There is a traitor among us.

Misty Valley.

At the gateway of the wild and desolate mountain valley, dense, tangible mist poured out as if it were a tipped bottle of mutton-fat jade. Lush forests and towering peaks flanked both sides, cloaking the area in a heavy, brooding yin aura.

This was considered one of the notorious perilous zones within the Zhennan Region. Cultivators who frequented the surrounding areas all knew of this place, yet no one had ever discovered what lay at the very end of the valley.

Led by the Southern Route Guide and the Southwest Route Guide of the Underworld Sect, two squads of men in black walked silently to the mouth of the valley. Each person had a dark gold token hanging at their waist, engraved with numbers to indicate their identity. Perhaps due to the overwhelming murderous intent of the entire procession, the atmosphere was grim and solemn.

Only at the very rear of the right-hand squad, the person ranked last in the line occasionally twitched, appearing rather bizarre. Fortunately, the movement was subtle, and with the concealment of the long robes, the vibration was virtually imperceptible, failing to draw the attention of the companions.

*Enough, enough.*

*If you twitch any more, it's going to get annoying.*

Chu Liang continuously used his divine sense to suppress the righteous impulses of the Slay-Evil Sword, leaving him thoroughly exhausted. What looked like a slight tremor from the outside was actually the Slay-Evil Sword throwing a tantrum inside the White Tower space. While he deeply understood its urgent desire to slay demons and vanquish devils, one still had to consider their own strength.

The amplification of the Slay-Evil Sword was based on his own cultivation level. The last time he slew Master Lu, who was in the sixth realm, it had already been defiance of the heavens. Chu Liang could clearly sense that, given his current cultivation, that was practically reaching his limit.

It had required a combination of favorable timing, geographical advantage, and human factors just to slay a non-conformist sixth-realm practitioner.

Against disciples of a demonic overlord sect like the Underworld Sect, Chu Liang felt that even attempting to assassinate a prepared fifth-realm practitioner might not succeed, let alone the fact that there were sixth-realm guiding envoys here... two of them, no less.

*If you ask me to jump out and uphold justice right now, you might as well just be asking me to die.*

"Flying from above will never allow one to enter the Abyss of Slumber; only by traversing the Misty Valley can one reach it." The Southern Route Guide raised a hand to signal the procession to halt briefly, then spoke aloud, "The Misty Valley is filled with miasma, poisonous fog, scythe-ghosts, and wandering souls. Once inside, everyone must exercise double the caution."

As he spoke, he flipped his hand to retrieve a pale white long bone, swiped his hand across it, and with a hiss, a ghostly blue-green flame ignited.

"Only by using the bones of scythe-ghosts to kindle underworld fire can we dispel the mist and the wandering souls within it. Shortly, everyone must stay close to this ball of underworld fire ahead; do not rashly advance, and do not fall behind," he continued. "If anyone becomes separated, there is a chance they will be carried away by the wandering souls in the mist, remaining here for all eternity."

"Understood!" the subordinates chorused.

Only then did they vaguely understand why someone of the guiding envoy's cultivation still needed to gather people just to dare cross this Misty Valley.

Was there really a risk of being possessed by wandering souls if one fell behind?

After giving his instructions, the Southern Route Guide stepped forward first, entering the dense fog. The white bone torch he held in his palm hissed strangely the moment it touched the mist, immediately followed by low, mournful screams.

Chu Liang was startled at first. What on earth was a scythe-ghost to possess such supernatural properties? Even a mere bone possessed sentience and could scream?

Yet in the next second, he realized that the screams were not coming from that bone—they were coming from the mist!

*This mist is alive?!*

At this thought, Chu Liang held his breath instantly, not daring to inhale any more of the mist into his body.

However, watching the people ahead step into the mist one by one, their figures vanishing inside without seeming to encounter any trouble, he gritted his teeth and walked in as well.

*Whoosh—*

Plunging his whole body into the mist was like entering the ocean. Rushing, muffled sounds immediately echoed around his ears, resembling the sound of wind, thunder, screams, and low moans. It was as if many people were calling out from over there, *"Come... come..."*

The ghostly voice was filled with temptation. If it were a cultivator below the Divine Intent Realm, their weak consciousness would likely be tempted right over.

*Too bizarre.*

The weirder part was that everything before his eyes was a blank white, making it impossible to see anything beyond three feet, and keeping his divine sense fully open was of no use. This dense mist isolated nearly everything!

After being dazed in place for a moment, he finally spotted a flickering green flame in the distance. The Southern Route Guide's words were not false; indeed, only the underworld fire ignited by the bones of the so-called "scythe-ghosts" could dispel the dense fog.

Terrified of falling behind, Chu Liang hurried to catch up.

The procession trudged forward laboriously through the thick fog, having barely covered any distance after a long while, when suddenly, a black shadow flashed past behind them.

Chu Liang's pupils constricted slightly, and he immediately turned his head to remain on high alert.

"It's a scythe-ghost," Luo Yao transmitted her voice gently, passing the words over. "It's inconvenient for you to strike; I'll handle the rear guard."

With that, she gave Chu Liang's back a push, urging him to keep up with the people in front while she positioned herself at the very end of the procession.

The reason it was inconvenient for him to act was that neither Chu Liang nor Pushan possessed supernatural techniques closely resembling those of the Underworld Sect; once they made a move, they risked exposing their identities.

Luo Yao's ghost-controlling techniques were similar to the Underworld Sect's soul-driving methods, allowing her to pull the wool over people's eyes if she executed them in this visibility-impaired environment.

Chu Liang felt a small pang of warmth. He stepped forward by one person, only to hear Pushan's endless stream of soft chatter coming from ahead.

