Chapter 504: Riding the Tiger

"Glowing?" Zu'an was startled. He instinctively turned his head and followed her gaze. Sure enough, two points of blue light suddenly appeared in the dark, sunken eye sockets of a skull, as if the skull had opened its eyes. The sight was extremely eerie.

Zu'an also instinctively took a step back and swallowed hard. "Are there ghosts in your world?"

Pei Mianman was also flustered. The sheer number of bones in such a massive burial pit was already unsettling, and now seeing the skull's eyes glow made her hair stand on end. For a moment, she didn't even notice him say "your world." "Ghosts? Do you mean undead creatures? There are scattered historical records of some cultivators venturing off the beaten path, beginning to study necromantic techniques that allow them to control corpses and the like."

Zu'an recalled the skeleton soldiers he had seen last time in the Yaoguang Secret Realm, and even Zhang Han. In a sense, they were all undead creatures. He wondered what kind of existence the Empress Sister truly was...

But now wasn't the time to ponder such things. He looked at the skull with the blue glow in its eye sockets and said, "They shouldn't be undead creatures. I've seen those before; the feeling is different."

In the ancient tomb in the Yaoguang Secret Realm, although the undead creatures had low intelligence, he could faintly feel an energy fluctuation from them. However, these bones had no such fluctuation, and even the light in their eye sockets was completely different.

"Then what do you think is going on with this skull?" Pei Mianman was still a bit scared. Perhaps it was due to her injury and weakness, or being close to Zu'an, but she was much more timid than usual.

"It's probably phosphorescence, like will-o'-the-wisps," Zu'an explained, giving her a scientific lesson. "In places where dead bodies accumulate, like graveyards, the decaying corpses produce phosphorus, a chemical substance. Phosphorus is highly flammable and easily ignites, creating small blue flames. Many people don't know the scientific principle behind it and just assume they've encountered a ghost."

"Phosphorus, is it similar to the iron oxide you mentioned earlier?" Pei Mianman asked curiously. She considered herself well-read, but she had never encountered these concepts in any book.

"More or less, they're both chemical substances." Zu'an's face flushed. He had just confidently declared that the soil was red due to iron oxide, only to find out it was actually blood. He hoped he wouldn't be proven wrong this time.

As if sensing his thoughts, Pei Mianman pointed with a trembling finger to another area. "Why are more and more eyes glowing?"

Zu'an quickly looked around and saw that in addition to the first skull, blue light was also appearing in the sunken eye sockets of other skulls nearby.

There were thousands upon thousands of skeletons in the giant pit. Watching the eye sockets of one skeleton after another begin to light up, covering a vast area, the previously dim pit bottom became filled with an eerie glow. The visual impact was truly astonishing.

Moreover, faint rustling sounds suddenly echoed throughout the entire pit, yet there was no one in sight. This made the situation even more strange and unsettling.

"Are you... sure this is phosphorescence?" Pei Mianman huddled close to his side, her voice filled with an inexplicable panic.

Zu'an couldn't help but swallow. Clearly, this couldn't be phosphorescence; otherwise, it wouldn't be burning so coincidentally in all the skulls' eyes.

Damn it, even after transmigrating for so long, he still instinctively tried to explain everything with science. But many things in this world were inherently unscientific.

The soft touch on his arm, while distracting, also emboldened Zu'an slightly. He said in a deep voice, "I'm going to see what's happening!" Overthinking here would only scare himself.

Pei Mianman cautioned, "Be careful, then."

As she spoke, she followed behind him. Firstly, she could look out for him, and secondly, being by his side seemed to offer more reassurance.

Zu'an drew his Tai'a Sword and cautiously approached the nearest skull, remaining wary of a sudden attack along the way.

However, the skull simply remained with its head bowed, maintaining its initial posture without moving.

Zu'an didn't believe it was playing a trick to lure them in; undead creatures typically lacked the intelligence to devise such schemes.

He knelt beside a skeleton. "Senior, I don't mean to disturb you, but I want to find out what's going on. That way, perhaps you can rest in peace."

After speaking, he slowly reached out and picked up the skull, intending to investigate what was happening.

As soon as he picked it up, the two cold points of light in the skull's eye sockets suddenly flared brightly and shot out towards his face.

In that instant, he clearly saw what the two points of light were: not will-o'-the-wisps or ghosts, but two strange snakes.

These two strange snakes were not large, only about a foot long, with slender bodies but disproportionately large heads.

Each had a fleshy growth on top of its head, and on what could be called its face, a single vertical eye glowed with blue light.

Most snakes have small, round eyes on either side of their heads, but these snakes had only one vertical eye, making them look incredibly bizarre.

Their bodies were covered in red and black stripes, and all their characteristics suggested they were extremely venomous.

Zu'an was already prepared when he reached for the skull. Seeing the attack, he instantly flashed his Tai'a Sword, cutting the two snakes into four pieces.

However, his pupils immediately constricted. Even after being severed, the snake heads continued their momentum, still charging towards him.

It was then that he remembered snakes could still move after decapitation. In his previous life, there were many news reports of people dying from bites from severed snake heads.

"Damn it, I'm capsizing in a ditch!" The snakes were already fast, and the distance was short. Zu'an had no time to react.

He could only pray that his strong regenerative abilities would withstand the snake venom, but given how bizarre these snakes looked, their venom was surely potent.

Just then, a streak of black flame flashed from the side, instantly incinerating the two snake heads.

It was Pei Mianman, who had acted to save him. Zu'an felt his back drenched in cold sweat and looked at her gratefully. "My dear Mianman, if it weren't for you, I might have met my end here today."

Pei Mianman smiled faintly. "You've saved me many times too."

However, her smile quickly froze. "I think it's best we leave here immediately."

Zu'an looked back and saw that the blue lights in the skulls' eyes were beginning to move. Strange snakes, one after another, slithered out of the skulls; many even had more than two emerge. Looking around, there was a vast, dense swarm of them.

Given that there were thousands of bones in the giant pit, the number of these strange snakes was unimaginable.

"Run!" Zu'an grabbed Pei Mianman and fled as the snakes swarmed them from all directions.

Logically, cultivators should be much faster than snakes, but these strange snakes, whatever they had fed on, moved like the wind, matching the pair's speed effortlessly.

Zu'an pulled Pei Mianman, dodging through the massive pit, trying his best to avoid direct combat with the snakes to prevent being encircled. He only used his Tai'a Sword to clear a path when there was no other option.

But now he was wiser, paying attention to the direction of the snakes' heads to avoid another surprise attack.

The giant pit was very large; Zu'an estimated it was about the size of seven or eight football fields. However, as cultivators, their speed was far greater than ordinary people's. Although the pit was vast, they could explore it completely in a short time if they ran at full speed.

The critical issue, however, was that these strange snakes were everywhere. As they ran through the bones, more and more snakes were startled and joined the pursuit.

Zu'an was now in a difficult situation. If they stopped, they would be overwhelmed by the massive number of strange snakes. Earlier, when he had cut some of them with his sword, he noticed their blood splattered on the ground like a carbonated drink spilling on a floor, indicating that their blood was highly venomous and corrosive. The consequences of being entangled by them were obvious.

But continuing to run would only stir up more strange snakes, a desperate measure that offered no real solution.

Their only hope now was to find an exit in the giant pit; only then would they have a slim chance of survival.

To their despair, they had already roughly covered the entire pit. Inside, there was nothing but white bones and strange snakes; there was no exit whatsoever.