The three of them looked at each other. They had expected that there would be some clues to find and that none of them would lead to anything good. But this … this was of a whole other caliber.
"Should we continue to explore or would it be better to return and inform somebody?" Mei Chao Bing glanced from Song Mu to Xi Ju Hai and back again. He definitely wanted to know more but he also realized that sending this kind of vital information back might be more important at the moment. After all, the sooner the Teng Yong Sect and the other righteous sects knew about this, the sooner they would be able to prepare. And preparation was definitely necessary if they wanted this to work out.
The other two seemed to have the same thoughts.
"I'd suggest we go back and try to find senior martial brother Zhi. Since he's in charge of this, he is the first one we should inform. Maybe he'll just send somebody back."
Xi Ju Hai nodded as well. "Yes. Also, I think that the information we can get from this place is limited without further study. And the amount of time it would take will be too much to wait for so long."
Without discussing any further, the three of them got up and turned around to leave. After just having taken a step, Mei Chao Bing stopped in his steps though and turned back. Song Mu and Xi Ju Hai also turned around, looking at him questioningly.
Xi Ju Hai's expression couldn't help but turn a little suspicious. Even though she had seen that he hadn't done anything strange so far and that he had even worked with them to figure things out, she couldn't help but still be a little worried.
Mei Chao Bing didn't mind and motioned to the place on the floor they had just attacked. "I don't know how active the demonic practitioners are here but we should probably close it up just in case."
Song Mu nodded while Xi Ju Hai looked away, not quite sure how to react to that. What exactly was she expecting? Finally, she just stood to the side while Mei Chao Bing crouched down and used his spiritual energy to fill the rubble into the hole again. Meanwhile, Song Mu tried to restore the other parts where they had tried before but not found anything.
Soon enough, the two of them had finished. While the ground probably didn't look a hundred percent like before, they didn't believe that the demonic practitioners would have that kind of intimate knowledge of this place to remember every stone. No, this should be enough to fool them in case they really had noticed that somebody had been coming here.
Finally, the three of them indeed started to go back.
At this time, the map that Xi Ju Hai had been drawing came in handy. They didn't have to worry about which path to take and were able to easily get back to the place where they had split from Zhi Guan's group.
Arriving at that cave, they weren't quite sure how to go on though.
"By now, they have probably been walking forward for quite some time. They could be anywhere. And judging from what we've seen so far, this place is pretty big. Will we even be able to find them?" Song Mu glanced at the others, wondering if they had any idea. While they could use their spiritual sense to detect others, it would be difficult to find the right way to get there and these caves seemed to somehow distort the feedback that gave him.
Mei Chao Bing also wasn't quite sure how to do this. Without being able to rely on his spiritual sense, there weren't any other options he could think of off the top of his head. He could only turn to look at Xi Ju Hai, hoping that she could come up with another solution.
Xi Ju Hai pondered for a moment and finally motioned at the map. "If what we're assuming is right and this is indeed created in the shape of an array, then there is only a finite number of possibilities where they could've gone from here. Let me draw another map detailing how this will likely look. It could probably also help to convince senior martial brother Zhi of what we found later on."
Mei Chao Bing nodded but couldn't help but speak up as well. "I'm pretty sure that we won't need to do much convincing. From what I've seen so far of him, he takes the words of others pretty seriously. If we say that the clues we found point in that direction, he won't just ignore us."
Xi Ju Hai glanced at him, a few unspoken words evident on her face.
Mei Chao Bing awkwardly cleared his throat and fell silent. Right. He had forgotten that while he had a bit of a connection to Zhi Guan because of Yun Bei Fen, Xi Ju Hai was much closer to him in terms of which generation they were part of. He naturally didn't need to tell her anything about him.
Soon enough, Xi Ju Hai finished and held the map so they could see it. "The path is pretty straightforward for the time being. It seems that they happen to be on one of the bigger lines of the array. Knowing Zhi Guan," she said with a glance at Mei Chao Bing, "I guess that they will just go straight ahead."
Mei Chao Bing and Song Mu nodded and then followed her lead through the tunnels. As it turned out, Xi Ju Hai hadn't been wrong. They soon heard steps in front of them, and when they caught up to the group, it was indeed that of Zhi Guan and the disciples of the Zhen Yan Sect.
Yun Bei Fen's senior martial brother turned around and then raised his brows. He immediately stopped in his steps, his expression solemn as if he was already able to guess just what was going on.