Chapter 108: Beast Slave Hall
Chapter 108: Beast Slave Hall
Chapter 108: Beast Slave Hall
"Did I hear you mention the Miao Family Village just now? Is it the Miao Family Village near Tufang Mountain?" Yuan Ming realized that he had lost control of his emotions and quickly regained his composure, asking.
"You heard wrong. It’s the Miao Flower Village at the foot of the Qing’ao Mountain. Ha Ku, who reported the news of the wild people to us, is from there." A big man chuckled and said.
"Oh, my mistake then." Yuan Ming nodded with a smile.
Although he appeared calm on the surface, his heart was already in turmoil. The place that Hu Zha and the others were going to slaughter was actually Ha Gong’s hometown.
"You guys stay here and keep watch. I’m going out for a walk." Yuan Ming got up and bid farewell, leaving on his own.
After leaving their sight, Yuan Ming immediately used his soul skill, Soul Travel. Three black crows transformed from his soul quietly flew out from his brow in different directions.
At the moment, Yuan Ming couldn’t care less about the loss of his soul power. He just wanted to find the traces of Hu Zha and the others leaving as soon as possible.
The three crows flew low, shuttling through the mountains and forests.
After a while, one of the crows found a group of messy footprints in a forest. Among them, three pairs of footprints were large and deep, while only one pair was small and shallow.
This matched the description of the three Beast Slave Hall men with the skinny man.While rushing in that direction, Yuan Ming called back the three crows.
Fortunately, during his time as a Beast Slave, he had accumulated a lot of skills in tracking and searching for ferocious beasts. He quickly followed the traces of Hu Zha and his group and caught up with them.
After about half an hour of rushing, he finally saw a village built with a large number of wooden railings in a hollow under a green mountain peak from a distance.
They were several miles apart, but the sound of tragic cries had already drifted out.
Hu Zha and the others had already started killing.
Yuan Ming’s heart tightened, and he quickly put on the white ape beast skin. With a running start, he leaped up and rushed towards them in the form of a wild beast, disregarding everything.
If he were just an ordinary person from the Southern Region, Yuan Ming could still prioritize his own safety and force himself not to get involved. But when it came to Ha Gong’s family, he couldn’t care about these things anymore.
A man’s promise is worth a thousand pieces of gold. He had promised to take a look at Ha Gong’s daughter, so naturally he couldn’t just look and do nothing, especially when he knew she was in danger.
The wind whistled in his ears as Yuan Ming rushed all the way to the entrance of the village. From a distance, he saw a body hanging from an old tree outside the village, pierced through the chest.
Yuan Ming stopped and took off the white ape beast skin. Upon closer inspection, he found that the body was Ha Ku.
His eyes widened, and on his twisted face, fear, regret, and unwillingness were frozen, but it was all too late.
Yuan Ming had no sympathy for him and immediately rushed into the village.
The houses along the way had already started to catch fire, and there were broken and charred bodies everywhere.
"Ding dong."
Suddenly, the sound of a bell rang.
Yuan Ming abruptly turned his head and ran towards the source of the sound.
In a corner of the village, under a tall kapok tree.
The dilapidated thatched cottage was already on fire, and billowing black smoke rose like a demonic dragon, soaring into the sky.
A woman wearing a blue coarse robe huddled under the tree, holding a six or seven-year-old girl in her arms, trembling all over.
The woman’s head was wrapped in a black cloth, her skin was black with a hint of red, not particularly good-looking, but her features were still delicate. In her pitch-black eyes, fear had already taken over.
She tightly hugged the girl in her arms, pressing her head against her chest, not letting her look outside.
Just ten steps away from them, there were seven or eight male and female bodies piled up, blood flowing all over the ground.
Hu Zha, with his upper body exposed, was holding a silver bell and shaking it.
In the sound of "ding dong," he collected one lingering soul after another.
There was no expression on his face, and his heart was equally unaffected. After doing this kind of thing many times, he felt that those dead people were no different from the snakes, insects, rats, and ants on the roadside.
Hu Zha nodded at a person beside him, indicating that he should also kill the mother and daughter under the tree.
As he ran over, the big man carried a curved knife and arrived under the tree without saying a word. Without any hesitation, he raised the knife to strike.
Just as he was about to strike, a desperate shout came, "Don’t..."
The big man was stunned by the words, and he turned his head along with Hu Zha, only to see Yuan Ming running towards them quickly.
"Junior Brother Yuan, what are you doing?" Hu Zha asked curiously.
"For now, don’t kill them. I have something to ask." While shouting, Yuan Ming had already arrived by Hu Zha’s side.
Hu Zha was puzzled and asked, "What does it have to do with these guys..."
Before he could finish his sentence, he saw Yuan Ming’s hand on his shoulder suddenly emit a cold light.
Immediately after, a bronze longsword suddenly appeared.
Hu Zha thought that Yuan Ming was going to pat him on the shoulder, so he didn’t have any defenses.It was too late for him to realize that something was wrong. The cold light of the Green Fish Sword swept across his neck.
