Chapter 45

Ji Tang's scalp suddenly tightened, and the numbness quickly spread from her scalp to her whole body, and she got goose bumps all over her body.

The eyes had lost their luster, and Ji Tang immediately determined that the other person was dead.

Then the thin black thread she was holding...

Jitang suddenly let go——

That's the other person's hair!

Someone patted his shoulder and Jitang shuddered in fear.

Sun Xie came to her side and tilted his head in confusion.

Jitang stepped back and motioned for him to look inside.

Ji Tang was quite timid. She was more afraid of disgusting things than dead people. So after the initial discomfort, she recovered quickly.

Sun Xie was also frightened by the dead body in the hole.

Ji Tang showed him the piece of cloth in his hand. Meeting Sun Xie's stunned eyes, Ji Tang nodded.

The dead person inside was most likely a disciple of the Wei Hai Palace, but just by looking at the pair of eyes through the hole, naturally nothing could be distinguished.

Sun Xie asked her to wait here and quickly went to call for help.

Jitang just waited and started to figure out how to get in.

Since the coral stone can accommodate a corpse, there must be a passage that can allow an adult man to enter.

She groped along the coral stone inch by inch. Although the coral stone was rugged and overlapping, it was tightly connected. She found several palm-sized holes, but she could not find a way to get inside.

Sun Xie and his teammates came back quickly. Ji Tang spread his hands, indicating that he had not found any new clues.

Sun Xie arranged his disciples to search separately, and when they came to Ji Tang, he added a layer of spiritual power to Ji Tang's nightmare.

Ji Tang's nightmare aura grew longer as he spent time in the sea, and the outer layer of energy had faded into a shadow.

She nodded gratefully to Sun Xie, who waved and smiled.

A disciple swam over to the two of them and pointed downwards.

They followed the disciples over and saw that the hard sand and gravel under the coral stone had been dug out, revealing the coral stone inside. There was a passage on the stone surface that was wide enough for one person to pass through.

Sun Xie immediately arranged the order of entry.

He was the first to enter, and Jitang followed behind him.

She had only taken two steps inside when she saw Sun Xie stop.

Jitang poked his head out from behind him in confusion and looked upwards following his gaze.

When I saw this, my body became a little stiff.

There were more than a dozen disciples wearing the uniforms of the Wei Hai Palace floating inside the coral stone, both men and women, and they all seemed to be dead.

After the initial shock, Sun Xie immediately swam towards the corpse.

He swam to one of the female monks without stopping.

The female cultivator was held in his arms, and he kept shaking her, but she did not respond at all. Her weak arms hanging down weakly said it all.

Ji Tang couldn't bear to watch any longer and looked away.

She searched in the cave for a while and found something with a texture very similar to tortoise shell in the crack of the stone in the corner. When she looked closer, she saw that it also had tortoise shell patterns - it was undoubtedly a tortoise shell.

Ji Tang released a little nightmare energy and tentatively covered the shell.

The moment the nightmare energy touched the shell, it suddenly emitted a bright light. At the same time, all the disciples in the cave stood still as if they were frozen.

Not only that, the floating seaweed and milky white debris of marine life are also frozen at this moment.

Ji Tang felt as if the entire space had come to a standstill, and she was the only one who could still move.

She was just about to get up and go see the other cultivators when she suddenly became dazed. Then she saw Sun Xie appear in front of her, looking at her with concern.

Ji Tang was stunned and subconsciously looked elsewhere. The disciples who were scattered everywhere to collect the bodies of their fellow disciples were gone. She was not in the coral cave either, but in front of the hole that was discovered earlier.

Ji Tang raised her arm and looked. There was no spiritual power that Sun Xie had given her. The energy on the outer layer of nightmare was gradually fading.

Sun Xie also saw it, and he immediately allocated some spiritual power to cover Ji Tang.

Ji Tang couldn't tell the difference between reality and illusion for a moment. She looked towards the hole suddenly and saw long hair appearing on one side of the hole.

