After a fall of no more than fifteen zhang, the Armor-Piercing Awl once again bit into the blue-black shale, bringing him to a complete stop.

"CRACK!"

The Tiger Tail Iron Chain swept out, shattering a large section of the cliff face above.

Xu Yunfan tensed his core, kicked off the air, and swung aside to dodge the fatal blow. As the Thunder Pattern Steel Chain pulled taut, it carved a spiral groove into the cliff face.

His gaze suddenly sharpened. Five zhang below lay a half-rotten wooden walkway, a rusty Crane-beaked Hoe jammed between its broken joints.

’On a cliff this sheer, and yet there are signs of human activity. Judging by the looks of it, this must have been built to harvest the Reishi Mushroom Herbs growing on these precipices.’

The Corpse-Rot Tiger Demon’s spine suddenly twanged like a taut bowstring, and its rotting torso scurried toward him, clinging to the rock face like a gecko.

Xu Yunfan leaped decisively, landing gently on a rotten part of the walkway. His footfall was so light that the decaying wood beneath him didn’t even crack.

’It seems that after reaching Perfection with Flying Leg, the boost to my Lightweight Skill is immense. I must weigh nearly seven hundred jin with my weapon, yet I can land as lightly as a drifting catkin.’

The thought had barely formed when Xu Yunfan’s ankle tendons coiled like springs. He had just begun to exert Strength through the sole of his foot when a dense web of cracks burst from within the rotten wood!

The instant his seven hundred jin of weight bore down, the long-eroded hollows within the elm plank collapsed completely.

"Shit..."

Xu Yunfan’s pupils shrank. Twisting his hips into a reverse arc in mid-air, the chain of his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer snapped taut with a RATTLE.

The barb on the hammerhead sank deep into the rock layer above, and he instantly became a bobbing weight on the end of the chain.

"CLANG!"

As the Bronze cage in his other hand struck the cliff with a sharp clang, Xu Yunfan twisted his core like a python and wrapped the hammer’s chain twice more around his left arm.

Wincing as the steel rings bit into his flesh, he spotted a Bronze Hanging Coffin Chain dangling seven zhang away and immediately began to build momentum for a swing.

His body swung in a perilous arc. The instant the coffin chain caught his weight, Xu Yunfan’s right hand shot out like an Eagle Claw and plunged into a crevice in the rock.

His straining fingers scraped against the rock with the sound of clashing metal, sending a shower of sparks from the hard crevice. With a burst of power, he converted his downward fall into horizontal motion.

Yet, just as he steadied himself, a foul, rancid wind blasted him from above.

The Demon Tiger roared, its gaping maw revealing razor-sharp fangs.

When the Tiger Demon’s rotting claws were just three feet from his face, Xu Yunfan suddenly let go, plummeting into the abyss.

Unable to halt its charge, the beast crashed through the hanging coffin. Amid a sky full of Bronze fragments, the barb of the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer snagged securely on an old pine stump five zhang below.

Xu Yunfan’s back slammed hard onto the gnarled tree roots, sending splinters flying, but he seemed completely unharmed as he rolled over and climbed to his feet.

He looked up. Through the treetop shredded by the Tiger Demon, dozens of broken Iron Chains dangled like a spiderweb. He recognized them. He had seen them before on a cliff face in Qingzhou, built by the Hu Family’s ginseng-harvesting team. It was a secret passage leading to an underground Dark River.

’There must be a crevice around here, one that leads underground.’

Xu Yunfan’s eyes twitched. The ability of Seeking Dragon and Distinguishing Veins activated, causing the intermingling light and shadow on the rock face to resolve into seven distinct layers of brightness and darkness.

Three zhang to the southeast, an irregular shadow lurked. Disturbed by the rampaging Demon Tiger above, several rock rats scurried out from behind a stone ledge, the faint phosphorescence on their fur leaving intermittent trails of light.

’That’s the spot!’

The muscles around his eyes spasmed, and the afterimages seared onto his retinas outlined the direction of the fissure.

The fissure wasn’t a vertical split but slanted into the mountainside, following the sedimentary lines of the mica schist. At its widest, it was no more than two palms’ breadth.

