"Breaking through a small stone wall, why bother using specialized quarrying machines?" Upon hearing my proposal, Chi Qingshuai just smiled slightly and flashed the sword in his hand.
Seeing his action, I couldn't help but furrow my brows and said to him: "Master, although Gan Jiang Mo Ye Sword is very powerful, it may not be able to open up the mountain."
"Let's try it out later and see for ourselves. My strength may not be enough to do this, but you definitely can," Chi Qingshuai laughed and took the lead towards the air-raid shelter.
Seeing this situation, we could only follow behind him.
The space inside the air-raid shelter was relatively spacious but because no one had been there for too long, there was a musty smell everywhere. The walls were damp with many unknown insects crawling around which made people feel fearful.
As I walked along observing everything carefully while heading deeper into the shelter where Yin Qi became heavier until it turned into thin black mist that filled every corner of it.
Upon seeing that black mist, I subconsciously looked at Xie Yilin. Amongst us four she had weakest strength and poorest constitution so I worried about her being affected by Yin Qi.
Fortunately due to her Hun Yuan physique already activated plus having received one-third of my vitality energy she now possessed strong defense ability which prevented those Yin Qi from affecting her much.
"This bottle contains Cow Eye Tears. Take it with you in case of any unexpected situations; apply some on your eyes when needed as they will allow you to see things invisible to naked eyes." Approaching her side quietly I handed over a bottle of Cow Eye Tears then whispered: "You're welcome."
She smiled faintly taking over the bottle before lowering down her voice asking me: "Thank you."
"It's nothing," I grinned back without saying more words then quickened our pace forward while keeping a close eye on the surroundings in case of any unexpected situations.
However, to my disappointment, we had walked quite far and even deep into the air-raid shelter while using flashlights to illuminate our path but still found nothing unusual except for some rats scurrying around.
After walking for a while longer, the cave became darker and more humid with echoes resounding everywhere. The walls were wet with many large earthworms wriggling on the ground like small snakes which looked disgusting.
At this point, there was a fork in the air-raid shelter where some stone chambers appeared on both sides of its walls; some even contained old tables and chairs left behind from previous years that were now dilapidated.
Upon reaching here I suddenly smelled an indistinct stench which made me alert subconsciously then stopped them by blocking their way before frowning: "Be careful. Something seems off here as there's a foul smell like something has died and is rotting."
"No need to look further. The smelly thing is right here," Chi Qingshuai said curiously while shining his flashlight onto the ground at one corner.
We hurriedly gathered around him only to find out that it was actually animal feces about as thick as an arm that had turned white due to moisture.
"What is this?" Jietou asked curiously.
Xie Yilin also felt puzzled and subconsciously took a step back with disgust written all over her face: "It's so gross! So dirty!"
"This thing..." Chi Qingshuai looked at the feces, pondered for a moment, then stood up straight and looked down at the bottom of the air-raid shelter. He said to us with full alertness: "This seems to be snake feces."
"What the f*ck!" Hearing this, Jietou exclaimed first and asked in amazement: "How big must that snake be to produce such thick feces?"
"I don't know," Chi Qingshuai frowned tightly. "Because I haven't seen this animal for many years. I have been looking for it before, but later I didn't see its trace anymore. I thought it had left Motu Mountain already. Now it seems that it hasn't gone anywhere."
"You still recognize this snake? What's going on?" Jietou asked suspiciously.
"Is it the Red-crowned Snake? The troops who were mining caught one back then, but it escaped during transportation. Is that snake?" I remembered the story Xie Yilin told me earlier and couldn't help asking Chi Qingshuai.
"No way! That story is just a legend and doesn't seem to be true," Xie Yilin widened her eyes.
However, just when Xie Yilin felt that this was unlikely, Chi Qingshuai nodded his head towards me and said: "It is indeed that snake. It is not an ordinary earthworm but a mountain python with extraordinary power since birth; its body can grow infinitely long. When the army found it back then, its cultivation level was still shallow and less than 100 years old; there was no inner alchemy condensed yet so there wasn't much trouble caused nor did those Motu ghosts target him specifically . Afterward when he escaped ,I tried to kill him several times because of his elusive movements which made him very good at hiding his body. So I couldn't find him all the time, and even thought he had left Motu Mountain. Unexpectedly, he didn't leave but has been hidden in the mountains for cultivation."
"Now it seems that if nothing unexpected happens, it should have discovered the rich Yin Qi resources in this air-raid shelter and has been using these Yin Qis to cultivate. In this way, its progress must be very fast and extremely cold. Looking at the size of this feces, I can't imagine how much it has grown now or what level of power it has reached."
Chi Qingshuai paused here and said: "Of course, these are all secondary issues. The key issue now is that a mountain python like him who lives so close to the center of the mountain cannot escape from those Motu ghosts' detection; since they have found him ,they will definitely use him as their puppet tool ."
"I understand," hearing this, I snapped my fingers involuntarily: "In other words, next up we may encounter an attack from this snake? This matter is easy to solve - just cut it with two swords and kill it?"
"You're thinking too simple," Chi Qingshuai looked at me and smiled slightly: "Have you forgotten about Guo Jiling's incident? Since those Motu ghosts can plant corpse soul imprints on dog monsters then why would they let go of such a big snake? Therefore if we really encounter this python later on ,my suggestion is to avoid conflict with them as much as possible because otherwise there might be big trouble."
"But what if the snake keeps chasing us?" JIETOU couldn't help but ask, frowning.
"This problem is easy to solve. I will use my spell to block its vision so it won't be able to see us. Then we can quickly pass by it without any trouble. This way, we can save a lot of time," said Chiqing Shuai as he looked at JIETOU.
"Okay, but I think we still need to prepare for battle just in case something unexpected happens. Otherwise, we might not be ready for it," JIETOU replied with a furrowed brow.