The light in the eye sockets of the skeleton flickered faster and faster, clearly excited upon seeing so many people's bone parts. It immediately began rummaging through the pile of human bones to find ones suitable for itself.
Soon, it chose what it considered the perfect skeleton for itself, tidied itself up, then dug out the flame from its own skull and stuffed it into another skeleton's skull which had a larger forehead, then secured its own skull in place.
This time, it finally looked like a normal human skeleton, no longer a motley collection of assembled parts. It appeared much more orthodox, examining its body up and down, the flame in its eye sockets flickering as if it were satisfied with its own appearance.
After all these preparations, it seemed to remember something, immediately grabbed a skull, turned, and ran outside without stopping.
Xiang Beifei did not know where it was running to, but Brain Deficient had already followed it again, and naturally, he could not fall behind. After hiding his presence, he followed slowly behind Brain Deficient.
The skeleton ran through the deep mountain forests for about twenty minutes and soon arrived in front of an inconspicuous small mountain.
This mountain was ordinary, bland compared to the surrounding mountains, nothing to make anyone look twice. Such mountains could be found in abundance in this range.
The skeleton walked along the trail of this mountain, quickly climbed halfway up the slope, and then leaped into the forest, jumping towards a dense thicket overgrown with weeds.
Xiang Beifei and Brain Deficient maintained a distance, following from another direction. He landed softly among the trees, then saw a very hidden pit in the ground.
The pit looked as if the ground had collapsed, containing a large cave that was only tens of meters wide at the opening but expanded to several hundred meters in diameter inside, pitch dark, and impossible to see to the end.
The mouth of the cave was covered by dense foliage. In the spots where sunlight could penetrate, many desolate beast bones were spread out, many shattered and scattered all over.
After the skeleton jumped into this cave, it quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Brain Deficient silently followed behind, with Xiang Beifei close on his heels. The skeleton followed a narrow passage forward, and after about two or three minutes of turning, the surrounding temperature gradually began to rise, even becoming hotter.
Suddenly, the view opened up, and firelight illuminated the surroundings. Xiang Beifei realized that this place was a lava cave, seemingly part of a volcano.
Ten meters below was magma, the searing lava bubbling continuously, emitting bubbles, and sparks flickered, the temperature reaching thousands of degrees.
The skeleton walked up to the mouth of the volcano, stared at the boiling magma, and then, as if ignoring it, jumped right into the lava!
The skeleton disappeared into the magma in the blink of an eye.
Xiang Beifei was quite surprised. He turned his head to look at Brain Deficient not far away, noticing Brain Deficient was also frowning at the lava.
It was clear they dared not jump into such violent magma flames because the magma here was definitely not as simple as ordinary magma; jumping into it, not to mention bones, even iron would melt instantly.
When the skeleton had just jumped down, the purple flame in its eye sockets immediately burst forth, covering its skeletal frame, as if it didn't care at all about the terrifyingly high temperature of the lava.
"Could Si Hou be here?"
Xiang Beifei glanced at Brain Deficient and then took out his compass stone, but the compass stone did not provide any directions, continuing to spin aimlessly.
Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage had also been trying to locate the positions of the Hou all this time, but from what Xiang Beifei had gathered, each Hou was different, with Zi Hou being a snowy mountain, Chou Hou being earth, Mao Hou being a withered forest and Yin Hou being stone. Could it be that Si Hou was in the lava?
No matter what, he had to figure it out.
Xiang Beifei silently transformed his spiritual power into a thin thread and trailed it along the cave's rock wall downward. As soon as it touched the molten rock, the scorching lava immediately incinerated his spiritual power.
He was somewhat surprised; the lava here was clearly different from normal lava, as it was capable of devouring Spiritual Power!
It really was Si Hou!
Xiang Beifei's eyes lit up.
His current basis for finding the Hou was to see if he could find anything that devoured Spiritual Power.
Clearly, this lava was similar to stream water, cold air, and earth, all of which were elements used by Xiang Beifei to direct him to the next Hou.
No wonder Brain Deficient stopped following here; he must have found this place a long time ago but couldn't get past the layer of lava.
Even the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage would perish immediately upon encountering these spirit-devouring substances.
There's no denying, the lava at Si Hou was a truly formidable defense. Just like Zi Hou's cold air wrapping around the snowy mountain. Last time, the Ghost Whiskers of Remnant Visage, even at their base, found it very hard to reach Zi Hou's snowy summit.
Xiang Beifei did not dare to try rashly. The temperature here was probably around a thousand degrees; if it were normal lava, he might have been able to use Spiritual Power to shield himself from the heat. With his current strength, he could withstand the lava.
However, since this lava could devour Spiritual Power, diving in recklessly would be fatal once the Spiritual Power failed. There wouldn't even be a need for a crematorium; he would be incinerated on the spot!
But he wasn't completely out of options since he possessed the incredibly strong and hard "breath soil," of which he had nurtured a significant amount. As long as he relied on the breath soil's protection to forcibly carve a path through the lava, entering the lava inside the breath soil would be no problem.
Of course, he had to ascertain what would happen once he entered the lava, such as where the path through the lava was and how one might reach Si Hou because the lava clearly would devour his perception ability. Getting lost in it while groping around in the dark would be quite awkward.
Brain Deficient was still standing at the edge of the lava pit, looking down at the lava below. He didn't jump down but rather stood there as if waiting for something.
Xiang Beifei was also not in a hurry. He leaped from the entrance passage to a relatively protruding stone on the cave wall, deciding to watch and wait.
However, at that moment, Brain Deficient seemed to sense something and turned away from the lava cave, heading outside. Xiang Beifei immediately followed him out.
Brain Deficient appeared on a stone halfway up the mountain where two people were already waiting for him.
Xiang Beifei also recognized these two, they were the same Ri An and Ye Ji he had met two days ago!
Both were still radiating a divine light, Holy Light embodied, like pure angels, making anyone feel a genuine fondness toward them.
"How is the progress?" Ye Ji asked gently.
"All is going well, the skeleton has gone back to Shepherd City. Should there be no accidents, it will surely bring peers." Brain Deficient sneered.
Ri An kindly asked, "Are you sure this plan will succeed?"