She reached out to grab it, and Sun Xie also came to her side, patted her and signaled her to step back. After he pulled it several times, the pair of empty and gray pupils appeared again.

Jitang had experienced what happened next before. Although the details were slightly different, they still found the entrance to the coral cave. The bodies of more than a dozen disciples were still floating in the cave.

Sun Xie was still holding the female cultivator in pain.

Jitang came to the corner where she had just found the tortoise shell. The tortoise shell she had just held in her hand disappeared, and the tortoise shell in the corner was back to its original state, sunk in the sand.

She took out the shell and was covered by the aura of nightmare.

The trance-like feeling reappeared.

Sun Xie appeared in front of her again, looking at her with concern.

Unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, she suddenly looked into the hole and saw long hair appearing on one side of the hole...

etc.

Ji Tang was suddenly stunned.

Had she had the same thought before?

Why did the thought feel so familiar to her the moment it occurred to her?

She subconsciously looked at the hole.

Sun Xie followed her gaze and reached out to pull out a handful of black threads from the hole.

What are these thin black lines?

Hair?

How could she think these thin black threads were hair?

When the idea came to her mind, Sun Xie had already signaled her to wait here.

Jitang turned his head to look at the coral stone.

Had she been looking for something around here?

Sun Xie quickly called her disciples together. She followed them into the cave and saw more than a dozen corpses floating in the cave.

Jitang looked around in confusion.

The scene before her was shocking, but... why wasn't she surprised?

Jitang searched aimlessly in the cave.

The other disciples were gathering the floating corpses together, but she always felt like she had forgotten something.

What is she looking for?

Why is she here?

Where is this?

*

There was silence in the meeting hall of Weihai Palace.

Zhang Zhuyou came in hurriedly, but before he could finish the ceremony, he was stopped by the old man at the head.

"How is it? Is there any news about them?"

Zhang Zhuyou: "Report to the elders, the people we sent out haven't found Team Wei Eleven and Team Wei Twelve yet, and..."

Elder: "Why are you hesitating? Speak now!"

Zhang Zhuyou sweatdropped. "Now the natal blood spirit seals of the five teams from Wei 15 to Wei 19 have also dimmed."

"What did you say?!"

The patrol areas of Wei Hai Palace are equipped with special spiritual communication stones for disciples.

They guard the sturgeon shark king beast all year round, and it is common for them to go in and out of the sea. Since communication is impossible in the sea, in order to ensure the safety of the disciples, the Wei Hai Palace will refine a natal blood spirit seal on the spirit communication stone of each disciple.

The natal blood spirit seal can promptly feedback the life status of the disciples to the Wei Hai Palace. All the cultivators in the Wei Hai Palace have their own natal blood spirit seal, which is placed in the blood spirit seal building of the Wei Hai Palace.

There are special people guarding the building, and if they find anything unusual about the blood spirit seal of the natal person, they will report it immediately.

The seal observer first discovered that there was something wrong with the natal blood spirit seal of the captain of Team Wei 11. Before he could report it, fourteen more natal blood spirit seals began to show abnormalities one after another.

If problems occur at the same time, it is very likely that an entire team will be wiped out.

The Indian officer did not dare to delay and quickly reported the news.

Zhang Zhuyou was the first to receive the news, and he immediately arranged for his disciples to go out for rescue.

But before the disciples who went out to rescue could send back any useful information, the seal checker reported again that there were abnormalities in the blood spirit seals of all the members of Team Wei's 12.

Team Wei 12 is the team led by Sun Xie.

This incident alarmed the four elders, who personally took charge and were determined to find the disciple.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhuyou sent more disciples to search, but he didn't expect that the first two teams failed to find it, and the blood spirit seals of five more teams began to dim.

Zhang Zhuyou was at a loss now. He was worried that if he sent more disciples out, they would encounter danger, but there was still no trace of the disciples in the outer sea, and things became difficult.

