Chapter 106: Blood Traces (3)
A.N well I haven't done one of these in a long time but I recommend everyone to read Reverend insanity: heaven devouring demon venerable written by Dream_Seeker_1598
Btw join my patreon /CreedFollower if you want as that would make me happy :)
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"Wait..." Huo Xue broke the silence, confused as he looked at the Tracking Flame Gu, which ignored several rooms and corridors filled with bodies and chose an empty one to continue its path. "Shouldn't we be following the exact route it took before leaving?"
He glanced around at his companions, who were also following the small firefly glowing like a flame as it passed through the relatively dark corridors filled with bodies and blood. However, it turned into a corridor that, based on their investigations upon entering, he knew Yi Zhan had not passed through during his escape.
"Ah! Could it be that he had his women take a different path so we couldn't track him?!" Huo Xue, not waiting for anyone to answer his question, spoke quickly, feeling quite clever for his logical and precise deduction.
"....This is the Tracking Flame Gu; it tracks the origin of a flame and chooses the most efficient path to reach that origin," Huo Tie, who was leading the way, explained in a low voice but full of knowledge.
"...Of course, as long as that most efficient path doesn't go through walls or other impassable terrain like lakes, untraversable mountains, or canyons," he continued after pausing to think for a brief moment.
"Ahh... right... haha... that makes sense... thank you for the clarification, senior...." Huo Xue stammered a bit, not knowing where to put his face out of embarrassment.
'Shit... at least he said something before I could praise myself for my intelligence out loud... haha,' Huo Xue sighed in relief as he tried to keep his eyes on the Tracking Flame Gu and forget what he had just said.
"Following Flame Gu would follow the exact path that what it's tracking took without skipping the smallest step... that's the one I think you're thinking of... which is a common mistake to make," Huo Hou Hui sighed and spoke, trying to save a bit of face for Huo Xue, who couldn't keep his mouth shut to save his life.
"Ah! Right! I was actually thinking of the Gu that belongs to brother Huo Lu Tai..." Huo Xue quickly said before shutting up to avoid saying anything more embarrassing.
With Huo Xue staying quiet, silence fell again among the group of Gu Masters as they followed the Tracking Flame Gu quickly through the dimly lit corridors of the house, at least three times larger than what a rank 2 Gu Master could buy or rent in the clan.
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"Hmm, it seems it wasn't a bad decision to investigate the village leader's house..." Huo Tan said as he watched them exit the village leader's house, guided by the Tracking Flame Gu. "Was it one of his wives that was tracked?"
He was calmly sitting in a luxurious seat he had brought into the yard of the house and placed right in front of its main entrance while sipping some tea, relaxing, and keeping his gaze between the house's door and the various lizards that were tied not too far away.
As for the mortals, they were walking back and forth, searching for and organizing the bodies of wolves for Huo Ni Ma, who was kneeling beside a wolf's corpse while they wore helpless expressions but didn't dare perform light work in the presence of the two Gu Masters.
"Exactly... the one with short hair," Huo Tie commented calmly. "And if I remember correctly, the description of this village's leader matches exactly the image of the old man she killed."
"They must have had some disagreement, we imagine, because of the hairyman prisoners the village leader kept..." Huo Hei quickly joined the conversation to explain his deduction, which he had already discussed with Huo Tie earlier.
Huo Hei pointed to the mortals, who noticed their exit but continued gathering the wolves' bodies without daring to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"Those mortals have no concept of cultivation or the value of hairymans for refining, so they thought that, well..."
*Cough* *Cough*
"...the village leader was using them for other purposes, but the reality must be completely different."
"Hmm, as expected of what a Gu Master would do..." Huo Tan said with his usual impassive expression. "...In fact, this Li Xin was quite smart to use that shameful and foolish rumor to prevent the clan from investigating the possibility of him having hairymans under his capture."
"Hehehe, the one responsible for that area will be in big trouble after ignoring those rumors. He'll definitely take some of the blame for this," Huo Lee, who was all dirty with blood and excrement from bodies, spoke with a mocking smile. "...I really wouldn't want to be in his place right now!!"
"...." Huo Hou Hui remained silent with a complicated look at the man who dared to say that even after spending the whole day licking dead bodies.
"Did Ni Ma discover anything new with the various dead wolves here?" Huo Tie, who was controlling the Tracking Flame Gu to keep it still for now, asked, pointing to Huo Ni Ma.
"Not much... most of the wolves died without seeing much, or had been dead too long for Ni Ma to communicate with them," Huo Tan replied as he stood up from his chair and stored his tea in his storage Gu. "But fortunately, our work wasn't wasted as we discovered with certainty that at least two Gu refinements were carried out by Yi Zhan after massacring this village."