"Oh? Chu Young Hero, you're here." Seeing that the person behind him had changed, Pushan turned his head and used voice transmission to chat privately. "Just in time, since you didn't hear it earlier, I was just introducing the origins of this scythe-ghost to Miss Luo. Buddhist scriptures record that scythe-ghosts are ghostly entities that escaped to the mortal realm after enduring the bone-stripping punishment in hell, and they rebuild their bodies using undecayed white bones..."

Chu Liang sighed inwardly.

He now had reason to suspect that the only reason Luo Yao had run to the very back was partly out of concern for him, and the other part... probably because she didn't want to bend ears with Pushan anymore.

Listening to Pushan's non-stop chatter, Chu Liang had a sudden whimsical thought: if Lin Be and Pushan were put together to chat at each other, which of these two chatterboxes would get tired first?

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard a muffled roar from behind. The sound was heavily muffled by the dense fog, and if they hadn't been close, he almost wouldn't have noticed it.

"Aroo—"

Behind Luo Yao's figure, a tall black shadow suddenly rose!

The shadow was mostly humanoid, yet stood upright with two massive blade-like limbs resembling a mantis. Once it was fully revealed, it turned out to be a torso composed entirely of white bones!

The lower human-like torso was no different from a skeleton, only much larger, and the two raised arms were bone blades as tall as a man! Outside the skeletal body, a layer of gloomy soul-shadow seemed to shroud it.

*Scythe-ghost?*

Yet another ghostly entity with a physical form.

Chu Liang's favorite ghostly entity, the human-faced macaque, was also a ghostly entity with a physical form, which was an extremely rare occurrence. The scythe-ghost's skeletal body before him now seemed to fall into this category.

Luo Yao reacted with lightning speed. The moment the scythe-ghost appeared, she formed a finger incantation, and a black ghost hand thrust out from behind her, grabbing the scythe-ghost's skeletal body and exerting sudden force.

*Crack-snap—*

Amidst a flurry of crisp sounds, the scythe-ghost was squeezed to pieces by that single palm!

Chu Liang's eyebrows twitched. He could tell that this scythe-ghost's realm was roughly equivalent to a third-realm cultivator. Its main strengths should lie in speed, attack power, and the hardness of its skeletal body.

Yet in front of Luo Yao, none of these advantages could be brought into play, and it was effortlessly killed in seconds by the young girl.

This only proved that Luo Yao was strong, not that the scythe-ghost was weak. If he had to deal with it himself, it would definitely take some effort.

"Hmm?" The Southern Route Guide at the very front halted his steps, causing the entire procession to pause.

Although the battle just now had happened very quickly, it still drew the guiding envoy's attention. He turned his head and looked toward the rear of the procession.

The spirits of Chu Liang and his companions tightened simultaneously, wondering if he had noticed any clues.

Following that, they saw the Southern Route Guide turn back, walk to the end of the procession holding the white bone torch, and look at the pile of remaining scythe-ghost bones on the ground.

"Very good," he praised Luo Yao.

Then he instructed, "Gather these scythe-ghost bones; we will rely on them to travel shortly. When the underworld fire is about to burn out, the Earth-Slaying Envoys of the Southern Route will take their subordinate Soul-Detention Envoys to hunt scythe-ghosts in rotation."

After traveling this far, everyone understood that scythe-ghost bones served as firewood in this mist and were extremely important.

Hunting scythe-ghosts in the dense fog was a very dangerous task. Making the Earth-Slaying Envoys under his command go first was clearly a way to demonstrate sincerity to the Southwest Route Guide.

Regarding this, Pushan harbored considerable resentment: "If you want to show sincerity, go yourself. What kind of nonsense is it to send your subordinates out to take risks?"

Chu Liang smiled and transmitted his voice, "It's fine if we leave the team to handle business; it will just make it convenient for us to strike."

"I know, I was just cursing him casually," Pushan nodded and said.

"..." He shouldn't have bothered responding to him.

After walking for about another half-hour, unsure of how far they had traveled, the Southern Route Guide waved his hand once more, and the procession halted again.

He directed everyone to form a circle, all enclosed within the illumination of the white bone torch, and then continued, "The Earth-Slaying Envoys of the Southern Route, each take your subordinates out to hunt scythe-ghosts. Each of the three squads will carry two remnant bones. Once the first remnant bone burns out, regardless of whether there are any gains, you must return to the formation."

The remaining scythe-ghost bones on hand were already scarce, consisting only of the reserve stock in his possession and the two that had attacked the main force earlier. It was unknown how much longer this Misty Valley would take to cross, and they couldn't wait until the bone torch burned out completely before starting the hunt.

"Understood!"

The three Earth-Slaying Envoys of the Southern Route each received their orders and left in formation with their subordinates. Naturally, Chu Liang's squad was among them.

The Earth-Slaying Envoy, holding a white bone torch, walked foremost at the very front, followed by the three little ones behind him, calculating the distance they had put between themselves and the main force, as well as when to strike.

This Earth-Slaying Envoy was precisely the primary target they needed to eliminate after entering the valley. Striking at this moment was truly capitalizing on favorable timing, geographical advantage, and human harmony.

Just as the three of them were silently waiting for the right moment, the Earth-Slaying Envoy ahead suddenly stopped in his tracks, his shadowy back standing rigidly.

"What's wrong?" Pushan asked aloud.

Time was of the essence, and they should have been rushing to search for scythe-ghosts; his sudden stop seemed rather bizarre.

They watched as the Earth-Slaying Envoy turned back, his gaze from beneath the black robe seemingly sweeping coldly across the faces of the three of them before speaking in an eerie tone: "There is a traitor among us."

*Ah?!*

Hearing this, Chu Liang was slightly startled.

*Only one?*