Chapter 317: You Have Committed a Crime?

The two monsters, thinking as one and exerting their combined strength, unleashed an astonishing force. Amidst the cries of alarm from the crowd, He Lingchuan was buried in the ground from the waist down.

The youngest of the Jindu Ghost Cubs was immediately struck in the back by seven or eight weapons, turning its flesh into a bloody mess. Xu Chun, conjuring a short spear from somewhere, thrust it straight through the creature.

Liu Tiao, Fatty, and Duan Xinyu pulled hard to lift He Lingchuan, trying to extract him from the muddy ground as one would pull a green onion.

Ignoring the pain, the Jindu Ghost Cub pulled the sleeve arrow from its chest and, with a backhand strike, sent Xu Chun flying ten feet away into a stone wall. Then it roared skyward.

The bone effigies in the distance, as if summoned, suddenly increased their advance speed by thirty percent!

The Jindu Ghost Cub, as if its ferocity was amplified by its injuries, suddenly erupted with immense power, fighting off the patrolling guards without falling.

Its attacks were incredibly powerful; it even sent the Door Plank guard, along with his shield, flying four feet away. Fatty also took an accidental hit, his left arm snapping with a crack, and he too was thrown against the wall, nearly breaking his head.

Fortunately, this brutal strike inadvertently pulled He Lingchuan out of the ground, simultaneously revealing the head of the second Ghost Cub that had been buried underground.

Would He Lingchuan be polite to it? Seizing the opportunity, he sliced with his knife, decapitating the creature right at ground level.

The ghost head rolled twice on the ground.

"Pick it up, quickly!" Green liquid flowed into his eyes, but he had no time to wipe it. He rolled over and clutched the Ghost Cub's head, daring not to let it touch the ground again.

This eerie underground palace absorbs the power of dead Ghost Cubs, transferring it to the strongest surviving one.

The youngest one was already powerful enough; they couldn't allow it to gain an additional ability to pull people down anytime, anywhere.

However, He Lingchuan immediately felt an intense pain in his eyes and instinctively covered them, letting out a low cry.

"Powder, powder!" Liu Tiao frantically sprinkled medicinal powder into his eyes, but it seemed too late.

He Lingchuan endured the astonishing pain and managed to open his eyes. All he could see with his left eye was red or white; it couldn't form a normal image.

The green liquid had entered his eye; this left eye… was likely to go blind.

Looking at the Ghost Cub's corpse, Duan Xinyu had also seized it and impaled it to the wall with a long spear.

There was a gap between the corpse and the wall, preventing them from touching. Thus, the cavern could not absorb the Ghost Cub's power.

He Lingchuan also impaled the ghost head onto the spear.

At this moment, the bone effigy army finally arrived.

The youngest Ghost Cub made a huge leap, landing among the bone effigies. Dozens of surrounding effigies converged on it, quickly transforming into a bone armor shimmering with grayish-white light.

This bone armor offered extremely thorough protection, with sharp spikes even growing at its joints.

The Ghost Cub, moments ago covered in blood, instantly became a formidable bone general radiating killing intent.

It snapped off a rib from one of the bone effigies, quickly grinding it twice to fashion a bone sword.

With this one sword, the bone effigy army surged like a tide towards their prey.

The Jindu Ghost Cub's patience had run out. Moreover, there seemed to be troubling developments outside the underground palace, so it had to end the fight quickly.

Everyone unleashed their divine powers and abilities.

He Lingchuan wiped the blood and sweat from his face, pushed himself up against the wall, and swung his knife at the first bone effigy rushing towards him!

Chifeng Town.

As the sun began to set, the clearance of the landslide was mostly complete, with only a few yards of road remaining.

The Shanze on Sharp Rock had not been idle either; it had used magic to reinforce the large, weathered rocks at high elevations that were prone to falling, ensuring they wouldn't drop for at least a day or two.

Village Chief Hu came for the fourth time to check on the progress, craning his neck to peer down the mountain road.

The far end of the road was naturally quiet, devoid of human sounds.

The patrolling guards who had entered the mine had still not emerged.

Just then, rapid hoofbeats echoed from the distance—about seven or eight riders.

Village Chief Hu's expression subtly changed. He turned back, holding his torch, and soon spotted dark red armor.

The Great Wind Army!

The developments here had actually alerted the Great Wind Army.

The leopard demon at the high point saw this, leaped down from Sharp Rock, and scurried over.

Several fast horses galloped up to Village Chief Hu before stopping. The leader pulled his reins, and his steed reared up, then stood almost perfectly still once it settled.

Another rider galloped forward; it was Hu Min.

He dismounted and immediately asked, "Village Chief Hu?"

"Ah, yes!" Village Chief Hu became flustered. "Gentlemen, what—what is happening?"

He suddenly recognized the leading general and his eyes widened in fear.

"How long have those three patrolling squads been inside?"

Village Chief Hu's speech became muddled. "A-almost two hours, I think?"

Hu Min nodded, then abruptly asked him, "Do you know your crime?"

"Huh?" Village Chief Hu was startled. "My—my crime? Please don't..."

Just then, the horse of the person behind Hu Min snorted loudly.

Village Chief Hu shuddered in fear, a warm trickle running down his legs.

A cold voice spoke, "Shi Ying, have the patrols not returned yet?"

It turned out the leopard demon was named Shi Ying. Though a respected local Shanze and Zhong Shengguang's spirit beast, it now answered with its ears pressed back:

"Not yet."

"Why didn't you go with them then?"

