With each step Leo took, the sense of danger increased. However, using Divine Awareness to probe, he found nothing.
After walking for about ten minutes, Divine Awareness finally detected a sinister aura.
Leo had felt this aura before on the person who had ambushed him in the forest. It seemed this was their lair.
As he approached slowly, the sinister aura seemed to sense him and vanished in an instant.
Without hesitation, Leo quickened his pace to catch up.
Just as he caught up, a red light suddenly shot towards Leo.
Fortunately, with prior sensing by Divine Awareness, Leo wielded his Divine Dragon Sword and slashed at it.
The red light was a Curse insect, incredibly agile. As it sped towards him, it even managed to make sharp turns to evade Leo’s attack.
It dodged Leo’s strike and circled around to his rear.
The red Curse insect resembled a beetle and hovered in the air for three seconds before splitting into two, charging at Leo from both directions.
In the blink of an eye, Leo summoned a Talismans and two lightning bolts struck the Curse insects, turning them into charred remains.
Though he had neutralized the threat of the Curse insects, Leo still felt a chill in his heart.
The reputation of the Curse insects was well-known; if one of these little creatures burrowed into his body, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Continuing forward, he encountered a decaying wooden door.
The door was halfway open, and Leo kicked it, causing the decayed wood to crumble into powder.
Behind the door was a passage, even more sinister and chilly.
Not wanting to waste time, Leo used his teleportation technique to advance and soon reached the end.
At the end was a cave, with a line of Miao script written at the entrance. Unable to understand it, Leo swept his Divine Awareness inside and entered directly.
The space inside the cave was not large, with nothing inside.
After walking for a minute, he reached the end and encountered a huge stone door. It was closed, but from the gap in the door, it was evident that the door had been opened before.
The top of the stone door was also inscribed with Miao script, and there were murals on the door depicting a giant figure without a head, with breasts as eyes, and a belly button as a mouth, performing a dance. It was Jairo.
Leo’s Divine Awareness tried to invade, but it was immediately repelled upon touching the stone door.
Indeed, there was something strange inside the stone door.
Retracting his Divine Awareness, Leo touched the stone door with both hands and slowly pushed it forward.
As he exerted force, the stone door slowly opened, emitting a series of “clacking” sounds.
To prevent any danger behind the stone door, Leo had been using Spiritual Power to protect himself. However, even after he pushed the stone door open, nothing dangerous happened.
Behind the stone door was a spacious avenue paved with huge bluestones.
Oil lamps were lit on the walls on both sides of the avenue, extending forward, seemingly leading to someplace very important.
Leo continued forward cautiously. After climbing dozens of stone steps, the scenery suddenly opened up before him.
In front of him was an extremely large underground hall, brightly lit, and crowded with many people dressed in strange attire.
These people were arranged in three groups, each consisting of fifty to sixty individuals. Each group wore clothes that were different upon closer inspection.
They stood quietly, their eyes fixed on the platform in front of them, with an expression of reverence.
Looking at the platform, there were a total of twelve people standing on it, also divided into three groups.
The four individuals in the middle were dressed in white Miao attire, with square scarves tied on their heads and red belts around their waists.
This was the attire of the Witch Sect.
The four individuals on the right wore extremely colorful Miao attire, all of them women with beautiful faces, though they bore a cold demeanor.
There were patterns of the Five Poisons embroidered on their clothes’ shoulders, indicating they were from the Five Poison Sect.
The four individuals on the left wore black Miao attire, with black square scarves on their heads and white belts around their waists. A white skull was painted on their backs, indicating they were from the Ghost Sect.
The Witch Sect, Five Poison Sect, and Ghost Sect were all gathered here. What exactly were they planning?
Leo became curious and quietly observed from a corner.
One of the elder figures from the Witch Sect stepped forward and scanned the crowd below, speaking loudly.
Since he spoke in the Miao language, Leo couldn’t understand a word.
But the faces of the people below the platform lit up with excitement, their eyes revealing a hopeful gleam.
After the Witch Sect’s speech, a beautiful woman from the Five Poison Sect stepped forward and said a few words to the crowd, causing the hopeful look in their eyes to turn somewhat fanatical.
Finally, a member of the Ghost Sect spoke only one sentence. The excitement and hope on the faces of the crowd below gradually faded, replaced once again by a devout expression.
Throughout the proceedings, the people below the platform remained silent, their expressions changing but making no sound.
It seemed that the three Sects had reached some kind of agreement, preparing to do something extremely significant.
The twelve people on the platform then became solemn and serious, nodding to each other before simultaneously turning around and kneeling on one knee.
Immediately after, these twelve individuals began to form seals with both hands simultaneously, chanting strange and twisted incantations in unison.
As each hand seal was formed by the twelve individuals, black traces began to appear on the ground.
These traces crisscrossed and connected with each other, eventually forming a mysterious pattern.
The black pattern rose upward, and amidst the burst of black light, a black rectangular prism faintly appeared.
After the black light dissipated, what appeared in their eyes was a black rectangular stone platform.
The platform was about four meters long and two meters wide.
A powerful aura emanated from the stone platform. The twelve people kneeling on the ground appeared quite tense, their chanting stopped, and their hand seals ceased.
The elder figure from the Witch Sect stood up, looking at the tall stone platform in front of him, then turned to look at the people below the platform, and solemnly said something loudly. The people below began to take action.
The sound of chains clinking echoed, and as Leo looked up, he saw a coffin slowly descending from the top of the hall, right in the center of the square stone platform.
The coffin was pitch black and enormous, almost the same size as the square stone platform.
“Could it be that Jairo’s body is in that coffin?” Leo wondered.
As the coffin descended, others were not idle. Forty-nine people gradually ascended from below the platform, each holding a small red flag.
After reaching the platform, they orderly walked to different positions.
When they stood in place, it could be seen from above that the positions of the forty-nine people formed a formation.
Upon closer inspection, it could be observed that the small red flags held by the forty-nine people each bore a mysterious symbol, and each one was different.