149: Infiltrating the Mohist School

Mo Yuhan moved like a ghost, his soul perception acting as the most precise detector, silently scanning the thick, towering walls of the Mo Residence.

The walls, crafted from a special metal mixed with hard volcanic rock, likely had reinforcing runes inscribed within, making them difficult for even an ordinary Great Dou Shi to damage easily.

At regular intervals, watchtowers were set up on the wall, ensuring almost no blind spots in the guards' vision.

However, even the most stringent defenses always had oversights.

In the northwest corner of the Mo Residence, near a sparse grove of small trees, Mo Yuhan's perception caught an extremely faint energy fluctuation.

The wall here seemed slightly thinner than elsewhere, and the line of sight from the two nearby watchtowers was perfectly obscured by the taller branches and leaves of several trees, creating a brief and narrow visual blind spot.

More importantly, the patrol interval for the guards in this area seemed to be a few breaths longer than elsewhere.

This was it!

Mo Yuhan melted into the shadows of the trees, as if becoming one with the darkness. He held his breath, reining in all his aura, his heartbeat seemingly slowing to its limit.

Time passed minute by minute, and he waited for the optimal moment, like the most patient leopard.

A team of patrolling guards walked past the wall with neat, heavy footsteps, their armor clanking. The sound of their footsteps gradually faded.

The instant their footsteps vanished!

Mo Yuhan moved!

There was no earth-shattering burst of aura, only a blurry gray shadow moving with extreme speed.

He tapped his toes on a tree trunk, his body floating like a weightless feather, silently gliding several feet and landing precisely at the base of the wall in that visual blind spot.

"Purple Cloud Wings – Aura Concealment!"

The purplish-red flame wings on his back instantly unfurled, yet at the very moment of their appearance, they were completely enveloped and compressed by a thin layer of Xuan Huang Purple Flame, forming a thin membrane that clung tightly to his back, emitting almost no energy fluctuations. The edges of the membrane vibrated slightly, generating a weak but precise upward current.

Mo Yuhan's body seemed to be lifted by this current, lightly "sliding" upwards along the smooth, cold wall! His speed was like Gui Mei, yet utterly silent.

The guard on the wall had just passed this position, his gaze sweeping into the distance. The instant his sight moved away, a gray shadow, like a gecko, flipped over the wall, several feet high, and silently dropped into the dense bushes inside the wall, without disturbing a single leaf.

Successful infiltration!

The interior of the Mo Residence was even more vast and profound than it appeared from the outside. Pavilions, towers, rockeries, and waterside pavilions were exquisitely arranged, all showcasing the depth of the noble family's heritage.

However, the air was permeated with a lingering, faint scent of medicine and… a faint, almost imperceptible smell of blood.

The patrolling guards had noticeably increased in number, and their auras were generally formidable, their eyes sharp, carrying an inhuman coldness and vigilance.

Mo Yuhan even noticed that on the exposed wrists or necks of some guards, their skin showed an unnatural grayish-blue color, faintly showing scale patterns, and their pupils had a hint of a beast-like vertical slit—clearly the product of transplanted magical beast organs!

Mo Yuhan condensed his soul perception to its extreme, like the most precise radar, carefully avoiding teams of patrolling guards and the energy-sensing traps placed in the hidden spots of rockeries and corridors.

His target was clear—deep within the Mo Residence, that area separately enclosed by high walls, emitting a chilling and bloody aura: the Forbidden Ground behind the mountain!

As he delved deeper, the architectural style became increasingly rugged, even somewhat grotesque.

The passage was built with huge black rocks, and the walls were adorned with grotesque magical beast head specimens. The air, a mixture of disinfectant and blood, grew increasingly thick.

The level of the guards also sharply increased, with Dou Shi-level guard captains appearing. Their "inhuman" features were even more pronounced; some had forearms covered in keratin, others had eyes glowing with a faint green light.

Finally, a massive door, forged from an unknown black metal and inscribed with complex and sinister runes, appeared at the end of the passage.

The door was tightly shut, and in front of it stood two guards like iron towers. The auras of these two guards had astonishingly reached the Great Dou Shi level.

Their bodies were exceptionally burly, their exposed skin a rocky grayish-blue, covered with cracked patterns, their muscles as gnarled as granite, and their eyes were emotionless gray-white, exuding a heavy pressure like stone golems.

Their arms were unusually thick, their large hands at the ends having fingernails like sharp stone awls, clearly indicating the transplantation of powerful earth-attribute magical beast limbs.

Mo Yuhan hid in the shadows of the passage's corner, like a frozen statue. Forcibly breaking through the door guarded by these two stone demon guards would create too much commotion and inevitably alarm the entire Mo family.

His gaze swept over the towering black stone walls on both sides of the door, also inscribed with runes, and then he sensed the seemingly empty area above the door—there was an extremely subtle energy fluctuation there, a warning barrier.

A frontal assault was out of the question; he could only outsmart them.

His gaze fell on the ceiling of the passage.

The ceiling here was not entirely sealed; for ventilation and lighting, there was a large vent at regular intervals, covered by sturdy metal grates. The ventilation ducts branched out, connecting to various areas of the Mo Residence.

A glint flashed in Mo Yuhan's eyes.

He silently climbed upwards, clinging to the cold, rough stone wall like a gecko, and soon reached beneath a vent. The metal bars covering the grate were as thick as a baby's arm, with very small gaps.

He extended his right index finger, and a pinpoint purplish-blue flame, condensed to its extreme, quietly emerged from his fingertip—the Azure Lotus Core Flame!

Hiss…

A faint sound, almost inaudible.

The metal grate, strong enough to withstand sword and axe blows, was easily melted like butter by the terrifying penetrating and scorching properties of the Azure Lotus Core Flame.

Mo Yuhan carefully removed the melted grate bar, and his body, like a nimble snake, slipped into the dark, dusty ventilation duct.

The duct was narrow, winding, and filled with the stale air and smell of dust.

Mo Yuhan reined in his aura, moving quickly through it like a ghost. His soul perception extended like tentacles in the darkness, avoiding some extremely faint energy thread traps set internally.

The duct was not silent; from below, faint, dull thuds, sharp wails, and the hum of some machinery could be heard… These sounds were like the symphony of hell, making Mo Yuhan's eyes grow even colder.

After an unknown duration of moving through the darkness, an intensely suffocating smell of blood and pungent medicine, mixed with a soul-level chill, permeated through the gaps in the duct as if it were tangible.

The screams from below also became clearer and more despairing.

Mo Yuhan stopped at a ventilation grate. He looked down through the gaps in the grate.

Below was a vast space, like an underground cavern. The walls and floor were cold black rock, embedded with moonstones emitting a pale white light, illuminating the entire space like a ghost realm.

In the center of the space, stood several large, complex instruments made of metal and glass, connected by thick tubes through which dark red liquid flowed, making gurgling sounds.