Luckily, Yun Ruoyan was still holding a firehound’s inner core in her hands. Under the weak illumination it gave off, she was able to grab hold of one of the vines lining the cave walls and decrease her velocity.

She began to drop at a much slower rate, and she’d temporarily avoided the possibility of death by falling. By the time she reached the end of the vine, the ground was close enough that she could simply push off the wall and land with both feet.

Her moleskin boots made contact with the ground with a dull thud. Accompanying this noise, Yun Ruoyan’s surroundings suddenly filled with light.

The light was soft, warm, and faintly green.

Yun Ruoyan slowly got up from her crouching position and looked at her surroundings.

This was a particularly spacious underground chamber and the floor, ceiling, and four walls were all dotted with some sort of starlight.

This made Yun Ruoyan think of the cave that they had to go through to leave the misdirection array, and she judged that the light was caused by the same type of mineral.

In her past life, when Yun Ruoyan had followed Pei Ziao into the imperial territory, she’d heard him mention this type of mineral. Unusually, the mineral possessed some sort of spiritual attunement that allowed it to sense people and to give off light upon doing so.

The more people there were, the stronger the light.

In addition to the light from these minerals, the whole area was covered in vines. Despite there not being any natural sunlight at all, these vines were unusually numerous.

One end of the vines extended up the hole down which she had just fallen, and the other end toward the far side of the underground chamber.

Yun Ruoyan’s intuition told her that whatever had dragged Lin Qingxue and the serpent down here was right inside.

Yun Ruoyan walked toward the other end of the chamber, and as she walked, she noted that the four walls around her began to sparkle in the faint green light, brighter and brighter.

“Help! Save me!” Suddenly, she heard a weak cry for help. It was Lin Qingxue’s voice!

“Qingxue!” Yun Ruoyan quickly called out, before running in the direction of the voice. “Don’t worry, I’m here to save you!”

She rounded the corner and saw Lin Qingxue in a corner. Her face was a disconcerting stark white, and her whole body seemed to be covered in small tendrils, as if she were about to be consumed by them.

Beside her body were a grotesque number of bones, of man and beast alike. More frighteningly, the corner opposite Lin Qingxue’s was a veritable mountain of bones, about half as tall as Yun Ruoyan.

“Sister Ruoyan, please save me, I can’t hold out much longer.” As soon as Lin Qingxue saw Yun Ruoyan, she spoke weakly.

“Don’t worry, I’m here.” Yun Ruoyan hurried over.

Right as she was about to get to Lin Qingxue’s side, a vine sprang down from midair, attempting to tangle Yun Ruoyan’s limbs up.

But Yun Ruoyan’s reflexes were fast enough that she managed to dodge the vine by turning to the side and pushing herself backwards.

She looked at the vine suspended in midair, and saw the unusual sight of the serpent from before behind it, wrapped up in what amounted to a vine harness.

“Sister Ruoyan, be careful!” Lin Qingxue warned. “Not only will these vines attack people, they can even suck away their spiritual energy. Most of mine has already been taken from me.” She weakly closed her eyes, as if saying all that had cost her whatever paltry amount remained.

After hearing Lin Qingxue’s words, Yun Ruoyan didn’t hesitate to summon the Feilai Blade and cut off the vines surrounding Lin Qingxue.

Before Lin Qingxue could react, the vines on her body were mostly cut off.

The vines seemed to be furious as they headed for Yun Ruoyan once more. As a distraction, she directed the Feilai Blade to cut off the vines suspending the serpent in midair.

With a heavy thud, the serpent landed on the floor, and the vines covering its body scattered. As if they were alive, however, they twisted and turned on the floor, reminding Yun Ruoyan of the snakes that had been in the cave.

Yun Ruoyan stowed the Feilai Blade once more and rushed to Lin Qingxue’s side, helping her stand.

“Can you walk?” She asked, and Lin Qingxue forced herself to nod.

Yun Ruoyan immediately began to walk toward the exterior of the chamber with her, but at the same time, the vines that had landed on the floor were squirming towards them.

Yun Ruoyan unsheathed the daggers on Lin Qingxue’s waist and cut off the vines that tried to tangle up their legs while trying to protect Lin Qingxue behind her.

The problem was that the vines didn’t ever seem to die. Even after they were cut, they kept moving closer, and even the Feilai Blade could only block them temporarily.

What were these vines made out of? Why wouldn’t they die?! Yun Ruoyan began to panic.

“Sister Ruoyan, that’s a wild vine spirit!” Lin Qingchen’s voice came from behind.

Yun Ruoyan turned around in shock and saw Lin Qingchen and Zhuo Yifeng rounding the corner.

“Why are the two of you down here?! Didn’t I tell you to wait?” Yun Ruoyan frowned as she looked toward Zhuo Yifeng, her tone particularly displeased. She’d specifically instructed him to look after Lin Qingchen, but both of them had come down here instead!

