Ah, this… So the Green Vine Demon has this kind of personality? He Guxia didn't really understand, but she was greatly shocked.
She expressionlessly noted the direction, then flew back on her sword to Mu Anqi's side, simply pointing the way. "The vines pointed me in a direction. I can't be sure how many of them are there yet. But, they seem to be in good condition."
"Finally, we've found teammates!" Mu Anqi was somewhat excited. She wondered if the Lucky Queen and the others were in this group. For maximum luck utilization, Zhao Guogu and Qing Tian should probably be separated, right? If Zhao Guogu were here, they probably wouldn't have to worry about props or food.
When they followed He Guxia's directions and arrived at the street, they saw vines coiling around a constantly roaring monster, dragging it into a building. The wailing, roaring monster looked terrifying, but combined with this setup… it looked exactly like a pig being trussed up and dragged into a slaughterhouse.
The vines noticed Mu Anqi and the others' presence. Immediately, one vine detached and came over, giving them a warm welcome and gesturing for them to also enter the building.
"…" Mu Anqi opened her mouth, then closed it, hesitating to speak. She looked at Ji Huaichu. "Plants becoming demons, plants… These monsters… the plants wouldn't just eat them directly, right?"
"Probably… not." Ji Huaichu said. "Let's go in and see."
Jiang Yuexia thought that if the Green Vine Demon really did devour these monsters, Qing Tian would probably burst into tears on the spot if she saw it, and might even have nightmares for several nights in a row.
"Master? We've finally met up with you…" Xia Yun seemed both surprised and delighted. She quickly walked up to stop in front of He Guxia, then looked at Mu Anqi and the others. Seeing that they were all okay and didn't look like they were starving, she breathed a sigh of relief. "We found some bread and still have two cups of instant noodles left. There's also hot water here. If you're hungry, you can have some!"
It was clear Xia Yun was genuinely happy. She eagerly took things out of her backpack to share with everyone.
"Well, maybe you'd like something else to eat." Mu Anqi tapped Xia Yun's hand with one end of her candy cane. "Want some hard or soft candies? Or if you'd like some jerky, we have that too."
"No need for the jerky, we just finished the instant noodles," Xia Yun said with a smile, accepting a few hard candies. He Guxia patted her disciple's head. "How was the journey here?"
"The two senior sisters are very powerful! And they've taken good care of me. They handled all the monsters and gathering supplies along the way, and I couldn't really help much…" Xia Yun seemed a bit embarrassed at this point. Ye Muyun, who was standing nearby, heard this and said lightly with a smile, "She's a young junior, after all. We have to look out for her."
He Guxia felt relieved and thanked the Ye sisters. Mu Anqi seized the chance to ask what they were doing: "Why are you collecting the monsters' corpses?"
"We found an evil formation in the basement. We think it probably requires blood to activate. We want to see what happens after activating the evil formation; it might even draw out the final boss," Ye Muyun explained. "So, my sister has been gathering some monsters to drag down to the basement for bloodletting. Oh, although we don't know the consequences of activating the evil formation, we'll do our best to resolve everything perfectly."
"An evil formation?" Mu Anqi thought of the robed figure—whether it was an illusion or not—the spiked cross, and the blood pool from before. Hearing this term, she fell into thought. If it really was that unknown, no-name evil god's formation, then using monster blood probably couldn't activate it, right? Judging by how that robed figure was luring people, it clearly wanted the outsiders who entered the black mirror vortex to kill each other or use their own blood as a sacrifice to the evil god—only a fool would do that.
However, watching Ye Jingmeng busily working, with vines continuously dragging tightly bound, screaming monsters into the basement, Mu Anqi and the others felt too awkward to just stand by and watch. So they followed downstairs to take a look.
Going down, they saw Ye Jingmeng manipulating vines to drag the monsters onto the formation, then using the vines to crush them, letting the blood drip entirely onto the pattern. Fang Xunjiu, who had come down with them, couldn't help but shiver: So Ye Jingmeng and Ye Muyun had been really gentle with him before!
Fang Yunjiu didn't have many thoughts on the matter, but this was her first time understanding the true strength of the Green Vine Demon sisters. So, the sisters who had recruited her and her brother were this powerful when serious? These vines… weren't they practically as sharp as blades? Just look at the wretched state of those monsters, yikes.
A large group of people crowded around watching the evil formation. Fang Xunjiu and Fang Yunjiu took a look, then rubbed their noses and went back upstairs. They had only come down for a glance. Finding they didn't recognize the formation, they returned upstairs to lie down for a while, not wanting to crowd the place. He Guxia glanced at it too, feeling it was quite different from the evil formations in her original world; this one seemed rather small-scale. In her world, heinous demonic cultivators used entire cities for their evil formations…
Formations weren't her area of expertise, so she didn't stay long. She went directly back to the first floor to rest with her eyes closed.
"Let's go, why are you crowding around watching something you don't even understand." Jiang Yuexia hooked an arm around Bai Yulai, making the fox stagger, and directly dragged her away.
"What kind of talk is that? What do you mean I don't understand?—" Bai Yulai grumbled, but still allowed herself to be pulled away by Jiang Yuexia's force.