"But unfortunately, the refinement process of these Gu isn't something the wolves could describe well.... and from what we could understand, it's a rather demonic but unknown process to our clan."
Huo Tie simply nodded in agreement while keeping his eyes fixed on the Tracking Flame Gu, which didn't seem to be heading towards the mortals but rather towards horse tracks.
'...So in the end, they didn't choose the tactic of hiding in plain sight,' he thought, sighing lightly as he waved his hand to indicate they should follow the horse tracks.
Quickly, everyone walked over to the large lizards while Huo Tie, Huo Hei, and Huo Tan exchanged detailed information about what they had discovered as well as their ideas about what happened and how to proceed from here to find the demonic Gu Master.
"Hey Ni Ma!! We've already obtained the necessary information to track down those demonic bastards, so we're leaving now!!" Huo Xue shouted to inform Huo Ni Ma, who was distractedly listening to the wolf's low growls and hadn't noticed them until now.
Huo Ni Ma, hearing this, stopped listening to the wolf's growls and quickly walked towards the lizards with a relieved expression on his face. "Finally, I couldn't stand the smell of dead wolves anymore..."
"I've already told everyone what we discovered," Huo Tan, who was climbing onto his lizard, added, seeing the young man ready to start repeating everything he had already said.
"Ah, well, understood!" Huo Ni Ma nodded quickly as he ran to mount his lizard like everyone else had already done.
"...Leader Tie, if it's not foolish of me to ask, what will we do with those mortals?" Huo Xue, who was controlling the reins of his red lizard with crossed eyes that gave it a silly appearance, asked hesitantly, afraid of saying something foolish as he did before.
Huo Tie, hearing this, glanced sideways at the mortals who had stopped their work of collecting wolf bodies and were looking at them with doubt about what they should do.
But he had no doubts about what to do because now that they had lost their usefulness and had become mere walking risks to the secrecy of their actions and investigations, there was only one thing to do.
"Put their deaths on Yi Zhan's stack of bodies," Huo Tie spoke without blinking, without the slightest pity, to Huo Xue and Huo Ni Ma, who nodded and activated their Gu, ready to kill.
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A group of lizards of various colors hurriedly runs in a line, one after the other, raising a large trail of dust along the steep and narrow paths that barely accommodate their size, leaving them perilously close to the precipice on their left.
"These horse tracks seem to be at least a day old..." Huo Lee, third in line, says as he struggles to observe the tracks due to the high speed of their lizards.
"In the beginning, they were almost five days old, so it won't take long until we catch up," Huo Hou Hui, who is behind Huo Lee, also observes the tracks with difficulty. These tracks are much less faded than those from the start and appear relatively fresh.
Huo Tie, leading the group, simply nods while remaining silent, following the direction indicated by the Tracking Flame Gu in his hand.
"It's only to be expected, as one of these lizards is several times faster than even the best warhorse! It outpaces any horse owned by some mere mortals!" Huo Xue, who was bit distracted, speaks with a confident smile on his face while stroking the head of his lizard, which runs desperately, almost stumbling several times.
"...and we've only been riding for half a day ye-"
He struggles to maintain control over his lizard with his mediocre skills when he's caught off guard by a sudden turn, as he wasn't paying much attention to the path.
"Indeed... if it weren't for the need to be cautious while traversing these steep mountain parts, we probably would have caught up with them already," Huo Ni Ma responds, as he is right behind Huo Xue and clearly hears his words and seeing him almost throwing his lizard off the precipice.
Not being a good rider, Huo Ni Ma quickly lets out some of his frustrations about the irregular path chosen by the demonic Gu master.
And the worst part is that, according to the description Huo Tan gave him about the Tracking Flame Gu, he knows that this is the most efficient and least complicated path to take, which makes him not even want to think about what the worst paths might be.
"...This Yi Zhan... he has considerable knowledge about traversing difficult terrains..." Huo Tan, who was at the back and had remained silent throughout the conversation, finally speaks with a serious expression and alert eyes that scan from side to side, not letting even the slightest movement that could be a threat go unnoticed.
Huo Hei, in second place in the line, slightly nods while keeping his eyes on the path ahead, using the Heat Vision Gu to detect the warmth of any living being within a radius of hundreds of meters.
"I know these passages... actually, this explains a lot about how we didn't encounter them on our way here," Huo Hei, who has some knowledge about the geography of this region, speaks with slight hesitation, "...because as long as you keep going straight for about ten minutes, or was it twenty?"
