Nighttime.

Shen Hao didn’t let anyone set up a small tent for him anymore; he knew there was no way he could sleep tonight. As night fell, the strangeness of this place became all the more breathtaking.

First was the Yin Qi. Unlike anywhere else, the surge of Yin Qi here at night was simply astounding, multiplying several times over, and astonishingly lively—it actively tried to burrow into your body. Even at a mass graveyard by night, you wouldn’t see such a thing. There were only two possible causes for this: either millions of living creatures had died here, or this was a naturally extreme-Yin land.

Shen Hao found the first unlikely, but the second was hard to explain too, because the earth phase of an extreme-Yin land was always easy to recognize. It wouldn’t just suddenly pop up and become an extreme-Yin land with no hints or traces of earth phase evolution at all.

Besides, although Jingxi was vast, the Jingjiu Dynasty had ruled here for thousands of years. If there was an extreme-Yin land, how could nobody have heard of it?

So where did this place come from?

The weirdness wasn’t limited to the Yin Qi—dangers around them were also beginning to show themselves.

It wasn’t snakes, nor wolves, nor other ferocious beasts, but insects—a whole swarm of them, looking like mosquitoes. Their bodies were slender, with sharp mouthparts, each about the size of a walnut, and they flew alarmingly fast. If you got careless, they’d stick to you and give you a savage bite. And their venom was potent.

In just half an hour after night fell, five ordinary soldiers had been bitten and fallen into a poisoned coma. Fortunately, the traveling medical practitioners were highly skilled, or these five wouldn’t have made it through the night.

Finally, the cultivators opened their True Qi Shields, while the ordinary soldiers covered themselves entirely with mud and wielded torches, barely managing to hold off the threat from these flying insects.

But nobody could recognize just what sort of insect these were.

Aside from this kind, there were many other equally vicious bugs: some crawled up from underground, others spun silken threads and dropped from the trees. It was next to impossible to guard against them all. By dawn, eight people had lost the ability to walk from poisonous bites.

"Prepare stretchers, assign twenty soldiers to take these eight out. Once outside this strange land, activate a Summoning Talisman so others can come fetch them. But make absolutely sure to tell them not to venture in rashly—wait for us to come back out before doing anything."

Those who were poisoned couldn’t stay here any longer. With daylight, those nasty insects seemed to have hidden somewhere unknown, so this was the perfect time to get the injured out. And after last night’s chaos, Shen Hao understood this was no place for ordinary people—the risk was simply too high without cultivator abilities. This was also a chance to let some regular soldiers withdraw and avoid more casualties.

Once the wounded set off for return, Shen Hao also gave the order to move forward. Today he hoped to pick up the pace, aiming to reach the red-marked spot by noon, then get back to last night’s camp before nightfall. After all, they’d already spent a night there and were "relatively familiar" with it, while more mysterious territory ahead meant more uncertainty.

But Shen Hao still underestimated the road ahead.

"My lord, the vanguard lost another brother. He got his skin scraped by a poisonous thorn and has already passed out."

This was the fourth fallen soldier in half a day, and three of them were cultivators.

Toxic creatures—there were poisonous things everywhere.

It wasn’t just insects, but plants too; even strange, unheard-of creatures would jump out and try to poison you.

Yet, for all the danger skyrocketing, this place was still a bona fide treasure trove.

"Lord Shen, along the way, the three of us have recognized no less than thirty medicinal herbs, all top-grade Alchemy Level materials—though all toxic, still extremely precious. And those poisonous creatures aren’t simple either—I’d bet they all could be used as rare ingredients too. Look over there—that big black tree, isn’t it a rare piece of Chen Yin Wood! Prime artifact refining material!"

If we get to report this, it’ll surely be a great merit!"

You just have to marvel at human optimism: knee-deep in peril, and still scheming to reap some benefit. Besides, their true aim here wasn’t to gather herbs or artifact refining materials, but to find the source of the plague. Shen Hao gave the excited healer a sidelong glance and ignored him.

"Keep advancing, and be sure to mark the route clearly." Shen Hao continued leading the team forward. As for how many "treasures" there were along the way, he was sure those three half-dazzled healers would record every last one.

By afternoon, Shen Hao finally reached the red spot marked on the map. Clearly, there was no way they could return to last night’s camp to stay over again today.

"This place..." Shen Hao frowned as he looked around. Aside from a few massive boulders, nothing else was there. He had no idea why this spot would be marked out in red.

"Spread out for two li, search thoroughly, and be careful."

The three healers also set out to hunt for good things. Only Shen Hao kept staring at the five huge rocks in the center, unable to look away.

Each of the five giant stones was at least three zhang tall; no one knew how deep they reached underground. Each one had a strange shape—almost statue-like, but not human, with blurred contours, as if crafted by the uncanny hands of nature itself.

He checked each one in turn; there was nothing particularly special except that they felt slightly like jade to the touch. Yet Shen Hao still found them jarring—as if out of place. This area was relatively flat, with no hills nearby; where on earth had these giant stones come from? They certainly couldn’t have just grown out of the ground, right?

After a few laps, Shen Hao stood in the center of the five stones, glancing around, a slight frown on his face. He realized the arrangement of the stones seemed to follow a pattern: they stood at the vertices of a pentagram.

"Is this an array?"

Unfortunately, Shen Hao knew next to nothing about arrays—he could only use a few ordinary ones himself, and he hadn’t brought any array experts this time. So there was no way for him to spot anything unusual.

But the three healers, having finished their scouting, returned and couldn’t help but gather around when they saw Shen Hao studying the towering rocks.

"Lord Shen, are you studying artifact refining materials?"

"No, I just thought these stones looked unusual."

"Heh, well, that’s because these should be raw Yin Jade. If you’re lucky, you might carve out a complete piece. And look at their quality—not bad at all. I bet there’d be people out there willing to pay big money to gamble on these."

"Yin Jade... raw stone?"

"What? Lord Shen doesn’t know? Heh, our Alchemy Room deals with the Arsenal people a lot. I picked this up from them, but I might not have it exactly right. Still, I can guarantee these are raw Yin Jade stones, no mistake."

If he remembered correctly, Shen Hao had a piece of Yin Jade tucked in his storage bag, but he’d never known what the raw form looked like. Since Yin Jade was also a material for artifact refining, could it be that these five stones really were connected to an array?