Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jiang Haoyan and I chased after them. We had barely run out of the room when we heard a loud, rustling clatter.

I looked up and saw swarms of bats flying toward us from the distance. I quickly ducked back into the room and slammed the door shut.

Countless bats slammed into the wood like heavy rain hitting banana leaves, creating a series of dull thuds. Jiang Haoyan and I pressed our bodies against the wooden door, holding it shut with all our might.

“Vampires really can command bats. What a pain.”

My Thunderstruck Wood Talisman could only fire one bolt of lightning at a time, and using the Heavenly Tribulation Command would be overkill-it wasn’t suitable for dealing with these bats at all. Our only option was to hide in the room until they dispersed.

Just then, a shrill, piercing scream rang out from the end of the hallway.

“That’s Song Feifei! Oh no, something happened to Lu Lingzhu and the others!”

There was no time to set up a formation. Gritting my teeth, I reached into my bag and pulled out a Ten-Thunder Talisman from the Shenxiao Sect, my heart aching at the cost.

The Shenxiao Sect is one of the branches derived from the three main talisman sects, specializing exclusively in lightning cultivation. Their core teachings revolve around the Five Thunders, which include the Ten Thunders, the Thirty-Six Thunders, and so on.

According to the Shenxiao Sect’s lightning scriptures, there are thirty-six heavens in the celestial realm, and each heaven possesses its own lightning. Their Ten-Thunder Talisman and Thirty-Six Thunder Talisman can trigger a lightning array. They are incredibly difficult to refine and worth a fortune.

I threw open the door and shouted Lu Lingzhu’s name, tears practically streaming down my face.

That Ten-Thunder Talisman cost me eighty thousand yuan! I had to be shamelessly persistent to trick-I mean, buy-it from a Shenxiao Sect disciple!

As the door opened, Jiang Haoyan and I covered our heads and rushed out. A dark cloud of bats flapped their wings and lunged at us, filling the air above the circular corridor.

“Go to hell!”

I tossed the lightning talisman upward. A split second later, a dense web of lightning appeared overhead, snaking through the entire corridor like a nest of dragons. Most of the bats didn’t even have time to screech before their wings convulsed and they plummeted to the ground. Only a few managed to flee desperately toward the roof.

Jiang Haoyan was stunned.

“Holy crap, that was amazing!”

Of course it was! It cost eighty thousand! And that was only because the guy owed me a favor; otherwise, you couldn’t even buy one for a market price of eight hundred thousand!

My heart bled at the loss. Seeing my reddened eyes, Jiang Haoyan spoke with a hint of jealousy.

“Qiao Moyu, you and Lu Lingzhu really are close.”

“Don’t worry, she’s so capable, she’ll definitely be fine. Don’t be so anxious.”

“I’m just mourning my lightning talisman!”

I quickened my pace, running toward the direction where Song Feifei’s scream had come from.

I called out Lu Lingzhu and Song Feifei’s names while darting through several rooms like a headless fly. These rooms were much larger than the ones on the right and were scattered with many stone coffins, but strangely, there was no sign of Lu Lingzhu or the others.

“Qiao Moyu, there’s a staircase here.”

The deepest part of the room was pitch black. I hadn’t looked closely before, but there was actually a staircase leading downward. The handrails were carved with exquisite patterns, and the adjacent walls were covered in vibrantly colored murals.

“Let’s go down and check.”

I pulled Jiang Haoyan along as we cautiously descended. Just as we reached the corner, a hand suddenly shot out from the side with lightning speed and covered my mouth.

The person also reached out and turned off the searchlights on top of my and Jiang Haoyan’s heads. My vision instantly plunged into darkness.

“It’s me.”

Lu Lingzhu’s voice drifted over, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are you doing?”

I had barely asked when Lu Lingzhu covered my mouth again. She pressed me firmly against the wall. The four of us stood in a row, our bodies pressed tight against the cold stone.

I was completely bewildered. Then, in the corner of my eye, a white speck appeared.

As the white speck drew closer and the object came into focus, I was dumbstruck.

It was a figure about my height, wrapped from head to toe in white bandages, leaving only the eyes exposed.

The white bandages seemed to be made of a special fabric-tattered and emitting a faint, eerie glow.

Why did this thing look so much like an Egyptian mummy?

The mummy shuffled slowly past me, then suddenly stopped. It leaned in close to my face and sniffed a few times. A nauseating, fishy stench wafted over. I immediately held my breath and turned to look at Lu Lingzhu, communicating with my eyes.

“This thing should be easy to deal with, right? Is it really worth scaring you like this?”

Lu Lingzhu tilted her chin toward the distance.

I looked over, and my scalp instantly went numb.

On the stairs below was a dense crowd of white figures-at least several dozen of them. I was floored. This was clearly a British castle; why on earth were there so many mummies?

With this many mummies, if each one just whipped their head once, those bandages could give me a concussion. Besides, they smelled so bad that I’d rather go back to fighting vampires than face these things.