Chapter 76: Maotian Mountain Stronghold

  After the mountain bandits left, Xiao Ziyang meditated for a moment before chasing after them in the direction they had gone.

  The black-faced robbers escorted this large group of people, squeezing and walking extremely slowly. Before long, Xiao Ziyang caught up with them.

  He hung back and carefully observed the black-faced mountain bandits, carefully sensing the gloomy aura emanating from them, and felt more and more that his guess was correct.

  Xiao Ziyang slowly approached them, deliberately making some noise. Even those ordinary mountain bandits had a reaction, looking around, but these black-faced mountain bandits seemed to be completely unaware. Apparently, their senses were extremely dull.

  This discovery made Xiao Ziyang even more puzzled. These things, apart from being incredibly powerful, were almost useless. For ordinary people, such things would naturally be extremely precious treasures, but for someone like him, what use could they possibly have? What did he plan to do with these things?

  Xiao Ziyang hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth and rushed past the crowd, unfolding his body technique to sprint towards Motian Village.

  After more than half a time, Xiao Ziyang flipped over two mountain ridges and the Mo Tian Mountain in the mouth of the mountain bandits appeared in his line of sight.

  This is a very steep stone mountain, under the foil of low hills nearby, it stands out like a crane among chickens, and it also lives up to its name as a sky-touching mountain.

  In the center of Shishan Mountain there is a huge crack, extending from the foot to the top of the mountain. At one-third of the distance from the summit, the entire peak splits into two halves.

  The crack is not straight and suddenly turns at a distance of about one-quarter from the top of the mountain, forming a Z shape. The main body of Moytian Village was built here.

  Mount Tian's surroundings are extremely steep cliffs, except for a small road carved out along the middle crack, there is no second way up the mountain.

  According to the mountain bandits, this Mocheng Village has been established for over a hundred years, passed down through three generations. Several times they encountered strong enemies, but each time they relied on this treacherous terrain to hold out.

  Of course, the towering mountain was treacherous, but for Xiao Ziyang, a top-notch expert, it wasn't an insurmountable obstacle. After observing carefully for a moment, he chose the eastern side of the mountain peak, which was relatively gentler and farther away from the crack, as his route to ascend the mountain.

  Xiao Ziyang darted through the dense forest, sometimes like an arrow shot from a bowstring, and sometimes like a butterfly flitting through the thick underbrush. He alternated between the Thousand Stone Arrow Body Technique and the Flower Step Footwork, and to his surprise, the effect was incredibly good. Gradually, he discovered that perhaps when Li Mubai created these two lightness skills, they were originally meant to be used in combination with each other. Because the routes of the two lightness skills were extremely smooth when switching between them.

  Half a time later, Xiao Ziyang went around to the east side of Motian Mountain. The place he chose was just out of sight of the people in Motian Village, and even if he climbed now, he wouldn't be discovered. However, he was still extremely cautious and planned to wait until nightfall before going up the mountain to investigate.

  The sun was about to set, and the group of black-faced mountain bandits who were pressing down on Fish Mouth Village had arrived at the foot of the mountain.

  Xiao Ziyang waited for a while longer, and as the sky gradually darkened, he began to climb up along the precipice.

  The towering mountain was a thousand feet high, and Xiao Ziyang took a whole hour to climb to the top.

  Under the cover of night, he climbed down the crack in the mountain behind where there were fewer people and slipped into this extremely perilous stronghold.

  Xiao Ziyang had just entered the mountain village when he faintly heard a mournful howl coming from afar.

  He felt his way in the direction of the sound.

  The mountain stronghold was built along the cracks in the mountain, with layers of stone stacked on top of each other, making the terrain quite complex. Xiao Ziyang groped his way through the darkness for a long time before finding the large house where the mournful cries were coming from.

  Half of the big house is hidden in the mountain crevice, and half protrudes from the mountain crevice, suspended in mid-air. It's very spacious, over ten zhang long and five or six zhang wide.

  Xiao Ziyang hid behind a rock, the door of the big house was open, and the interior was very empty. More than ten torches were lit on the four walls, illuminating the hall brightly.

  On both sides of the hall, more than a dozen dark-faced mountain bandits stood upright. At the far end of the hall, there was a high platform two feet above the ground, and on it sat a person in a taishi chair, with no torches lit around him. Xiao Ziyang's hiding place was too far away to see the person's face clearly, but he could vaguely make out that the person was wearing a large red robe.

  In front of the high platform, there was a three-foot-tall large cauldron. Under the cauldron, there was no firewood, but in the cauldron, half a pot of liquid was steaming hot, constantly bubbling up.

  On the floor in the center of the hall, a very complex pattern was drawn, with several pieces of five-colored stones embedded in it, emitting a faint glow.

  A shrill cry of despair issued from the mouth of a stark naked man lying in the middle of the pattern, the cry rising and falling, sometimes low, sometimes high, until it finally died away.

  The man sitting on the high platform waved his hand, and immediately a black-faced mountain bandit came forward, grabbed the motionless man with one hand, and quickly walked out of the hall, following a stone staircase downwards.

  Not far from the big house, on a stone wall, a cave was excavated, and at the entrance stood a black-faced mountain bandit. Seeing the naked man being taken away, he turned his head and beckoned to someone inside the cave.

  A moment later, a black-faced mountain bandit dragged a similarly stripped man towards the main house. The man struggled desperately in the bandit's grasp, wailing incessantly. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't shake off the bandit's arms.

  The man was taken into the big house, and immediately a black-faced mountain bandit came forward to help. The two of them pulled him to the front of the large cauldron on the high platform, one pinched his chin, pouring the scalding medicinal liquid from the cauldron into his mouth. Afterwards, they very skillfully covered his mouth and nose tightly. The man's eyes were wide open from being scalded by the medicinal liquid, but he couldn't spit out a single drop of it.

  A moment later, as if the medicinal properties of the medicine had taken effect, the man stopped struggling and his whole body convulsed.

  Two black-faced mountain bandits hastily threw him into the mysterious pattern. Several pieces of five-colored spiritual stones in the pattern immediately emitted a bright light.

  That man convulsed more and more violently, a mournful howl burst from his mouth, surging in the night sky.

  Unlike the previous wailer, this person's wailing quickly subsided, and the convulsions throughout his body gradually stopped. Xiao Ziyang saw from a distance that the color of this person's skin changed at a visible speed, changing from light red to red, then to reddish purple, then to purple, and finally turning into dark purple.

  When his skin turned into a dark purple color similar to that of the black-faced mountain bandits around him, he suddenly sat up and let out a beast-like howl with his head thrown back.

  At this moment, the person sitting on the high platform suddenly waved his hand, and a cyan-black stream of light flew out from his fingertips, drawing an arc, and pierced into the brow of that person who was screaming towards the sky.

  The man's wailing suddenly stopped, he was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly knelt down towards the high platform.

  Upon seeing this, Xiao Ziyang had completely confirmed the conjecture in his heart. This Mocheng Village indeed hid a demonic cultivator who was refining a low-grade demon.