The crimson glow of the cavern walls grew deeper, bleeding into a dense, oppressive mist that smelled faintly of rusted iron and ancient dust.
"Stay close," Old Lady Shen commanded, her voice cutting cleanly through the heavy silence.
As a late-stage Core Formation master, her cultivation baseline and past experiences allowed her to resist the crushing spiritual pressure better than the others, but even she felt a cold sweat forming on the back of her neck. Beside her, Doctor Lu Cheng nodded silently. His fingers subtly gathered vibrant green wood-attribute Qi, ready to deploy healing arts or defensive barriers at a moment's notice.
Behind them trailed Hei Zun's two Foundation Establishment disciples. They were sweating profusely, their faces pale as they struggled to breathe under the mountain's immense weight, using every ounce of their internal energy just to stay upright. Meanwhile, Han Yue used his Mid-Core Formation Qi to form a tight, protective layer around himself, isolating his body from the radiating pressure.
Suddenly, the air groaned.
The ground beneath them didn't just shake; it parted. A massive array pattern, carved into the stone centuries ago, ignited with a blinding, violent purple light.
"A Qi-Disrupting Thunder Trap!" Doctor Lu Cheng barked, instantly recognizing the ancient runes.
Before the disciples could even scream, jagged bolts of purple lightning erupted from the floor, streaking straight for their vital points. Instantly, the experts reacted. Old Lady Shen waved her walking stick, summoning a shimmering, translucent shield of blue energy that deflected three stray bolts into the cavern roof.
Doctor Lu Cheng flicked his wrists, shooting out threads of green Qi that wrapped around the waist of Hei Zun's disciples, violently pulling them backward just as a massive bolt scorched the earth where they had stood. Hei Zun himself simply snorted, unleashing a wave of dark, oppressive aura that crushed the remaining lightning bolts into harmless sparks before they could fully manifest.
"Heaven and Earth!" Han Yue roared. A sword flew from his storage ring, instantly splitting into ten identical forms. His hands rushed into a blur of hand seals as he condensed his Qi. "I lay down upon the judgment of heaven! Calamity Formation, release!"
With a deafening crack, Han Yue unleashed a First-Level Calamity Lightning storm. The white-hot lightning struck the ancient purple thunderbolts head-on.
"Ahhhhh!" Han Yue screamed, gritting his teeth as the purple trap pushed back. He tightened his jaw and barked, "BREAK!"
The Calamity Lightning surged heavily, completely overpowering the trap. The explosion shook the walls and roof so violently it felt as though the entire cavern would crumble. Thanks to the overwhelming power of the three Core Formation masters and Doctor Lu Cheng, the deadly trap was neutralized in the blink of an eye. The group emerged entirely unscathed, though the two disciples were trembling violently, realization dawning on them that a single mistake here meant death.
"Hmph. A mere remnant formation," Hei Zun scoffed, brushing non-existent dust from his sleeve, though his eyes narrowed at the sheer power the trap had still held after millennia.
They pressed onward, navigating a labyrinth of twisting tunnels filled with unsettling phenomena. At one point, they passed a massive underground waterfall where the water flowed upward into the ceiling, defying gravity and releasing a soft, humming melody that threatened to lull them into a trance. Doctor Lu Cheng quickly bit his tongue, using the sharp flash of pain to break the auditory illusion, while Old Lady Shen used a localized burst of her spiritual sense to snap the disciples awake.
After hours of tense navigation, the suffocatingly narrow passage abruptly ended. They stepped out onto a massive, sweeping ledge, and the entire group, save for one, gasped in absolute awe.
Before them lay the core of the Forbidden Mountain. It was an otherworldly paradise.
Instead of dark rocks and terrifying mist, they looked out at a sprawling valley bathed in a soft, ethereal golden light. Massive trees with silver leaves swayed gently in a breeze they couldn't feel, and the ground was thick with glowing, spiritual herbs, hundreds of them, shimmering with a vibrant vitality that suggested they were at least a thousand years old. High-grade spirit stones grew out of the cavern walls like common crystals, radiating a pure, intoxicating spiritual energy that made the disciples' cultivation bases thrum with raw greed.
"Heavens..." one of Hei Zun's disciples whispered, his eyes wide as his feet automatically moved forward. "Master, look! The spiritual herbs... the spirit stones! There are enough resources here to build an entire sect!"
Hei Zun's eyes flared with intense, undisguised greed. Even a peak expert like him rarely saw high-grade spirit stones in such abundance. "Good, very good!" he laughed, a booming, arrogant sound. He pointed a sharp finger at the valley. "Go! Grab those herbs and mine every single spirit stone you can see! Move!"
"Stop! Do not move a single inch!"
Old Lady Shen's voice rang out, sharp, commanding, and filled with an icy dread. She stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the beautiful valley, but there was no admiration in her gaze, only horror.
Years ago, during a reckless youth she rarely spoke of, she had managed to catch a glimpse of this exact place from a historical record hidden deep within an ancient ruin. She knew the secret of this paradise.
"Hei Zun, call your disciples back! Do not let them touch a single thing!" Old Lady Shen warned, her spiritual pressure flaring to intimidate the younger cultivators. "This place is a trap. Everything you see, the silver trees, the thousand-year-old herbs, the spirit stones, it is all a grand, ancient illusion! The moment they touch it, the mountain will swallow them whole!"
Hei Zun paused, looking at her, then let out a mocking sneer. "An illusion? Old Lady Shen, are you growing senile in your old age? My spiritual sense is perfectly fine, and I can clearly feel the pure Qi radiating from those stones. You just want to hoard this treasure for yourself!" He turned back to his disciples, his voice darkening. "I said, gather them! If anyone hesitates, I will execute you myself!"
Driven by the fear of their master and the overwhelming greed blinding their senses, the two Foundation Establishment disciples rushed forward. They leaped off the ledge, landing onto the soft, glowing grass of the valley floor.
The first disciple laughed ecstatically, reaching down and wrapping his fingers around the stem of a glowing, ruby-red spiritual herb.
The moment his skin made contact with the plant, the beautiful, golden light of the valley shattered like glass.
The silver leaves instantly turned into sharp, rusted iron spikes. The pure, intoxicating spiritual energy soured into a foul, choking miasma of death and decay. The glowing grass dissolved into black, bubbling mud that instantly trapped the disciples' legs.
"Master! Save us!" the disciple screamed, but as he looked down at his hand, he realized he wasn't holding a herb. He was holding the writhing, slimy tail of a living creature.
Hiss.
The ground beneath the entire valley began to violently churn. The illusion completely vanished, revealing that the "valley" was actually a massive, gaping pit filled with the skeletal remains of past-era cultivators. And from the darkness of those bones, a terrifying, metallic sound echoed.
CRACK!
The cavern roof split open. From the shadows above, huge, glittering golden scales caught the dim light. Two massive, serpentine heads descended from the darkness, their eyes glowing like twin crimson suns.
They were the Golden Serpents, ancient, mutated beasts born from the concentrated spiritual malice of the Forbidden Mountain. Each one possessed a terrifying pressure that easily rivaled an Early-stage Core Formation master.
They slithered down the stone pillars with a terrifying, dramatic grace, their golden bodies easily thirty meters long, hissing as their heavy spiritual pressure crashed down upon the trapped, horrified disciples.
Old Lady Shen's face paled as she gripped her staff tightly. I have never seen this before... she thought in horror. It looks like this is another breed of the true Golden Serpent monster. These are just the guardians!!