He only felt a coolness in his throat, and his head had already flown away.
A large amount of blood gushed out like a spring, turning into a rain of blood and falling down.
"What did you do?" The scar-faced man who was following not far away exclaimed in shock.
Before he could finish his words, he had already fled in panic.
Yuan Ming had already used the Shadowless Step and appeared behind him in a flash. He kicked him in the back, sending him flying and falling to the ground.
He caught up with him in one step and stepped heavily on the scar-faced man’s back.
The scar-faced man felt a bitter taste in his throat, as if his bile had been squeezed out. He hurriedly begged for mercy, "Don’t, don’t kill me..."
"What about the other person?" Yuan Ming asked sternly.
"He... couldn’t hold back and went to have fun with two women." The scar-faced man answered in a hurry.
"Where?" Yuan Ming asked.
The scar-faced man tremblingly raised a hand and pointed to the other side of the village in the distance.
"I’m asking you, what did your Beast Slave Hall do with the souls you collected after killing people?" Yuan Ming continued to ask.
"They... were all handed over to the sect." The scar-faced man quickly said.
"Don’t play dumb, I’m asking what the sect used them for?" Yuan Ming shouted.
"I... I don’t know, every time Captain Hu Zha personally delivered them, we just followed him to do the work outside and didn’t know what happened afterwards." The scar-faced man said bitterly.
Upon hearing this, Yuan Ming stabbed his long sword downwards, piercing the scar-faced man’s heart.
Then, he swung his sword and shook off the blood that stained it.
Yuan Ming glanced at the village in the distance, then at Hu Zha’s corpse. After a moment of hesitation, he walked to Hu Zha’s body first.
The mother and daughter who were huddled under the kapok tree, already frightened, couldn’t help but cry even more when they saw Yuan Ming approaching with a sword.
Yuan Ming immediately put away his sword and gestured for them to be quiet.
The woman with a somewhat haggard face could only suppress her fear and cover her daughter’s mouth.
Yuan Ming came to Hu Zha’s head, grabbed the braid on top of his head, and lifted it up.
Then, his gaze condensed, and a black light appeared on his forehead. A raven’s head emerged from it and pecked lightly at the empty space in front of it.
Immediately after, its head was pulled back, and an invisible thread was pulled out from Hu Zha’s forehead.
A hazy figure floated out, swaying in the air like a rootless duckweed. Judging from its appearance, it was indeed Hu Zha.
After this soul was pulled out, the mountain wind blew and it immediately trembled like it was shivering. The gray mist on its body seemed to be blown away, and its figure quickly became faint.
Seeing this, Yuan Ming immediately activated his soul power and fed the soul.
The raven on his forehead blurred for a moment, turning into a black vortex. From it, a twisted attracting force emanated, dragging Hu Zha’s remnant soul into a black mist and flowing into it.
Then, the black mist disappeared.
In Yuan Ming’s sea of consciousness, a black mist appeared out of thin air and condensed into a vaguely shaped figure.
With a thought, the power of his soul in his sea of consciousness split into three black ravens, pouncing on the hazy figure. In just a few moments, they tore it apart and devoured it completely.
As Hu Zha’s remnant soul was devoured, fragments of memories began to appear in Yuan Ming’s sea of consciousness.
In the chaos, Yuan Ming’s consciousness merged with Hu Zha’s body, as if they had become one. However, his consciousness could not control the body, but could only watch its actions from Hu Zha’s perspective.
In one of the fragments, Hu Zha held a curved knife in the flickering darkness, cutting off one wild person’s head after another, shaking a silver bell and taking away their souls.
In another fragment, Hu Zha and the disciples of the Beast Slave Hall held bowls and drank heartily, embracing smooth-skinned naked girls in their arms, laughing wantonly.
Yuan Ming pushed aside the dense fog, trying to find the memories he was looking for.
Suddenly, he felt his consciousness being pulled by something, rushing out and crashing into a fragment.
Then he saw a familiar figure in the memory, Elder Sa Ren.
He was the supervisor elder of the Beast Slave Hall.
"The souls collected this time, you will deliver them to the Refining Hall and personally hand them over to the Second Cave Master, without any mistakes." In a hall, Elder Sa Ren stood with his hands behind his back, giving him instructions.
"Yes." After Hu Zha agreed, he turned and left.
Yuan Ming’s consciousness followed Hu Zha’s body and headed towards the mountain peak where the Refining Hall was located.
Along the way, he held Elder Sa Ren’s token, unimpeded and smoothly arrived at the back mountain of the Refining Hall.
There stood an independent courtyard, similar to the Bamboo Forest Courtyard of the Third Cave Master, but more magnificent. Outside the gate, there was a stone tablet with the words "Dan Lu" written on it.Just as Yuan Ming’s thoughts were about to follow Hu Zha into the courtyard, the memory fragments he saw before his eyes immediately began to shatter one by one. All the images scattered like snowflakes, until they disappeared completely.
All of Hu Zha’s memory fragments dissipated, leaving no trace behind.
(End of Chapter)