*

Ji Tang entered the stone cave and looked at the dozen or so corpses floating in the sea with a numb expression.

Her mind was blank, and a voice in her heart kept asking, "How can you remain calm and indifferent after seeing so many corpses?"

She couldn't answer, and her body mechanically went to the corner of the cave, brushed away the sand and stones, and took out the tortoise shell stuck inside.

Her gaze paused on the hand holding the tortoise shell.

Does she have nightmare energy and spiritual power in her hands?

Jitang felt pain in his fingers.

The five fingers were connected to the heart. Without the protection of nightmare energy or spiritual power, the hands had been immersed in the sea for who knows how long, and they had turned white and swollen. The fingers were scratched by the sand and stones, leaving a dense network of bloody wounds, and the salt made the wounds sting even more.

She subconsciously covered the shell with nightmare energy, closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she saw Sun Xie's concerned face appear before her.

Ji Tang's fingers curled up, causing the wound to hurt quite a bit.

There was something out of place. As soon as Ji Tang had this thought, he couldn't help but look at the hole in the coral stone.

Sun Xie then grabbed a handful of black threads.

Something is wrong...

What's wrong...

Ji Tang thought in a daze.

The disciple swam to the two of them and pointed downwards.

Ji Tang watched Sun Xie and his disciples swimming downstream, and wanted to catch up immediately, but the pain in his fingers became more and more obvious.

She wondered what would happen if she didn't keep up?

Jitang watched the two people getting farther and farther away from him, and the pain in his hand spread throughout his body.

The pain was like a button that turned on her body's senses. Then her five senses gradually recovered, and at the same time she began to have difficulty breathing.

She tried to swim toward the surface, but her legs wouldn't budge. Looking down, she saw a dark shadow enveloping her feet, preventing her from moving freely. She summoned her Nightmare Qi, only to discover it was also trapped by the shadow, unable to mobilize even a fraction.

She couldn't breathe and couldn't stop coughing. Seawater rushed into her body through her mouth and nose, and her vision was so blurry that she couldn't see anything.

Jitang felt that he was about to die.

Her limbs were cold and growing stiffer.

The sea above my head is farther away than the sky.

In a trance, a voice sounded in my mind.

The sound seemed to come faintly through a thick membrane.

She listened carefully and finally heard it clearly.

The voice said:

"They seem to have been under an illusion, and the symptoms are somewhat similar to those of the Gu poison in the mortal world. Disciples who are infected will lose their minds and become confused. Some will even attack their fellow disciples."

Ji Tang suddenly opened his eyes, and his mind suddenly became clear.

Illusion!

As a member of the Nightmare Clan, Jitang is no stranger to illusions.

She finally knew where she was and remembered everything.

Although her mind was clear, she was still in the illusion. The pain of not being able to breathe and the redness of her skin caused by drowning were extremely real.

Jiang Ruiwei said that the Bailing Dream-Breaking Technique could break the illusion, but she didn't know anything about the Bailing Dream-Breaking Technique.

Ji Tang endured the discomfort and forced himself to think calmly.

These are all illusions, not real events. As long as she can endure the pain, the illusion will not kill her in a short time.

Ji Tang started thinking from the beginning and decided to find out how she was brought into the illusion.

There was nothing unusual when they entered the sea and played with the sturgeon sharks, until they started to investigate the coral rocks, then something strange started to appear.

Illusions usually require a medium. Coral is native to the sea, so tampering with it is not a good idea.

Then there's the hair in the hole. Using a corpse as a medium for illusion? The mere thought of it makes the hair stand on end.

Finally, there was the tortoise shell she found in the corner of the cave.

From the beginning of the illusion, she has been repeating the process of finding coral stones, entering coral stones, seeing corpses, and finding tortoise shells. The medium is an indispensable object in building an illusion and will definitely appear in the illusion.

When Jitang thought of this, he didn't waste any more time and went straight down to the coral rock.