I held down my twin blades, my gaze sweeping back and forth between the trees above and below.

The trembling branches in the canopy did seem rather strange.

But apart from the treetops, I couldn't find any other suspicious signs.

Xiao Hong suddenly said, "I remember, when I was hanged, my feet felt very heavy, as if something was pulling them from below."

A flash of insight struck me. I had heard that executioners sometimes tied a bag of sand to the feet of condemned prisoners to increase the weight, so that they would die faster.

Could that be the reason Xiao Hong was hanged so quickly?

The Ziye in my left hand suddenly flew out, spinning and slashing towards the tree branch.

Before Ziye could touch the trunk, Baizhou struck the hilt of Ziye with even greater speed. The two blades collided in mid-air, and Ziye struck the back of the tree with an incredible angle.

A scream suddenly came from there, and Lü Peng, who had been as volatile as thunder, froze on the spot.

Ye Yang and I also got up at the same time and chased after the back of the tree. By the time we arrived, it was already too late. The person hiding behind the tree had disappeared, leaving only a severed arm on the ground.

At this moment, Nie Xiaochun and Qin Xin had also worked together to rescue Yi Lü. Qin Xin said anxiously, "What did you see just now?"

Yi Lü gasped for a long time before saying, "I...I saw a spirit tablet on the tree with the words 'Hun Ru Men Kai' (Soul Enters the Gate)."

Yi Lü pointed to the tree, "The spirit tablet is right there!"

Ye Yang and I jumped onto the tree one after the other. After parting the leaves, we saw the spirit tablet hidden there.

Ye Yang gently knocked on it twice, "This is Witchcraft Puppet Mechanism."

I had also heard of "Witchcraft Puppet Mechanism," a very sinister secret mechanism technique. Simply put, the power to activate the mechanism is a ghost.

Mechanisms are actually very similar to modern machines, except that in ancient times, there were no engines or anything like that. The power to activate the mechanism was a magic array or rune.

The core secrets of ancient mechanism arts were lost for some reason. Later mechanism masters could only find other ways to solve the problem of mechanism power.

Later, the large-scale mechanism cities in the art world were either near water or in places with strong winds; otherwise, they could not support the operation of the mechanism.

The power used by small mechanisms is ghosts!

Among them, the Witchcraft Puppet Mechanism is the most overbearing. They do not use ghosts to manipulate the mechanism, but directly treat the ghost as "fuel." The ghost will eventually be annihilated in the mechanism.

Yi Lü stood under the tree and said, "A ghost must enter that spirit tablet to activate the mechanism before we can enter the tomb."

"There is no story of a passionate woman marrying a sorcerer here at all. Hanging people in red clothes on the tree is to turn them into vengeful ghosts. Then, that token will absorb the ghost to activate the mechanism."

"The person hanging on the tree will undoubtedly die, and no one has a chance to survive."

Yi Lü said, "There are seven of us now, and only by sacrificing one of us can we restart the tomb."

Everyone looked at Xiao Hong, and Xiao Hong exclaimed, "Why are you looking at me? I...I..."

Xiao Hong couldn't continue.

If what Yi Lü said was true, then Xiao Hong should have been annihilated long ago. At least, she couldn't have appeared in front of us.

Lü Peng flashed in front of Xiao Hong, "She is Xiao Hong! Don't misunderstand."

"I remember, one other person in our team died at the time. It was Lao Si...it was Lao Si..."

"He...he...died trying to save Xiao Hong. It must have been his soul that entered the spirit tablet to open the tomb."

I stared at Lü Peng and said, "Then let me ask you, do you remember the map? What is the next place marked?"

"I remember, the next place is the Duan Long Zha (Dragon-Severing Gate) below the tomb..." Before Lü Peng could finish speaking, I suddenly launched a "Da Hun Bian (Soul-Striking Whip)" and unexpectedly whipped it towards Yi Lü.

Caught off guard, her soul was drawn out of her body by my soul-chasing rope.

Before Yi Lü could react, she was rolled up by the soul-chasing rope and thrown towards the spirit tablet on the tree.

Yi Lü's scream had not yet faded when a vortex appeared out of thin air on the spirit tablet, sucking Yi Lü in.

Lü Peng's eyes turned red, "What are you doing?"

"Get lost!" I grabbed Lü Peng's wrist and threw him over my shoulder onto the tree.

By the time Lü Peng got up, a violent tremor suddenly came from the bottom of the lake. Immediately afterwards, a huge vortex appeared in the center of the lake, and the surrounding lake water roared like a bull as it sank into the ground along the center of the vortex.

Soon, the scene at the bottom of the lake was exposed to us.

It turned out that under the lake were circular pits intertwined with each other. Except for the position where we were and a few paths for people to walk, the other places were filled with women corpses in red clothes.

I roughly estimated the number of female corpses, and it reached four or five hundred.

When I looked at those female corpses in red, they all raised their heads and looked at my face.

A bloodthirsty killing intent pressed down on us like a landslide.