Present time.

Shirong and Lin Wu watched on as what was basically an army of the followers of Skull god arrived. The barriers that surrounded the ruins were being dispelled with strange spirit tools that the followers were using.

There were a few of the followers that were carrying incense burners in their hands. These burners let out smoke that spread around and whenever it touched the barrier, it would start to weaken it before it eventually got dispelled.

They had already dispelled the outer two layers that were the weakest and now were heading to the third one.

"Dammit, what are they doing here and how did they get in?" Shirong couldn't help but curse.

He hid in a collapsed building for a bit to assess the situation. He could already feel the multiple strong spirit Qi fluctuations that were coming from the small army and knew that there were multiple Nascent Soul realm cultivators mixed in them.

"Head to the old location where we were last pushed out!" A voice suddenly ordered.

"Hahaha! I'll finally get to sacrifice that man's corpse to the Skull god! Filthy imbecile tried to oppose us, the followers of the great Skull god!" A Nascent Soul realm cultivator shouted as he flew towards the direction of the place where Ji Quan and other corpses were lying before.

Shirong was hiding nearby and had heard their words clearly. They were enough to infuriate him, and he gritted his teeth in anger.

"You… you all really were the ones who killed Uncle Quan… you shall suffer for this…" Shirong said to himself in a low voice.

While the man was angry, he knew better than to rush out. If he wanted to defeat all of them, a fight due to blind range was not the way. Rather than that, he needed to strategize and find a way to get rid of them without him getting into harm too much.

It was going to be a tough job and will need a lot of thinking for him to do.

"Ugh! If that doesn't work, I'll just escape. Let's see how they fare after offending the entire Ji clan!" Shirong said.

Lin Wu who was hearing it all, also understood that this was a rather strange situation that neither of them had expected.

'So it really was the follower of the Skull god that killed Ji Quan. The only question is though… how did they get in?' Lin Wu wondered.

He knew the stone feathers were basically the key to the central area of the ruins and if one arrived using the platform, it was basically the same as them getting the master key.

"There may be other keys for the different barriers perhaps. Or… they may have used the same method that they are using now." Lin Wu said before using radiation perception. "That smoke is strange…"

Lin Wu couldn't see the smoke and it appeared as a glob in his vision. It kept on changing and spirit Qi behaved rather strangely with it. It was as if the smoke was alive and wiggled around.

"System can you scan?" Lin Wu questioned.

"Negative." The system responded.

~Sigh~

"Will need to think of something else." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

He then spread his spirit sense and did a quick scan himself, trying to see how many people were here and what their cultivation bases were. In less than a minute, an estimated formed in his mind and he furrowed his brows.

"Forty three Nascent Soul realm cultivators, one hundred and sixteen Core condensation realm cultivators, three hundred and eight Qi refining realm cultivators… and one Dao Shell realm cultivator." Lin Wu calculated quickly.

While Lin Wu was not worried about the core condensation realm cultivators and the Qi refining realm cultivators, what he was worried about were the 43 Nascent Soul realm cultivators that were spread around.

He would have been fine it was ten or even twenty such Nascent Soul realm cultivators but 43? Even Lin Wu would have to be very cautious with them.

'Thankfully, only five of them are actually at the Adult stage of the Nascent Soul realm… And one of them is heading right this way.' Lin Wu observed.

The single Dao Shell realm cultivator that Lin Wu had sensed, seemed to be the strangest of them all. Lin Wu's spirit sense could feel the cultivator's spirit Qi fluctuations, but his body was shrouded in a strange inviable layer that muffled his spirit sense.

Lin Wu feared that if it got too close, the man might detect him. Plus, the man was far too unusual to him and gave weird vibes to Lin Wu.

"Might just be one of the creepiest dudes I've sensed till now… and I haven't even seen how he looks till now." Lin Wu muttered to himself.

Seeing this all, there was one thing Lin Wu knew for sure. Fighting them all alone would not be possible for him, and neither would it be possible with Shirong. Even if they were able to kill a majority of them, the Dao Shell realm cultivator would still be a major problem.

~Sigh~

"I'm gonna need the Silver Beak Sky Soar Eagle here. Only she would be able to handle the Dao Shell realm cultivator." Lin Wu said in his mind.

He looked in the direction of the innermost layer where the main hall was located and could not see any change there.

'Hopefully, she'll wake up from all this commotion soon. She doesn't like being woken up from sleep anyway and should slaughter them all before asking questions.' Lin Wu thought.

While Lin Wu was thinking all this and Shirong was observing and making plans of his own, the followers of the Skull god had reached the area where Ji Quan's corpse once laid.

"Huh? THE CORPSES ARE GONE!" one of the followers shouted from the inside.

"There are signs of someone entering and they seem recent! Look at the dust prints!" A more clever follower analyzed.