Seeing this, everyone’s heart sank.
This kind of vile demon massacre was a rarity in the history of Tianyuan Town.
Reporting this incident would certainly step up the hunt for demons.
Yet the people of the Martial Arts Guild had been wiped out, and inspecting and searching after the fact was meaningless to the deceased.
After all, dead meant dead, and everything was gone.
"Where is Lady Zhuo Xueer?"
Han Mengyu suddenly asked.
The crowd was startled, exchanging glances, then realizing that team leader Lady Zhuo Xueer had not returned to the rendezvous point.
Where had she gone?
Underground Secret Room.
Zhuo Xueer slowly descended the steps of the secret room.
She did not suddenly discover the secret room.
Rather, from the motions of a bisected corpse in the outer room, which struggled in its final moments to search for something, she inferred that there might be a safe secret chamber in the room.
She found and opened the secret chamber’s door after some searching, entering below.
Scalding hot air wafted up from below the chamber, its source unknown.
"What a pity. If that corpse had found the secret room entrance just a bit quicker, perhaps it could have evaded the demon’s pursuit and clung to life."
"But... how can the Martial Arts Guild have such a vast space underground? What is this place used for?"
"And the person who entered the secret chamber, how did they know of its existence? This place can only be a private space created by the owner of the Martial Arts Guild; others surely would not know of it."
"It seems there’s quite a bit of chaos within the Martial Arts Guild."
Zhuo Xueer was pensive.
What you see is not always what you hear.
Earlier, she often heard that the Martial Arts Guild was a guild with a nice atmosphere, harmonious relationships amongst the disciples, and a cordial master-disciple dynamic, like a warm small guild. They had certain standards for accepting disciples, did not recruit often, making internal relationships like a big family.
Now it seemed that conflicts were everywhere, and various intentions were inevitable.
However, they probably couldn’t have imagined that they would not die from infighting within the guild but at the hands of a demon.
Tap tap!
As Zhuo Xueer was contemplating this, she finally reached the end of the staircase.
The source of the scalding heat was right below this spot.
Looking down, she saw a gigantic furnace.
But inside the furnace, there wasn’t any liquid, only human bones like those exposed after a lake had dried up.
Countless human bones accumulated at the bottom, unclear how many years they had been there.
Zhuo Xueer’s expression changed subtly.
She recognized the issue at a glance.
This Yuan Hongxin, this underground secret room, was actually using living people for alchemy??
This was the ultimate taboo!
For a moment, Zhuo Xueer felt Yuan Hongxin did not die unjustly!
It was just that this matter had not been exposed; otherwise, just the Foolish Underworld knocking on the door would have been enough trouble for Yuan Hongxin to deal with.
Jumping into the furnace, her feet landing felt like stepping on bone ash, an unusually subtle sensation.
Moving carelessly and brushing against bones would cause them to crumble away like sand.
This made Zhuo Xueer reluctant to move around.
Suddenly, a relatively fresh corpse caught her attention.
Judging by the tattered remnants of clothing, it seemed the person had not been dead for long.
Picking up a token that hadn’t been completely corroded from near the corpse’s feet, it had the three characters [Song Dongmen] written on it, and on the back was a ’Yuan’ character, seeming to symbolize some kind of honorary status within the Martial Arts Guild.
After a quick inspection, Zhuo Xueer didn’t understand what the furnace was originally used for.
After all, ordinary molten iron wouldn’t leave skeletal remains for such a long time.
With a tap of her feet, she leaped up.
She arrived outside the furnace.
This was the opening for stoking the fire, but it looked as though the wood had been bundled up and taken away, with fresh drag marks on the ground, seemingly recent activity.
Walking forward a bit further, Zhuo Xueer saw iron shackles and a cross-beam used for binding people, plus several earthenware pots around that seemed to be used for cooking medicine.
Zhuo Xueer’s face darkened, although she hadn’t witnessed it herself, she could imagine what had happened here.
Clearly, people had been captured alive, used as guinea pigs for drug testing, countless tortured.
"This old beast!"
Zhuo Xueer clenched her fists.
She would rather confront a demon in a life-or-death battle than witness the filthy process of humans torturing humans.
Picking up a wooden chair, her hand swiftly passed over it, igniting a spark, and with a puff of her breath, flames erupted.
Setting all the flammable material alight, she prepared to burn down this sinful place.
Perhaps due to the billowing smoke, or because the crowd had searched most of the room, they finally found this place.
They called out towards the lower area.
"Lady Zhuo Xueer, is that you?"
"Lady Zhuo Xueer? Where are you?"
As they called out, Zhuo Xueer was already ascending the staircase.
Emerging through the black smoke, she appeared before everyone.
"I’m here."
Han Mengyu and the others were startled.
They wanted to ask what was below, but sensing Lady Zhuo Xueer was not in a good mood, they thought better of it.
It was unclear whether it was fortunate or not, but at least for now, there was no sign of Diao Deyi in the Martial Arts Guild.
"He might have received an urgent call for help from the Martial Arts Guild, hence why he suddenly disappeared from his assigned search area."
Leaving the underground secret room, when they returned to the square, Han Mengyu thought of a possibility and couldn’t help but speak out.