The cemetery was dark, damp, and eerie, filled with a sense of suffocation and oppression.
The passage ahead was deep and shadowy, its length unknown, and its destination unclear.
Mo Hua held a compass in his hand, leading the group through the narrow darkness.
Mr. Hui and a few others occasionally glanced around, guarding against the strange corpses within the tomb.
Along the way, there were indeed appearances of corpse spirits, not many, mostly one or two, silently leaping out from the shadows to gnaw at heads.
However, the group was mentally prepared, and the seven Golden Core experts were on guard, watching the blind spots.
As soon as these corpse spirits appeared, they were swiftly slaughtered.
No one was bitten by the corpse spirits.
Mo Hua secretly felt a pity.
Such matters, he wasn’t sure if anyone had tried before.
But if he wanted to succeed, it would be significantly difficult.
Just the sealing, storing, rearing, transformation, nurturing poison, and poisoning of evil spirits required extensive research.
Hence, he really needed someone to be bitten by the corpse spirits a few times, so when the illness manifested, he’d have more references.
However, the group was still in the stage of collaborating on their tomb exploration. The final burial chamber had not yet been found, so there was no need to rush.
Thus, Mo Hua set aside other thoughts and focused on leading the way.
The path seemed endless, and after an unknown amount of time, the passage suddenly widened.
The scene before them changed once again.
Walking at the forefront, Mo Hua immediately halted, slowly retreating to the center of the group, ensuring he was heavily surrounded by the Golden Core experts, then gazed ahead to see the passage leading to a spacious stone chamber.
The stone chamber was simple, with some murals carved around its walls.
These murals were rather crude, most of them depicting scenes of Oxhead and Horseface, dressed in Taoist Court robes, detaining, punishing, and executing criminals.
Mo Hua scrutinized the murals carefully, then sensed them with his divine sense, and finally frowned slightly.
These murals were indeed just simple murals.
They were neither contemplation maps nor did they contain formations, nor did they seem to possess any other mysteries.
Yet the depiction of Oxhead and Horseface, with their myriad punishments, gave Mo Hua a distinctly unusual feeling.
Mo Hua had a vague illusion.
These murals seemed to have been "copied" from somewhere, like a "rubbing," but the person who copied them had no understanding of their deeper meanings, merely sketching the shapes onto the walls of the tomb.
Just the "rubbing" itself allowed Mo Hua to feel a chilling suffocation.
The true "essence" of these murals, if seen firsthand, might be even more terrifying.
Mo Hua’s brows knitted, his expression heavy.
But Mr. Hui, seeing these murals, was invigorated, turning to the group and saying:
"These are murals from the outskirts of the underground palace; we’ve reached the underground palace."
"Pass through the underground palace and enter the deeper burial chamber, and you’ll see the coffin. The treasures of the tomb will be buried with the coffin in the burial chamber."
"Once inside the burial chamber, retrieve the items, and return the way we came, the mission will be successfully completed."
The group’s eyes were somewhat eager.
Mo Hua pondered for a moment, finally voicing the doubt in his heart: "Whose tomb are we actually raiding, and what is buried inside?"
Mo Hua lowered his voice, but everyone could hear.
Yet none of the cultivators present responded to him, acting as if they hadn’t heard.
Mo Hua awkwardly pursed his lips.
"It’s getting late, let’s continue forward," said Mr. Hui, pausing slightly and then solemnly adding:
"However, since we’ve reached this point, I must remind everyone, the underground palace is designed to protect the burial chamber, filled with killing formations and traps, very dangerous, so we must proceed with care."
The black-robed young man nodded.
Then the group, crossed over the murals of the underground palace’s perimeter, and walked nearly a hundred steps forward.
The structure of the walls changed, and before the wide underground palace appeared five branching paths.
"These branching paths are meant to confuse outsiders and protect the tomb," Mr. Hui said.
The black-robed young man nodded slightly and asked: "Which path should we take?"
Mr. Hui and his group fell silent for a moment, all looking at Mo Hua.
Originally, tomb exploration and differentiation tasks were handled by Mr. Pi, who was well-versed in earth formations. But now that Mr. Pi was dead, the duty naturally fell to the only other formation master present, Mo Hua.
Even if his knowledge of earth formations was self-taught.
Mo Hua had a contemplative expression.
It was his first time tomb raiding... no, being "coerced" into entering a tomb, and there were many things he didn’t really understand.
Especially the various applications of earth formations, most of which he was encountering for the first time without much experience.
The five branching paths before him felt almost identical under his divine sense.
Even the layout of the earth formations and the breath of the formations inside were indistinguishable, making it hard for Mo Hua to discern which path truly led to the burial chamber.
"Wait a moment, let me study it further..." Mo Hua said.
Mr. Hui’s eyelid twitched.
The black-robed young man looked at Mo Hua with an even stranger gaze.
But Mo Hua ignored them, immersing himself in rummaging through Mr. Pi’s storage pouch.
Within Mr. Pi’s storage pouch, besides formation-related formation books and diagrams, there were some miscellaneous books and notes.
Among the miscellaneous notes, some contained his insights on tomb exploration.
The main content of the insights discussed the integration of formations with tomb burials, as well as the application of numerous formations, including the Five Elements Formation, Eight Trigrams Array, and hidden earth formations within tomb burials.
If problems were encountered, how one might resolve them through formations, and so on...