"...well, then turn right at a small stream, you can avoid the clan while heading away from the mountain if you continue straight..."
But before he could finish his words, Huo Tie, just ahead of him, suddenly turns his lizard to the right, stopping abruptly and deviating from the still-visible horse tracks. He gestures for him to follow and stop his lizard as well.
"Hmm, it's possible that the Tracking Flame Gu found a more efficient path than the one Yi Zhan took, just like in the village leader Yu's house..." Huo Tie speaks in a low, hoarse voice as he looks at the Tracking Flame Gu in his hand, which points east while the horse tracks lead northwest.
He also considers the fact that since they began following the horse tracks, the Tracking Flame Gu has followed them without the slightest deviation, indicating that the demonic Gu master knows this path and continuously chose the best route. So it's illogical for him to suddenly go in the opposite direction of the most efficient path.
"But it's quite unlikely, given the difference in direction... and the geography of the area suggests that it's difficult to traverse..." Huo Tie looks ahead at the terrain, which descends rather gently but leads to a large, putrid-smelling swamp.
'...did they split into groups to ensure we couldn't track Yi Zhan? No, that's unlikely...'
'The most logical conclusion is that they probably continued riding for a while and then returned to this region on foot, following this direction...'
'But why would he implement such an easily discoverable plan?'
Huo Tie's mind races with various thoughts in an instant as he strokes his beard.
"Can you see any signs?" He turns his head back and asks both Huo Lee and Huo Hei.
Huo Lee quickly dismounts from his lizard and begins meticulously inspecting the area ahead for any signs that someone had passed through or any traps.
"I don't see much besides a few small animals and birds in this swamp..." Huo Hei says with a complicated expression. "Most animals in these types of swamps regulate their temperature with the environment, making them difficult to detect with my Heat Vision Gu unless they're right in front of me."
Huo Tie nods in agreement as he looks at Huo Lee, who finishes his investigation and quickly returns to his lizard.
"I didn't find any trace of anyone passing through this path... nor any signs of traps being set," Huo Lee speaks with confidence in his voice, born from his expertise in this area. "It's likely that they made a detour further ahead, and this is a path we can take to intercept them directly!"
Huo Tie ponders for a moment after hearing both of their words, also taking into consideration his own experience in pursuing enemies.
"...intercept them ahead....
"Well, let's continue following the Tracking Flame Gu then..." He says and quickly advances with his lizard towards the swamp.
Without hesitation, everyone follows him quickly, traversing the deep, muddy swamp that would be extremely difficult for a common animal to cross.
But the lizards they ride are not mere common animals, so in less than half an hour, they are already deep within the wet, muddy swamp that has a putrid smell, seeming to carry diseases to any living being venturing into it.
Moreover, the terrain of the swamp is thicker and flatter, allowing them to adopt a compact formation as they move relatively fast most of the time, only occasionally having to slow down when passing through a more muddy area or where the terrain is weaker and irregular.
"Ahh, couldn't we have just continued following the horse tracks? You know, a less dirty and wet place without so many insects..." Huo Xue mutters indignantly after feeling yet another insect bite that makes his leg itch fiercely.
And the worst part is that this isn't even the first, and to his dismay, he's certain it won't be the last, considering he's already been bitten so many times that the red marks on his arms and legs are countless.
'Ahh, if only I were given the choice to exterminate all the insects in this world...' He thinks as he absentmindedly looks around at the landscape because they are now all moving slowly, passing through another area of deep swamp.
Suddenly, his distracted eyes fall upon a plant that surprisingly resembles a brown cactus, growing healthily in the swamp water, hidden amidst the mud, making it difficult to spot.
'Hmm? Hey, isn't that a swamp cactus? They're extremely valuable in the clan—!?'
But before he could celebrate his luck in finding such a valuable Gu material, or before he could even think of a scheme to get the Gu material all to himself, he feels an unbearable, sharp pain slicing horizontally across his torso and neck.
"What!?!?" In an instant, his world spins as he finds himself several meters above the ground, his eyes wide open from shock and pain as he sees his decapitated body continuing to ride by inertia.
"...."
Huo Xue can't utter a sound as his head flies, spinning uncontrollably through the air.
The last image he sees before his world fades to eternal blackness is a naked man covered head to toe in mud and animal excrement, standing without any fear on his eyes.
Just moments before his soul passes through the door of life and death, Huo Xue weakly glimpses the young man, still covered in mud, grabbing his decapitated body and throwing it forcefully at one of his companions, his eyes glazed over and holding a irregular and oddly shaped blade made of a black blood.
The combination of his lifeless eyes and the gruesome scene forms a horrifying image for anyone to behold.
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