480: Chapter 480 The scene was horrific; Zhao Qian was actually dead?

Half an hour later, she returned to that cliff.

Under the moonlight, the cliff was unrecognizable.

The originally steep mountain Peak was gone, replaced by a huge deep pit.

The pit was dozens of zhang in diameter and bottomless; the rocks at the edge were melted by high heat, cooling into glass-like crystals that shimmered with an eerie luster under the moonlight.

The bottom of the pit was still emitting blue smoke, carrying a scorching aura and a pungent, burnt smell.

The ground around the deep pit was covered in cracks, spreading outwards like a spiderweb.

Debris was scattered everywhere; some rocks were the size of millstones, blasted dozens of zhang away, creating small craters.

The air was filled with a thick, nauseating smell of blood and burning, mixed together—like charred flesh and rust, with a hint of sulfur.

Xiao Nianyin landed on the ground, her gaze sweeping across the surroundings.

There were corpses everywhere.

People from the Jile Sect and the Tianshu Sword Sect lay scattered on the ground.

But the corpses of those Jile Sect Disciples looked terrifying. Their bodies were withered and gaunt, skin clinging tightly to bone, like mummies dried for hundreds of years.

Their eye sockets were sunken, cheekbones prominent, lips cracked and curled back, revealing charred yellow teeth. Their fingers were curled into claws, as if they had been desperately trying to grab something before death.

On those shriveled corpses, robes hung loosely, as if only a skeleton remained inside.

Xiao Nianyin crouched down to carefully examine the corpse of a Jile Sect Disciple. She discovered that these people's vitality and Spiritual Qi had been drained.

They hadn't been killed by explosions or fire, but drained of their life force by some evil secret technique. Their Dantian were empty, their Meridians parched, without a single drop of Spiritual Qi left.

She recalled that Situ E possessed a forbidden technique called the Blood Sacrifice Array, which could use the flesh, blood, and Spiritual Qi of living beings as sacrifices to forcibly raise his own Cultivation. It seemed that, driven to a dead end, Situ E had activated this forbidden technique, sacrificing all his followers.

As for the corpses of the Tianshu Sword Sect Disciples, they had been killed by explosions or fire.

Some were blown to pieces, limbs scattered everywhere; others were burned to charcoal, curled into balls, unrecognizable; some still maintained their final postures, eyes wide open, mouths agape, faces frozen in expressions of fear and despair.

One Tianshu Sword Sect Disciple's corpse leaned against a rock, hands still gripping the sword hilt, but his lower body had been blown away, intestines trailing on the ground, blood dried into dark, black clots.

Another Tianshu Sword Sect Disciple's corpse lay prone in the rubble, a large hole blown in his back, revealing charred bones inside.

There were also several corpses piled together, indistinguishable from one another, just a mass of mangled flesh.

Xiao Nianyin counted; just the identifiable, intact corpses numbered fifty or sixty. Those blown to fragments were impossible to count.

The ground was littered with severed limbs and congealed black blood clots. The air was thick with the heavy scent of blood, so dense it could not be dissipated.

Her heart sank abruptly.

What on earth had happened here?

She began searching the cliff for traces of Xu Ruyu.

She walked through every corner, turned over every piece of rubble, and carefully examined every corpse.

She flipped over the piled corpses one by one, pushed aside the scattered limbs, and carefully identified every face.

She did not find him.

There was no corpse of his, no bloodstains of his, no trace left behind by him.

Xiao Nianyin's brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

She walked to the edge of the deep pit and looked down. The bottom was pitch black; she could see nothing.

Only blue smoke rose from the pit, carrying a scorching aura that made her face feel hot. She released her Divine Sense to probe the bottom, but the pit was too deep; even her Divine Sense could not reach the bottom.

The pit looked as if it had been blown open from the inside, with the rocks at the edge sloping inwards, forming a funnel-shaped crater.

She turned around and continued her search.

Suddenly, her gaze fell upon a corpse.

That corpse lay beside a piece of rubble, in a relatively secluded spot near the edge of the cliff. His robes were riddled with holes, his hair disheveled, and his face covered in soot and blood.

But his body was relatively intact, not blown to pieces, though there was a fist-sized blood hole in his chest.

That blood hole went straight through, entering from the front chest and exiting through the back.

The edges were neat, as if punched through directly by a cylindrical object.

The heart had been crushed, the chest cavity empty, containing only congealed black blood clots. The skin around the wound was charred—traces of high-temperature burning.

The body was already cold, but still retained its expression before death—eyes wide open, eyeballs almost bulging from their sockets; mouth agape, tongue stiffly protruding; the face full of fear, despair, and disbelief.

He must have seen something extremely terrifying before he died.

Xiao Nianyin's pupils constricted sharply.

She recognized that face.

Zhao Qian.

Elder of the Tianshu Sword Sect, a Nascent Soul Peak Sword Cultivator.

He was dead.

Xiao Nianyin crouched down to carefully examine Zhao Qian's wound.

The edges of the blood hole were neat; it had been punched through. Judging by the angle and force, the person who struck the blow had extremely high Cultivation, at least a Half-step Saint Realm.

Moreover, that punch had cut in from the side, passing through the gap between the ribs, precisely piercing the heart. This was not brute force, but extremely exquisite technique.

The person who threw the punch had mastered the control of power to a minute level.

Her Divine Sense probed into the wound, sensing a trace of lingering True Qi fluctuations.