Chapter 507: Riding a Tiger

"Glowing?" Zu An was startled and instinctively turned his head. Following her gaze, he saw it: in the dark, sunken eye sockets of a skull, two points of blue light suddenly appeared. It was as if the skull had opened its eyes, a truly terrifying sight.

Zu An also instinctively took a step back. He swallowed hard. "Are there ghosts in your world?"

Pei Mianman was also flustered. The sheer number of bones in such a large mass grave was already eerie, but seeing the glowing skull eyes made her hair stand on end. For a moment, she didn't notice his phrase "your world." "Ghosts? Do you mean undead creatures? Historically, there have been scattered records of some cultivators straying from the orthodox path, beginning to research necromantic cultivation methods that allowed them to control corpses and the like."

Zu An thought of the skeleton soldiers he had seen last time in the Yaoguang Secret Realm, and even Zhang Han—to some extent, they were all undead creatures. He wondered what kind of existence the Empress Sister truly was.

But now was not the time to think about such things. He looked at the skull with the blue-glowing eye sockets not far away and said, "They shouldn't be undead creatures. I've seen those before, and the feeling is different."

In the ancient tomb of the Yaoguang Secret Realm, the undead creatures, though of low intelligence, had a subtle energy fluctuation about them. However, these bones had no such fluctuation, and even the light in their eye sockets was very different.

"Then what do you think is going on with this skull?" Pei Mianman was still a bit scared. Whether it was due to her injuries and weakness, or simply being by Zu An's side, she was much less courageous than usual.

"It might be foxfire," Zu An explained, giving her a scientific lesson. "In places where corpses accumulate, like cemeteries, decaying bodies produce phosphorus, a chemical substance. Phosphorus is highly flammable and can easily ignite, creating small blue flames. Many people don't know the scientific principle behind it and just assume they've encountered a ghost."

"Phosphorus, is it similar to that iron oxide you mentioned earlier?" Pei Mianman asked curiously. She considered herself well-read, but she had never seen any of these things mentioned in books.

"More or less, they're both chemical substances," Zu An said, his face flushing. He had just confidently claimed that the soil was red due to iron oxide, only to find out it was actually blood. He hoped he wouldn't be proven wrong again this time.

As if hearing his thoughts, Pei Mianman's trembling finger pointed to the other side. "Why are more and more eyes glowing?"

Zu An quickly looked. He saw that besides the first skull they had seen, blue lights were also appearing in the sunken eye sockets of the surrounding skulls.

There were thousands upon thousands of skeletons in this enormous pit. Watching skull after skull light up in a dense, widespread pattern, the originally dim pit bottom became filled with an eerie glow. The visual impact was truly astonishing.

Moreover, a rustling sound suddenly emanated from the entire pit. Yet, there was no one visible anywhere, which made the situation even more bizarre and unsettling.

"Are you... sure this is foxfire?" Pei Mianman huddled close to his side, her voice tinged with an inexplicable panic.

Zu An also couldn't help but swallow. Clearly, this couldn't be foxfire. Otherwise, why would it coincidentally be burning only in the skulls' eyes?

Damn. He had been transmigrated for so long, yet he still instinctively tried to explain everything with science. But many things in this world were inherently unscientific.

The soft, yielding touch on his arm, while distracting Zu An, also bolstered his courage somewhat. He said in a deep voice, "I'll go see what's happening! Thinking too much here would only scare myself."

Pei Mianman cautioned, "Be careful then."

As she spoke, she followed him. Firstly, she could look out for him, and secondly, being by his side seemed to give her a sense of security.

Zu An drew the Tai'a Sword and held it in his hand. He cautiously approached the nearest skull, on guard all the way against a sudden attack.

But the skull simply kept its head bowed, remaining motionless in its initial posture.

Zu An didn't believe it was playing a trick to lure them in. Undead creatures often lacked intelligence and couldn't possibly devise such a scheme.