Ji Huaichu silently watched Ye Jingmeng slaughter a few more monsters. The formation continued to absorb blood, but perhaps because the blood it ingested wasn't what it desired, it showed no reaction. "Perhaps… let me try?"
"Huh?" Ye Jingmeng was startled. "Better not. There's no need to shed our own blood for a formation. You just got here, you should rest for a while. I'm just experimenting here. If it doesn't work, we can just explore this place together later."
"No." Ji Huaichu didn't explain much. She directly summoned her ghost shadows, which had changed color. She reasoned that since the blood absorbed by the ghost shadows originated from the pool that the robed figure intended to sacrifice to the god, then this blood should be what the god "needed," and might activate the formation.
The ghost shadows possessed unique growth properties, but ultimately, they were still one of Ji Huaichu's abilities, fundamentally composed of gathered Yin energy. Since that was the case, Ji Huaichu threw several ghost shadows onto the evil formation, sensed their energy, separated the "impurities" from them, and finally made the ghost shadows dissipate—
Red, viscous blood dripped onto the evil formation, like a pool of crimson jelly, trembling slightly before instantly sinking in and disappearing without a trace.
Just as Ji Huaichu, frowning slightly, was considering condensing a few more ghost shadows, the blood formation suddenly lit up! Despite being in the basement, a Yin wind abruptly blew in. Immediately after, Mu Anqi and the others heard a tremendous roar, seemingly coming from upstairs.
An evil god? A monster? Just as Mu Anqi and the others prepared to move, Ye Jingmeng spoke: "A giant wolf with three heads, three meters tall, has suddenly appeared. Its eyeballs are white, its sharp claws are black, and it's dripping black drool."
"No need to help. He Guxia and Jiang Yuexia have made their move."
"Mmm, that wolf looks impressive, but its combat ability is lacking… It can't even defeat Jiang Yuexia's true form."
"He Guxia lopped off the wolf's head with one sword stroke. The fight is over."
Ye Jingmeng provided a serious and meticulous commentary, though it was rather brief and dry. Mu Anqi thought about the combat power of sword cultivators and decided the briefness probably wasn't Ye Jingmeng's fault.
"He Guxia asked me to use the vines to clean up the corpse."
Soon, vines dragged the "giant wolf," now chopped into several pieces, into the basement and unceremoniously dumped it all onto the formation. This was originally just a casual act by Ye Jingmeng to avoid dealing with the corpse, but the moment the body parts touched the formation, they immediately dissolved into blood and merged with it. The patterns of the formation actually began to grow increasingly complex. And at that moment, a "ding" sound echoed in the minds of everyone, including Mu Anqi, Xia Yun on the first floor, and Fang Xunjiu and Fang Yunjiu.
[Transportation formation activated. Please proceed towards the center of the encircled city to explore!]
"A… transportation formation to the center?" Mu Anqi's expression was strange. If this was a transportation formation, the activation method was just too… too unconventional for a transportation formation!
And what was this about exploring the center? What kind of setting was this Black Mirror Vortex anyway!
"Although we've activated the transportation formation, we haven't explored this… this map area yet. Let's take all the supplies we can get, explore any undiscovered places, and then leave." Mu Anqi thought for a second and decided to just treat the Black Mirror Vortex like a game.
"Okay, don't worry. With my sister and me here, the exploration will be quick."
…
Just as Mu Anqi and the others were diligently scouring the second map for supplies, Zhao Guogu and her group also began their search.
The lucky double-Omega Queens team successfully avoided most monsters. Even when they encountered monster attacks, they were only some black "lizards" easily dealt with by Si Suying. Even more absurd was that no matter which building they entered, not only were there no ambushing enemies, but there were also abundant supplies waiting for them to collect. Zhao Guogu even found a "Fine Leather Armor." Though just a piece of leather armor, it provided considerable defense.
"Suddenly I feel like this Black Mirror Vortex has become boring," Zhao Guogu fell limp and collapsed on the sofa, looking at the large box of canned food they had found, and couldn't help but sigh. "I can't be the only one feeling this way, right? The supplies are just too plentiful and rich. Don't they consider whether we can carry it all?"
Si Suying: "…"
She thought, it's a good thing the others aren't here, and only the absolutely calm Wu Sansheng and fellow lucky clover Qing Tian are present. Otherwise, Zhao Guogu might be beaten to death with sticks.
"What is this?" Qing Tian asked, puzzled, as she pulled a black statue from a cabinet. The statue was carved in an ethereal, vague manner. Though slightly humanoid, it looked more like a mass of black fog. Qing Tian examined this "artwork" with great curiosity, unable to figure out how it was made.
"Art? A statue? Why does it look so evil?" Zhao Guogu became interested, jumped up from the sofa, and ran over to take a look. "Don't randomly touch things that look suspicious! What if there's a curse or contamination?"
"But I'm immune to curses and contamination," Qing Tian replied innocently. As a four-leaf clover demon, although she had no offensive abilities, she had plenty of passive self-preservation skills.
Hearing this, Zhao Guogu silently retracted her outstretched hand.