The whistle of the Corpse-Rot Tiger Demon’s tail chain was already at his back.

Xu Yunfan spun and kicked off the wall, his body wrenching into a forty-five-degree angle in mid-air.

The Bronze cage in his other hand scraped the edge of the fissure as he squeezed through. In the next instant, his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer followed, dragging a trail of sparks and rock fragments as he wrenched it inside. With his whole body twisting, he slid into the Earth Vein.

SCREECH!

The Tiger Demon’s sharp claws scraped a three-foot-long trail of sparks at the fissure’s entrance.

Its front paws clawed at the crack as foul-smelling drool rained down.

Xu Yunfan’s collarbone was wedged between the narrow rock walls. He suddenly flicked his finger against his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer, sending a jolt of power through it. The hammerhead flipped up and smashed heavily into the fissure’s ceiling, just inches from his scalp.

BANG!

Instantly, the fissure fractured and a shower of rocks rained down. A large boulder collapsed, blocking the Demon Tiger’s reaching claws.

The Tiger Demon’s roars shook loose a cascade of rubble.

Xu Yunfan seized the opportunity to dislocate his shoulders, sinking deeper. The iron nails on his boot soles scraped against the sharp rock as he fell.

As he slid deeper, the fissure suddenly narrowed to the width of a knife’s spine. Unpanicked, Xu Yunfan sucked in a breath and compressed his chest. The Bronze cage let out a tooth-grinding shriek as it scraped the walls. He forced his body to curl into a ball, rolling with the momentum of his fall, and slipped through the gap like an eel through a mossy crevice.

A sound like a landslide of scratching claws echoed from above.

A waterfall of debris, clawed loose by the Tiger Demon, piled up overhead, but it became wedged in the narrow strata of the fissure, unable to fall any further.

After sliding through the narrow gap, his vision suddenly widened. A rugged yet spacious cavern opened up before him.

Xu Yunfan reverse-gripped his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer and jammed its handle into the bedrock. He used the leverage to swing toward the moist air in the darkness. Thirty zhang below, the roar of a Dark River echoed, creating a natural resonance chamber along a calcite vein.

He could still faintly hear the Demon Tiger’s roars, accompanied by faint tremors that shook the mountain.

’But,’ Xu Yunfan thought with certainty, ’that Demon Tiger can’t get in here.’

’If it weren’t for that Lamp Master from Bei Mang Mountain still being around, not to mention who knows how many other people are in these peaks, I would’ve loved to just roll up my sleeves and have a real go at that Demon Fiend.’

He landed softly beside the Dark River. By the faint, lava-like glow emanating from his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer—a light fueled by his Blood Qi—Xu Yunfan’s powerful eyesight allowed him to take in the entire cavern at a glance.

’It’s dark, but it’s safe.’

Only then did Xu Yunfan turn his attention to the Ginseng Doll in the Bronze cage in his left hand.

He set the Bronze cage on a nearby rock and knelt on one knee about half a zhang away. He drove his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer into the ground beside him; the lava-like glow radiating from the Treasure Artifact showed no signs of fading.

The Ginseng Doll curled at the bottom of the cage was no more than three feet tall and was covered in black-and-blue bruises. It had clearly been thrown about violently during Xu Yunfan’s frantic escape, repeatedly slamming against the bronze spikes lining the cage’s interior.

Upon closer inspection, Xu Yunfan noticed that beneath the Ginseng Doll’s flawless, snow-white skin, faint golden patterns resembling Ginseng Roots were visible. Vermilion Red Ginseng Seeds woven into its black hair pulsed with a soft light, each one like a piece of amber steeped in beeswax. Its small face was utterly captivating.

If not for the Ginseng Roots extending from its limbs, anyone would have mistaken it for a pocket-sized doll.

Xu Yunfan leaned in unconsciously. As his nostrils flared, a peculiar fragrance wafted into his nose, instantly invigorating him.

Then, it suddenly rolled over, revealing a mouth full of jagged teeth. It snarled at Xu Yunfan’s approaching face and let out a hiss like an angry wildcat.

"SNAP!"