He knelt beside a skeleton. "Esteemed senior, I don't mean to disturb you, but I wish to uncover the cause. This way, perhaps you can rest in peace."

After speaking, he slowly reached out and picked up the skull, wanting to investigate what was going on.

But as soon as he picked it up, the two points of cold light in the skull's eye sockets suddenly flared brightly, then shot out towards his face.

In that instant, he clearly saw what the two bright points were. They were not foxfire, nor ghosts, but two strange snakes.

These two strange snakes were not large, only about a foot long. Their bodies were very thin, but their heads were surprisingly large.

On top of their heads was a fleshy growth. This growth, which could be called a face for lack of a better term, had a single vertical eye. It was this eye that emitted the blue light.

Typically, snake eyes are small and round, located on either side of the head. But these snakes had a single vertical eye; they looked utterly bizarre.

Their bodies were covered in red and black stripes. Every characteristic about them suggested extreme venomousness.

Zu An had already prepared himself when he reached for the skull. Seeing them, his Tai'a Sword flashed, and he instantly cut the two snakes into four pieces.

However, his pupils immediately constricted. After the two snakes were cut, their heads continued their momentum, still rushing towards him.

He then remembered that snakes could still move after being decapitated. In his previous life, there had been many similar news reports of people being bitten by severed snake heads and dying from the venom.

"Damn!" The two snakes were already fast, and the distance between them was short. Zu An had no time to react.

He could only pray that his strong regenerative ability would be able to withstand the snake venom. However, given how strange these snakes looked, their venom surely wouldn't be ordinary.

Just then, a wisp of black flame flashed past from the side, instantly incinerating the two snake heads into ash.

It was Pei Mianman, who had seen the situation and acted to save him. Zu An felt cold sweat drenching his back. He looked at her gratefully. "Big Manman, if it weren't for you, I might have met my end here today."

Pei Mianman smiled faintly. "You've saved me many times too."

However, her smile quickly froze. "I think we should leave here immediately."

Zu An looked back. He saw that the blue lights in the skulls' eyes had all begun to move. One strange snake after another slithered out from the skulls; many even had more than two emerging from them. Looking around, there was a dense, widespread swarm.

Given that there were thousands upon thousands of bones in this massive pit, the number of these strange snakes was easily imaginable.

"Run!" Zu An grabbed Pei Mianman and ran as the snakes swarmed towards them from all directions.

Logically, cultivators were much faster than snakes. But these strange snakes, whatever they fed on, moved with the speed of wind, their speed in no way inferior to the two of them.

Zu An dragged Pei Mianman, dodging through the massive pit. He tried his best to avoid direct combat with them to prevent getting entangled and surrounded. Only when avoidance was impossible did he use the Tai'a Sword to clear a path.

But now he was wiser, paying attention to the direction of the snakes' heads to avoid being ambushed again.

The giant pit was enormous. Zu An roughly estimated it to be as large as seven or eight football fields. However, as cultivators, their speed was far greater than ordinary people; though the pit was large, they could fully explore it in a short amount of time if they ran at full speed.

The crucial point was that these strange snakes were everywhere. As they ran among the bones, more and more snakes were disturbed, and they all joined the pursuit.

Zu An was now in a bind. If they stopped, they would be overtaken by a massive number of strange snakes. A few times earlier, when he had cut down some of these strange snakes with his sword, he had noticed their blood falling onto the ground, looking like carbonated drinks spilled on a floor. Clearly, their blood was highly venomous and corrosive; if they were to be entangled, the consequences would be unimaginable.

But if they continued to run, they would disturb even more strange snakes—it was destined to be like drinking poison to quench thirst.

Now their only hope was to find an exit in this giant pit. Only then would they have a chance to survive.

What made the two of them despair was that they had already roughly traversed the entire pit. Inside, there was nothing but white bones and those strange snakes. There was no exit whatsoever.