Shi Ying's tail twitched, but it dared not speak, nor could it offer its usual supervisor's excuse.

It just wanted to slack off, didn't it?

At that time, it also didn't know that the monster in the mine had already eaten over a hundred people.

"Hu Min, you find out the reason." His cloak was entirely red. "The rest of you, follow me."

Everyone responded in unison:

"Yes, General!"

Village Chief Hu finally managed to squeeze out a loud cry:

"General Hong, spare my life!"

Unfortunately, no one answered him.

Watching them turn towards the mountain entrance, Village Chief Hu lay prostrate in the snow, sweating profusely.

"There were thirty-seven miners in the accident. Deducting the two who escaped, that leaves thirty-five dead," Hu Min's voice echoed above him. "Hah, an incident at the mine, yet you waited two days to report it! During those two days, you secretly contacted outsiders to enter the mine—at least forty to fifty people—and none of them came out, did they? Not counting the patrols who entered today, that's nearly ninety people already."

Village Chief Hu's face instantly went pale, his lips trembling uncontrollably. Suddenly, he fell to his knees, knocking his head against the ground seven or eight times, all while shouting:

"General, spare my life! I was only following orders, please spare my life!"

"Do you realize that your concealment of the death toll has caused a great disaster!" Hu Min wanted to kick him in the forehead, but he was mindful of the person behind him. "That monster in the cave went north these past two days and devoured an entire village—another seventy or eighty people!"

Village Chief Hu's mind buzzed, going numb.

"In just three days, this monster managed to consume one hundred sixty to seventy people, not even counting the mountain spirits and wild beasts here!"

Village Chief Hu instinctively protested, "General, that village has nothing to do with me. I didn't know the monster went out to eat people!"

"Interesting. Why didn't it eat you?" Hu Min stroked his chin. "It was clearly closer to you, so why did it go farther north?"

Village Chief Hu's voice was faint: "I—I don't know either. We're just a mining town!"

They did nothing but mine and smelt.

"Tell me, why did you delay reporting for two days, and who did you contact to get these forty or fifty extra people?" Hu Min asked coldly. "Disclose those behind this, and your crime might be mitigated."

The severity of Punlong City's punishments flashed through Village Chief Hu's mind.

He almost rammed his head into the ground.

The path to the mine was still blocked, so General Hong also led his troops on foot.

Less than fifteen minutes later, the Chifeng Mine entrance came into view.

The cave entrance, half-concealed by large trees, looked no different from what He Lingchuan and the others had seen earlier. The nearby low-lying houses were also hidden in the shadow of the large mountain.

Situated on the shady side of the mountain, the mine entrance now appeared somewhat sinister, like a monster opening its mouth, waiting for people to leap inside.

General Hong asked Sha Bao Shi Ying, "How many mountain demons and wild monsters have gone missing around here?"

"Over thirty."

This meant that within three days, the monster inside had devoured nearly two hundred living beings.

Even the most depraved demons couldn't accomplish such a feat unless they acted in a group.

"Not a small number," General Hong murmured to himself. "But it also suggests that the strongest Jindu cub was only born three or four days ago."

An elite soldier from the Great Wind Army behind him asked, "General, shall we enter the cave?"

"No hurry." To others, this mountain forest appeared peaceful; yet in General Hong's eyes, an overwhelming aura of Yin energy permeated the area, and the resentment of the newly deceased seemed to be rising, defying even the sun's true fire.

As soon as he approached the mine, he could sense the presence of the so-called "Divine Child."

This newborn Jindu cub was too arrogant and hadn't bothered to conceal its aura.

Such arrogance and appetite, however, made things easier to handle.

General Hong produced an open-mouthed golden alms bowl from an unknown place. It was slightly smaller than a washbasin, with three feet carved into chi dragons.

He instructed the Shanze Shi Ying to lead the others in collecting snow from the branches of old trees—specifically old pagodas—and placing it into the bowl.

The mountains were covered in various trees, and old pagodas over two hundred years old were abundant.

The snow melted into water as it entered the alms bowl. From General Hong's perspective, the bottom of the bowl was not flat but had undulations.

As he rubbed the bowl, it rapidly transformed, slowly taking on the appearance of mountains and rivers, gradually forming peaks and valleys, and even revealing miniature houses and cave entrances...

Wasn't this a miniature map of the Chifeng mining area where everyone was located? Even the gnarled shapes of the two trees outside the cave entrance were identical.

The only difference was that it had been reduced to the bottom of the bowl, almost to scale.

Now, they were all beneath the shimmering clear water.

At this point, General Hong reached in with a finger and stirred clockwise. No one knew if he was chanting a spell, but the air around him suddenly began to move, and the wind grew stronger and stronger, causing even the guards to involuntarily step back several paces.

Meanwhile, smoke began to form inside the golden alms bowl, growing from faint to thick, quickly enveloping the entire bowl.

Interestingly, the smoke only rose to the rim of the bowl, as if an invisible lid blocked it, forcing it to churn repeatedly within.

Before long, only thick mist remained inside the entire alms bowl.

Seeing this, General Hong withdrew his hand, but the mist continued to churn as if something was moving beneath it.

In the blink of an eye, vertical fins emerged from the misty surface—a very long row, seemingly connected to a tail—swimming and coiling over the misty sea like a snake or a crocodile, already exuding an intimidating aura.

Immediately after, its true form was revealed on the misty sea:

A super-miniature Flood Dragon.

Although the Flood Dragon's body was entirely made of mist, its sharp horns, scales, and barbels were perfectly distinct, showing no sign of shoddy workmanship.