points, evenly distributed, with a distance of ten miles between them. Some rogue cultivators have been killed in these locations. We request that the sect elders intervene to investigate."

"Fall back, let's go back and report." Ye Ninghan gestured and put away the small cauldron in the center of the corpse.

The three turned and walked out of the woods, their steps much faster than when they came.

Fang Zhou seemed to sense something and suddenly turned his head, his gaze fixed on a hill a thousand miles away.

On the hill, a figure in white robes stood with his hands behind his back, also looking in the direction of the clearing in the woods.

His face was covered by some kind of magic, making his expression impossible to see.

Their gazes met across the mountains and forests, though separated by thousands of miles.

A moment later, the white-robed figure swayed like a reflection in water before vanishing completely into the air, as if it had never existed.

Did they run away? They're quite cautious. I thought we could go straight to the boss today.

Fang Zhou turned around and saw Ye Ninghan looking at him with a hint of concern on her face. "What's wrong?"

"No, it's okay, let's go back," Fang Zhou replied dryly.

Ye Ninghan was somewhat puzzled, but she still turned around and led the way.