The entrance to the passage underground was a majestic door.

Was, being the keyword, from how it was completely smashed into rubble, the area covered in countless metal and stone fragments. The destruction seemed to have happened quite a while ago, as the rubble was no less dusty.

Mei and Su Qing followed Hong Ling in with a little unease, the makeshift "carriage" wobbling as it went over the rubble.

With a very tragic turn of events, a flight of stairs downwards appeared, forcing Mei and Su Qing to abandon their vehicle with bitter hearts- until Hong Ling kicked it down the stairs, laughing uproariously.

The poorly constructed wagon quickly broke into half as it fell with terrible crashing noises.

Deep underground, there was a ridiculously huge chamber, its ceiling about 10 metres high. Blue and black pillars held it up, faintly glowing in the darkness. A low rumbling sound along with the sound of flowing air echoed through it constantly. Mei could almost feel faint vibrations as she put her hand to the metal walls.

Unlike the area above, the place was squeaky clean. Mei ran her finger across the floor and got only sawdust on it, from the destroyed wagon. Down here, the formation no longer suppressed her qi sense, bringing her slight relief.

At the side, Su Qing quickly patched the wrecked wagon together in just a minute.

"Good as new!" he said proudly.

Su Qing's abilities were surprisingly useful... Mei thought back to a month ago when she was a bit underwhelmed from his display of making a tree branch reach into her room and felt a little guilty. Was his water control ability going to be really useful too?

"You two, direct your stup- ahem, wagon towards the bandits at full speed, I'll be right behind. No dilly-dallying!"

Su Qing puppeted the dog-like horse awkwardly before spinning the wheels, making the carriage shoot forward. With the help of the even ground, it was no slower than an actual horse-drawn carriage! Hong Ling morphed into his serpentine form, trailing behind with ease.

Staring around as they rode, Mei noticed a lot of the walls were badly dented, scratched or even outright destroyed. Through the holes had been patched up by some sort of grey rock. The place was really empty too... save for the doors in the walls. She was a little sad that she wouldn't get to see what was in them.

In just a few minutes, they closed in on the bandits.

As they turned around a corner, a group of ruffians holding torches yelled as the carriage crashed into them. As it crashed into a particularly burly man, the wagon shattered for the second time, Mei almost screaming as she and Su Qing flew out.

"It's that girl again!" one of the bandits yelled.

"H-how did you track us here?"

"Bro sacrificed himself for nothing! Dammit!"

Hong Ling floated Mei aside lazily and enclosed her in a barrier, this time a visible one.

"Just stay there and watch," he said. "Su Qing and I will handle this!"

Grr... Mei was a bit angry because as spirits, they had an unfair advantage... Su Qing could just rebuild his wooden puppet endlessly and previously, she saw the bandit's punch just phasing through Hong Ling harmlessly! What right did he have to judge her?

Also, wasn't she told that spirits didn't like to fight?

"I-I have to fight them?" Su Qing hid behind Hong Ling, peeking out nervously.

Okay, Hong Ling was just a weirdo.

"Relax. Qi Gatherers have no means of attacking souls. They can't hurt you." the red-haired spirit said reassuringly.

Su Qing didn't seem very reassured by that.

"That Foundational cultivator is... hiding behind a barrier?" a bandit whispered to another.

"She must think we're beneath fighting!" the other one shuddered.

Mei: ...

"That red-haired man... he looks tough. But he only has the aura of a 5th level Qi Gatherer! We can take him!"

Huh? Mei focused and indeed, he did seem to just have the aura of a Qi Gatherer... must be the work of some cultivation hiding magic... though she didn't know why he was hiding it. Wait. Since when did spirits have cultivation?

"That wooden puppet might be a problem, Crimson Flower, Red Fang, prioritise taking it down!"

"Aye!"

Mei wondered why they were discussing out loud when they could just use soulsense to communicate discreetly.

Two burly men with wood auras marched forward, activating defensive techniques, followed by a slender man and woman whose fingers flickered with flames.

"Eeeek! I don't like fire..." Su Qing whimpered.

Hong Ling answered by dumping a torrent of water from storage space onto the wooden puppet.

"You can control water right? This will be more than enough to protect you."

The little spirit whined something incoherently.

Without wasting a second, the fire bandits threw out flames fueled by the wood cultivators, which Su Qing blocked with a stream of water that began to bubble with heat. He splashed it at the wood cultivators, making them yelp.

Hah... the irony.

Behind the 4 bandits upfront, the rest of the bandits banded together, standing close together. A circle of light appeared around them, lighting up the dark chamber.

"Yes! We activated the battle formation successfully!"

"Haha! Our power has been increased by tenfold!"

Mei wondered how they knew exactly how much power increase they had. She still had no idea how strong she was compared to when she was still a Qi Gatherer.

One of the bandits within took out several cases of needles, throwing them into the air, where they floated. Then another bandit threw two bladed chakrams into the air, spinning menacingly as they floated.

Yikes... Mei was really really glad they ran away...

The needles all shot towards Hong Ling who stood nonchalantly as they passed through him.

"An illusion?" one of the bandits cried out.

"A ghost?"

"An illusion? Very funny." Hong Ling sounded a bit offended.

He walked through the four bandits at the front and tapped a bandit in the battle formation, instantly shattering it. Like puppets with their strings cut, each of them collapsed to the ground in unison.