One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

The campfire was burning brightly.

The orange-red firelight illuminated everyone's faces, but none of the people sitting around the fire felt any warmth.

This devastating mountain range has only just revealed a fraction of its power to these Daoist prodigies, yet it has already sent chills down their spines.

"The four of us fled for our lives."

Xu Lingfei's voice was already very soft, as if all his strength had been drained.

"We were on the run for two days and two nights."

"..."

"On the third day, we escaped to a forest of dead trees that had been struck by lightning."

"!!"

Upon hearing these words, Zhang Lingqiu and Jiang Shou's eyes met suddenly in mid-air!

"..."

"As soon as we rushed into the woods, we saw a person lying on the ground."

Xu Lingfei raised his head, his eyes gradually revealing a complex mix of ecstasy and lingering fear.

"No, to be precise, it's two halves of a person."

"A corpse, from the top of the head to the groin, had been cleanly and neatly cleaved in two!"

"The incision was as smooth as a mirror. Moreover, the edges of the wound still retained a domineering and intense pure Yang energy from the Daoist sect! And beside that corpse lay a pile of corpses of evil cultivator henchmen!"

"..."

"..."

Xu Lingfei's breathing suddenly became rapid.

"Can you imagine? We were...we were absolutely ecstatic!"

"..."

"Yes! The ground is littered with the corpses of heretical cultivators, and the battlefield still retains the pure Yang energy of our orthodox Daoist lineage! Most encouragingly, we searched the pile of corpses carefully and found not a single body of one of our comrades!"

"We assumed your team was nearby! Maybe just across a mountain ridge, or maybe half a day's walk away!"

"We didn't know if you would come back, so we quickly dissected the corpses of those evil cultivators, hoping to find some clues. Oh, by the way!"

Xu Lingfei seemed to suddenly remember something and quickly reached into the pocket of his special forces uniform.

"We pulled a black life tablet from the pocket of the body that had been cut in two."

As he spoke, Xu Lingfei took out a black plaque about the size of a baby's palm and handed it to Zhang Lingqiu.

The sign was made of some unknown material and was engraved with intricate skull patterns, with a blood-red character "Chen" carved in the center.

It was the very same life tablet of the hall master that Jiang Shou and his group had been searching for so long, the one that would allow them to safely pass through the "Corpse Forest Maze" of the Ten Thousand Bones Abyss!

"After we got the life tablet, we left a secret mark under the roots of an old tree in that forest struck by lightning."

"..."

"After leaving the secret mark, we started searching frantically in the vicinity."

Xu Lingfei slowly lowered his head, looking at the rubble on the ground, his voice turning bitter again.

"I searched for it all day."

"...We didn't even find a single person."

By the campfire, Jiang Shou and Zhang Lingqiu exchanged a silent glance.

Neither of them spoke.

Fate sometimes likes to play cruel jokes.

That day.

While Xu Lingfei and his four remaining members of the third squad were searching hopefully for their comrades in that forest of lightning-struck dead trees.

Wen Daoqing and his second squad were retreating hastily into the dead valley with sheer cliffs on three sides due to the backlash from the golden-armored general and the pursuit of the evil cultivators.

The two forests are probably less than thirty miles apart.

A team searched all over the mountains and fields.

A group was fleeing in desperation.

In the second layer of the Hundred Thousand Mountains, where the geomagnetic field was disordered and poisonous miasma covered the sky, neither of them could find the other.

If they had been able to reunite then, perhaps Chen Xufeng and Zhao Tiezhu wouldn't have died in that blood swamp.

……

"...And then what happened?" Ye Cheng broke the silence, his voice a little hoarse.

"We searched all day without finding it, and we didn't dare stay in one place for long, so we had to continue heading east the next day." Xu Lingfei took a deep breath and continued, "But halfway there, we ran into the Sixth Team."

"..."

"Senior Brother Jing Qing and the other two are being chased."

"..."

"Following them were seven or eight powerful evil cultivators, and two enormous, ferocious ghost dogs."

"..."

Xu Lingfei raised his head and stared intently at the leaping bonfire in front of him.

"By then, Team Six had also fought to the point of exhaustion. Their Dao energy was depleted, and everyone was injured. The deep, bone-revealing gash on Senior Brother Jingqing's back was left from that day."

"..."

"After the two teams joined forces, what followed was three days and three nights of relentless fighting while fleeing."

"For three whole days."

"In the end, everyone was too exhausted to run any further, so they were forced to retreat into this desperate place with its back against a stone wall."

"Senior Brother Song sacrificed his life essence to forcibly maintain the [Divine Firmament Thunder Shield]."

"..."

Xu Lingfei's voice finally dropped to a level that was almost inaudible.

"Originally, everyone planned to hold out inside the enclosure for a while, allowing the wounded to rest and recover a bit of their Dao energy, before we all fought our way out together."

"But later... we all knew in our hearts that we couldn't get out..."

"..."

"..."

"Thank goodness you arrived in time."

Xu Lingfei looked at Jiang Shou and the other two, his eyes filled with sincerity and lingering fear.

"otherwise……"

"..."

He didn't say anything more.

But everyone knew what the consequences of "otherwise" would be. Just think of that gaunt elder; if Jiang Shou and the others had arrived half an incense stick later, they would have faced a fate where even dying would have been difficult.

The campfire crackled and popped, the sound of charcoal sputtering clearly audible in the quiet night.

……

for a long time.

Xu Lingfei, who had been keeping his head down, suddenly raised his head slowly.

"...Oh, right."

He looked at Zhang Lingqiu sitting opposite him.

A strange and complex expression suddenly appeared in those bloodshot eyes.

It wasn't curiosity, but rather a sadness tinged with trepidation, even a reluctance to speak.

"Senior Brother Lingqiu."

"Hmm?" Zhang Lingqiu raised his eyes slightly.

"..."

Xu Lingfei's lips moved violently. His gaze lingered for a moment on Zhang Lingqiu's cold face.

Then he glanced at Ye Cheng, who was silently adding firewood to the fire, and Jiang Shou, who was standing to the side with his hands in his tactical pants pockets.

"Your first squad..."

Xu Lingfei's voice trembled as he tried to suppress it.

"...Were you ambushed too? Are there only three of you left?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Senior Sister Tao, she, she..."

Xu Lingfei's eyes turned completely red, his voice choked with emotion, and he could no longer ask any more questions.