The Purple Corpse Puppet stood before the main gate of the Yin family’s headquarters city wall, facing inward, its entire body trembling violently, far more intensely than the ten people the group had encountered earlier.
Clearly, the Purple Corpse Puppet was extremely terrified.
A chill ran through the group. Wasn’t a corpse puppet a dead thing? How could it feel fear?
If even a dead thing was afraid, what exactly was inside the Yin family?
In truth, only Lin Xiao knew that, although a dead thing, the Purple Corpse Puppet had developed a trace of spiritual intelligence, albeit very weak, acting almost entirely on instinct.
After being controlled by his secret technique, it followed only his commands and should not fear anything.
Yet now, the Purple Corpse Puppet was so terrified, suggesting something inside must be immensely frightening to it.
But what exactly was in there?
Looking at the city wall and the Purple Corpse Puppet outside it, the group felt that terrifying sensation again, a mix of fear and an urge to fixate on the scene.
However, with prior experience, they avoided lingering on any one spot for too long.
Shifting their gaze, they noticed corpses scattered outside and atop the city wall.
Those corpses all wore uniform clothing.
“Those are Yin family members. The Yin family members are dead too,” Sheng Qianyu said in shock.
A chill swept through the group.
If even the Yin family’s own people were dead, didn’t that mean this wasn’t some scheme by the Yin family?
“I don’t believe anything more can happen,” Sikong Jian said in a low voice, his body radiating vital energy, his eyes glinting coldly.
“Let’s go take a look,” Dongfang Kaiyuan said. The group circulated their vital energy, enveloping themselves in it.
This slightly alleviated the inexplicable fear.
However, as they drew closer, the feeling intensified. By the time they neared the city, it had reached its peak.
If not for forcibly maintaining their rationality, they would have wanted to stay put.
After a while, they arrived in the void a few dozen feet from the city wall. The scene inside the city came into view.
Within a radius of dozens of miles, countless bodies lay around the outskirts of buildings, roughly estimated at thousands.
All wore the Yin family’s clothing, clearly their clansmen.
In other words, everyone at the Yin family’s headquarters was dead, not a single survivor.
The group gasped in horror. It was too terrifying, everyone in the city was dead, not one spared.
If the Yin family hadn’t had members outside, they might have been entirely wiped out.
“Strange, that feeling suddenly vanished,” a Martial Emperor exclaimed in surprise.
The group snapped back to reality, looking around in astonishment. Indeed, the sensation that made them want to linger and feel fear had disappeared, as if some inexplicable eeriness in the world had vanished.
This left everyone utterly puzzled.
Based on prior experience, the closer they got to the city, the stronger the fear and urge to stare should have been.
Logically, now that they were outside the city, that feeling should have been at its strongest. Why had it suddenly disappeared?
Could it be that beyond a certain distance, the area around the city wall was free of that sensation?
Or had the feeling vanished over time?
Lin Xiao and the others couldn’t make sense of it.
However, when Lin Xiao looked at the Purple Corpse Puppet below, standing outside the city gate, it was still motionless, staring ahead, its body trembling incessantly.
“What’s going on? We no longer feel it, so why is the Purple Corpse Puppet still so afraid?” Lin Xiao asked, confused.
The group shook their heads in bewilderment.
Logically, a dead thing like the Purple Corpse Puppet should withstand fear better than them. Yet now, the opposite was true, they no longer felt the terror, but the puppet remained as before.
“What exactly happened here?” Dongfang Kaiyuan muttered, staring at the corpses ahead, full of confusion.
“There’s a crack in the ground ahead,” Qu Huang suddenly exclaimed.
Startled, the group looked into the distance. About dozens of miles away, near the center of the Yin family’s city, there was indeed a crack in the ground.
However, it was mostly obscured by buildings, only visible in small segments, easy to miss without close attention.
Following the crack forward, at the end of the buildings, near the back of the Yin family’s city, was a long crack.
The crack wasn’t large, surrounded by withered grass and trees turned black, hard to see clearly from a hundred miles away.
But upon closer inspection, the crack was extremely long, stretching far.
Further ahead, it was thickly covered by dense trees, vines, and grass, making it impossible to see clearly.
“That’s the Yin family’s ancestral graveyard,” the Absolute Blade Sect Leader said.
Having had dealings with the Yin Emperor, he recalled that location as the Yin family’s graveyard, with dense trees deliberately planted to prevent prying eyes.
Hearing the Absolute Blade Sect Leader, the Nine Heavens Sect Leader frowned and said, “It’s said that after death, the Yin family’s strong are buried in the ancestral graveyard.”
“And the Yin family digs up their ancestors’ corpses for cultivation. Could the problem lie in their ancestral graveyard?”
Lin Xiao gasped at this.
He knew the Yin family absorbed the qi of the dead for cultivation, but refining their own ancestors’ corpses was shocking.
Which clan’s descendants didn’t revere their ancestors?
If someone insulted their ancestors, most would want to destroy their entire family.
Yet the Yin family dug up their ancestors’ corpses for cultivation.
Lin Xiao could even imagine those ancestors’ corpses being used by one generation for the next to cultivate, in a cycle.
This clan was too shocking.
The Absolute Blade Sect Leader nodded, saying, “Yes, the Yin family’s graveyard holds many corpses. That crack might be the source of this great terror.”
The group frowned deeply. They were just corpses, not refined into corpse puppets. Could they produce such powerful corpse puppets?
Or had a corpse developed spiritual intelligence?
But in the Southeast Domain’s history, there was no record of the Yin family having powerful ancestors. Even if a strong one buried long ago developed intelligence, their strength wouldn’t be significant.
Moreover, this great terror, this eeriness, didn’t seem like something mere corpses could cause.
Could there be something else terrifying buried in the Yin family’s graveyard?
Or was the great terror from somewhere else entirely?
“Let me send the Purple Corpse Puppet to investigate,” Lin Xiao said after a moment of doubt and speculation, glancing at the puppet below and issuing a command.
But the Purple Corpse Puppet seemed to hear nothing, standing still, trembling, not daring to move forward.
“The Purple Corpse Puppet won’t move,” Lin Xiao said, frowning.
The group frowned too. If even the Purple Corpse Puppet dared not advance, was there truly something terrifying in that crack?
But if it was in the crack, why wouldn’t the puppet even enter the city?
Could it be something else?
“Sss!”
But at that moment, something unexpected happened.