“Your cousin was really quite worried about you two, and I couldn’t stop her from coming down, so I followed her instead,” Zhuo Yifeng informed her expressionlessly, knocking the vines back with his bow.

Lin Qingchen helped bring Lin Qingxue to a corner so she could lean against the wall. Her gaze was doting, but her tone fierce. “Have you learned your lesson yet? Next time, you’d better not be so rash!”

But Lin Qingxue was so weak that she couldn’t even refute her sister, and she could only purse her lips miserably.

“Where’s your sister?” After cutting off yet another persistent vine, Yun Ruoyan asked Zhuo Yifeng. She had just noticed that Zhuo Lin’er didn’t seem to be with them.

“Up there, where it’s safe. She’s also very worried, but I didn’t think she would be much help.”

“Forget it.” Yun Ruoyan chopped up another vine and looked at Lin Qingchen to her back. “Since you’re all down here, let’s find a way to deal with this thing!”

After Lin Qingchen had sat her sister down, she unsheathed her steel sword and joined the party in chopping vines.

But new vines grew out of the chamber faster than they could chop them off, so at this rate, they surely wouldn’t be able to make it.

As she chopped, she regurgitated all the information she had about plant-type beasts. “Grandfather told me that some plants, after absorbing enough pure spiritual energy, would be able to create a spiritual body, and those who had done so for long enough a period would even be able to take on the shape of a human. I wonder to what stage this wild vine has progressed…”

“Its own body?” Yun Ruoyan asked. “Does that mean that, if we can find its spiritual body and kill it, that we can kill the whole vine system?”

Lin Qingchen nodded. “That should be the case, but there are so many vines here! How are we going to find which one’s the spiritual body?”

The entire chamber was teeming with vines, but if only one of those vines were real, then how were they going to find it?

As if understanding what Lin Qingchen had said, the vines began to attack the party even more ferociously.

“Ah!” A vine grabbed Lin Qingchen’s wrist. Yun Ruoyan wanted to save her, but in a moment of distraction, a vine grabbed her waist as well, and both of them ended up being suspended in mid-air.

Yun Ruoyan began to feel a curious suction from the vines wrapping around her waist, and her spiritual energy began to drain away.

“Mistress, this sort of vine will consume the spiritual energy of everything it entraps, so you have to try to find a way to escape its grasp!” Qiuqiu said anxiously.

But Yun Ruoyan didn’t have time to worry about herself, because she saw some vines advancing rapidly along the wall toward Lin Qingxue.

“Zhuo Yifeng, go protect Qingxue, quickly!”

Zhuo Yifeng glanced at her. He’d originally wanted to save Yun Ruoyan first, but he obeyed her instructions and ran to Lin Qingxue’s side, slicing off the vines approaching her with his bow.

Although he was out of arrows, the bow in his hands was particularly well made. In particular, the bowstring was sharp enough that it could cut off the vines in one blow, even if they were as thick as two or three wrists.

Seeing how powerful the bow in Zhuo Yifeng’s hands was, the vine suddenly split into two in midair, one attacking Zhuo Yifeng, and the other Lin Qingxue.

Despite his bow’s sharpness, Zhuo Yifeng was barely able to fend off the vine while having to protect Lin Qingxue.

Yun Ruoyan looked towards them, anxious and concerned, but she had to worry about herself first.

“Its spiritual body’s over there!” Lin Qingchen suddenly shouted. “Ruoyan, I’ve found it! It’s right by that pile of bones, you just have to follow the vines back to their origin.”

As Lin Qingchen instructed, she traced back the vine currently attacking Zhuo Yifeng and Lin Qingxue, and indeed came to the same conclusion.

So that was where its true body was hidden!

“But we can’t do anything about it right now!” Lin Qingchen moaned, ineffectually struggling against the vines in mid-air.

“Don’t worry, I have a plan!” Yun Ruoyan summoned the Feilai Blade. Given that this was a life-and-death situation, she didn’t have the luxury to worry about keeping secrets, and she felt that her three companions were clearly trustworthy.

Lin Qingchen felt her vision blur, and all she could see was a purple beam, emanating a slightly cold aura, flying past her eyes.

Yun Ruoyan directed the Feilai Blade at that pile of bones. The bones flew apart as soon as the blade impacted, revealing the vine’s heart.

It was blood-red and looked just like a gigantic artery, as thick as two men, a sinister and bulbous growth.

“Feilai Blade, slice it apart!” Yun Ruoyan called out.

The Feilai Blade managed to cut the heart halfway through; at the same time, a piercing scream emanated from the heart, and the vines that were holding Yun Ruoyan and Lin Qingchen up, as well as those attacking Zhuo Yifeng and Lin Qingxue, rapidly spasmed before retracting to the heart.

Yun Ruoyan and Lin Qingchen fell from the air.

“Feilai Blade, strike once more!” As Yun Ruoyan landed on the ground, she commanded the blade once more.